G.I. Joe #3 // Review
Life in Cobra-occupied America is a challenge for this still willing to fight against it even after the U.S. surrendered. Issues arise when a semi-full of supplies is endangered in the third issue of writer Paul Allor’s new G.I. Joe series. Artist Chris Evenhuis’ clean precision continues to work a fair amount of magic on a highway-based adventure colored by Brittany Peer. With the guiding direction of Scarlet missing from this issue, Allor’s third chapter lacks some of the grit and aggression of the first two, but the strangely engrossing world of a nation divided by Cobra remains interesting three issues into the series.
There’s a Cobra military convoy that’s going to be going over the Mississippi River. The Joes are looking to sabotage that convoy by blowing up the bridge. As might be expected with an operation as big as tearing down one of the main arteries across a significant river, things get complicated for Roadblock, Lightfoot, Frontier, and the rest of the Joes on the mission. Roadblock is going to have to improvise under stresses that might be complicated for someone who just had to kill someone for the first time.
Allor’s focus on the psycho-emotional states of the heroes continues to point a very sharp lens at the ensemble. As of this third issue, he’s shown very little of what makes the autocracy of Cobra so intolerable. Without a solid understanding of the villains and their villainy, the central drama lacks a bit of depth. That being said, the tension of a nation at war with itself DOES get a bit of an in-depth look here as Roadblock is undercover working at a Cobra diner. The question of the human toll of dealing with what is essentially a civil war makes for an interesting background element that might do better more towards the center of the plot.
Evenhuis’s art is beautifully clean. Contours sparingly delineate a very clean-looking dystopian America that leaves plenty of room for appealing expanses of Peer’s color. The action has a strangely iconic look to it. Roadblock commandeers a classy-looking semi-truck with the Cobra logo on it in a heroic attempt to get it across the bridge before the bridge blows. The clean simplicity of the action allows it to shoot across the page with admirable force. Evenhuis adds a stylish level of depth to the simple impact of his linework with clever use of silhouettes throughout the issue.
The third issue in the series casts a closer look at Roadblock. He’s an interesting character, but prying the narrative away from the drama with Scarlet that had been so interesting in the first couple of issues is problematic. Allor has the opportunity to work with an ensemble as large as the G.I. Joe franchise. It’s challenging to maintain a feeling of continuity in an ensemble this big. If Allor can keep the ensemble tight in the issues to come, he and Evenhuis might really have something interesting on their hands.
