the vynsane asylum

Diabolical wrote:

anarky wrote: How is the McFarlane art? And is there maybe an intro explaining why an entire issue was shelved and redrawn?

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.co ... ealed-182/

There is nothing in the actual issue explaining the "specialness". No foreward or afterward or editor's note.
As to the art, I have a tough time being objective. GIJoe issues 45 and 61 were some of my very very earliest comics and thus I read and reread and re-reread them a thousand times. So I know every detail of that original Marshall Rogers art. Reading the McFarlane version is just...off. To me. It's not bad. It was early in Todd's career so everyone has that cartoony baby roundness to their faces, but other than some narrative flow choices and such, it gets the job done. If anything, the fact that it's Todd actually draws attention away from the actual narrative and towards his art. That's probably why he got nixed. Even with different artists, the Joe book had a consistent tonal quality to the art, and McFarlane sticks out from that like a carnival peacock.

Either way, it's a rare piece of comics history to have the same story published twice with completely different art styles. Now I just have to track down issue 154. *sigh*

The comparisons on CBR definitely do not favor McFarlane.

IDW didn't have announcements about their GIJoe line at WonderCon other than to say they'd be returning in September.

I guess the VanLente direction didn't go over too well.

They really let Special Missions fall off a cliff. 2nd last book - let's leave a Joe at large in the field & not resolve that. Last story - completely unrelated & not really necessary. It felt like this series got the axe instead of a planned ending, and that they didn't have enough time to skip a few issues to resolve that hanging thread. Not too cleanly done at all.

They need some truly great writer who understands Joe and wants to do a soft reboot to somehow get it back to basics. I'm not sure who.

Honest to fucking God, if he were willing, I'd kill to see Brian Clevinger take it on if he were interested. The appearance of one of the previous science teams makes me think he might be.

Issue 15 hit today. So that's all 3 Joe series wrapped up.

There was an ominous House Ad/Teaser on the final page.

It's a shot of Scarlett completely in shadow, apart from her red hair. The tag line says says
"You Will Always Need Us." in bright red.
Then it says "The Fall Of GIJoe. September 2014." at the bottom.

Goosebumps.

Like, whoa.

I like that they have a story plan & I'm even ok with them taking a break to let us breathe a bit before they drop it on us.

That teaser's been around a while. I'm really hoping for a soft reboot to either something like the title was originally, or something totally new (and executed better than the superhero bullshit).

Red Shadows coming out of nowhere and challenging Cobra would work better in this universe than the DDP continuation of the Marvel series. But Hama might be going that route in his title.

I just read the Siren's Song trade. Man, this book is bad. I'll give it one volume when the reboot comes around, and only because I know TF floundered through multiple soft reboots before becoming the best book around.

Siren's story was merely silly, with the ridonculous flashbacks, and a bit confusing, with the poor storytelling overall, until it got to the end. But Dante Aligheri being a Cobra operative and The Divine Comedy secretly being a strategy for Cobra? I facepalmed so hard, I'll have a handprint on my face for two weeks. That shit borders on slander. A better writer could've pulled it off, but this was just a steaming pile.

Not usually "for" the deluxe treatment of special issue hardcovers that come out from time to time, but this one is certainly warranted. I hope the finished product is as nice as it sounds.

http://mycomicshop.com/graphicnovels/item?IID=26027870

I read what it contains, and was really disappointed. For starters, there are two other silent issues by Hama that tie in. One is a short story from the Snake Eyes: Declassified paperback, which tells how Scarlett was captured. The other is the Hasbro 2-pack comic that tells the same story from a different perspective. Both of those should've been included.

Interview with Karen Traviss about "The Fall of G.I. Joe"

I must say, this sounds promising. Granted, Fred van Lente's superhero bullshit sounded promising before it was actually released, but Traviss has a bit of a stronger track record with this sort of character. And it looks like she's going to honor van Lente's stuff (and all earlier IDW stories) as much as possible, which is far more than I can say about him. ("This time, leave the mask on." "Hells yes, bitch, I don't want to disintegrate!")

The direction sounds just batshit crazy enough to be the shot in the arm Joe needs. It took ending the war after a truly awful run to turn Transformers into the best title(s) around. Maybe Cobra being legit will prove a similar shake-up here.

(Don't want to get my hopes up, but we have the original IDW series, totally new, realistic takes heavily influenced by guys who'd worked on the series before. Then pretty bad soft reboots with All Hail Megatron and the Cobra Civil War. Followed by even worse reboots with the TF ongoing and superhero Joes. And the writers left, the series continued for a few more issues, then BAM! Huge changes that you're surprised Hasbro okayed. Please let this be the Joe equivalent of More Than Meets the Eye.)

If it works, though, I want to know how Tomax became Cobra Commander (assuming he's using the title). And what happened to Krake. Tomax could conceivably be the most dangerous threat these Joes have ever faced, considering he knows them and their methods quite well from the events of the Cobra Files book.

What. The. Fucking. Hell?

I've weathered some hardcore bullshit from Larry Hama over the years in this title. The godawful second Transformers crossover. Serpentor. Practically everyone in the sunken freighter coming back to life. Adventures in space. A year or so when the title changed and it became all about Snake Eyes and fucking Ninja Force. But almost all of that has been due to Hasbro or Marvel interfering.

Since the relaunch, there've been a couple of huge brainfarts. One led to Sneak Peek coming back in a surprisingly good storyline. The other, well, for some reason Snake Eyes is back to wearing a mask and you can't tell me he was re-scarred by the Brothers Paine way back in #94 because he ran around maskless for quite some time afterward. But, hey, no big deal on that one, right?

We've also had the wacky Blue Ninjas, but that turned out pretty good, too. The Red Shadows, well, I'd like to see a bit more about them in this universe, because it makes little sense for them to show up once, wow everyone with their crazy technology, and vanish completely forever.

In fairness, the guy is still pretty damned awesome.

But a giant alien eyeball under the Pit, that's been there all along but no one knew about? This isn't Hasbro sticking stupid shit in the book. What the fuck is the game plan here? Transformers? Well, I doubt it, since, even if the G2 lead-in crossover is canon, the G2 book itself can't be... not to mention this would have to be like fucking Unicron buried under the Earth. Red Shadows? Can't rule it out, but that'd be a weird direction.

Cobra-La? I motherfucking hope to hell not.

I'll be honest. Hama or no, this has me worried.

I thought you came in here to comment about Snake Eyes: Agent of Cobra.

I saw that later in the day.

Given that Costa's writing it, I'm down. Pretty much a given he's in deep, deep cover, though.