 Hello everybody HoodedCoverCommander78 here and it is time for another GI Joe comic book review and we are up to issue number 20. Recapping last month's issue we saw the death of important characters Quinn, Dr. Venom, General Flag and Scarface. Major Blood and the Baroness escaped from GI Joe and none of those events have any bearing on issue number 20. This is not a true follow up to last month's issue. After the conclusion of a long running story arc we get a bit of a break with one of the few issues not written by Larry Hama. Looking at the cover for issue number 20 we are looking straight down at the ground and Clutch is falling, presumably to his death. It's pretty good artwork and it is very suspenseful and exciting. It kind of makes you wonder what's happening in this issue, how did Clutch find himself in this predicament? There is a caption that says Clutch goes home the hard way. On page one we have a splash page and we have a title, Home is Where the War Is. We have a creative team of Steven Grant, writer, Jeff Isherwood, penciler, dagistino and tar tag anchors. So yes this is not a Larry Hama issue and it shows. On the splash page we have a small squad of Joes and the focus is on Clutch. There is an airplane shooting at them and Clutch is yelling at everyone to move it. On the next page the Joes are diving for cover and Jung Ho takes out the airplane with his grenade launcher, which is apparently a multi shot grenade launcher now that can take out airplanes. Clutch seems to be in a hurry, he is careless and sets off a mine, which somehow does not kill him to death. Scarlett fires a line across the mine field to a tree so that Joes can shimmy across the line and avoid the mines. Uh, Jung Ho shoots the mines, I guess? Clutch shows up, much to Clutch's surprise. But it turns out to be a cardboard cut out of Clutch and there's a Cobra officer behind it. The Cobra officer yells die American, but considering Cobra's origin, this Cobra officer is probably American. Clutch shoots the Cobra officer and that's the end of that. They run into an electric fence which flashed, disables and the Joes climb over it. The team of Joes runs up a hill to find Pot and another uniformed officer next to the vamp. And who exactly is this other officer? Could that be General Flag? Has this issue written before General Flag died? The whole thing turns out to be a training exercise, which is exactly the same device used in issue number 16. This Stephen Grant story is borrowing from an earlier Larry Hama story. Clutch has his furlough papers, he is overdue for a vacation, that's why Clutch was in such a hurry, he is getting some time off. He takes the vamp with stalker in it to catch a bus to New Jersey, but he's a little late so he plays chicken with the bus to force it to stop. Several hours later the bus drops Clutch off in New Jersey. I believe this is supposed to be Clutch's hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey. Apparently Asbury Park has no traffic on the highway in the middle of the day. Clutch crosses a bridge on foot only to nearly be hit by a weird purple car. The only car in Asbury Park apparently. The car happens to be driven by Clutch's friend Billy Klein. Billy invites Clutch to jump in. Billy is the head of an automotive manufacturing company and the weird purple car is one of his own design. He drives Clutch to Wattosh Inc. Automotive, his company's compound. Billy shows Clutch around a little bit. Wattosh Automotive seems to only have like three employees. There are living quarters in the building. Billy invites Clutch to use them so he can shower and freshen up. Clutch overhears Billy arguing with somebody over the phone. Something is not quite right, but Billy won't say what it is. As Billy Klein goes to the top security area of the building, Clutch quietly follows him. Clutch inspects the lock on the security door and a second later it swings open and it's Cobra! What a coincidence! Clutch's car just happened to be in Clutch's hometown and in the very building where Clutch was by pure happenstance. Clutch is unarmed and the Cobras are chasing him down. He sneaks behind one of the Cobras and knocks him out with a wrench. He then lures the other two Cobras under a car that's been hoisted up on a chain and then drops the car on them. Now Clutch is armed with a pistol. He sneaks into that top security area only to find it overrun with Cobras. They seem to be working on a secret project with Clutch's friend Billy Klein. Clutch has everyone covered, he orders them to freeze. But rather than help him out, Billy Klein knocks Clutch out. Clutch awakens to find himself suspended by a rope that's tied to his wrists. That's got to be uncomfortable. Billy reveals that Cobra is holding his family and he could not risk anything happening to them so he had to cooperate with Cobra. The secret project they were working on is a miniature jet pack, which I guess is something a car mechanic could build. If you are watching this video and you happen to be a car mechanic, please show me your miniature jet pack. Cobra straps the jet pack to Clutch, they're going to use Clutch to test it out, meaning they are going to launch Clutch into the air like a Roman candle. Billy gives Clutch a final hug before Clutch is launched into orbit and surreptitiously sneaks Clutch a shop knife which he can use to cut the ropes. Clutch is launched into the air with the jet pack, which of course proves the jet pack works. Cobra then uses a remote controller to shut the jet pack off while Clutch is still in the air, which of course will make Clutch fall to his death. Clutch, being the resourceful lad that he is, cuts the ropes and hot wires the jet pack that he's never seen before and he doesn't know how it works, which gets it to fire up again which just saves him from being splattered on the ground. Clutch navigates himself over water and ditches the jet pack he safely splashes down. Clutch identifies the body of water as Yellowbrook, which is a real river in New Jersey. Clutch is a fair distance away from Asbury Park, so that jet pack must have flown pretty far. Clutch walks to his old school where he finds a former teacher named Mr. Vilsky. He has to ask Mr. Vilsky for a favor. On the next page we see what the favor is. They have built a car with an armored ram on the front. Clutch races it toward a house. Inside the house we see it is occupied by Cobra's. Clutch jumps from the car just before it rams the house and punches a hole in the wall. As Clutch is taking out the Cobra's he shares an anecdote about a speeding car hitting a small house and knocking it off its foundation. That is not at all what just happened. This is not a small house and he didn't knock it off its foundation, he just punched through the wall. So I guess Clutch is talking about something he did before. How many houses has Clutch rammed with cars? This is Billy Cline's house where Cobra was holding his family hostage. Clutch finds them upstairs. Clutch didn't know they were upstairs. For all he knew they were sitting by the wall that he just rammed with that car. He could have killed them both. He just got lucky. Clutch calls in reinforcements. The Joes show up later and surround the auto plant. Clutch punches the guard so hard his entire head disappears leaving only his hat. The Joes observe the Cobra's through a skylight that always happens. The other side gets on the roof and looks down through the skylights and then they attack you. The Joes crash through the skylight and rappel down opening fire on the Cobra's. One of the Cobra officers holds a gun to Billy's head and is about to shoot him when the door blows open and somehow doesn't kill both of them. Rock and another Joe come through the door and I'm a little confused about who this other Joe is. It's a guy with a blonde beard but it is not rock and roll because we just saw rock and roll come through the skylight and rock and roll had his ammunition bandoliers. This guy is wearing straps. I'm going to say this is Grunt who went through a brief beard phase for one issue. He was trying to look more mature. Cobra plans to get away with the prototype jetpack but first they want to eliminate Billy Klein. Despite being at close range they manage to only grace him on the shoulder. One of the Cobra officers straps on the jetpack and launches himself. Billy Klein reveals there is a second jetpack so clutch gets the idea of pursuing the Cobra with the other jetpack. In the sky the Cobra with the jetpack zips by Airborne on the Falcon Glider. It's nice that they got Airborne and the Falcon Glider in this issue but they made it look kind of useless against the jetpack. Clutch catches up with the Cobra and they have some banter while shooting at each other and missing. They are just plugging bullets randomly into Asbury Park, New Jersey. But according to this comic book, Asbury Park is basically deserted so they won't hit anyone. Clutch puts his jetpack in overdrive to catch up with the Cobra and we have a splash page with a down angle where Clutch dramatically punches the guy out. Clutch's jetpack sputters and seems to run out of fuel. Then we have a sequence of panels where Clutch and the Cobra struggle and Clutch pulls off the Cobra's jetpack. The Cobra then falls onto an oil tank and explodes. Was the Cobra made of explosives? The dialogue seems to tell a different story than the pictures. What I think they were trying to depict with this sequential art was Clutch's jetpack runs out of fuel. He grabs the Cobra jetpack that still has fuel and uses that to fly away. That would not leave anything that would cause the explosion unless the Cobra has a bunch of TNT in his back pocket. So they tried to fix it with a bit of dialogue. Instead of Clutch's jetpack running out of fuel, Clutch says the motor cut out for some reason. Clutch pulls the Cobra's jetpack off of him and that jetpack still has fuel, an unstable fuel according to the dialogue. But Clutch drops that jetpack with the unstable fuel and that's what causes the explosion. Clutch's jetpack then luckily restarts at the last second so Clutch doesn't die. But look, it doesn't matter. They wanted an explosion and they were going to have an explosion no matter what. Clutch flies back to his teammates where Billy Klein is being loaded into an ambulance. Billy says Clutch should join him and his family for the rest of his vacation. Perhaps they could stay at Billy's house where Clutch just rammed a hole into it with a car. Clutch declines the offer without telling Billy that his house now has a giant hole in it. Just between you and me, I've had about all the rest and relaxation I can stand. Freeze frame, roll credits. At the bottom of the last page we get a preview of the next issue, Silent Interlude, Snake Eyes Battles Cobra Ninjas in Destro's Mountain Retreat. That is what everyone is waiting for, is probably the most famous GI Joe issue in the entire Marvel Comics run. As for this issue, it's a one-off. It has zero impact on the main storyline and on its own merits, it's just okay. That's all I can say for it. The art is just okay. The story is just okay. There are some fine character moments for Clutch, it's really not that bad. I don't think Clutch acts out of character here. They don't have Clutch around women very much so he doesn't have too many opportunities to act like a jerk. He did find Billy Cline's wife and he did not hit on her so he showed remarkable restraint. Clutch is supposed to be in his hometown here which is Asbury Park, New Jersey and the way it's depicted here in both the artwork and the writing, the town is practically deserted. We only see like five or six people in the whole town. You can give this issue a pass. It's not that great and it has no impact on anything else unless you are a completist. You don't really need this one. You do need the next issue, number 21. That's the one I'm looking forward to. I'm very excited about finally getting to issue number 21, the silent issue. So watch for that next month. Thanks everyone for joining me for this comic book review. I am trying to do these once a month. I have vintage GI Joe toy reviews every week so please make sure you join me for those. 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