GI Joe Ongoing Comic from Skybound

[nacho]

GI Joe #1 Launches From Skybound/Image Comics in November 2024 (bleedingcool.com)

While I haven't read the initial Skybound minis yet, I hear they're quite good. I'm anxious to read their take since the IDW-verse Joe titles devolved into a hot mess I could no longer support. I'm still skeptical of the shared universe with TF, as that went very poorly for IDW, but Kirkman knows how to tell a compelling story, and he loves this franchise, so I assume he'll be keeping a watchful eye on things.

Just looking at this pic, I feel like I know where the toy team is going to be drawing a lot of inspiration from when it comes to new Classified characters and decos. Just the three upfront... the blonde Cobra, the Baroness/Chameleon with the star on the chest, and the Indian Fed with a shotgun... I'll bet we get figs of two out of three within a year.

We pretty much know that these comics are the source of the Cobra La revival. I just hope the new characters are fun and organic, not just "diverse" for the sake of virtue signaling (cue Cartman as Dianne Kennedy: "Put a chic in it and make her gay!..... and lame!") SW was ruined by that stuff, but it seems Skybound is off to a good start. Fingers crossed.

 

[NSA]

How have they changed things up? I dont think I've read a Joe comic since the Marvel days. Are they worth checking out?

 

[nacho]

The IDW material was really strong the first couple of years (COBRA series starring Chuckles was phenomenal, made him into a legit fan-favorite). Then it petered out when they hired some woke writers and really sub-standard artists. They just kept relaunching and couldn't get an ongoing past 6-8 issues. Scarlett got a mini and it was canceled after the first issue. Then they got into the shared universe with all hasbro properties (TF, Rom, Mask, Visionaries, Micronauts...) and it was a colossal clusterfuck. It mercifully died and IDW lost the licenses to Skybound.

For the moment, Skybound seems to be doing well. Haven't read it yet, but the TF series was setting sales records, beating out the best selling titles from Marvel and DC, and the Duke & CoCo miniseries have both been well received. And there are expectations that this new ongoing Joe title will sell better than Transformers. I'm still not thrilled they jumped back into a shared universe with TF, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Even the Hama/Marvel-continuity title seems to be doing better at Skybound, as they have a much improved artist to the crew IDW was using. So fingers crossed that they can keep the quality up for a while.

 

[NSA]

It seems I missed a lot! I didnt realize they jumped through so many iterations..

Go woke, go broke seems to be true no matter the industry

 

[nacho]

Finally found time to work on my massive comic reading backlog, and I decided to start with the Energon Universe. I read the first 18 issues of Void Rivals, the first 18 issues of Transformers, and the four 5-issue Joe miniseries (Duke, CoCo, Scarlett, and Destro).

I have to say, they all exceeded my expectations by a mile. IDW's prior combined universe was such a shitshow, I couldn't imagine anyone being able to pull it off without making a huge, unrecognizable mess of it. Yet Skybound is doing a masterful job.

Spoiler-free thoughts:

- Void Rivals - reminds me of BKV's "Saga" series if anyone has read that. It takes place in space and feels kinda like TF Season 3 (post-movie), but humanoids are the main protagonists.

- Transformers - very '84 S1 reminiscent; It's a new take yet very familiar all at once. I'll leave it at that to keep from spoiling anything, but it's soooooo well done.

-GI Joe minis:
- Duke is great action with a tangential TF tie-in (but TFs don't dominate the book); sets up a lot of stuff to come in a great way with some twists.
- CoCo sorts out his traditional origin contradictions and makes a compelling narrative out of it better than any prior iteration.
- Scarlett was entertaining but my least favorite of them all. Lots of ninjas, female writer, strays further from traditional lore than the others. Worth reading, but the weakest of the lot.
- Destro... involves lots of the other Cobra hierarchy, lots of family lore, lots of setup for the upcoming main series.

All of them involve Energon, all of them cross over tangentially, but they keep the flavor of the two major franchises without getting the chocolate and peanutbutter intertwined in horrible ways. And Void Rivals has known characters in it, but the story is 100% uniquely its own thing, while being believable in the context of this shared universe.

And there are a CRAPLOAD of easter eggs from the cartoons and prior lore. It's clear that the people writing it love the properties in much the same ways we do. I really can't recommend it enough. Joe and TF fiction hasn't been this good in... ever? I can't wait to keep reading the remainder of what's been published so far.

EDIT: Strong rumor that Kirkman is going to announce new animated series at SDCC based on these titles... Damn that would be cool...

EDIT 2.0:

 

[nacho]

Just announced today, Kirkman himself is going to be writing the TF comic starting with issue #25. As good as the current series is, it will likely even be better. Void Rivals that he is currently writing is fantastic, and both of his previous major properties, Invincible and Walking Dead, were incredibly compelling. So he'll be writing 2/3 of the Energon Universe.

I hope you guys read these soon!

(PM me if you need help finding them)