G.I. JOE: FRONT LINE #1 (of 4)

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Monday, October 21, 2002

It's more than a little disturbing to be waxing nostalgic over a time only seven years in the past, but that's where (or should I say "when") G.I. JOE: FRONT LINE takes us. The new four-part miniseries fills in the gap between the original JOE series published by Marvel Comics and the new series begun last year by Image, and as such it revisits some of the plotlines left hanging in the air way back when. And best of all, original writer Larry Hama comes back to script it! But does all this ensure that it'll be good?

Well, yes and no. Hama still has a good feel for these characters, and he handles the daunting task of writing for so many of them somewhat better than the writers of the new JOE series, who often appear overwhelmed by all the faces they need to include. (Whoever coined the phrase "a cast of thousands" must have seen G.I. JOE coming, that's for sure.) And the plot is pure Hama: the Jugglers, a kind of shadow cabinet of Pentagon generals, have sent the Joes on an ultra-secret mission to transport a new targeting module for a satellite-based particle beam. Thing is, the Joes have no idea what they're really carrying - a broadcast weapon that can change brainwave patterns - but COBRA does. The Joes suddenly find themselves on the front lines of a battle to defend a weapon they know nothing about.

Problem is, Hama runs into the same problem that the new JOE series often had trouble with: balancing the action and exposition so that we don't feel overloaded with one more than the other. The problem with FRONT LINE is that in attempting to pick up the threads of a previous storyline and marry them with a new one, it dumps a hell of a lot of plot on the reader's head in one sitting, making for a very intense reading experience. The scene with the Baroness, Billy, and Storm Shadow in the Brain Scanner chamber, for instance, will leave most readers saying "Huh? When did that happen? Why did that happen?"

All this wouldn't be such a bad thing in itself, except that some of Hama's writing technique hasn't aged all that well. For one thing, we get captioned explanations of military abbreviations that most of us know fairly well by now (such as the fact that "SIT-REP ASAP" means "Situation Report As Soon As Possible") and specific abbreviations he himself has come up with (such as the famed COBRA one, "KJB," which means..."Kick Joe Butt"). The heart-to-heart between Scarlett and Snake-Eyes halfway through the book also reveals another flaw in Hama's writing: he's far more comfortable writing "kick-ass" dialogue or exposition full of technical jargon than he is dealing with the idea that these characters have hearts and lives outside the Joes.

It's still an OK read, though, especially when aided by the artwork of Dan Jurgens and Bob Layton. I'm not sure whether it's a compliment to say that their artwork so fully captures the look of a mid-'90s comic book or not, given what that period tended to look like (thank you ever so much, Rob Liefeld), but there it is. It fits in with the style and epoch of the story so much that even minor flaws in the art are excusable (Besides, they make Destro look cool, which is always a challenge). For JOE enthusiasts, FRONT LINE may be exactly the return to the glory days they've always been looking for. But unless you're the rabid "Go Joe!" type, you may want to sit this particular battle out.

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