G.I. Joe #20
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Andrea Milana
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
It finally happened. The moment that we’ve been waiting for since the Energon Universe first got going.
The first meeting of Duke and Optimus (Prime no longer).
If you haven't read Transformers #30, then either check that issue out or read Sawyer’s review of it here before you dive into this issue. If you don’t, you’ll be missing some important context.
Take Me to Your Leader
G.I. Joe #20 hits the ground running, picking up right where we left off last issue. Scrap-Iron and his missile-bearing monster truck has found Matt Trakker, who he plans to bring to Miles Mayhem for big money. Fortunately, Trakker has a really cool (and apparently nigh-indestructible) car of his own, so there’s a short chase scene that ends with the sudden arrival of Duke, Clutch, and Hound. As soon as Hound enters into robot mode, Scrap-Iron decides he isn’t getting paid enough and takes off.
Trakker lays into Clutch for following him, yelling that he wanted to be left alone. Clutch points out that they just saved his life, so he could be nicer - oh, and now he owes the, so could he maybe take a look at Hound’s broken transponder? The perils of being the friend who’s good with tech, am I right? Duke tries to convince Trakker to join G.I. Joe, but he’s got other plans in mind. See you in the new M.A.S.K. series, Matt Trakker!
Now that his transponder is working again, Hound is able to arrange a meeting on neutral ground between Duke and Optimus. Hound is shocked to hear that the Matrix of Leadership has been passed on to another, and that Optimus is no longer their leader. Hearing this story and learning that Optimus chose to stay behind on Earth with the few Autobots that chose to remain with him, Duke realizes that maybe he has more in common with this machine than he thought.
Before they can bond, however, Duke has a question that he needs to ask. For him, the question. Does Optimus know a bot named Starscream? Optimus replies yes, and that Starscream is dead. Knowing that he will never be able to avenge his friend like he wanted to, Duke walks away in shock. Optimus follows him, and the two have the type of conversation that only wartime leaders can have. While Clutch and Hound wait for them to return, their own conversation hilariously highlights how much their leaders have in common.
Optimus and Duke announce that they have come to an accord. Each are going to continue to pursue their own missions, but they will share resources and information as needed. Hound gets to choose where he goes, and he chooses to remain with G.I. Joe. As Clutch turns his communicator back on (he “accidentally” turned it off when they went out looking for Trakker), he finds a mountain of missed messages from General Hawk. Duke tells Clutch that they’re going to keep their new “friends” a secret for now… after all, why should Hawk be the only one who gets to keep secrets?
Speaking of Hawk and his secrets, it looks like his clandestine Shadow Force unit has their next assignment. It’s time to bring Scarlett, who has long been undercover in the Arashikage clan, back home. That’s right, folk. It’s time for the ninjas!
First Contact
My expectations for this issue were high. Really high. The end result wasn't what I was expecting, yet it was perfectly authentic to the characters. Optimus, whether he’s a Prime or not, has seen more death and destruction than most people could even imagine. So he understands the importance of friend and allies, like-minded people that you can trust. Duke, well, he’s been a bit of a hothead up to this point, but he shows great growth here by admitting it and trying to be better. He’s showing signs of becoming the leader that G.I. Joe needs and deserves, rather than the one it’s had so far.
The Matt Trakker and Scrap-Iron bits were blatant setup for the M.A.S.K. series that Skybound recently announced, which is all well and good, but it took pages away from the meeting that was the real draw of this issue. I get that Trakker was the “only” person who could fix Hound’s transponder, but I’m sure there are other characters that could have fit in that spot as well. My inner child did get giddy when Trakker jumped in his car, though, so I guess they knew exactly what they were doing there.
So now G.I. Joe has a new focus, a new view of its place in the larger Energon Universe. They are still primarily focused on getting to sources of Energon before Cobra, but now they have an important new resource: the Autobots. Beings who literally live on Energon, and therefore are experts at finding it. This gives the Joes a leg up, for probably the first time yet in this series. At least until Cobra and the Decepticons start playing nice, but what are the odds of that?
Oh, and I just have to reiterate one comment from earlier, because it really was a highlight of the issue for me: I loved the bit where Hound and Clutch are talking about Duke and Optimus, hilariously comparing their two leaders and them literally shushing each other as those same leaders returned. A great moment of levity in an otherwise serious scene.
Old Warhorses
Joshua Williamson gets his first chance to write Optimus here, and he’s got the big guy’s character nailed. No notes, I could hear Peter Cullen’s voice reading the words that came out of Optimus’s mouth. Duke shows a lot of character growth here, and I feel like part of it is earned and part of it isn’t. I’m glad that he has realized his single-minded quest wasn’t doing him or the people in his command any favors, but literally just last issue he hotheadedly took off with Clutch and Hound to find out more about the robots, and this right after getting back from the “Dreadnok war” that saw his obsession with capturing Cobra Commander almost get them all killed. It just felt kind of abrupt, I think Williamson needed a few more pages for Duke’s headspace and a few less for M.A.S.K. setup. The downfall of shared universe, I guess.
As for the art… please don’t take this as me saying I don’t like the regular team of Tom Reilly on art and Jordie Bellaire on colors, because I really do. I’m not a fan of all the “retro” style stuff that Bellaire does, but I also accept that I’m probably in the minority with that opinion. The team this month, Andrea Milana on art and Lee Loughridge on colors, is much more my jam. Milana’s style is similar enough to Reilly’s that it doesn’t feel like a drastic change, but there’s still enough of their own flavor. Facial expressions in particular are very strong, which is a must for a story like this. Even Optimus has a face now, having lost his faceplate with the Matrix of Leadership, so facial expressions are very important for him as well. The colors are bright but not cartoonish, and they are of a much more “traditional” style, which is more in my personal wheelhouse.
Everyone’s Got A Secret
At some point, the sheer number of secrets that everyone is book are keeping from each other are going to start collapsing under their own weight. Let’s see if we can gauge how many there are:
Hawk is hiding that he is really Zartan. He is hiding the existence of Shadow Force, and therefore any missions that they go on.
Duke, Clutch, and Hound are hiding Optimus and the Autobots.
Scarlett is hiding herself, since she’s undercover.
Cobra Commander and Destro are hiding their countless machinations from each other. Cobra Commander is also hiding his true origins and the existence of Cobra-La.
I’m sure there’s more I missed. It’s a lot.
If you look at secrets as the potential springboards for future stories, then boy do we have a ton of potential just in what I have listed here alone. I have faith in the creative team to make it all work and not bog the book down in secrets and betrayals.
Now that G.I. Joe #20 has given us a moment we've long waited for - the first meeting of Duke and Optimus - the creative team can use this ending as a springboard for all sorts of new story potential. It will be interesting to see how the closer ties between the Energon Universe titles are handled going forward - will more characters pop in and out of each other’s books, or will they all largely stay in their own lanes with only occasional mentions of what the others are doing? It will be interesting to see find out, and to see where things go from here. All of the various threads that we laid out at the beginning are starting to be pulled closer together now, and when they all knot together, it should make for something big.