G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #139
#139- “Realignments”
Writer: Larry Hama
Penciler: Chris Batista
Summary:
Declining Cobra Commander’s offer of negotiation, Megatron has a hissy and starts blasting away the Silent Castle. Dr. Biggles-Jones retaliates with a HISS tank, outfitted with her special rain gun prototype. Impressed by the gun, Megatron decides to broker a deal with Cobra. If they give him the rail gun and a complete systems upgrade, he’ll lead them to the Ark and tons of Cybertronian tech. The two sides agree and Megatron is given an overhaul and modified into a new transforming tank mode. His new sensors can pick up everything…including a regeneration/cloning project that has just started breathing in the basement– one Dr. Mindbender!
Meanwhile, Hawk, Destro and the Baroness arrive at the abandoned Cobra Island, where they’re greeted by a freak with an orange mohawk and Road Warrior makeup. But it’s actually Zartan in his “new form”. Zartan shows them the old hatch into the volcano, but it hit an oil well and has been burning for weeks. Zartan notices that Mindbender’s clong vat is missing (the same one that produced Serpentor and revived Storm Shadow), then speculates that Mindbender could have planted a single-use failsafe computer program that would revive him.
Notes:
- Zartan’s new look is actually an improvement. He looks a lot tougher than his old hooded guise. He’s also a full-fledged good guy, happily helping Hawk.
- The seldom seen Medi-Viper makes an official appearance.
- The revamped Alley Vipers (version 2) make an appearance– in yellow and black tiger stripes.
- Slice is aware of the precision cut that Snake-Eyes stabbed Scarlett with, and he’s still suspicious of Scarlett’s allegiance.
- The penciling is a little weird. The first half seems like Andrew Wildman’s stuff, then it suddenly switched over to a cleaner style (Batista) for the second half. Batista’s style is much cleaner, but not without its distortions. Looks like a combo of Japanese manga art and Rick Leonardi. He draws excellent close-up face shots, though.
- For the first time in roughly five years, the captions mention that the GI Joe C-130 is the only US aircraft that can be fueled, in-air, by both Army and Navy planes. Can’t recall if I’ve cited this before, but in the past it was mentioned that the Army and Navy both use different fueling connectors for their air tankers.
Appearances:
Characters (figures): Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow, Scarlett, Hawk, Stalker, Wild Bill, Cobra Commander, Zarana, Road Pig, Slice, Dice, Destro, Baroness, Zartan, Megatron (ugh)
Characters (“comic-only”): Dr. Biggles-Jones
Vehicles and stuff (toys): Cobra HISS
Vehicles and stuff (not toys): GI Joe C-130
Firsties:
Characters: none
Vehicles and stuff: none
Rating: 1 Flag Point
