 Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and I'm back with another comic book Wednesday and we actually skipped last Wednesday because I had something rather big going on and I just didn't have time to do it but we're going to get back on track this week and we're looking at the G.I. Joe comic book issue number nine and starting with the front cover we see Scarlett hanging out of a Cobra helicopter grasping onto a Cobra soldier who is about to pistol-lip her and she's hanging over a beach for some reason and we have this caption in the bottom that says if Scarlett should fail war. So the cover kind of sets the tone for this issue but it doesn't really tell us very much of what's going on apparently it involves a helicopter and some Cobra soldiers and a beach for some reason but it does tell us that we are going to see Cobra again and as you know I do like the issues that feature Cobra so that's always a good thing. The image is alright and nothing particularly special about it I guess it's drawn pretty well but I'm eager to get into the comic book and find out what's going to happen. The splash page features the G.I. Joe team rating a secret Cobra base that's at a farm in Nebraska and we have a title the Diplomat and we have a creative team of oh no another issue without Larry Hama. We have Steven Grant as the writer and Mike Vossberg as the penciler. Stalker and Breaker bust into the Cobra computer room and Breaker has to save any important data before it is erased and you know what this is nice they are actually giving Breaker something to do and that's great because in other issues Breaker has just kind of been sloughed off to the side Breaker was their computer expert at the time but if you look at Breaker here he's wearing a very generic green uniform and usually we identify Breaker by the fact that he's always blowing bubbles he's always has chewing gum in his mouth he blows bubbles and without that you know what he would look like he's just like a generic soldier you would mistake him for grunt there's a difference of opinion on whether Breaker should be clean shaven as he appeared in the comic book or if he should have a beard as he his action figure did and as he appeared in the cartoon it's one of those you know kind of coke versus Pepsi things and normally I side with a comic book on issues like that but in this case I'm gonna go with a toy in the cartoon Breaker needs the beard to distinguish himself among the other Joes who at the time didn't have a lot of distinguishing characteristics as Breaker is retrieving the computer data Cobra commander appears on a TV monitor as he is want to do and he introduces himself by saying greetings you pathetic Claude and that's actually how I answer every telephone call he says something about having that installation under remote control which is enough of a hint for the guys to assume that it's wired to explode so they run out of there just before it blows up and you know what this is another instance where if Cobra commander had not bothered to appear on that screen and say anything he probably could have killed two Joes right there the computer is destroyed but Breaker managed to save a computer porta pack and apparently that's supposed to contain some important Cobra intelligence we're back in gi joe headquarters now where they are discussing the mission that has resulted from the intelligence that they retreat from the Cobra computer they believe that Cobra is planning an assassination attempt on a state department diplomat named brian hassel who is in talks with a persian gulf nation uh called al alawi which of course is a fictional country the diplomat is in talks with al alawi to swing that country into the united states sphere of influence and i think it's kind of hinted that al alawi is among the non-aligned nations during the cold war and so he's going to bring that country into alignment with us foreign policy which hey that'd be a good thing right hawk has selected four joes for this mission scarlet and clutch are going to escort the diplomat to the talks and that is a volatile combination you do not want to have clutch and scarlet in the same room stalker and snake eyes are supposed to track down somebody who can't confirm Cobra's plan and i like this pairing because stalker and snake eyes were actually teammates long before they joined the gi joe team uh they were actually in vietnam together of course we don't know this at the time that it will be revealed in later issues but i just really like the two of them working together scarlet complains about being paired with clutch and that's understandable since clutch essentially sexually harasses her throughout his entire appearance in the gi joe comic book uh but hawk essentially tells her to get bent coer commander is informed that the gi joe team will be escorting the diplomat and his troops are concerned about how he's going to react to this bad news and this scene actually kind of reminds me of that scene from spaceballs you know which one i'm talking about meanwhile in the french reviera scarlet is wearing a bikini hello and the diplomat doesn't really believe that there is an actual threat he doesn't think that they need to be there he's pretty sure that this whole cobra thing is a hoax until some frogmen jump out of the ocean and start firing darts at him clutch who had been buried in the sand pops out with a submachine gun and fires back at them and the cobra frogmen retreat back into the ocean and escape now of course the diplomat believes that there is a real threat against his life back at hassles hotel scarlet is waiting for the diplomat to get his things together so they can get out of there when she realizes that the door is locked and she hears a ticking sound it's a bomb so she quickly reaches into her satchel and puts together her crossbow she fires an arrow with a line on it out the window and she uses that to escape with the diplomat just before the bomb blows up the two of them drop into the car that clutch is driving and scarlet says she needs to change clothes and tells clutch to keep his eyes on the road but we know clutch and we know he's not keeping his eyes on the road in london i guess somewhere in the vicinity of tower bridge a munitions manufacturer named derrick southerland is entering his office now have you ever heard a more british name than derrick southerland he's surprised to have a gun pointed at his head it's stalker and snake eyes and stalker demands that he tell them about his dealings with cobra he insists that they are wrong about him dealing with cobra but as he's speaking he writes a note that indicates that the room is bugged and he gives them an address in amsterdam stalker says thank you very much and the two joes exit stage right when the joes are gone derrick southerland contacts cobra commander to let the commander know that the message has been conveyed and cobra commander for some reason just kills him and i'm still not really sure exactly why this british guy is a weapons manufacturer and he supplies cobra so do you realize who this guy is this is the guy that cobra got their weapons from before destro and now i don't think that the writers really had the foresight to plan that but if you think logically about this that has to be who this is this is cobra's pre-destro weapons supplier and they just zapped him so i guess they're going to need somebody else to give them their weapons clutch scarlet and the diplomat race toward the airport pursued by cobra agents scarlet takes them out with a grenade clutch drives the car into the cargo bay of the airplane and then rushes to the cockpit to implore the pilot to take off right away once they're in the air scarlet realizes that they're going the wrong way and once she mentions it the pilot pulls a pistol on her the pilot is holding scarlet at gunpoint and he makes the mistake of calling scarlet babe and scarlet reacts by thoroughly kicking his ass and frankly he had that coming with the pilot taken out the plane takes a nose dive clutch takes the controls and they just barely managed to make it around some mountains the plane skids to a halt on a cliff and of course an old movie cliche it stops just before it goes over the cliff scarlet clutch and hassle get away in the car and just as they drive out of the airplane of course it tips over and goes off the cliff stalker and snake eyes are in amsterdam and they find out that the address as they've been given is a whorehouse and of course why wouldn't it be isn't that all amsterdam has stalker goes upstairs to check out room 13 and snake eyes stops the madam at the desk from making a phone call to cobra when stalker arrives at the room upstairs it is totally dark but he walks in anyway of course that's pretty much on par with what gi joe does when he gets inside he encounters a holographic projection of cobra commander who explains all of his plans he just stands there and explains all of his plans to stalker i guess because he thinks the stalker is going to die because he releases some poison gas but this is so frustrating why does cobra commander do this in almost every issue he thwarts himself by either talking too much and allowing the jose to escape or in this case just outright explaining his entire plan to them it turns out that hassle the diplomat is a mole he is not the assassination target he is the assassin and his target is the al alawi representative cobra commander believes that if an american diplomat takes out the al alawi representative it will discredit the united states among the third world stalker calls snake eyes on the radio and just before he succumbs to the gas snake eyes blows the door open and rescues his friend so now the joes know what cobra's plan is and they just might have enough time to stop it thank you again cobra commander this is very frustrating to me because in the first issue of gi joe cobra commander was brilliant he had a great strategic mind and he was a step ahead of the joes almost at every point but in every issue that he's appeared since then he has by his own actions made sure that he's a step behind the joes on a windy mountain road clutch scarlet and the diplomat are under attack by two helicopters and at the same time two cars are coming directly at them from the other direction and clutch splits between the two of them both cars go over the cliff no doubt killing the occupants but you know what we have no way of knowing if the occupants of those cars were cobra agents it could have been just two cars coming up the same road at the same time one car could have been trying to pass the other they may not have been attacking the joes they could have just been innocent people just driving on the road this illustrates again that gi joe hates drivers the helicopters drop gas canisters and one of the canisters gets inside the car and so the car goes over the cliff and hits the water and unfortunately scarlet clutch and the diplomat all die okay okay they don't die but honestly they should be dead and impact that significant should have killed everybody in the car but we're talking about comic book physics here so we'll just have to go with it one of the helicopters flies low to see if the joes are dead he flies so low that scarlet is able to clasp on to the skid she climbs into the helicopter and throws the pilot out and clutch and the diplomat are rescued their plan is to fly the helicopter to the meeting point but suddenly the diplomat pulls a gun on the two of them and then he reveals his identity as a cobra agent again why is there some entry in the cobra handbook that says that you're required to reveal your plans and your identity at some point in the plot clutch and scarlet are taken at gunpoint to a ski shack and tied up the diplomat tells the cobra trooper to wait until he hears a shot and then eliminate the two joes but then i ask you why wait for the shot they're going to kill the joes in anyway why not just kill them right then every time they wait to kill a joe when they have a chance it always ends up backfiring and causing cobra to lose you would think after maybe the fifth or the sixth time this happens they would learn a lesson at the chateau where the meeting is to take place the alawi representative is waiting for the american diplomat to arrive and they are going to discuss a defense and commerce pact and actually probably what they mean is a bilateral trade agreement and those are the sort of things that are not done just with one person sitting across the table from somebody else the kind of pact that they're talking about is done by teams of people usually staffers work on the fine details while higher level diplomats hammer out the bigger issues so this really is not a very realistic portrayal of how these agreements actually come about scarlet and clutch escape of course and clutch finds some skis in the shack just as the diplomat is arriving for the meeting scarlet and clutch are skiing toward the chateau and i can't help but think that this would have been a great scene for snow job but of course snow job would not join the gi joe team until the following year the tension mounts as the diplomat pulls a gun from his briefcase and in the background scarlet is getting closer and closer until crash she busts through the window at the last possible moment it's too late though the diplomat fires and hits the alawi guy scarlet sidekicks the diplomat while he she is still wearing one of the skis and that has got to hurt that's when the rest of the gi joe team arrives just a little bit too late the alawi ambassador appears to be dead but no he's alive he stands up and slaps the diplomat and he reveals that in his country assassinations are a fact of life so are bulletproof vests the diplomat who is the cobra agent is captured and carried away and everything's fine and everybody's happy back at cobra central wherever that is a cobra trooper is informing cobra commander that the assassination attempt failed and hassle has been captured cobra commander doesn't seem too concerned about that he says after all it was only a game and there will always be another game really whatever honestly i think he's just explaining away his own failures i guess the previous six or seven times that he lost to gi joe well they were all also just games and there will be more games so how do we assess this issue it was an issue without larry hama writing it and i may surprise a lot of people when i say it was not bad actually overall i liked it i thought it was pretty well written uh the artwork i thought was a little bit subpar i'm definitely going to be happy when we get back to one of our regular pencilers the gi joe comic book series as we've read it so far has stuck pretty closely to a formula it usually starts out with the joe team in their briefing room and the team members are selected for a mission as they carry out the mission they face a succession of more serious dangers until ultimately they end up defeating cobra or more often than not cobra ends up defeating itself by telling someone their secret plan so the joes can figure it out and and stop it as formulas go it's really not that bad and when i say formula i don't mean to imply that all the issues are the same no each issue has been different that's not what a formula means it just means that it it goes through a familiar progression and you know what formula is not necessarily a bad thing some of the best tv series and comic book series have followed formulas i mean if you like the old perry mason series i mean that was a pure formula tv series but every episode was different at this point though nine issues in i think the formula is starting to wear thin so fortunately we're coming upon some issues where we're going to begin some story arcs some longer stories that are going to progress over several issues we're going to break with the formula and we're going to see an entirely new direction in the gi joe comic book series although i did like this issue i do think that it reflects a general distrust of diplomacy that was pretty prevalent in the early 80s and i think this was a result of vietnam where there was a meme that was going around it was very popular that somehow the united states could have won the vietnam war if only they had just let the soldiers fight and let the generals have their way and if only those politicians and diplomats hadn't gotten in the way and thwarted everything this i think is unfortunate because diplomacy is the backbone of american foreign policy and not every issue in foreign policy can be resolved with military might and if you think about it you wouldn't want it to be nonetheless this notion and this comic book that we've read fits with the theme that you should prefer action over thought and strength over intelligence that was a theme that was very popular in the early 80s and you can see it in all kinds of media comic books movies books everywhere that was my review of gi joe number nine i hope you enjoyed it if you did go ahead and give this video a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe i've got a lot of great new stuff coming up next comic book wednesday we'll look at gi joe number 10 which will take the comic book series in a completely new direction so i am really looking forward to it i will see you all then