 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and this is a comic book review. We are looking at issue number 17 of G.I. Joe, a real American hero published by Marvel Comics. Let's start by recapping the previous issue. In issue number 16 we had an epic battle between G.I. Joe and Cobra in Washington DC and two major characters were presumed dead. The Baroness was caught in an exploding hiss tank and Hawk was shot in the back by Cobra Commander. On the cover for issue number 17 we have Major Blood on what looks like a commercial bus. He's hanging out the door and he has a pistol in his hand. Next to the bus we have a G.I. Joe. We don't know which G.I. Joe it is at this point. He is riding a ram motorcycle and he is clutching Major Blood's wrist. He looks like they are about to go through a toll booth. This cover is okay but we only get to see the G.I. Joe from the back. That's why we can't identify him and the ram motorcycle also is only viewed from the back. So a different angle might have been chosen that would have showcased the character and the vehicle a little better. The title for this issue is Loose Ends and that's an appropriate title. The epic battle from last issue left a few plot threads dangling. So this issue gives an opportunity to tie them up. The creative team for this issue is Larry Hama Scripter, Mike Vosberg Penciler and John D'Agostino Inker. It opens with Hawk lying on the pavement in what we are told is the northern outskirts of Washington D.C. Scarlet and Clutch are tending to him and Wild Bill is approaching in the Dragonfly helicopter. Hawk has three bullet holes in his back. Hawk reveals that Hawk was wearing an armored vest under his uniform which may have saved his life but he could still have internal bleeding. As Dawk is tending to Hawk the other Joe's approach on the MOBAT tank and Torpedo is still wearing his wet suit and oxygen mask on a land mission that is just weird. It seems that Joe's are blocking traffic on a busy Washington D.C. street and the drivers are becoming unruly. And one particularly rude driver tells Gun Ho that his car is a Shelby GT Cobra. Gun Ho goes berserk, rips the door off the car and smashes the car with it. There's something I like about this and something I really dislike. One thing I like is the colors for Gun Ho. They abandoned the blue color from the action figure and gave him an all green uniform. And I really like those colors a lot. I would have loved to have seen a color like that on the figure. What I don't like is this comic book seems to have a hostility towards civilians. It often pits G.I. Joe against average American citizens. And I don't think that's appropriate. After all the G.I. Joe team is supposed to be fighting for the freedom of those very citizens. So I feel they should display a bit more professionalism when dealing with somebody who just is kind of rude. Dawk has placed Hawk on a stretcher and the stretcher is being attached to the landing skid of the dragonfly so Hawk can be flown to a local hospital. In the meantime, Zap and some of the other Joe's are in the APC giving chase to Cobra Commander's his tank. And the APC is hauling the whirlwind twin battle guns and that is really cool. Unfortunately, this is something you cannot do with the toy because the APC does not have a tow hitch. I think it should have a tow hitch but that's a feature the designers neglected to put on the toy. Ace is providing some air support in the sky striker. Cobra Commander, Dr. Venom and Destro are escaping in the his tank and Destro is still in a state of shock after seeing the Baroness blown up in a his tank. He believes she is dead. On the next page we have a bit of a flashback that explains previous events and this is something that was common in comic books at the time. And I think this is important. These comic books were not written to be republished in trade paperbacks. Any one of these issues could be a reader's first issue of the comic book. So you had to give new readers an opportunity to jump on board and to get caught up on the storyline so far. Ace swoops over the his tank but there's too much civilian traffic for him to engage with the sky striker so he guides the APC toward them. We take a break from that storyline to catch up with the storyline from two issues ago. Snake Eyes and Quinn are still in a Miami jail. They were picked up by the police after crash landing a bomber on Miami beach in issue number 15. Both Snake Eyes and Quinn have some secrets. Snake Eyes has a $100 bill hidden in the lining of his uniform and Quinn has a saw blade hidden in the heel of his boot. This is a little bit impossible because in most jails that I'm aware of, they would have their clothing taken away from them and they would be given jail uniforms after booking. But we'll go with it for the sake of the story. Quinn uses the saw blade to cut through the jail bars, which is something that would probably be noticed by the guards. Returning to our other storyline, we're moving outside of Washington DC now and we are near Baltimore and Major Blood hijacks a bus full of people. It just happens to be the same bus in which Scarface is hiding. After the bus is hijacked, they crash through a toll booth. Just past the toll booth, Stalker and Grand Slam just happen to be hanging out on the Ram motorcycle and they give chase. Major Blood opens fire on them. We briefly cut back to the Quinn and Snake Eyes thread. Quinn and Snake Eyes are outside the jail now and they use Snake Eyes' $100 bill to get involved in a craps game. Returning to the APC's pursuit of Cobra Commander's his tank, before the APC can reach the his tank, Cobra helicopters swoop in. And this is, I believe, the first appearance of the Cobra Fang helicopter. We also see a Cobra cargo helicopter that is similar to a Cobra cargo helicopter that gets frequent use throughout the entire GI Joe comic book series, but it never had a toy. Returning to the Ram motorcycle's pursuit of Major Blood on the bus, Major Blood is still shooting at Stalker and Grand Slam. And there's a peculiarity about Major Blood's gun. Major Blood is firing bullets with this gun, but based on the design of the accessory that came with the figure, I believe that is a rocket firing gun. It is essentially a handheld RPG. Instead of that gun firing a rocket, it seems to be firing bullets through the rocket's tip. Grand Slam leaps onto the bus, climbs over the top, and smashes through the front windshield, kicking Major Blood in the process. Grand Slam is an underutilized character, so it's nice to see him get a little moment to do something significant. That's when Major Blood notices that Scarface is on the bus. He doesn't have much time to think about that though, because Grand Slam smashes his face. Grand Slam is a laser operator and a jet-packed trooper, but it's important to keep in mind that he is also a soldier. Every single member of the GI Joe team is a battle-hardened soldier. It's a requirement to qualify for the team. So every member of the GI Joe team, no matter what their specialty, is capable of smashing Major Blood's face. Switching back to the APC's pursuit of the HIST tank, the Fang Helicopters open fire on the Joes. But the Joes have the whirlwind twin-gatling guns, which opens fire and rips into the Fang Helicopters. The Fangs did their job though. They provided a distraction while the cargo helicopter picked up the HIST tank and escaped. Cobra Commander gets away again. That leads to an aerial battle in which Ace in the Sky Striker engages a couple Cobra Jets. Now these jets don't look anything like the Cobra Jets we got as toys. And that's because Cobra didn't actually have any jets on the shelves at the time. There were no Cobra Jet toys. So the comic book had to kind of make some things up. Ace uses the maneuver we later saw in the Top Gun movie in which he uses his air brakes to get behind an enemy jet and take him out. I'm gonna go ahead and declare it. Tom Cruise got the idea from GI Joe. The Sky Striker is damaged in the dogfight and has to return to base and cannot pursue the helicopter that is escaping with Cobra Commander. The Joes look over the damage after the battle and there's one a blonde Joe that looks an awful lot like Hawk. But of course it can't be Hawk because Hawk is in the hospital. I believe this is supposed to be short fuse. I have to admit as much as I love those early Joes, they weren't very distinctive and sometimes it can be very difficult to tell them apart. Switching back to the Snake Eyes, Quinn thread. Snake Eyes and Quinn seem to have won at the dice game. They won, it looks like a car and a cowboy hat and they seem to be generally in good spirits. Quinn though is on a quest for vengeance. His target of course is Doctor Venom. Cobra Commander Destro and Doctor Venom return to the secret Cobra base in the town of Springfield. Doctor Venom notes to Cobra Commander that he should hope that major blood is dead because major blood can reveal to Destro that Cobra Commander was behind the plot to assassinate Destro and that plot led to the presumed death of the Baroness. Is the Baroness dead though? At Bethesda Naval Hospital, major blood is being wheeled in and the doctor denies the Joes access to the operating room. It happens to be the same operating room where they are treating Hawk. Over the intercom they hear there is a female patient with third degree burns over 80% of her body. That has to be the Baroness. That means she is still alive. Major blood is just faking though. He jumps up and grabs a nurse. But Hawk is there with his sidearm to save the day. One of the doctors, the same doctor that denied the Joes access to the operating room is a secret Cobra agent and he calls Cobra headquarters to provide them with information. Now Cobra Commander knows that major blood, Hawk and the Baroness are all still alive. Destro suggests they continue with their original plan of infecting Scarface with the plague toxin and then getting him captured by G.I. Joe so he can infect their headquarters. But to do that they need to find Scarface. Scarface is in hiding. Where is Scarface hiding? On the next page, Snake Eyes and Quinn, Scarface and Destro all head toward Coney Island. So it looks like that's where we will be for the next issue. This issue is just okay. This is a transitional issue. We had a great battle in the previous issue. We're not quite ready for the next great battle and this issue just gets us from point A to point B. The issue had some good moments. I liked Grand Slam's role in the issue. We had some plot development. We found out that two characters we presumed to be dead were in fact alive. Snake Eyes and Quinn re-enter the story and that's good. And three different threads of the story are all converging on one place, Coney Island. But we're not there yet. For that we have to wait until the next issue. It does make me look forward to the next issue though and we will take a look at it next month for the next G.I. Joe comic book review. That was my review of G.I. Joe, a real American hero issue number 17. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you've enjoyed the return of comic book reviews to this channel. I will of course continue to bring you G.I. Joe toy reviews every week so please subscribe to the channel and hit the notification button so you don't miss any of those. I'd like to thank my patrons for making this show possible. You can support the channel on Patreon and Ko-fi. I'm on social media on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website, HCC788.com. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time and until then remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.