Forever War: GI Joe 53

[knight_moves]

Between Zartan and Buzzer, Cobra finally has the location of the Pit, and Cobra Commander is desperate to lead a successful military operation to put Serpentor in his place. Meanwhile, the Jugglers (Hama's term for the Pentagon brass in charge of the GI Joe program) have shut down the Pit and relocated all the Joes to the assistant chaplain's school aboveground.





So for the record, the man with the eyepatch is General Ryan, the black man is General Hollingsworth, and the other guy is Admiral Dyson.



I don't know what assistant chaplains ever did to Larry Hama, but man, he does like to take it to them.



Meanwhile, to paraphrase Roger Ebert, Cobra is launching an attack on Flint and Lady Jaye's unresolved sexual tension.



This is one of those tropes I didn't realize I liked, but I love it when you have good guys who are antagonistic to the protagonists, but when push comes to shove, they drop the bullshit and take on the real bad guys. USA! USA!



Aboveground, the other Joes realize they're being infiltrated and begin marshaling a counterattack, including Flint showing us that if you can't get a girl to like you, just beat up a bunch of guys and she'll realize she holds strong romantic feelings for you. (Hey, it works for Rocky AND John McClane.)



Inside the Pit, we're actually getting something of a battle between Cobra Commander and Hawk, even though as leaders, they're both using small-unit tactics against each other. Weird to think that those two are each other's opposite number and yet they never really interact. I suppose it's realistic; not like Patton and Rommel ever shot the breeze.









The entire Pit is destroyed in the blast, though the Cobras not being led by Cobra Commander and Destro are able to retreat.

Comments

[scorntx]

For a minute there, thought General Ryan was going to turn out to be a Cobra plant or something with how he was denying the blatantly obvious so super-hard.
But no, he's just an arse.
An arse with a bit of a hero complex.
(Really feels like somebody should've caught that a bit sooner.)

-"I think the price was too high on this one."-
Speak for yourself, Hollingsworth.
Chalking the loss of Ryan as a net gain.


And some extra level sass from CC this week.

[knight_moves]

I think Hama's going for "characters in Dracula don't know they're in Dracula."

To his credit, Ryan realized the Joes were actually good guys a lot quicker than J. Jonah Jameson has ever realized anything in his life.

[beyondthefringe]

I love how the Joe team being suspended lasted all of an issue before the Pit was destroyed and the team was reactivated, only going mobile.
(A status quo which won't last all that long in the grand scheme of things...)

At least the Joes made a vague effort to fit in, uniform-wise, when they were mingling with the chaplain's assistants.

Think you've seen the last of Cobra Commander and Destro? Oh no, they have more action figure variants to sell. But get ready for a wild road trip.

[knight_moves]

To be fair, it's hard to have an action comic where the good guys are confined to their quarters.

[dan_ingram]

JJJ rocks a Hitler 'stache.

When he takes a stand, the whole world can't budge him.

[thezmage]

Does the mobile status quo last longer than the panel here? I seem to recall Hama ditched it almost immediately.