 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and I'm back with another comic book Wednesday and this time we are looking at G.I. Joe number seven. We're running a little bit late with this comic book Wednesday so let's just jump right into it with a recap of what happened in G.I. Joe number six. In the previous issue six members of the G.I. Joe team were sent to Afghanistan to retrieve a downed Russian airplane from tribal resistance fighters. Their mission was compromised when Hawk, their own leader, revealed their plans to Cobra raising the possibility that Hawk is a traitor. The team arrives in Afghanistan they load up a crate that contains the aircraft and they start to move out. They are attacked by the October Guard which is the Russian equivalent of the G.I. Joe team. While G.I. Joe and the October Guard are fighting they are interrupted when they are surrounded by Cobra. Cobra Commander orders them to be lined up against a ravine and shot. On the cover we have a really nice image of Stalker and Colonel Brekev fighting back to back against Cobra. It's a really good image and I think it's my favorite cover since the first issue. On the splash page we see Cobra Commander from the back and G.I. Joe and the October Guard are surrounded by Cobra soldiers and of course Cobra has captured the RTV that was transporting the secret Russian plane. We have a title Walls of Death and we have a creative team of Larry Hama script and plot and pencils by Herb Trime. The Russian plane is the MacGuffin in this story and of course Cobra wants it. They take the plane and Cobra Commander leaves two specialists to execute both the Joe's and the October Guard. The names for those specialists were Rattler and Copperhead which is kind of funny because both of those names were later used for toys. Cobra has thousands of troops so you can't give every single Cobra soldier a snake themed codename because you're gonna run out of all the cool codenames. Eventually you're gonna get down to a guy called Namaqua Dwarfadder and checkered Garter Snake and anyway this is a bad idea. He leaves only two soldiers to take out two highly skilled elite combat teams. If the Joe's and the October Guard had rushed those two guys they couldn't have shot everybody before they were overrun so this just was a dumb idea. Cobra Commander seems to have the same problem that Doctor Evil had in that he doesn't just shoot his enemies outright. He gives them a chance to escape and of course they do. Clutch provides the Deus Ex Machina that gets their buns out of the fire in the form of a remote control for the vamp's gun. He has the remote control hidden in the crux of his arm and he aims the gun as they are waiting for the two Cobra soldiers to execute everyone. Now for a few moments there all of these guys believe that they are about to die which is a pretty traumatic thing and of course Clutch prolongs the trauma by waiting till the absolute last second before he pulls out his ace card so Clutch's teammates can thank him for the PTSD and they can send him their therapy bills. The October Guard says more stereotypical Russian things and then Stalker jive talks for some reason. I mean why? Okay we know he's black but do you really have to have him jive talk? So they call in the old lady from airplane to translate and the two teams decide not to continue fighting. They have to figure out what to do at this point. Cobra has captured their McGuffin and both the Joes and the October Guard want to get it back. Scarlett says forget it our mission is over let's go home. Stalker says no I'm in charge and gosh darn it that secret Russian plane is important we can't just let Cobra have it. Weird thing here Stalker pulls rank on Steeler even though Steeler is a superior officer. So rank really doesn't mean anything in GI Joe. Stalker is in charge period the Joes and the October Guard set aside their differences and they decide to work together to try to get the plane back. They ride across the desert we see three Joes riding on the back of the vamp which you actually couldn't do on the toy which is too bad I wish you could that would have been a nice feature. Both teams are riding through the desert chasing after Cobra when they hit an Iranian border patrol. Now Iran was a political hot button in the early 80s and to some extent it still is. That's a very delicate situation I mean they could start a war here so they need to handle this very cautiously. So what do they do? Of course they open fire and they take out an entire squad of Iranian soldiers. Holy shit GI Joe has just invaded Iran. If this actually happened this could have negative repercussions far outside of this incident and this is way outside of their mission parameters. To top it off the October Guard helps them kill all these Iranian soldiers. The Soviets did support Iraq in the long Iran-Iraq war starting in 1982 but their active support didn't actually begin until 1986. So the October Guard has kind of gotten out in front of their official state policy here. Plus they just gunned down a bunch of Iranian soldiers who were legally protecting their own border. By the way how did Cobra get through this Iranian border patrol? I think it's implied here that somehow Cobra is allied with Iran. The two teams find the Cobra stronghold and it is a solid concrete pillbox. Stalker decides to strap on the jump jet pack and check it out but of course by doing so he gives away their position. It's a noisy jet pack flying around in plain sight right above the compound so of course he's going to be spotted. So much for the element of surprise. Inside the compound Cobra commander is holding some weird cult-like rally when they spot the Joes. Of course thanks a lot Stalker. The Cobra soldiers flash some more Nazi salutes and they take their battle stations. The Joes in the October Guard discuss their battle plans which is something I like. I've said it before I like it when the comic book brings us into the planning stage of the operations. So it makes the team look more intelligent. They're not just dumb action heroes who dive into any situation with their guns blazing. I say it makes them seem intelligent but the way they actually pull this mission off is really dumb. So how do they approach this Cobra compound? Well they walk right up to it and they climb on the roof and they feel around the walls. A secret door opens practically inviting them in. Now they know this is a trap. They say it's a trap but they just go right on in anyway. Wouldn't you just at least throw a grenade in there just in case there are a bunch of troops on the other side waiting to shoot you as soon as you get inside the door? Nope they just walk right in. Steeler, Breaker and Russian guy whose name I can't really pronounce are on the roof and Cobra commander orders them to be electrocuted so this electrical plate that's on the roof zaps them and they all die. Or well okay they don't die but they should have died. I mean that's a trap that is lethal. Someone is sneaking up on clutch from behind and then clutch goes silent on the radio. Stalker and the other Joes are inside the compound and surprise surprise it is a trap. There are booby traps everywhere. There are spikes, a falling stone wall, water, a bottomless pit, snakes. These are very elaborate traps. A little too elaborate. Why doesn't Cobra just shoot them? And by the way this complex is like a TARDIS. I mean it didn't look this big from the outside. Flash uses his laser rifle to fry the snakes. Wait a minute. Flash? Flash is not on this mission. Grand Slam is on this mission. This is not just a dialogue error they actually mixed up the characters. That just goes to show that even Larry Hama gets Flash and Grand Slam mixed up. The quality control on a lot of these early GI Joes issues was not that great. Unfortunately they made a lot of little mistakes like this. I can't wait to get to some of the later issues when the mistakes were not quite so egregious. Finally Cobra starts shooting at the Joes but they do it when the Joes have cover around a corner and Stalker just takes them out with a grenade. The Joes reach a steel blast door which Stalker blows up with C4. Now hold on a second. Why should this labyrinth that the Joes have been going through actually lead to the prize? I mean the purpose obviously is to trap intruders. So why not just make it a dead end? Why give the intruders a chance to get to what they want at the end of it? Why would that door even be there? When the Joes get through the door they discover that the October Guard has gotten there first. The October Guard used a Cobra prisoner to get them around the traps which actually is a really good idea. Apparently the October Guard is smarter than the Joes. Except no they're all dumb because they just got surrounded by Cobra again. This time Cobra Commander says he's going to witness the execution of the prisoners. He has learned his lesson from the last time. Standing behind Cobra Commander is Clutch disguised as a Cobra soldier. Apparently he took out the Cobra soldier that was attacking him from behind and stole his uniform. So both the October Guard and Clutch got into the compound without going through all those buoy traps. So frankly, Stalker, that was a really dumb move. You didn't have to do any of that. Clutch takes Cobra Commander hostage and uses him as a human shield to facilitate the Joes escape with the Russian plane. Colonel Brekev decides to eliminate the Joes advantage by killing the hostage. He shoots Cobra Commander. Oh wait no, Cobra Commander is not dead. It was actually a double wearing a loudspeaker so he could project Cobra Commander's voice. Which means that Cobra Commander wasn't going to personally witness the execution of the prisoners. So apparently he hadn't learned his lesson from the last time. The Joes escape and they leave the October Guard high and dry. So so much for that, you know, you've got to trust the fighting man thing from the last episode. The secret Russian plane is rescued so it can be returned to its wifey plane and its little baby planes. There's an epilogue that takes place in the port of Karachi in Pakistan. Hawk reveals that the cargo that the Joes have been carrying is just a decoy. The real Russian plane was airlifted out of Afghanistan yesterday. Hawk himself informed Cobra of the Joes mission in order to throw Cobra off of the real extraction of the plane. Wow, Hawk just straight up lied to them. Let's talk about the good and the bad of this issue and wow it is really a mixed bag. Almost the entire issue was a parade of improbables. Readers have to be somewhat shocked by Hawk's deception but he is the leader of this team and he has to make some tough decisions including sometimes lying to his own troops. He didn't get where he is by being nice or even fair. So if he has to lie to his troops in order to accomplish the mission that's exactly what he's going to do. No matter how much of a dick that makes him out to be. But my problem with this deception is that it was counterproductive. I mean the Russian plane is valuable but so are the lies of his highly trained elite soldiers. I mean these are people who would not be easy to replace if any of them got killed in the field and if they had known the truth they would not have followed Cobra to get this decoy and risk their lives to do it. You know what? Scarlet was right. They needed to just call it quits and head home. The whole invasion of Iran was unnecessary and it incurred some extreme risk of some very negative international repercussions. Repercussions that would have been worse than actually losing the Russian plane. If the Joes had cut out when Cobra took the decoy the plane would have been out of Afghanistan before Cobra would have had a chance to do anything about it. So the mission still would have been accomplished. Cobra loses this time but they only lose by being stupid. By doing things like not shooting the Joes outright and setting up these really elaborate weird traps. This is not the Cobra commander that we met in the first issue who was a really smart guy and who was a step ahead of the Joes at almost every point. So what was good about this issue? Well there was a lot of action which is great and we get to see Cobra and the October Guard which is an interesting new element in the comic book series. To be honest the first time I read this issue I really liked it and the second time I read it I still liked it but re-reading it in order to do this review I really I didn't like it so much. I found the poor quality control very distracting with Grand Slam magically becoming flash with the Joes just walking into traps with Cobra only losing because they're dumb. The Joes and the October Guard taking out an Iranian border patrol which is just insane and of course Hawks completely unnecessary deception. I want to like this issue I really do. It had a lot of great action it did and it's our first two-part story so it really pains me to say that I don't like it. This is not one of my favorites. It has to be read in order to get the conclusion to the story that was started in issue number six but I really disliked the way it was resolved. That was my review of G.I. Joe number seven. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did give this video a thumbs up. If you didn't give this video thumbs down. But either way go ahead and subscribe because I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe toy and comic book reviews coming up and you don't want to miss them.