Written by Mike Costa
Illustrated by Alex Cal“Cobra Command” concludes! The final battle as the Joes struggle to survive. Everything changes here! Who lives — who dies — who wins? The answers aren’t what you expect, and the foundation for the future of G.I. Joe starts here!
For about three months now, I’ve been singing the praises of IDW Publishing’s G.I. Joe crossover event, ‘Cobra Command.’ Probably more than any other big, group-character mega-story in recent memory, ‘Cobra Command’ features genuine excitement and maybe more impressively, it commits to actually shaking things up for the IDW Joe-verse, and drops some legitimate changes into the series and sets the stage for a somewhat uncertain future for all the players.
Pull back the jump and see what we thought of the finale!
This probably sounds worse than I mean it to, but ‘Cobra Command’ did not go out with a bang, which might surprise those of you who know that a major part of this story involves nukes being dropped in Southern Asia, irradiating, and to quote Pythona, “Six former population centers”, thus making them uninhabitable. In fact, that’s merely one example of the big, world-shaking stuff that happens in this arc. We’ve got the government cutting G.I. Joe’s budget, Duke getting injured, Cobra coming out to the entire world, and, as seen last issue, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow bro-ing up and going their own way. And no joke, every one of these things is done really well. Needless to say, with so much bombing, wounding, and ninja-ing, the only thing missing was an epilogue, and that’s where Cobra #11 comes in handy.
I was genuinely thankful for the moment in this issue when Pythona sort of debriefs Cobra Commander, and basically runs down the checklist of everything that’s happened in the crossover. What’s funny is, initially I was kind of incensed by the idea of an in-story blow-by-blow of what happened, but the more I read it, the more I realized that very few crossover and event comics don’t have these. Shcoking, I know, but having seen it in play, I say we make them mandatory for every crossover done at Marvel and DC.
Despite the epilogue-y-ness of the issue, they did still find some time for big action moments. First, we pick back up with the Baroness who’s carrying out orders from the new Cobra Commander. She’s just eliminated the last secret Cobra Council member, effectively putting full control of Cobra into the hands of her new boss. But in mid-murder, she’s confronted by the newly-drafted Chameleon, and boy do they they punch it up, ending the whole thing with one of the most clever, and outrageous solutions I’ve read in a while. And while it didn’t completely make up for the lack of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow fighting last week, it is a pretty solid throw down that ends in an unexpected surprise.
The second big action moment comes when several of the Commander’s inner circle plot to overthrow him already, with Major Bludd coming out looking like a traitor and on the run. That in and of itself sounds pretty standard, but it’s Major Bludd’s encounter with a small battalion of United Nations troops that prove just how desperate and amoral the people associated with Cobra can be. It’s a weird moment, where you know you shouldn’t be happy about Major Bludd’s potential escape, but you’re also kind of glad he got away from the Commander and the Vipers.
These two encounters further illustrate just how volatile an organization Cobra is. It works beautifully, and really drives home the point that just because the war’s over, we shouldn’t expect Cobra to be on their best behavior internally. Really, of the three Joe books out there, Cobra’s especially been that kind of comic; the book that tells a bad guy story that, incidentally, slightly overshadows the parent book.
Obviously, I’m a G.I. Joe guy. Been one all my life, okay? So there’s no doubt that I was probably going to enjoy this crossover more than the lay person. But sincerely, I hope these reviews convinced at least one or two of you to pick this up. And if you did, hopefully you found Cobra Command to be just as enjoyable as I did.
Final Verdict: 8.5 – Buy
