G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra comic adaptation review

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!! BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra set to assault theatres in about a month or so, I picked up the comic adaptation (should it be out in stores this early?) and decided to take my chances and read it. I love spoiling movies, I just can’t help it. We’ve heard a lot about this film in the past couple of years, with a lot of what we heard being not very good. I can only review the comic at this point – obviously I haven’t seen the movie yet. Overall impression: if this is the movie, then it’s pretty bland and uneventful for the most part. I think the action scenes will be expanded more in the actual film (stuff like the accelerator suit chase is sort of shown in a couple panels here). A good chunk of the middle is set in "The Pit" (underground fortress of the Joes, just like in the comics) with the Joes getting constantly attacked by Cobra (or whatever they're called here -- it's unclear). What is funny though is how much this sticks to the Joe/Cobra backstory moreso than the Transformers movies, albeit with the typical Hollywood consolidation of characters – you know, let’s make this guy the son of this guy, or this girl the sister of this guy, etc. For the most part, none of those changes are atrocities in my opinion (die hard Joe fans may beg to differ).

The story is basically that Destro creates nano-mite technology that can wipe out whole cities and stuff. He needs the special warheads that G.I. Joe is protecting in order to weaponize his nano-mites and constantly attacks G.I. Joe throughout to get them. Later he acquires one warhead and attempts to blow away France (this is foiled by Duke by him activating a “kill switch”, but only after the Eiffel Tower is destroyed). Duke is captured, reconciles differences with old flame Baroness (more on that below), G.I. Joe saves Wachington D.C. and Moscow from being wiped off the face of the earth, Destro and Rex (Cobra Commander – again, more on that below) escape, the end. There’s a lot more to it than that though:

-Duke apparently dated this blonde chick named Ana Lewis and fought alongside her brother Rex at in the Middle East. Duke promises Ana that he’ll protect Rex, Rex supposedly blows up in a premature air strike, Ana hates Duke, etc.

-Baronness has that name because she marries a Baron (of course) who also happens to be a missile expert who can help Destro whether he knows it or not.

-Well, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the disfigured Rex is Cobra Commander, and Anna dyes her hair black and becomes Baroness.

-Rex wears that stupid black mouth piece thingie we’ve all seen for the whole movie. Nobody ever calls him Cobra Commander and nobody ever calls the organization Cobra. Rex is basically Dr. Mindbender with a different name as he experiments on people with various disgusting methods. At the very end he dons that all silver mask we've seen from toy packaging pics and proclaims himself “Commander” (again, no mention of Cobra).

-Duke and Ripcord join G.I. Joe after their mission conflicts with G.I. Joe (a classified, top-secret military special ops unit made up of different countries). Duke is portrayed as an experienced military man who is determined at all costs to complete his mission. Ripcord is a one-liner spouting comic-relief dude who dreams of flying jets. He gets his chance as he saves Washington and Moscow by being nano-mited (is that a term?) by blowing up their respective nano-mite missiles in space, thus redeeming himself as “A Real American Hero” (sorry, couldn’t stop myself).

-Destro: He is Scottish arms dealer James McCullen XXIV, just like the comics. The thing is, James McCullen does business with the Pentagon, so everybody knows him. That’s why he wears a black mask when doing dastardly things as Destro. And make no mistake, the mask is black metal. In the beginning of the comic adaptation, there’s a scene with the first Destro hundreds of years ago who is accused of treason by the French for selling arms to France and its enemies (which is why the current Destro attacks France in the movie) and they punish him by putting a bright metal mask on his face for the rest of his life (the shiny mask we all know). Later in the comic, the current Destro digs out that same mask and later wears it in honour of his ancestor. It’s supposed to be the proper mask. He wears it literally at the end.

-What I don’t understand is that James MacCullen cooperates with NATO and G.I. Joe to create and transport the nano-mite technology only to attempt to steal it as Destro. If he made it, why not avoid telling anyone and use it for himself. The answer, I suppose, is that Destro needed the money to make the stuff and got it from NATO, in which case he had to tell them about it and then try to steal it as Destro once it was made . . . or something . . . and if he does need money for those weapons, then where did he find the funds for all those neat M.A.R.S. trooper outfits and those wicked vehicles??

-Zartan: Comes off as a prick in the comic adaptation. Also, he’s drawn as bald with no face make-up. He’s not really a master of disguise here, but Rex experiments on him and physically changes his appearance into another person. That other person is revealed to be the President of the United States of America on the last page of the comic. And it looks like Bush! I guess that was how they were going to end the movie originally, when it was written during the Bush administration, and I guess that was going to be an explanation as to why Bush sucked so bad…(I’m not making any of this up)

-Ripcord, the Marlon Wayans character, is annoying even in comic form. He says stupid laugh lines and hits on Scarlet a lot. Anyway, Ripcord is comic relief, which I can tolerate if nobody else is joking around as well, which it looks like.

-Cover Girl looks like she’s the secretary of the Joes – and is killed in one second by Zartan!

- Did I mention Scarlet was Canadian? Score one for our side! Scarlet in this comic adaptation is “close” to Snake Eyes. “He’s like a brother”. So, no, they’re not an item here. And Scarlet gives Ripcord a kiss as payoff for all the flirtation he does to Scarlet throughout, and also ‘cause Ripcord could possibly die on his final mission to save the U.S.A. and Russian capitals at the end of the story.

-Other Joes include Heavy Duty, General Hawk (who gets partially paralyzed part way through), and I think Breaker and some other dudes.

-Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are rivals yet again and are both part of the Arashikage Clan just like in the comics, although the Hard Master is Storm Shadow’s father, not his uncle. Young Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are shown, in flashbacks, to be rivals throughout their childhood and Storm Shadow kills the Master (in jelousy? I dunno. It’s not clear). Anyhoo, the two rivals fight in the end and Storm Shadow appears to be killed – or is he? And I loved Stormshadow in a jet-pack in one scene. That was cool! Hope they have that in the film.

All-in-all, it could have been worse, although I still don’t get this drive to tell the “beginning” of the story. As it is, I didn’t really see the Cobra organization “rise” like the title suggests. At least in the comic adaptation, Cobra isn’t even mentioned and the “Commander” is a horrible basterdization of an iconic character. He never looks or acts anything like Cobra Commander, and never goes by that name anyway. The threat is passable I suppose, with those stupid “nano-mites” -- they could have gone for some realistic threats and have the bad guys shoot stolen nukes at countries or something. They also muddle what the nano-mite threat is by having Rex/"Commander"/Cobra Commander, or whoever he is, inject it into soldiers to subtract their fear and/or make them feel no pain – or change peoples’ appearance with the nano-mites, instead of eating through a city. This won’t be a stellar film, nor will it live up to expectations of what a G.I. Joe movie could be. A lot of it reminded me of the old JCVD Street Fighter movie where they attempted to relate to kids by adapting a beloved franchise, but went in a "new direction" for no good reason when the original direction would have worked fine. Like really, where are all the bold designs we all latched on to as kids, and where is the drive to bring this story into the preseant day, like have Cobra be a leader among today's terrorist groups or threaten the world with Nukes or global destabilization of some sort? Nano-mites?? That's the best you could do?? But it’s an okay comic adaptation. We’ll just have to wait and see what the movie is like. Oh, and no “Knowing is half the battle” reference lines?? Isn't that a pretty big opportunity to miss?? That’s weird…

2.5/5

Deceptisean