Josh Williamson and Tom Reilly haven’t been pulling any punches during the “Dreadnok War” storyline in G.I. Joe. Duke and Cobra Commander have been caught in explosions, forced to race for their lives and deal with the massive menace that is Road Pig…and now they find themselves at the center of a funeral pyre as the Dreadnoks intend to burn them alive. Simply put: it sucks to be these guys right now.
However, Duke is hellbent on getting answers out of the Commander about Energon (and by extension, the Transformers), so he accepts a challenge from the Dreadnok Buzzer. If Duke beats Buzzer in a fight, he can take the Commander and go free. If not, they’ll both die as scheduled. Making things worse, Buzzer’s fellow Dreadnok Torch has lit the ground around them on fire. To recap: Duke is wounded and fighting to save his enemy from a maniac with a chainsaw while trapped in a ring of fire.
That’s the exact kind of high stakes that make G.I. Joe #16 such a fun read, and it doesn’t hurt that Reilly keeps bringing his A-game to the art duties. The battle between Duke and Ripper gets fairly brutal, especially when you factor the chainsaw into the mix; it leaves a nasty wound across Duke’s back that Jordie Bellaire renders in bright, bloody red to highlight what the G.I. Joe leader is going through. Duke isn’t the only person who gets in on the action, as the back half of the issue features a battle that takes up an entire two pages and feels like the creative team dug out their G.I. Joe figures to re-enact it. For the record, that’s a good thing!
Strangely enough, it isn’t Duke who gets the best fight scenes, but General Hawk. It’s a genuine surprise, as Hawk’s been mostly mission support up to this point. Yet Reilly still infuses these scenes with plenty of motion and impact, showing that Hawk is speedy on his feet and extremely deadly with a gun. Given the trend of breaking up each major story arc with a standalone issue, this moment only makes me want a solo story focused on Hawk’s exploits.
Williamson uses the action to reveal character, whether it’s a hero or a villain in the spotlight. For Duke, saving Cobra Commander isn’t just about getting answers to the mysteries of Energon but the right thing to do – both in bringing a terrorist to justice and stopping him from being brutally murdered. For Destro, Hawk’s escape reveals that he may need the Commander more than he thinks. And for the Commander, there’s no situation or person he won’t exploit to stay on top. The Dreadnoks end up finding this out the hard way in a page that feels less like a G.I. Joe comic and more like the beginning of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film.
G.I. Joe #16 manages to pack panel to panel action and character moments into every page, as the Dreadnok War nears its end. Next year, that end will arrive – and judging from what future issues are bringing to the table, it’s gonna be one to watch out for.
