Joe
Triumphs!
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Cover Date:
January, 1984
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| Scripter: Larry Hama |
Penciler: Mike Vosburg
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Inker: Jon
D'Agostino
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| Letterer: Rick Parker |
Colorist: George
Roussos
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Editor: Linda Grant
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Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
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Summary:
On the heavy equipment level of G.I. Joe headquarters,
The Pit, the Joes are building a pre-fab fortress. They wonder why
they're
doing it, but they decide orders are orders. Doc and Snow Job walk by,
pushing a hospital bed carrying the Baroness, still covered in bandages
and unconscious. Hawk ordered the Baroness brought from the Bethesda
hospital
burn unit to The Pit. Gung-Ho asks if they have the Baroness in his
cajun
accent. Snow Job asks Doc why Gung-Ho turns his cajun accent "on and
off
like a faucet." Doc answers him back in the same cajun accent. "I give
up," says Snow Job.
Meanwhile, Hawk, General Flagg and Stalker interrogate
their Cobra prisoner,
Scar-Face. Scar-Face reveals that he's been infected with a virus by
Dr.
Venom against his will. He figures he's got a chance to live with the
Joes,
so why not tell them everything? Hawk suspects that Cobra's plan isn't
to infect all the Joes, but to cause quarantine procedures to be
implemented.
They would be highly visible to the outside world and Cobra could
pinpoint
where The Pit is located. General Flagg suspects Hawk has a plan. He
has
decided to let Cobra think that the Motor Pool building covering The
Pit
is the actual headquarters. Cobra will destroy the Motor Pool and not
even
know that the real Pit is intact. Later, Cobra Commander and Destro
scan
the recent satellite photos and find the Motor Pool at Fort Wadsworth
is
being quarantined. They plan to tell Dr. Venom about the planned
assault.
Venom is at his private lab hidden in an old abandoned
warehouse on
a wharf near the old Brooklyn Navy Yard. On the roof of the warehouse,
peering through the skylight are Kwinn and Snake-Eyes. They smash
through
the skylight (like Batman) and Kwinn grabs Venom, ready to exact his
vengeance.
Suddenly, several Cobra helicopters arrive filled with troops.
Back at Fort Wadsworth, the Joes are preparing for
Cobra's attack. To
keep their existence hidden from their neighbors at the Army Chaplain's
Assistant's School, they send them on a religious retreat in San
Francisco,
by bus! Meanwhile, the Joes are circling ambulances around the Pit,
"like
wagon trains," Breaker notes. Outside, Short Fuse and Tripwire are
setting
up mines under the ambulances The Dragonfly helicopter arrives piloted
by Wild Bill, carrying Major Bludd. He's cuffed to the Motor Pool
office's
radiator.
Back at Venom's lab, the Cobra soldiers don't get "the
proper recognition
signal" and realize the lab's been taken by an "unknown element." The
soldiers
attack and Kwinn only has Venom's luger pistol to defend themselves.
Snake-Eyes
spots Venom's new SNAKE battle armor, but once inside Venom reveals it
can control whoever is wearing it. He forces Snake-Eyes to disarm
Kwinn.
Destro and Cobra Commander arrive, and Kwinn is put inside the armor.
They
will be part of the assault on The Pit.
Back at The Pit, Doc tells General Flagg that the
Baroness should never
have been moved to The Pit. Flagg tells him he'll take full
responsibility.
Doc and Cover Girl bring the Baroness up to the fortress on the garage
level.Hawk explains that they will use the hydraulic lifts to push the
fortress up through the floor of the Motor Pool to fool Cobra. Clutch
and
Breaker load Scar-Face and Major Bludd (who claims to recognize
Scar-Face
by his smell) onto the Vamp to allow the fortress to be pushed into the
Motor Pool. They spot Cobra FANG helicopters approaching and head back
for the garage, just as the fortress is rising. Breaker hopes the
fortress
will be in place by the time they get into the garage, especially since
the FANGs just fired air-to-ground missles at the motor pool building.
"Whay worry about it, Breaker?" Clutch says, "You won't feel a thing
either
way." They just make it and the missles hit their target, destroying
the
Motor Pool, but the fortress beneath is soon revealed. The Cobras begin
the attack and the fortress' defenses open fire. The Cobra soldiers
reach
the ambulances, wondering if the Joes think the ambulances will stop
them.
The mines detonate and the troops have heavy casualties. Destro sends
in
the HISS tanks, but the Joes send out the robotic PAC/RAT weapons.
As the battle rages, Doc is inside the fortress
detention cell with
Major Bludd, Scar-Face and the unconscious Baroness. Bludd and
Scar-Face
try to get him upset by pointing out the Joes leave him here while they
"garner all the glory." Scar-Face suspects he likes it where it's safe.
Doc doesn't buy it: "Awww, you can do better than that! I've been
called
a whole lot worse by a lot better..."
Outside, the PAC/RATs neutralize the HISS tanks. Venom
sends in the
SNAKE battle armor, with Snake-Eyes and Kwinn inside. Cobra Commander
worries
that they may overcome the suits and attack the HISS tanks. Venom tells
him the armor is programmed to not attack anything in Cobra blue, like
the tanks. Kwinn realizes that the suits are vulnerable to each other.
Using the same mental strength he used to defeat Venom's Brain-Wave
Scanner,
he overcomes the suit and destroys the restraining locks on Kwinn's
suit.
He escapes and picks up a half-destroyed PAC/RAT, using its gun to
disable
Venom's tank and killing the driver. Meanwhile, the second wave of HISS
tanks attacks the Joes' fortress, but Ace and Wild Bill arrive in the
Skystriker
and Dragonfly and attack the tanks. Hawk orders the Joe fighting
vehicles
to attck Cobras forces. On the battlefield, Kwinn grabs Venom. He tells
him he once promised that he would "carve" the "weasel spirit" from
Venom.
He pulls out a grenade, intending to kill Venom.
Inside the fortress, a Cobra demolitions specialist
lands his FANG on
the roof of the fortress and sets some explosives. In the holding cell,
Doc is distracted by the FANG's noise on the roof and gets knocked out
by Major Bludd, who is still handcuffed to the bars. He gets the keys
and
unlocks himself. He decides Scar-Face is less valuable than the
Baroness
and the FANG will only carry two people. General Flagg appears, aiming
his pistol at Bludd. Scar-Face kicks the pistol from Flagg's hand,
hoping
that Bludd will let him go. Bludd catches the pistol and fires, hitting
Flagg in the chest. With Doc and Flagg out cold, Bludd escapes with the
Baroness, leaving Scar-Face behind. Scar-Face yells that he saved
Bludd's
life: "Don't that mean anything?!" Bludd promises to write a poem about
him, but can still only carry the Baroness on the FANG. Bludd gets to
the
roof and kills the Cobra demolitions man, escaping in the FANG copter
with
the Baroness.
Back outside, Kwinn is about to kill Venom when he
realizes it would
be wrong to kill Venom. He's lied to himself. "You cannot fight the
weasel
in others until you conquer him within..." He gives Venom back his
life,
turning his back to leave. Clutch and Breaker show up in the VAMP and
find
Snake-Eyes. Back in the fortress, Doc tries to get Flagg to safety. He
has to leave Scar-Face behind since Bludd took the keys to unlock him.
As Kwinn walks away from Venom, the scientist tells him not to turn his
back on him. He pulls out his pistol and fires two bullets into Kwinn's
back. Venom taunts the wounded Kwinn:
"So. What have you got to say
now? No more mumbo-jumbo aphorisms about
'weasel spirits'? No last lunge to try to strangle me with your last
breath?"
Kwinn answers, "No. There is
no anger left in me, Venom. I've made my
peace with the weasel. Kwinn will not harm you while he
lives--that--I--pr--promise..."
Clutch, Breaker and Snake-Eyes run to help Kwinn, but
it's too late.
Kwinn falls to the ground, dead. Snake-Eyes is shaken, but Clutch sees
Kwinn is still holding something: "What's that in his right hand? Looks
like a grenade!" As the grenade falls from Kwinn's lifeless hand, Venom
mutters, "...fallen from a dead man's hand--" The grenade explodes as
Snake-Eyes
knocks his fellow Joes to the ground. The explosion kills Dr. Venom.
Doc escapes the fortress as the Cobra explosives go off,
destroying
the base. Doc tries to save Flagg, but "I couldn't stop the
bleeding...General
Flagg is dead!"
The Cobra forces retreat, believing they have destroyed
G.I. Joe headquarters.
The Joes gather and celebrate. Hawk notes that everyone is accounted
for
except Breaker, Doc, Clutch and Snake-Eyes. They arrive in the jeep.
Hawk
wonders why they don't look happy. They won a major victory. He changes
his mind when Snake-Eyes holds out Kwinn's weasel skull necklace and
Doc
holds out General Flagg's dog tags.
END.
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Commentary:
"Joe Triumphs" is one of the best issues of
the early
series. Oddly, the battle scenes aren't as interesting as the character
interactions. The issue is also an important one, in that it "kills
off"
most of the non-Hasbro recurring characters from the series: General
Flagg,
Kwinn, Dr. Venom and Scar-Face. To put it more cynically, these
characters'
deaths make room for the new characters that will soon appear. When
Duke
appears in the next few issues, he will kind of take over Hawk's
position
on the team, putting Hawk's job roughly equal to General Flagg's. Cobra
will soon get several new characters as well.
Again, the best scenes here are the character scenes.
General Flagg's
last appearance wraps up his character as a man who isn't exactly a
military
leader. He's a good man who knows the kind of people to put on the
team,
but when Hawk explains his plans, Flagg shows that he's not tactician.
He lets Hawk deal with the battle plans. Major Bludd is shown to be a
man
with no honor whatsoever. When he escapes his cell, he leaves Scar-Face
to die, even though the courier saved his life. He shoots the Cobra
bomber
in the back and steals his helicopter. To quote Cobra Commander, he has
"no scruples." Like most of his scenes in the series, Scar-Face's death
is rather pointless and terribly "unlucky."
The scene at the end of the issue where Kwinn finally
confronts Dr.
Venom after trying to get his revenge since issue #12 is honestly one
of
the best of the series. Venom's defenses fail one-by-one until he again
becomes a coward when Kwinn grabs him by the collar, ready to make him
"swallow" a grenade. Kwinn's "weasel aphorisms" lead him to realize
that
if he kills Venom, he'll be just as bad as he will. When Kwinn says "I
have lied to myself," he comes to terms with his conflicting status as
an honorable man and a mercenary. Instead of exacting his
vengeance,
he gives Venom his life back. Venom is possibly the most reprehensible
of Cobras. He acts like a coward until he can shoot Kwinn in the back.
Venom taunts Kwinn, tired of his moralizing. Though Venom kills Kwinn,
he drops a grenade from his dead hand. Somehow winning back himself,
and
still getting his revenge. In the end, Kwinn becomes a tragic figure,
only
redeeming himself in his own death. This is the first of two times when
Snake-Eyes will watch a friend be gunned down by an enemy. The same
happens
to Storm Shadow, years later.
The last panel is a powerful and subtle one. The picture
shows Snake-Eyes'
hand and Doc's hand, both clutching the dead men's personal affects.
The
only problem occurs in the nest couple of issues. Since #19 ends a long
storyline, the next two issues are "fillers" and don't even mention
this
issue's events. Issue #22 will serve as the epilogue for this story and
the prologue for the next storyline.
A few other comments: Larry Hama puts some of the
stranger Joe vehicles and playsets to use in
this issue. The pre-fab fortress is actually a clever way to use
Hasbro's
G.I. Joe command center. The toy is supposed to be a headquarters, but
the series already has one, The Pit. The fortress was also the basis
for
the Joes' massive headquarters building in the cartoon series. The
SNAKE
armor gets a new "mind control" ability. In a funny scene, the Joes
send the chaplain's assistants on a retreat.
Once again, we see that the other people on the base don't actually
know
about the Joes. Although, logically, the battle doesn't hold up to much
scrutiny. The idea that an invasion force can attack Staten Island with
on the Joes noticing. Once the Cobras arrive, the only building in Fort
Wadsworth seems to be the Motor Pool.
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