“The Devil made me review it”
Two more offerings from Devil’s Due
SHEENA: Queen of the Jungle #4
Writers: Steven E De Souza, Robert Rodi
Artists: Matt Merhoff, Bob Pedroza, Wes Dzioba
G.I.JOE #31
Writer: Mark Powers
Artists: Mike Bear, Mike Shoynet
DDP; $3.50 USD Reviewed by Steve Parkes
Sheena and G.I.Joe take me back to the sort of comics my friends were reading a when we were kids. I didn’t read them so much, going more for the superhero comics – the geek amongst geeks. G.I.Joe in particular was a favourite with the armed forces wannabes from school. Both have been refreshed by Devil’s Due. In the case of Sheena, the reboot is by Die Hard screenwriter Steve De Souza. (Sheena was created by Will Eisner & S M Iger in 1937.) De Souza has Sheena and her allies, both human and animal, set in the fictional country of Val Verde, a dictatorship with almost as much political corruption as there is of that jungle Sheena likes so much. The story has unfolded in flashbacks and contemporary narrative. In the flashbacks we’ve learned that some years earlier businessman Harrison Cardwell moved there to avoid corporate regulations, and he made illicit deals with the dictator. His son objects to these practices and attempts to leave with his family (including a daughter, nudge nudge), but their plane crashes…Meanwhile, in the present, new Cardwell Industries CEO Laura Jefferies, who’s been officially appointed Cardwell’s successor, is pursuing Sheena and an environmentalist friend. Of course, it’s important to her that Caldwell continues to think he has no blood heirs left…Well, that’s two paragraphs in a row I’ve finished with the triple-dot “cliffhangers”… and that’s pretty much the territory we’re in with Sheena: old school adventure and pulp-intrigue. The art is appropriately clear, strong and sexy, with fairly (but not overly) detailed panels and floral colors. The wordless “montage” about half way through is particularly effective and culminates in a great silhouette shot on page 16.Like Sheena, G.I.Joe is set in precarious times. However unlike Sheena it’s not limited to a small nation - the whole world is in chaos, and even elite commando unit G.I.JOE is looking powerless to stop it. I’m always weary of reading too much into things, but Sheena’s Val Verde setting may just be a loose metaphor for our troubled world state; a little Latin American biosphere in which political, environmental and social analogies can be made. G.I.Joe is more direct: less a metaphor and more an exaggeration, all be it a big one. This is part 7 of a 12 part arc called ‘World War 3’ - so yeah, the stakes are high. The plot leading up to the events here is complicated, but the gist is that international stability is shattered by G.I.Joe’s main antagonists, the paramilitary organisation Cobra. Cobra are led by G.I.Joe’s arch nemesis, the somewhat prosaically named Cobra Commander. He’s been hiding out and managed to rebuild his power base. He sells advanced technology to various rebel and terrorist groups around the world to create anarchy, and then, with US forces largely preoccupied overseas, he and his own forces take over the US. The plot is full of ruses and red herrings, decoys and double-crosses. Actually, there was no double-cross in this issue, but I’m sure one’s on the way, if not a triple-cross. In part 7, G.I.Joe’s commanding officer Joseph Colton is leading the regrouping in the US, while a major section of the team’s main characters are lodged in Israel, where they are confronting Cobra’s elite team The Plague. The team here includes counter-intelligence specialist “Scarlet” (Shana O’Hara), tracking specialist “Spirit” and six-shooter welding Texan “Wild Bill”, the pilot of the team. I could go on, but you get the idea; it’s Hogan’s Heroes roaming free, saving the world one skirmish at a time. The battle between the heroes and the enemy of the month, The Plague, highlights one of the limitations of this kind of war comic format. Occasional death aside, you can’t have your team members getting killed. And if you have a particular enemy line-up, the same problem arises; the main villains of the piece are there for at least the story arc, so we can’t have them getting cut down in any old battle. The result is that any battle between them and the protagonists, despite being dominated by gunfire, ends up being resolved by such actions as a karate kick to the face. I don’t need CNN to tell me that’s not how war usually works.
I may be too cynical. Like Sheena, this comic should be seen as influenced by modern real world concerns, but mostly about good old-fashioned adventure and escapist fun. The dynamic art from Bear and Shoynet, amplified by superb, controlled coloring from Jean-Francois Beaulieu, does its part in that. It’s appropriately dramatic, yet also quite subtle, and has the best facial characterisation I’ve seen recently. It would take something of a war comic enthusiast to throw themselves into the soap opera of G.I.Joe at this point in the story, but if that’s you, you certainly won’t be disappointed visually.
