Wednesday is Comic Day!

Writer: Larry Hama Artists: Tom Feister and Mike Hawthorne Publisher: IDW Price: #3.99

No one knows G.I. Joe better than Larry Hama. He wrote the majority of the original comic book series, which started in the early 1980s and ran for 155 issues. There have been a few attempts at restarting G.I. Joe, with mixed results, and there are three new series starting. One of those is G.I. Joe: Origins. The purpose of this series is to look backwards at how the group was formed and the characters became who they are.

This first exciting issue introduces us to Scarlet, Duke, Hawk, Stalker, and Snake-eyes. These are also the characters that will be prominent in the upcoming live action G.I. Joe film. Larry Hama brings in a good understanding of how the military works and talks, giving the book a feel of authenticity. The story is updated to be contemporary, even including a character badly wounded by an IED, in Iraq. Back in 1983, it was reasonable to put a lot of the character origins (i.e. Snake-eyes) in the Vietnam war. That obviously isn't feasible, today.

This is a great first issue. The only thing that detracts from it is that for some reason the book has two artists. Their character styles are not dissimilar, but their inking styles are different enough to be a little distracting. I was planning on following this book in TPB format, but now I don't know if I can wait 6 months to read the next part of the story.