 G.I. JOE: Special Missions #1
That Sinking Feeling
Cover Date: December, 1986
Writer: Larry Hama
Art: Herb Trimpe
Colors: Bob Sharon
Letters: Phil Felix
Editor: Don Daley & Bob Harras
Editor-in-chief: Jim Shooter
| Summary: Somewhere in the Baltic Sea, an October Guard helicopter carrying Colonel Brekhov and Daina flys over the Swedish trawler Christina. Daina thinks it certainly is a fishing boat, but Brekhov disagrees. Why isn't the deack awash with fish. He thinks the only fish they are interested in was "made by General Dynamics at the Groton Shipyards." Brekhov's suspicions aren't unfounded. On the bridge of the Christina are Cutter and Torpedo, identifying the October Guard's 'copter. In the ship's galley, Shipwreck is cooking breakfast and is impressed that the Joes' Russian equivalents have found them already. Shipwreck's parrot meanwhile sings an old sea song about Shipwreck's cooking talents. On the deck of the ship, Deep Six and Wet-Suit make certain that their cargo is covered by a tarp, remaining unseen by the Russians.
As the copter makes another pass, Brekhov finds Deep Six's face in to a catalog of dossiers on known intelligence operatives. Now he knows the Joes are on board. He guesses they must be here to rescue the disabled American sub rumored to be at the bottom of the Baltic. On the Christina, Torpedo picks up three aircraft coming from the North. The Russians see them as well: three Cobra FANG copters, one piloted by the Baroness. They fire on the Russian copter, and after a brief dogfight, two of the FANGs are destroyed, and the Russians' and Baroness' copters are damaged. The enemies limp back to their respective vessels. Back on the Christina, the Joes uncover their cargo -- a SHARC flying submarine. Deep Six suits up, gets onboard and heads for the bottom of the sea.
Ten nautical miles to the South, Brekhov and Daina's copter reach the Russian ship Udaloy, commanded by Captain Bulgakov and carrying the rest of the October Guard. Daina brings the copter in for a crash landing, and Brekhov rushes to tell Bulgakov what they've found. He suggests they salvage the sub, but Bulgakov is reluctant. "You are too cautious, Bulgakov," Brekhov says. "That's why you never got promoted to Admiral."
Ten miles North, the Baroness ditches the FANG in the ocean and is rescued by a Cobra hydrofoil carrying Firefly and a team of Eels. They plan to hold off the Russians and Americans until Cobra's salvage sub arrives.
Back at the Christina, Deep Six is radioing Cutter that he will commence his video transmission once he makes contact with the target. The Udaloy arrives, and Bulgakov tells them they are in restricted Soviet waters. Cutter bluffs them, pretending to speak Swedish, until Deep Six starts transmitting his video images of the downed American sub. On the hidden side of the Russian ship, Horrorshow and Daina dive down to splice into the commo-cable between the SHARC and the Christina, allowing them to intercept the Joes' transmission. Meanwhile, the Cobra hydrofoil arrives, and the Baroness asks the Joes to unite with Cobra against their common foe. Of course, it's all a distraction to allow the Cobra Eels to dive underwater and board the Russian ship.
Back on the Udaloy, Brekhov and Bulgakov pick up the video feed from the SHARC and see the sub. Their sound probes confirm the sounds of an American sub. The Eels have already boarded the ship and overhear the confirmaion of the sub. They use satchel charges to destroy the Russians' heavy armaments, starting a firefight on the ship. Meanwhile, Daina manages to get onboard the Cobra hydrofoil. The Baroness kicks her overboard, but not before the Russian destroys the hydrofoil's controls. The wheel and throttle are frozen and they're headed straight for the Udaloy.
On the Christina, Cutter tells Torpedo and Wet-Suit it's time to suit up and hit the water. "Skyhook's on schedule?" Deep Six asks. "Affirmative." Deep below, Horrorshow reaches the sea floor to find the SHARC empty, and a VCR connected to the Joes' commo-cable. Before he can find out what's going on, Deep Six sneaks up on him and whacks him in the head with a pipe wrench.
On the surface, Bulgakov tries to take evasive manuevers to avoid colliding with the hydrofoil, but it's too late. As the ships crash, the Baroness, Firefly and the Eels board the Russian ship, starting another firefight. As the battle goes on, Torpedo and Wet-Suit board the ship and reach the bridge, but Bulgakov doesn't seem surprised to see them: "Mr. Torpedo! And Mr. Wet-Suit! Everything is on schedule?" "To the second," Torpedo says. "Time to strap on your harness..."
As the Russians and Cobras reach a stalemate, the Cobra sub surfaces. Destro emerges with a warning: "There is no downed American submarine! Thes was all a fabrication perpetrated by the G.I. Joe team!" Daina wants to shoot Destro where he stands, but Brekhov hears him out. Destro explains that the video was pre-recorded and the sound was supplied by a simulator torpedo used for training. Brekhov asks why they did it. "He's the reason," Destro shouts, pointing to Bulgakov, who is now standing atop the Udaloy's bridge, wearing a harness with some kind of balloon attached to it. "Quite correct," Bulgakov says. "Old party hard-liner Bulgakov turns out to be a defector!" He explains that his wife, too was a loyal party member. But when she learned that her husband would never be promoted past captain because she was a Jew, she stopped wanting to live. Bulgakov's party loyalty to the party died with her. As he speaks, a C-130 Army transport plane swoops in low, and grabs onto the line connected to the balloon, yanking Bulgakov into the air. The sub rumor was just a distraction to extract the Captain. On the plane, Wild Bill is piloting: "Some mission, eh Hawk? The Joes never fired a shot!" "That's what I call a perfect mission, Wild Bill," Hawk says with a grin. Roadblock and Airborne reel in Bulgakov into the cargo bay and welcome him aboard. Roadblock notes that that kind of extraction can be jolting. "I found the experience... quite uplifting!"
As the Joes and the October Guard discard their prisoners overboard, Shipwreck thinks its time to celebrate: "I think this calls for a nice frosty round of Yo-Jo Cola!"
| Review: G.I. Joe Special Missions is a good indication of just how popular G.I. Joe was in the mid-1980s. Many comic books never last past 50 issues, and fewer still are popular enough to warrant a spin-off series. The series starts off as a bi-monthly series, but will prove popular enough to be published monthly.
The story is one of G.I. Joe's smartest, and like the rest of the series, it tends to be more realistic from a military standpoint. It's fun to read the story and try to figure out what's really going on. It at first seems that each group is outwitting each other, but in the end we discover the Joes are pulling off the biggest scam of all. It's also a good sign that Special Missions will sometimes be a bit deeper than the regular Joe series when we discover the reason for Bulgakov's defection. It also shows that Larry Hama would love to be able to make G.I. Joe a more serious comic book.
Despite the "seriousness" mentioned above, this is still G.I. Joe, so it has it's fun moments, too. This issue shows us the first and only significant appearance of Shipwreck's parrot (creatively named "Polly" in the cartoon series). After his helicopter crashes, Brekhov complains, "Bah! I'd just got rid of that burning cockpit smell on my uniform left over from the Afghanistan debacle!" nicely tying the story from Yearbook #2 to the rest of the series. Also very funny is Cutter's very poor attempt at speaking Swedish: "No smorgasbord saab turbo!"
One problem with the story is wondering why Brekhov didn't just shoot Bulgakov immediately upon learning he was defecting. True, the transport plane's approach didn't give him much time, but I don't think a loyal Soviet like Brekhov would think twice about shooting a traitor. Another question is whether or not Bulgakov could be yanked away by a plane without bring hurt. The Joes call it a STABO (stabilized body extraction) rig, so it may be an actual piece of military equipment, but it sure looks like it'd dislocate someone's arms... at least! "That Sinking Feeling" is a smart, entertaining story and a great start to the Special Missions series.
| Reprinted in: - Action Force #5 & #6 (April 4th & 11th, 1987). A Marvel UK series featuring the UK's version of G.I. Joe reprints this story in two parts, alongside an original story. All references to "G.I. Joe" were changed to say "Action Force".
- G.I. JOE: Special Missions (1988). A trade paperback from Marvel Comics collecting issues #1-4, along with the back-up story from G.I. JOE #50.
- G.I. JOE: Special Missions, Volume 1 (July 2010). A trade paperback from IDW Publishing collecting issues #1-7.
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