G.I Joe Sssilent Missions: Copperhead #1 // Review
Copperhead had been introduced back in 1984. The gambling, speedboat racing scoundrel from the Florida Evegraldes wasn’t given a whole lot of love back when he was originally released in toy form. Periodically there has been another glance back in his direction. The latest comes in a text-free one-shot as Skybound presents G.I Joe Sssilent Missions: Copperhead. Writer/artist Howard Porter and colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. develop a single story in which Copperhead is involved in a swamp death race fast and dangerous. The gentleman squares-off against some very sinister figures as he chases-down an ilusive trophy.
Copperhead has no difficulty winning a motorcycle race. Gambling isn’t any kind of a serious issue for someone with Copperhead’s courage. The race, though? That’s going to be a very serious issue. It’s going to be a mess. Very few races are competitive enough to involve death and dismemberment, but there are going to be some serious issues that are likely to arise. Copperhead has a clear advantage with the level of experience and training he’s had over the years, but there are bound to be complications in the swamp.Everything’s always at least a little bit more complicated in the swamp...
To an extent...the huge ensemble surrounding the G.I. Joe franchise from the 1980s had been an embarrassment of riches. There were a tremendous number of characters that all seemed to have some sort of appeal. Copperhead has never really got the kind of focus he might have deserved. A modern action ant-hero swamp rat with a gambling addiction always seemed like a character with a lot of possibilities that never really got explored. Porter does a good job of exploring some of the possibilities inherent in the character in a quick, little one-shot adventure story.
Porter splashes an immersive level of detail around page and panel that has a tendency to wash-out the kinetic potential of the action. There are quite a few interesting angles. The overall tension of the story remains potent and powerful throughout the issue, but it lacks the kind of direction it might have otherwise been able to attain if things had been a bit more clear and a bit less cluttered. Fajardo’s colors help separate light from shadow quite well in a visual package that still manages to look quite appealing in spite of all of the clutter around the edges of the panel.
For all his potential personality, Copperhead is just another supporting character around the margins of the action for the terrorist organization known as Cobra. It’s kind of interesting to see what a single member of Cobra might be doing when not specifically on a mission for the organization. It’s fun. It would be interesting to see some sort of a serial that focussed on the average nameless Cobra soldier. There had been some focus on Storm Troopers in the Star Wars universe, but they work for a huge empire, so there isn’t as much that could be done with them around the margins of their daily life. Cobra is a terrorist organization...so theoretically the average soldier has free time outside of the mask. It would be interesting to explore the lives of more background characters like Copperhead.
