G.I. Joe #25
"Night Force" Part 1
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Tom Reilly and Andrea Milana
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Cover Artist: Tom Reilly
Publisher: Image Comics
G.I. Joe has hit the Big Two Five, and to celebrate, they've decided to go to war with themselves.
Couldn't they just have cake like normal people?
Framed!
Night Force—the secret black ops Joe team—is enjoying a little training exercise. They definitely seem to be a lot more cohesive than Duke's team, I have to admit.
After a cool two-page spread that effectively recaps the major events of the series thus far, we dive back in right where issue #24 left off. Colonel Hawk (really Zartan, if you didn't know) just murdered Crystal Ball in the interrogation room, and the Baroness chose that moment to walk in. So "Hawk" immediately radios the Joes to tell them that Baroness has turned evil and murdered the prisoner, naturally.
After a chaotic chase through the Pit, Baroness is able to escape her teammates and is now on the run. Meanwhile, at Cobra HQ, the Commander is using some Vipers like Redshirts so his newest creation can test her mettle. His bodyguard Valkyrie has been "upgraded" using Crystal Ball's tech, and now she goes by Major Medusa. That's right, folks. Cobra Commander got himself a girlfriend.
At the Pit, Duke and Hawk do some butting of heads, and finally the team is mobilized to find Baroness. They locate her easily enough, but so does Night Force...
Just Like Richard Kimble
I think it's funny that G.I. Joe has been on the losing side of so many encounters with Cobra at this point, they decided the only way they're going to get a win is if they fight against themselves. This way, no matter which side loses, the organization as a whole still wins, right?
I kid, of course. But they really do lose a lot.
Everything is coming out into the open now. Hawk's true identity. Night Force. Secret recruits. It's like everything that's been building up for the past two years is now coming to a head all at once. Almost like the book is celebrating an anniversary or something...
Let's start with the Cobra portions of this issue first. They don't have a lot to do here, but the introduction of Major Medusa is well done. It's not very often that we get to see truly new characters introduced in G.I. Joe, so that alone is very cool. Her powers being based on Crystal Ball's tech is even cooler. I was afraid that everything introduced in the last arc was going to just be forgotten after his murder, but instead he gets to live on through a whole new character.
Now for the Joes. I like how the issue opens by introducing us to the full roster of Night Force and shows them in action during a training exercise. You can immediately see the contrast between them and Duke's team, which is much more full of personalities and egos.
I'm glad that so far Baroness is trying to clear her name and isn't using the murder accusations as an excuse to go back to her old evil ways. The creative team has teased us a few times with her returning to evil, and I think that would be lazy of them. It's so much more challenging and fulfilling to have her as a person who is trying to learn and do the right thing than it is to just revert her back to her villainous ways.
When the regular Joe team finally clashes with Night Force, the stakes raise just a little bit more. Both teams have cards hidden up their sleeves, which they find the right time to play. For Duke's team, it's the presence of Hound, who definitely tips the scales a little bit. On the other side, it’s the reveal of their secret new recruit, which I won’t reveal here. All I’ll say is, they really had me expecting a certain mute commando but they went in a very different direction instead.
If I have a concern about this story arc, it’s that I hope it’s not just five issues of Joe versus Joe. I hope there’s more to come with the story than that. And there should be—we’ve got Baroness’s quest to clear her name, hopefully more Hawk reveals to come, and you just know Cobra isn’t going to sit on the sidelines when they learn what their foes are doing.
For a book that I admittedly run hot and cold on from arc to arc, G.I. Joe has been on a roll for a while now and doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop anytime soon. For my money, it’s the strongest and most consistent Energon Universe title being published right now.
A Marathon, Not A Sprint
Read this one from bottom to top
Joshua Williamson has been the sole writer on this title since issue #1—actually, since the Duke and Cobra Commander miniseries that kicked off the whole thing. So we’ve had one consistent voice for years. This has allowed him to continue building the characters and the stories without any interruption, following a long-term plan. And now we’re at the point where all that planning can start to pay off. I do wish that characters besides the “lead” few got more panel time and development—did most of the team members on both sides even get any lines, or did Duke and Flint hog most of them? The storytelling pace is rapid, which is fine for this stage of the arc, but hopefully it slows down some later on.
We’ve got a two-person art team this month, but it looked like Tom Reilly only did the few Cobra pages. Those looked really cool, though. His slightly more angular cartoony style worked really well for Major Medusa’s snake powers, and the sacrificial Vipers met a bloody end under his pencil. The rest of the issue was drawn by Andrea Milana, who had to juggle a much larger cast here than in the prior arc. He did a great job. There is one page in particular that I found incredibly cool—Baroness is on the run through the Pit, which is an underground base. So as she fights her way from the lower levels to the surface, the panels on the page actually flow from bottom to top as though we’re moving upwards with her.
Lee Loughridge handles the colors again, and it’s another great showing. Everything is clean and not too flashy, but he makes sure that little details like Zartan’s eye sticking out as part of his Hawk disguise failing stick out and are noticeable. And Major Medusa’s powers have the same eerie green glow as Crystal Ball’s constructs did, so those still stand out on the page. In a title like this that’s fantastical but not flashy, the coloring doesn’t always get much recognition—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t adding to the overall product. In fact, in a title that switches artists as often as G.I. Joe does, consistent coloring is what helps the title maintain a regular look.
Happy Anniverssssary
G.I. Joe #25 kicks off its own version of a Civil War storyline, where secrets start to come to light, and Joe battles Joe. It’s a fast-paced issue that still finds time to deliver some character beats for the major players, although I wish some of the less-used cast members would get more of a spotlight. Overall, though, I’m very excited to see where the title goes next. It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty-five issues already, and the creative team doesn’t show any signs of running out of gas anytime soon.