Creators: Dan Watters, Pye Parr, Pierluigi Casolino
Story: Matt Trakker, trying to escape from the US military, is captured and brought in to see General Flagg. Meanwhile, Vanessa Warfield and Sly Rax both interrogate individuals in their own way. Trakker lets loose on Flagg what Miles Mayhem is up to and how unstable he is and how Mayhem framed Trakker and stole his Mobile Armored Strike Kommand technology. In Alaska, Mayhem finds the third person who had interacted with an alien device he wants. Trakker says he wanted to be captured because he knows Mayhem has an agent nearby, who is the Private in the room. Both he and Trakker activate their masks and duke it out, with General Flagg and Trakker taking down the Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem (V.E.N.O.M.) agent. While Flagg offers Trakker a position within G.I. Joe, he declines and escapes with his flying car, the Thunderhawk. Mayem, Rax, and Warfield do find an alien device.
Writing: Being the first issue and helping establish where this is going to take place in the Energon Universe, this first issue is fairly dialogue heavy. Matt Trakker really lays down what has happened before this issue to get us to this place and tentatively what Miles Mayhem plans to do. This means we get a lot of information up front and not quite as much action as one would expect.
Art: Art is pretty good. One interesting bit is the redesign on the mask; they aren't actually helmets they wear but are miniaturized helmets that fit behind the ear and expand to cover the head. While a lot of the issue is just a few people sitting around talking, when there is some action, it hits pretty good.
Overall: While not the most exciting first issue of an action series, MASK does a good job establishing what is going to be happening overall in the series. We get a lot of information dumped onto us but it not only sets the stage for us but also establishes history for some of these characters. It will be interesting to see where this first story arc will bring us.
