Some Crazy @#$% Is Happening in IDW’s G.I. Joe Comics

?This past Wednesday, some crazy shit went down in IDW’s G.I. Joe: Cobra #12. It’s crazy enough that I’m putting it after the jump, in case you haven’t read it yet, or plan to read it, or are an extremely sensitive Joe fan.

Cobra Commander is dead.

Shot through the head. Dead dead. This begins the Cobra Civil War arc, where Destro, Baroness, Major Bludd and a few players yet to be named vie to see who gets control of Cobra. I think this is awesome, and let me tell you why.

I don’t know if you’ve been reading IDW’s new Joe series, but I have a little, thanks to G.I. Joe artist and friend of Topless Robot S.L. Gallant. It’s pretty awesome. Yes, it’s started over from the Marvel series, but that means they’ve gotten rid of a lot of the clutter and have been able to make the characters more Resolute style (i.e., smarter, less silly, awesomer). Really, at the part I’ve read (I’m pretty behind), Joe is still trying to figure out what the hell Cobra is. Frankly, the best way I can put the comics is the badassery of G.I. Joe Resolute, but with the depth of the old Hama Marvel comics. If you’re a Joe fan, I don’t know why you’re not picking them up.

Anyways, Cobra Commander of the comics is not the Cobra Commander we’ve known — he’s a lot of subtle and insidious and mysterious. His death isn’t infuriating, it just sets up a really cool dynamic at Cobra that I’m genuinely anxious to read about. There’s a lot more spoileriffic details over at the USA Today article that announced the news, but here’s the good stuff:

? Cobra Commander might not be a person as much as a position. Hell, the Cobra Commander shown so far might not even be the first.
? Serpentor will be appearing, but not as a weird DNA mash-up. He’ll be a leader of a religious cult and Cobra’s “kingmaker,” which sounds pretty cool, in all honesty.
? You know who killed Cobra Commander? Chuckles. Who had joined Cobra as an undercover agent. This is totally fucking awesome on several levels.

So anyways, that’s the deal. Seriously, I can heartily recommend both G.I. Joe and G.I. Joe: Cobra — I’m hardly the world’s biggest Joe fan, but I think they’re both outstanding. You might want to give them a shot.