G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #107

“Enter the Night Creepers”

Writer: Larry Hama
Penciler: Lee Weeks

Summary:

As an audition for joining Cobra, a band of high-tech ninjas called the Night Creepers are given the assignment of terminating Storm Shadow. They track him to his Manhattan water tower, where Stormie and Stalker are recuperating. They fight them off and escape into the subway. There, Scarlett has wandered out from her hospital room and has a serious bone to pick with Stormie. Stormie and Scarlett leap into a subway train, as the Night Creepers believe they are killed. But in all the confusion, Scarlett accidentally knifed Stormie in the back!

Notes:

• Cobra Commander meets with the Night Creepers on top of the ruins of the Cobra Consulate. It’s roughly half of its original size, now. Probably about 20-25 stories high.
• Hawk has a face-to-face meeting with General Crowther … and pounds him into the wall!
• Scarlett sneaks out of her hospital room by switching places with her sister, Sioban. Hawk finds Sioban tied up and gagged, shortly after Scarlett leaves.
• Storm Shadow’s water tower (last seen in issue 42) is located on top of the Montana Tower, a ritzy apartment complex. The doorman thinks Storm Shadow is a tenant, since he’s seen him so many times.
• A “blind” beggar in the subway asks Stalker and Stormie where the costume party is. Funny, since he’s obviously not blind. How would a blind guy know what they were wearing?
• Aleph is the leader of the Night Creepers. A few others are named: Kpah, Taw, Gimel, Resh, Shin, Teth…I’ll score Aleph, but I won’t score the others unless they begin to pop up in subsequent issues.
• Lee Weeks had been doing the covers since issue 101. He switches to the interior for this issue.
• The letters column focuses on the long-running call for “realism” in the comic. Hama had long contended that realism in a comic book is an oxymoron. A good point. But it all segues into the next issue blurb: where a slab of “realism” is about to hit the Joes on a mission to the Middle East.
• Hama also answers a question from Scarlet’s old filecard. Specifically that she had three brothers and NO sisters. Hama jokingly downplays the filecard as being “Cobra mis-information!”
• This story gets a boost in my rankings simply because it spotlights Stalker and Storm Shadow working together against the ‘Creepers. We kind of forget that Storm Shadow is Stalker’s friend as well, not just Snake-Eyes’. Indeed, their scenes against the ‘Creepers are similar to a Daredevil or Spider-Man fight scene.

Appearances:

Characters (figures): Hawk, Storm Shadow, Scarlett, Stalker, Cobra Commander

Characters (“comic-only”): Aleph, Sioban O’Hara, Gen, Crowther

Vehicles and stuff (toys): none

Vehicles and stuff (not toys): none

Firsties:
Characters: Aleph & the Night Creepers

Vehicles and stuff: none

Rating: 4 Flag Points