G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero Pt. 2

Welcome back! Today I'll continue working my way through the first 50-issue chunk of Marvel's 1982-1994 G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero series via Image Comics' G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero Compendium One. As with the half-dozen issues covered in the previous post in what is no doubt going to end up being a very long series, all issues here are written by Larry Hama unless otherwise noted.

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #7 (1983)
Plot by Herb Trimpe

Art by Herb Trimpe and Chic Stone

•Well, it sure looks like this is the end of G.I. Joe ...and their Soviet equivalent, The October Guard. The dozen or so soldiers have thrown down their weapons, they are surrounded by a large contingent of Cobra forces—including a couple of helicopters—and Cobra Commander has just ordered them killed. I mean, the only way out of this particular situation would be if Cobra Commander did something really, really dumb. Like, comic book supervillain dumb.

•Guess what? Rather than having the Joes and Guard gunned down instantly in front of him, the Commander says that he will leave two specialists "to tie up loose ends", since they have "both the skill and imagination to prolong the amusement." 

And so rather than watching his enemies to make sure they are killed, the Commander and all but two of the Cobra soldiers leave with the captured Rought Terrain Vehicle containing the downed experimental aircraft the three teams were chasing. 

Also, I'm no charismatic leader of a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world, but if it were me, I would have left more than two guys to slowly kill a dozen guys; I mean, if the Joes and Guard all rushed the Cobras at once, they might be able to overwhelm them, right...?

Anyway, the two gunmen conveniently wait until the rest of their forces are far away before they begin taking shots at our heroes. "I want to watch them sweat for a little while," one them says, by way of excuse for this.

•Oh, Cobra Commander names the two soldiers he leaves behind, too. They are Rattler and Copperhead. Both are proper nouns that will be familiar to G.I. Joe fans, of course. The Rattler is the name of the Cobra airplane, the toy for which wouldn't be released until 1984. Copperhead is the name of the guy who piloted the Cobra Water Moccasin vehicle. That too was released in 1984, and the Copperhead figure came packaged with the Water Moccasin. 

These guys look like your standard Cobra soldiers, though. Trimpe and/or Hama seem to have just chosen two random snake-related names to give the usually nameless Cobra soldiers here for some reason.

•Clutch saves the day. It turns out he has a hand-held remote control for the guns on the VAMP (Vehicle Attack/Multi-Purpose) hidden on him ("Didn't you guys ever wonder how I fired those things without ever touching 'em?") which he turns on the two Cobra soldiers and kills them in a hail of gunfire.

There's two pages of discussion of what to do next, with options including continuing the Joes vs. Guard fight where they left off before Cobra interrupted, or following orders and contacting Hawk for an evacuation since they have failed in their mission. Stalker and Guard commander Colonel Brekhov come up with a third option: Join forces to take on Cobra and then, when it comes to determining which team gets to keep the prize, well, team leader Stalker suggests "let's cross that bridge when we come to it and hopefully we won't have to burn it down behind us..."

•Scarlett is not completely on board. She calls the Guard "lousy Reds" and announces "I don't wallow with pigs." The ever-sensitive Clutch announces that Scarlett is "just a tad high strung."

•As the two teams clamber aboard the VAMP and the Guard's vehicle, they drive for hours, following a homing device Breaker put in the RTV containing the plane. At one point, they cross the Iranian border and find an Iranian border patrol blocking their path.

"What are you going to do?" one of the Joes asks Stalker. "Promise to give the Shah back?"

"How about asking for room and board at the embassy?" another chimes in. 

There's a brief firefight, during which one of the Joes asks, "Who the heck fired the first shot?", a line I imagine was included to absolve our heroes from initiating an attack on a sovereign country's military (Or at least providing a degree of ambiguity on the matter). Ultimately, the VAMP plows through them, with the Guard vehicle behind them ("Keep going, Amerikanskis! The Oktober Guard will mop up this rabble!"), and we see about a dozen bodies on the ground where the Iranian border patrol stood, several others kneeling and another standing among them.

"Well, so much for the Iranian-American relations..." one of the Joes quips, while one of the Guard responds, "Another example of American imperialist aggression!"

•Yes, it's surreal reading a jocular action scene in which American soldiers gun down Iranian soldiers while we're currently at war with Iran.  

•As the Joes and Guard prepare to assault the Cobra stronghold, Clutch takes a moment to harass Scarlett: "If you want to touch up your eye-shadow, I'll let you use my rear-view mirror--"

She snipes back: What for, exhaust-breath? There's nobody out here worth impressing..."

•The stronghold is full of traps that the Joes must navigate, and the entire sequence reminded me quite a bit of the cartoon.

•There's a four-panel epilogue which puts the entire adventure in a new context. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #8 (1983) 

Written by Herb Trimpe

Art by Herb Trimpe

•Herb Trimpe, pulling triple duty as writer, pencil artist and inker on this issue, has a pretty complicated set-up for what ends up being another done-in-one story. Cobra is operating from a giant, mobile, undersea base, and plan to create a network of such bases all over the world. From these bases, they will launch orbital missiles by the hundreds, each armed with a warhead "poised to strike any place on the planet." Untouchable in their underwater bases and able to attack anywhere they want, Cobra will rule the world...maybe more! For, as Cobra Commander explains, "We will dominate the earth and the sky! It will be our first step in pulling the cosmos itself!"

The United States may yet stop them, though, as they plan to launch a special satellite capable of locating and destroying the underwater bases from space. Therefore Cobra plans to attack and destroy the Kennedy Space Center, space shuttle and satellite included.

•As an adult, I've been curious about Cobra's ideology, as they seem to be founded on and held together by a kind of generic desire to rule the world, rather than any sort of religious faith or deeply-held political beliefs of the sort that animate real world terrorist groups. 

So, a line of dialogue from The Baroness caused me to perk up a bit here. 

During Cobra Commander's presentation to the Cobra leaders, here still just a bunch of guys in cobra uniforms with red face masks and blue helmets, she says, "But, due to fifth columnists and capitalist lackeys within our own ranks, the Americans know that we are here!"

"Capitalist lackeys"...? Is Cobra anti-capitalist? Are they a socialist organization, or...? 

•At the end of the passage, the assembled Cobra members salute the Commander, and rather than the straight arm salute we've seen in earlier issues, here they make a fist and hold it near their hearts. The Baroness, facing them, gives the more familiar straight arm salute back to them.

•At this early point in the toy line's existence, no Cobra vehicles have yet been introduced (The first of them will be released later in 1983, though). So the various vehicles that appear in these comics are still straight from the imagination of the creators. 

Here Trimpe introduces a rather neat-looking vehicle: The Cobra SEA Legs ("SEA" standing for Surprise, Engage and Attack). Seemingly inspired by the Martian vehicles from War of the Worlds or, maybe more likely, the Imperial Walkers from The Empire Strikes Back, these looks like attack subs perched atop tall, thin, mechanical legs that cause them to tower above the Joe vehicles, which they shoot down at.

•This is a particularly action-packed issue. In addition to the fight with the SEA Legs, there's a scene where Hawk stands on the scaffolding holding the shuttle and must shoot down an oncoming missile during the countdown, another in space where the Joes on the shuttle have to deal with Cobra's orbital missile and then the Joes land atop the sea base which is floating at the surface for another fight with Cobra forces.

•The Joes defeat the Cobra soldiers atop the base, and the latter surrender. Meanwhile, Cobra Commander has announced that the base will self-destruct. As the Joes plan to flee in rafts, their prisoners refuse to join them.

"You can shoot us--but we will not leave!" One of them announces, doing the stiff-armed salute and the fist over the chest salute simultaneously. "We serve Cobra Commander to the end! We have failed and will stay to meet our fate!"

See, that's the sort of fanaticism that would seem to need a strongly held ideology to support it, right? 

It also doesn't make any sense in this particular context. Like, if they were prepared to die in service to Cobra, why would they surrender during the fight with the Joes, rather than fighting them to the death?

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #9 (1983)

Written by Steven Grant

Art by Mike Vosburg and Chic Stone

•This issue's story, entitled "The Diplomat", is the first in the series written by someone other than Hama or Trimpe. It's a particularly strong done-in-one, heavy on action movie-style action, while providing perhaps the most compelling portrait of the character of Cobra Commander to date and providing a hint of insight into the various byzantine plots he's always hatching.

•This issue's mission involves a Cobra assassination attempt against Brian Hassell, a state department diplomat involved in talks with the fictional "Persian Gulf nation of Al-Alawi" that, if successful, "could swing Al-Alawi into the U.S. sphere of influence." Stalker and Snake-Eyes are tasked with finding someone who can confirm the plan, while Clutch and Scarlett are assigned to guard Hassell as he makes his way to the talks.

After the briefing, Scarlett approaches Hawk. "Do I have to team up with Clutch?" she asks him. "Isn't there anyone else?"

An angry-looking Hawk, perhaps unaware that Clutch had hit on her during a previous mission and has continued to "rib" her since, responds simply: "You have your orders, soldier."

Sounds like this daring, highly trained special mission force could use an HR department. 

•At one point, Scarlett is wearing a robe over a bikini, as her and Clutch were guarding Hassell at a beach, and is in the passenger seat of a speeding convertible driven by Clutch. They've just rescued the diplomat from a bomb in his hotel room, and are fleeing. 

"Excuse me while I change into my fighting clothes," she says, reaching for a bag, while pointing at a smiling Clutch, "And you keep your eyes on the road!"

She changes off-panel, of course, so two or three panels of Vosburg drawing Scarlett in a bikini are about it for cheesecake in the issue, although even those images aren't that cheesecake-y.

•Stalker and Snake-Eyes follow a lead to what appears to be a brothel in Amsterdam, although if a kid hasn't seen very many movies featuring brothels, I guess they wouldn't recognize it as such.

•There's a bit of a twist to this, as in the two-parter from issues #6 and #7 and, combined with another surprise and Cobra Commanders, it makes for a quite effectively satisfying read. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #10 (1983)

Art by Mike Vosburg and Chic Stone

•I think this issue marks something of a turning point in the series. It introduces the city of Springfield, which will prove important to the G.I. Joe comics for quite a while going forward, as well as the character Billy (although he's not actually named in this particular story). It also provides the first real background on what exactly Cobra is, beyond "the guys that G.I. Joe fight", and their basic modus operandi of infiltrating everyday American society.

This is also one of the last done-in-one stories...although much of what is here will be returned to and followed-up on later. Within a few more issues, the book will start telling extended, serial narratives, what we might now think of as story arcs.

Oh, and this is the last issue to feature the original cast from the first issues. Starting with the next issue, new Joes and new Cobra agents will start getting introduced at a fairly steady clip, as the toy line began expanding rather significantly in 1983, and the first cartoon mini-series dropped that same year (The second one, The Return of Cobra, followed in 1984, with the full series starting in 1985).

•The Baroness takes a trio of Joes captive during a mission in New York City. Scarlett and Zap awake behind bars in a Cobra dungeon with a little boy, who future issues will reveal is named Billy. Scarlett immediately starts tripping balls: "Why is Zap melting like a candle?...My hands...turning into claws! And...bats! Bats! Bats-- --No...gargoyles!"

"Sure has been a lot easier to maintain security around here since Dr. Venom started drugging the prisoners with hallucinogens!" a nearby Cobra guard says to his partner, thus explaining to readers what's going on.

•The third Joe who was captured is Snake-Eyes, and we find him in a lab, strapped into a weird, rather Kirby-esque device which, based on his twisted posture and gritted teeth, must inflict a high degree of pain. The lab belongs to new guy Dr. Venom, a character original to Hama's comics (Cobra mad scientist Doctor Mindbender wouldn't be introduced until 1986). Despite the colorful name, he looks like a more-or-less generic scientist, a middle-aged white guy with a receding hairline, dressed in a shirt and tie under his long white lab coat.

Venom explains the contraption to Cobra Commander and The Baroness at length. Essentially, after it has "amassed a personalized vocabulary of the subjects thinking patterns" and then reversed the pattern, it will allow Venom to "read" Snake-Eyes' mind, projecting his thoughts visually onto a monitor. His plan is to do so in order to find the exact location of G.I. Joe's secret headquarters. 

•Snake-Eyes' time in the machine give readers our first hints of his mysterious origins, including mundane things like his first job and that he attended his school prom as well as traumatic events from his past. Apparently, he uses the latter in an attempt to "block" his own thinking of The Pit under Venom's questioning.

So here we learn of a helicopter explosion that results in his disfigurement, his family having been killed in a car accident and the first intimation that he has trained as a ninja. 

By the way, Snake-Eyes is maskless throughout this whole process, but his face is only shown in silhouette; the white of his gritted teeth the only feature we see. 

•The little boy is able to help Scarlett and Zap escape, showing them how to burn the chemicals out of the water they are given via the heat of the cell's light bulb. He gives them a little tour of Springfield, an entire town that is secretly a front for Cobra.

"It looks so--ordinary!" Scarlett says when they get to the surface and drive around in a hot-wired car. 

"That's the way it used to be around here...real ordinary," Billy responds. "Until the soap people came to town."

I'm going to quote his explanation at length, as this is the first real discussion of where Cobra might have come from:

Yeah, it was one of those pyramid schemes...They got you to sell household cleaning products for extra money, and encouraged you to get others involved.

Weekly "sales meetings" soon escalated into "leadership indoctrination", and pretty soon the ball was rolling beyond control.

They were very convincing. They made it seem "un-American" not to want to get involved.

Anybody who resisted was boycotted by the rest. And by that time the 'rest' was the majority...

Persistent resisters simply disappeared and kids started turning in their parents!

They started building secret back-rooms into all the buildings and lots of underground complexes...

So, Cobra is a money-making pyramid scheme using faux patriotism to recruit members and cult tactics to enforce their compliance, and they managed to take over an entire small American town as their base of operations. It's a pretty paranoid fantasy, one that sounds a little like mid-twentieth century fears regarding Communists infiltrating and taking over America.

Even ten years ago, I would say a whole American city gradually embracing a fascist organization led by a charismatic leader, a movement that uncomfortably echoes the trappings of Nazi Germany was completely unrealistic. 

Today, I know that a good one-third of Americans, and a shocking number of business and political leaders, are either willing to embrace such a movement, or at least tolerate it, if it rewards them with power and/or profits, so I don't know. 

Maybe Larry Hama's G.I. Joe #10 belongs on the shelf with George Orwell's 1984 and Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here as speculative fiction that's become less and less speculative in the era of Trump.

•While Scarlett and Zap attempt to rescue Snake-Eyes from Venom's lab and end up fighting an arcade full of Springfeilders, Snake-Eyes seemingly dies (Just before he does so, though, we see on the mind-reading screen a masked man saying he will explain the secret ninja technique "whereby you may still your breath and heartbeat to the semblance of death itself!")

No sooner is the "dead" Snake-Eyes unstrapped by Dr. Venom than he punches out a Cobra soldier ("THWACK!") and hits Dr. Venom with the butt of a gun ("THOOM!"). Luckily, he seems to have a spare mask on his person, as he then masks back up. Eventually, the three Joes hijack the same weird flying Cobra vehicle that flew them to Springfield to fly them to safety, with Billy electing to stay behind, as he and his family are part the underground resistance there working to thwart Cobra.

•An unlikely series of events, including a storm blocking visibility, the death of their Cobra pilot and Snake-Eyes accidentally shooting out all the navigation equipment, means that the Joes don't actually know where exactly Springfield is. Too bad they didn't ask Billy what state they were in!

•When they come out of the storm clouds and parachute out of the ship, which they aim to crash-land in a nearby body of water, Scarlett lands on top of The Hulk. Well, a guy in a Hulk costume, hired by Marvel for the grand opening of the Bayonne Mall. I believe this is the first time we've seen anything in the series that could only be there if it were a Marvel book. That is, Image, Devil's Due or IDW obviously wouldn't have included those panels.

In the last panel of the issue, we learn that "a Marvel booking agent was nice enough" to loan the Joes bus fare home. 

But when the driver sees Snake-Eyes, he shouts, "Hey! No weirdos on my bus!" 

The fact that Snake-Eyes is drawn with a long gun slung over his shoulder goes unmentioned. 

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #11 (1983) 

Art by Mike Vosburg and Jon D'Agostino

•The 1983 expansion of the toy line is reflected in this issue, wherein the first new Joes are introduced, Destro makes his first appearance (although Hama and Vosburg play coy, keeping his name unspoken and his face off-panel) and a bunch of vehicles from the toy line are employed: The Joe's Polar Battle Bear skimobile and Falcon hang glider and Cobra's HISS tanks ("HISS" stands for "HIgh Speed Sentry) and Viper hang glider.  

•Cobra's plot here is so complicated, I don't think I ever quite understood it, but it involves an Alaskan oil pipeline, a deadly plague weapon and nuclear material stolen from a nuclear power plant. God bless Hama for being able to think up on capable of supporting all these elements from the toys though, particularly the specialties of the various Joes included in the issue.

•The "old" Joes are pinned down and in the middle of a firefight when they get their reinforcements, delivered in a helicopter by pilot Wild Bill, who is here drawn sans his opaque sunglasses, and thus looks a bit off. These are Snowjob and Gung-Ho. Also arriving is Doc, the team's first medic, who busies himself tending to everyone's wounds (and gets a gun pointed in his face when he reaches for Snake-Eyes' mask to check his face for signs of frostbite). 

•Rock 'N Roll is immediately skeptical of Gung-Ho, who arrives in the snow wearing the same outfit his toy and cartoon equivalent wears: Hat, vest, pants and boots, with no shirt. 

"Hawk, it's five below zero and that maniac gyrene is runnin' bare-chested just so we won't miss his 'corps tattoo," he says. 

Later, when paired with Snow Job, Rock 'N Roll asks, "Whataya know 'bout this Gung-Ho character? Is he from Flake-City or what?"

This sets up a running gag that won't see it's payoff until the last panels, when Rock 'N Roll gets a bit of comeuppance, and Snow Job's codename is explained. That is, they don't call him that just because he's the Joes' arctic trooper.

•I had to look up "gyrene". It's a portmanteau of "G.I." and "marine" and the term apparently originated in World War II. Comics are educational!

•I knew Gung-Ho was supposed to be Cajun, but I was still quite surprised to hear his dialogue, which Hama writes in such a way that Gung-Ho sounds like Gambit throughout. I guess I was so used to his voice from the cartoon, where he has a bit of a Southern accent, that I wasn't expecting lines like, "Mais oui...But making it back, she is another story, no?"

•He gets a cool scene where he rushes out of a building where the Joes are pinned down, raising his gun like a club and swatting a trio of Cobra soldiers setting up a surface-to-air missile with a single blow.

"This here crazy Cajun gyrene fella ain't tryin' ta prove nothin'!" he shouts over his shoulder. "--They say the proof's in the puddin', no? And I be makin' puddin' outta these Cobras' faces!"

•One more new Joe makes his first appearance here. That's Airborne, who flies in on a hang glider to engage a couple of Cobras on their hang gliders.

When Snow Job picks him up on the Battle Bear, he introduces himself: "Howdy. Call me Airborne. Real name's Talltree, Franklin E."

"Talltree," Snow Job responds. "That an Indian name?"

"No. It's Native American. What kind of name is 'Snake-Eyes'?"

"Don't ask."

•Much is made of Destro's introduction, which will actually play out over the course of the next several issues. Walking down a hall with The Baroness, Cobra Commander refers to a new specialist, "A man with infinite finesse and a clear tactical mind...If I am the counterpart of G.I. Joe's General Flagg, then this man is the counterpart of Hawk."

In the first panel, we just see his butt, a gun strapped to his thigh and metal gauntlets at his side. 

"Baroness, may I introduce--" the Commander starts, but she cuts him off.

"We've already met, Cobra Commander." 

While they whisper, the unnamed figure, now seen from the torso down, a plane obscuring his face, starts talking business. 

Throughout the rest of the issue, his dialogue balloons will mostly come from off-panel, only his gauntlets or part of his body ever being depicted. 

•On the last page, Rock 'N Roll confronts Snow Job about a story he fed him earlier, and the two bearded Joes share a panel in which they are face to face. It reminded me of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's weird meeting with all of the generals in which he railed against lax grooming standards and declared "No more beardos." 

Where would G.I. Joe be without its beardos?

G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero #12 (1983)

Art by Mike Vosberg and Jon D'Agostino

•This issue kicks off an "arc" that lasts nine or ten issues, depending on where exactly one wants to draw the line. 

•The story opens in San Francisco with a car chase, the Joe's VAMP pursuing a van labeled "Naja Hanna Video Corp" driven by Cobra troopers through the street, and both vehicles firing at one another, seemingly heedless of bystanders. That gives way to a foot chase, and after five pages of comedic, action movie-like shenanigans, a uniformed Cobra agent with a scar in his face gets away with briefcase.

Examining the wreckage of the Cobra van, our heroes find "missile guidance chips" buried among a bunch of video game circuits, and a crate addressed to "South American banana republic" Siera Gordo, which is obviously a fictitious country. (It also says "Att. Senor K. Winn", a name that might sound pretty familiar to anyone who read G.I. Joe #2).

•In the Pentagon, Flagg tells Hawk about the military importance of "computer 'chip' technology," and suggests the Joes investigate what Cobra is doing in Sierra Gordo, which is currently having a revolution.

Hawk decides to send in Breaker, "the only one who got a good look at that scar-faced Cobra courier" and Stalker go in undercover, with Gung-Ho and Snake-Eyes backing them up. 

•Breaker and Stalker prove to be pretty bad at undercover work. They pose as an investors who want to buy video games from the address on the packing crate. Dr. Venom, whom neither of them have ever met, opens the door, but tells them he has no games to sell them.

Stalker argues, "I happen to know that you received a shipment of over one hundred games less than a month ago."

Venom responds, "Well now, isn't that interesting? The only way you could possibly be privy to taht bit of information is if you were working for either Cobra or G.I. Joe..."

To this, Stalker replies, "Ummm..."

And Breaker adds, "Uhhh..."

•A Cobra vs. G.I. Joe gunfight soon breaks out, and more players enter the drama immediately. Snake-Eyes, observing from the tree line through binoculars, recognizes Venom and rushes in. 

Following him, Gung-Ho runs into a guy in a poncho and sombrero with a distinctive scar—the Cobra courier from San Francisco. 

And then the "Senor K. Winn" from the packing label makes his dramatic entrance. This is, of course, Kwinn, the indomitable Inuit mercenary that Snake-Eyes and some of the other Joes met in G.I. Joe #2. He is now dressed in a matching khaki shirt and shorts with an apparently new weasel skull necklace. And he is currently employed by Cobra.

With the Joes captured, Venom pulls the bound Snake-Eyes aside to berate and pistol whip. 

"You made a fool of me in Spingfield," he tells Snake-Eyes:

Cobra Commander was beside himself with displeasure. But the true apex of your folly, the ultimate indignation, was when you raised your hand against me--

--and struck me with your filthy fist!!

Dr. Venom seems to be misremembering. Snake-Eyes struck him with the butt of a rifle. I posted the panel in which he does so above, so you could consult it and see so for yourself.

Granted, maybe he struck Venom so hard that he doesn't remember what, exactly, hit him. And being mute, Snake-Eyes is unable to correct the record. 

•Kwinn interrupts the beating, but it is too late. A Cobra trooper informs Venom that Snake-Eyes has no respiration or pulse. "This man's dead," the trooper says. "We'll leave him in the warehouse..."

Venom and Kwinn argue, with Venom reminding Kwinn of his contract with Cobra and Kwinn telling Venom, "You know Kwinn never reneges on a deal...but it is you who will face me when my contract expires!"

Meanwhile, Snake-Eyes' "dead" body is dragged into the warehouse, which is then put to the torch. 

Venom watches the smoke rise and the flames break out from a riverboat as it drifts away, and it only slowly, very slowly dawns on him that Snake-Eyes had studied at a ninja temple, where he had learned to control his heartbeat and breathing. And, in fact, he had done this particular trick the very last time he had encountered him.

For a genius, Venom is a little slow on the uptake.

•Snake-Eyes revives in the burning building, kicks the door out and runs still bound and engulfed in flames, plunging into the river.

The scene is evocative of the origins of both Swamp-Thing and Man-Thing, but, of course, Snake-Eyes doesn't rise as any kind of swamp monster, as there was no secret plant formula involved here. 

•When he finally does come out of the water, he scares the bejeezus out of a local, who screams "AIIIIIEEE!!! A river demon!!" and jumps overboard his own boat upon seeing Snake-Eyes' face.

We only see the back of his head here. His hair is colored black. In later a later panel in this issue, he will appear to have no hair, but his scalp looking as burnt as his face must be, and in one after that, he will appear to have blonde or red hair, complete with matching eyebrows. 

While his face is kept in shadow or pointed away from the reader, he can't be that disfigured; I mean, from what we've seen so far, he still seems to have a working mouth and two normal eyeballs. He would seem to be a burn victim then, with scarred skin, but the way people react to him, you would think he was an unspeakable horror.

•By the last pages, Venom has met The Baroness and the scar-faced courier at a little Cobra bunker on a little island upriver and handed them a test tube containing virus he has concocted, and the pair take off in an airplane, leaving Venom behind (As for what Cobras' up to, with the computer chips and the bio-weapon here, I admit that their plot, like the oil pipeline one in the previous issue, is so complicated that I lost track of the specifics. At any rate, it will be several issues before the bio-weapon Venom has created comes into play and, again, I got a little lost regarding what Cobra's true plan for it is). 

•Stalker, Breaker and Gung-Ho manage to escape their bonds and commandeer the river boat, but the Baroness' plane swoops towards them to fire a missile, and the Joes fire their guns futilely up at her. 

"The only guy who can knock an airplane with a sub-machine gun is Sgt. Granite of Difficult Company!" Breaker says while shooting anyway. 

He's apparently referring to the Distinguished Competition's Sgt. Rock of Easy Company, using a recognizable but legally distinct name for the comic book character.

I wonder why he didn't go with Sgt. Fury? Has Nick never shot down a plane with a sub-machine gun in any of his comics...? 

•Left behind on the island, Venom was in the process of sneaking up behind Kwinn with a gun, when he is attacked by an angry Snake-Eyes. 

He is in the midst of beating Venom (now with his fists), when The Baroness turns her plane around and fires a missile at the island to tie-up the loose ends of Snake-Eyes, Kwinn and the now "expendable" Doctor Venom. 

Whether or not the trio actually dies in the resulting explosion is left as a cliffhanger, but given that Snake-Eyes is among them, I think it's safe to assume they make it out, the big red "KA-BOOOOOM!!!" that fills a whole panel aside.