G.I Joe #8 Review


G.I Joe_S4_8_Cover B8 issues in and the new ‘series 4’ is already over. G.I Joe #8 marks the last of the current storyline and title so, while it is abrupt, how does the end result look?

First, the official description from IDW:

The war of intel and secrets reaches dangerous new heights as Scarlet’s G.I. Joe team goes deeper undercover in a country run by Cobra.

In all honesty, while I never fully got behind this plot to begin with, this sheer ending marks many of the problems with IDW’s treatment of G.I Joe. The last season had its own plots, currently being semi-explored in Snake Eyes: Agent of Cobra while this one half-juggled its own elements. The whole thing is a big swirly mess when you look at the big picture and simply printing titles for less than a year doesn’t get anything going.

On the smaller scale, Karen Traviss does an okay job of resolving any outstanding points. It’s not perfect, but it does manage to leave a few windows open. Still, some of them are getting a little old – Siren and Isaac, for instance, were shoehorned in to the end of the last season and stretch over this one – but these really aren’t Traviss’s fault.

Visually, I’ve started to get use to the current art style and another dramatic change will be hard to take. Still, Steve Kurth is a talented artist and he has a very distinctive art style that works well with the less-active, intense-dialogue-heavy approach this politically-charged G.I Joe took. While Kito Young is a telented colorist, I do look forward to some more vibrancy.

Still, in all honesty I think it was a good run that was never given a chance to go anywhere. The creative team did something different and this issue feels very abruptly forced to a halt; it’s glaringly obvious.

OUR RATING
6
  • + The end!
  • + Some decent closure
  • - Other elements left wide open
  • - Very abrupt

S#!T Talking Central