 Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here. This time we're going to do something a little different. Some folks have been asking me to get back to the comic book reviews that I used to do on this channel. Now, I stopped doing those comic book reviews because I just didn't have the time to do them once a week, they were very time consuming and I just couldn't keep up with them. But I thought maybe we could do one a month. I don't know how these comic book reviews will be received, I mean maybe people will really like them or maybe people would prefer to just see the toy reviews, I don't know. If it turns out that people don't like them and just want straight toy reviews, then we'll just go back to doing things the way we did before. But for now, let's give it a try and see if it flies. Let's put it in the oven and see if it bakes. Let's run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Let's put cocaine on its ass and put it in Charlie Sheen's bedroom and see... I can't even finish that one. So, where were we? Last time I had to break into this transmission, Cobra Commander style, because there were a couple things that I forgot to include in this review when I recorded it earlier. First, a reminder that next week starts Cobra Month for the month of July 2015. All Cobra, all month, it's going to be really awesome, you don't want to miss it. Second, since I don't know how much support I'm going to get on these comic book reviews, I know not everyone really likes the comic book reviews, so I'm going to leave it up to you, the audience, to decide. You can vote on whether or not I should continue doing the comic book reviews or not. Just leave a comment on this video, let me know if you like them, if you don't like them, I will add up all the positives and negatives to determine whether or not I keep doing these comic book reviews. There are other GI Joe video reviewers that do comic book reviews, so you might not be missing anything, so I leave it up to you. Now, back to the previously recorded review. So, where were we? Last time I did one of these, it was GI Joe issue number 12, so that means we're on issue number 13 now. The title of this issue is Last Plane from Rio Lindo. We have a creative team of Larry Hama Script, Mike Vosberg is the Penciller and John D'Agostino is the Anchor. Okay, we are looking at GI Joe, a real American hero number 13 published by Marvel Comics. Just to recap what happened in issue number 12, several of the Joes, including Stalker, Snake Eyes, Breaker and Gung Ho, were on a special mission in the fictional South American country of Sierra Gordo. Quinn, the Inuit who was introduced in GI Joe number two, has returned along with Dr. Venom, a sinister mad scientist that works for Cobra. At the end of issue number 12, Snake Eyes, Quinn and Dr. Venom are presumed dead from a bomb dropped from a plane by the Baroness. On the cover of issue number 13, we have a pretty exciting action scene. We have Rock and Roll, Scarlet and Stalker in a taxi cab and they are firing on some kind of armored vehicle that's chasing behind them. And it looks like they're driving the cab into a C-130 aircraft. Very exciting scene, looks pretty cool, especially since Scarlet and Rock and Roll were not in the last issue, they were not on this mission. So it's going to be interesting to see how they fit into this story. On the splash page, we have Breaker, Stalker and Gung Ho. They're floating on driftwood after their boat was destroyed in the last issue. And in the background, we see the remains of the island on which the bunker was and it's been completely disintegrated. And of course, we assume Snake Eyes, Quinn and Dr. Venom, who were in the bunker, are all dead and the Baroness in her aircraft is circling around, probably to strafe and kill the remaining Joes. Stalker, Breaker and Gung Ho hide underwater, but the Baroness picks up their heat signatures, but Cobra Commander denies her permission to circle back and kill the remaining Joes. The Joes make their way out of the river, but as they're getting to the river bank, Stalker is attacked by a crocodile. As a demonstration of Stalker's ability to remain cool, even in the most dire of circumstances, he describes the species, phylum, class and order of the crocodile as he's fighting and struggling with it in the water. Stalker emerges from the crocodile fight. He is victorious, but he's badly wounded and he passes out. When Stalker awakens, he discovers that he and Breaker are in an abandoned Cobra research station and Breaker has a campfire going. He's roasting the dead crocodile. Stalker of course freaks out because Breaker, he basically started a fire in hostile territory, which is a bad thing. Now everybody in the whole jungle will know where they are. Meanwhile, Gung Ho gets a ride in a pig truck driven by a couple of guys who look like Laurel and Hardy. He uses his Marine Corps lighter to buy a disguise from them. There's a radio station in the background with the call letters of WREV. I looked it up and that is a real radio station. It's a Spanish language station out of Reedsville, North Carolina. I don't know if that's intentional, but if it wasn't, it's a weird coincidence. They are in a Spanish speaking country and they are referencing a Spanish language radio station. Back at Cobra headquarters, it's revealed that Scarface has been under post-hypnotic suggestion and his loyalty is questioned. We also get Destro in a cameo. At this point, Destro still hasn't been revealed. We've only seen him in Shadow and we've only seen him, you know, from the back. So we still haven't seen all of Destro and what he looks like. Back in Sierra Gordo, Stalker and Grund are making fortifications and booby traps, but they are observed by a mercenary group. This mercenary group thinks the Joes are with Cobra and maybe they can capture them and get some marketable information from them. One of the mercenaries says maybe they could go to a French port and hitch up again with the Legion Paris, but the mercenary leader says that the Paris won't have them after what they did last time in Algeria. This is probably a reference to the Algiers push of 1961 in which a group of French generals attempted a coup d'etat to overthrow the French president Charles de Gaulle. This implied that these mercenaries had something to do with that coup d'etat and therefore they are now persona non grata with the French foreign Legion. Inside the radio station, Gung Ho disguised with a sombrero goes in and asks to make a phone call. He and the guy in charge, and I'm not sure who exactly this is supposed to be. But anyway, Gung Ho and this guy exchange insults and the guy in charge orders a couple guards to shoot Gung Ho, but Gung Ho shoots them instead. Back at the pit, Hawke gets the call from Gung Ho and he orders Scarlet, Rock and Roll, Grunt, Doc, and Torpedo to get their gear. They're going to go rescue the other Joes. I need to point out the extremely ugly tiling on the floor of the Joes locker room in the pit. Also, there's kind of a coloring error here. Hawke is colored with a kind of bluish shirt instead of a green shirt. And I actually like that. It's not a bad way to distinguish Hawke from the other Joes who all wore almost the same uniform. A lot of them looked alike in those early G.I. Joe characters. So that difference in the color of his shirt is not a bad idea. I kind of wish they had done that with the action figure. Hawke says they're going to rescue three Joes and Scarlet says, hold on a minute, four Joes went on that mission. What about Snake Eyes? Hawke essentially tells her to shut up and get on the plane. Back in Sierra Gordo, Gung Ho is taking a taxi cab down a jungle road. And it's not clear whether or not he carjacked this guy. That certainly sort of looks like it. The guy is very nervous. He's being forced to drive in an area that's very hostile. There are mercenaries and bandits out on these roads. And Gung Ho is sitting in the back seat with his AK-47. We also know that Gung Ho didn't have any money on him. So it certainly looks like Gung Ho carjacked this taxi cab. Back in Cobra headquarters, the purpose of Scarlet Face's hypnosis is revealed. He was hypnotized to ensure that the Joes survived. Because back in the burnt out Cobra research station, some secret documents were left that would divert the Joes away from Cobra's real plan. They get word that the mercenary group is descending upon the Joes and that does not fit with Cobra's plan. They don't want the Joes killed. But Cobra commander says, hey, don't worry about it. He's already got it taken care of. In one of the burnt out buildings, Breaker finds a courier pouch that has some documents in it that are open. They are not toted. Stalker knows that the uncoated documents are fake, but he discovers a micro-dot on one of the documents that could reveal Cobra's real information. Torpedo and dock parachute down to where Stalker and Breaker are. And Scarlet, Rock and Roll, and Grunt parachute down to the airfield. They have to take the airfield because they don't have anywhere to land the plane. As Scarlet jumps from the airplane, she has a tear in her eye. Apparently, she has been told about Snake Eyes' death. Gung Ho reaches the end of the road in the taxi cab and he takes the keys away from the cab driver so the cab driver can't leave. He tells the driver to keep the meter running. I'm going to go ahead and say this is a carjacking. Even if Gung Ho intends to pay the guy later, this is still a kidnapping. The mercenary leader observes the zigzag trench that Stalker and Breaker dug and he says he saw many like them before Dien Bien Phu. This is a reference to the battle of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam from March to May in 1954. And this is another French connection. The mercenaries see the Joe reinforcements parachuting in and they decide they need to take the emplacement right away. Before they can move in, they are encountered by a second mercenary group that offers to join them and work together. Joe for some reason brings a scuba suit to a jungle fight. So he dives underwater and he sees the bunker, the one that was supposedly blown up by the Baroness' missile, and it is intact. He comments that it must be steel reinforced concrete like the German subpens at Saint Nazaire. He is referencing the World War II German submarine base at Saint Nazaire in occupied France. Torpedo taps on the door of the bunker but before he can check for survivors he gets a tug on the safety line from Doc. Doc observes the two mercenary groups and it looks like one of the mercenary groups is about to attack the other. Torpedo misses the reply taps coming from inside the bunker. Torpedo and Doc link up with Gung Ho who has arrived back at the research station with the bulldozer. They all get together with Stalker and Breaker and all of them board the bulldozer and head back to the taxi cab. In the meantime, Scarlett, Rock and Roll and Grunt have taken the airfield tower but they're still taking heavy fire. It turns out that second mercenary group is actually a bunch of Cobra agents. They go to the research station to make sure the Joes found the planted evidence but one of them falls into one of the booby traps. The taxi cab arrives at the airfield but a pair of armored cars are approaching. The airplane still hasn't had an opportunity to land. All of the Joes climb into the taxi cab and they kick the driver out. But they don't steal the cab, they buy it with a whole bunch of $100 bills. So the taxi driver is happy now, he's rich but he has to get back home on foot through a jungle filled with bandits with $100 bills in his pocket. All of the Joes are in the cab and they're headed for the runway but the plane cannot stop because they are being pursued by a couple armored cars. The plane touches down, it lowers the back ramp and the cab has to drive directly into the plane and then the plane takes off, Stalker will recover from his injuries and the micro dot is turned over to Hawk and they all lived happily ever after. But wait, there's still that tapping sound coming from the bunker that's sunken under the river so the reader has to assume that maybe Snake Eyes Quinn and Dr. Venom are still alive. So how do we assess this issue? One thing that strikes me as I read it is how efficient the storytelling is. There's a lot that happens in this issue, there's a lot of great action, there's some character development, we jump from multiple locations but none of it feels rushed. The pacing is really good, we get lots of smaller panels during the action scenes which seems to speed things up but we also get some long establishing shots which gives the reader a chance to catch his breath so we have lots of action but none of it is rushed through. The character development is done within the story, the characters are put in difficult situations and how they manage those situations shows their individual personalities. Stalker really shines in this issue. Even when he's wounded and delirious he's still the smartest guy in the field. He has a way of assessing a situation and instantly knowing what's happening and the right thing to do. Gung Ho will be cool as long as you are cool but if you try to hurt him he's going to cut you down. Breaker is a bit of a putz as always, I don't know why this comic book has such a problem with Breaker. Hawk acts like a complete dick to Scarlett even though Scarlett just learned of the death of someone very close to her but that's just the kind of leader that Hawk is. I know that readers have found Hawk to be a real douchebag including me but from his perspective he is the leader of a small team. He doesn't have extra people so that somebody can just stay behind if they have a bad day. He needs everybody working at their top level all the time. So while I can sympathize with Scarlett's feelings at the same time I can understand why Hawk doesn't have any patience for Scarlett's feelings. Even though Scarlett is an emotional turmoil about the death of Snake Eyes she fights through it which is a testament to her character. The historical references are like little gold nuggets in the comic book. We have references to the Battle of Algiers, to the French occupation of Vietnam, to World War II German submarine bases in occupied France and this is what I mean when I say that the characters in G.I. Joe walk around a world that's very much like ours. It has the same history as our world, the same events happen in their world that happen in ours and the comic book lets you know that even though you don't see these events happening, these events did happen and G.I. Joe exists in a larger world than what you see in these pages. And I like the fact that the comic book didn't explain what any of these historical references were. The comic book assumed that either you already knew or you would go look it up and that is respect for the reader. That is not treating the reader like an idiot or like a child. Even though this comic book was aimed at children, it gave these kids who read the comic book some credit for some intelligence. You want to know why the G.I. Joe comic book inspired me while the G.I. Joe animated series left me cold? This is why. While the animated series was doing mass device and giant tube worms and weather dominator, the comic book was doing this. The comic book was giving me a little picture of a wider world. We don't see Snake Eyes or Dr.Venom or Quinn in this issue but it's implied that they are still alive and we might see them again in the future. We have some hints of a secret Cobra plot so the reader is wondering what that's about and Cobra is intentionally planting information to misdirect G.I. Joe. Cobra Commander is smart in this issue and that's why Cobra is a worthy opponent to G.I. Joe. I thoroughly enjoyed this issue and I highly recommend it. This issue will lead to more stories with Dr. Venom and Quinn and that's a very important story arc in the G.I. Joe universe so this one is a must read. That was my comic book review of G.I. Joe issue number 13. Next week we will have a regular G.I. Joe toy review and depending on how this comic book review is received, we will have another comic book review of G.I. Joe issue number 14 next month. Thanks for watching and I will see you guys next week.