It could be worse, they could all have super powers and wear spandex

Oh wait the movie comes out in a year!

Steve

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It does seem a little dark. I am hoping that Duke is the only one forced into it. I love to see horrible stuff happen to him.

If they wanted to sell me the book, they'd have had Hawk shoot him. Do that, and I would have bought every variant cover that they released for it, and the graphic novel too...

- R

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Sorry, Optimus Prime died years ago, and when the outrage at a good character getting killed was heard, the higher ups decided that we were stuck with Duke, no matter what everyone else might think. Now, if only his character had the same impact as Prime.

As for the book, I think I'm a bit on the fence about the forced separation concept for joining the team, but I will be giving the books a chance. Perhaps there is a background for this decision, such as an attack against a previous "Joe-style" team and their families, and Hawk is building another team to fight this enemy when anonymity is seen as a key asset.

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I kind of like it. In my Joe-verse, it's always been a requirement that Joes sever ties with their family/friends and are listed as deceased as far as the outside world is concerned. Any who make it to retirement are given new identities and fresh starts (none so far). It was like this for me even as a kid, because I always thought Cobra would just go after their families if they did not (I blame getting into superhero comics about the same time as Joe, and digging the whole secret ID thing). The episode of the cartoon where they did in fact kidnap Joe family members and turn them into slaves just drove it home for me to keep it like that. My Joes pretty much live in a bubble.

If I remember right, IDW said Heavy Duty would be in the book, not Roadblock. Well the cover art features what looks exactly like a darker version of Roadblock and nothing like Heavy Duty. So did they go back on their choice? Were they referring to one of their other GI Joe series? Or are they just slapping that awful, generic "Heavy Duty" name onto the more recognizable and popular Roadblock character?

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That would be it. I don't think we ever got a full explanation for it, but for some reason or another, the new comic couldn't use the name "Roadblock", but wanted to use the character Roadblock, so they are just calling him "Heavy Duty" now.

I guess if there was no other alternative, this will be OK. I mean, I would much rather have the character I know as Roadblock under a different name than no Roadblock at all.

Drako wrote:
....and new Hawk looks like he should be portrayed by Claire's father from Heroes.


Yep he does!

I like this. I like the fact that he was given a choice. I doubt he was going to shoot Duke..

I like gritty...I like when Batman turned all Dark Knight on us. To me it's refreshing....

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Well done but pointless.

I also dislike the "are you in or out?" forced approach. Of course, I dislike resetting continuity, too. Even with all of the crap that Devils' Due did to the original continuity, Hama could have picked it up, dusted it off, and then gone darker in his writing tone.

The only major headache would be that Lady Jaye is dead. Leave the character dead (as well as the droves of the third-tier characters DD offed) and move on.

The artwork is good, though.

Hmm, I like the edgier tone they took with Hawk. I may pick this up.

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I kinda liked it actually. Has more of a black-ops feel than the usual special forces stories we've gotten. Reminds me a lot of G.I. Joe Reloaded in that sense. If that's the direction they're going with it I'll like it a lot. The days of the clean-cut good versus evil stories are gone. Things are so black and white any more and wars have gotten a lot dirtier. I like that the book (from what little we've seen) seems to be taking a more modern realistic approach. I'll be adding it to my pull list.

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