G.I. Joe #20 // Review
Scrap-Iron has a job to do. He’s not completely amoral, but he’s going to go where the money us. And right now the money involves a monster truck and a whole lot of reckless endangerment of people. There are missiles involved. There will be explosions. Thankfully, there are those who are going to oppose him, though...most notably one particular man named Trakker. He’s not alone, though. He and his allies might just have enough firepower to make Scrap-Iron reconsider the money he’s making in G.I. Joe #20. Writer Joshua Williamson enters an interesting fusion between a couple of different properties with artist Andrea Milana and colorist Lee Loughridge.
Out beyond the carnage, there’s a meeting set to take place. Duke has been dealing with the insanity of transforming extra-terrestrial robots for quite some time. One of them killed someone. Duke wants revenge...and he kind of wants revenge on ALL of the robots in question. So it’s going to be a tense time between him and one of the robots in question. The damned thing can take the form of a semi-truck, so it’s not like they’re capable of meeting on equal footing...
The meeting between Optimus and Duke is handled with the kind of intensity that it really needs. These were two of the most iconic action heroes on animated television in the U.S. in the early 1980s. There’s a strong appeal in seeing the two of them meet and have a conversation all these years later. Williamson handles the meeting with a degree of poise that respects the gravity of both characters without ignoring the specific dramatics of the meeting. It’s a very cool moment that helps to firmly fuse a couple of the strongest elements of the expanding Energon Universe family of comics.
The opening scene is a big, crazy chase through the streets of small town America between a sports car and a monster truck. It’s absurdist Americana, but Milana cleverly allows it to make some sort of visual sense on the page. There’s a solid sense of forward momentum and real danger in the mix of the action. Having accomplished the small miracle of that, the artist is given the rather tense challenge of a meeting b etween the two most iconic Transformer and a G.I. Joe characters. Milana finds a way to frame the drama between Duke and Optimus that makes it FEEL like they’re meeting on equal footing even though there’s a huge size discrepancy. Quite an accomplishment.
Hound is a cool addition to the series. One of the first eve Autobots was a U.S. Army Jeep. It makes perfect sense that he would want to hang out with G.I. Joe under the circumstances. His presence in the Energon Universe G.I. Joe title feels like a really, really nice fusion. It’s the type of integration that really serves to maintain a continuity within the universe that’s going to be fun to follow as things progress.
