Creators: Joshua Williamson, Tom Reilly, Jordie Bellaire
Story: Duke is leading the G.I. Joe team on some training exercises - Clutch, Stalker, Cover Girl, Rock 'n Roll and the Baroness, while giving a bit of background on each. The Baroness does struggle working with the crew and Duke feels they are not ready yet. In Springfield, Destro shows off his newest gun to Cobra Commander who is very impressed with it. In Abu Dhabi, G.I. Joe agent Risk (the one missing a part of his left pinkie) beats up some people and tells them not to sell to M.A.R.S. Industries. Back at the Pit, Hawk and Duke talk it over on what it means to be a leader and what the team needs. They then get their first mission; to retrieve a piece of Cybertronian tech while at the same time Cobra is going after it. While the Joes are retrieving the tech, they come under attack by Cobra forces, who seem to have them outgunned and out-technologized with their new laser rifles.
Writing: While this is a culmination of a few mini-series coming together (Duke, Cobra Commander and Destro), none of those are actually required to understand what is going on (though they do add a lot of details). I also enjoyed the mix up, with the Baroness being on the Joe team. We still get some tie-ins with the overall shared Energon Universe too. And there are the little things too, that make this nice - quick bios on each Joe member, them throwing barbs at each other, Clutch designing a VAMP [Multi-Purpose Attack Vehicle], and Stalker and the Baroness fluently trash talking in Russian. Williamson does a good job of keeping the story going.
Art: The art is excellent, and the opening scene is nice with the training mission, showing a lot of action to begin with. We also get some good action at the end as well. Like the writing, there are the little things too that make this nice, like seeing the H.I.S.S. tanks, the F.A.N.G. and Clutch drawing out the VAMP. We also get some more hints that Cobra Commander is more than what he seems. The colors work well too, and the sunset scene with Duke and Hawk does it well. However with the scenes in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, those colors are all yellow and purple and took away from what was going on.
Overall: A strong first issue to the new G.I. Joe series. For those that have been keeping up with the mini-series that came prior to this, it's a nice pay off to see everything coming together, though new readers can easily pick this up as well and not feel completely lost. I do feel some scenes took away from the story, though I know we'll know what's going on later with those. There are a lot of throwbacks to previous incarnations of G.I. Joe, like Springfield and blue-lasers. The first issue ends with a great cliffhanger that makes you want to pick up the next issue right away!
