IDW Publishing 2018
Written by Larry Hama
Pencilled by Netho Diaz
Inked by Alisson Rodrigues & Jagdish Kumar
Coloured by Vinicius Townsend
Lettered by Neil Uyetake
Following in the bloody footsteps of the smash-hit “Dawn of the Arashikage” story arc, living legend Larry Hama brings us the newest chapter in breakout character Dawn Moreno’s G.I. JOE journey—and her first (un)official mission as a JOE may very well be her last… and nobody will ever know. Because when Agent Helix is involved, the only option is the SILENT OPTION.
There are very few people around who understand not only these characters but the world of the Joe’s in general like Larry does. That is what makes these stories so gosh darn exciting and good in my humble opinion. The chance to get to know them like this is one of the reasons why people seem to change who their favourite Joe is. In this round it’s time to tackle the life of Helix before she was a Joe and since. This is the start of getting the story behind this enigmatic young woman with a chip the size of the Moon on her shoulder.
The opening here is great we get to see the couple the took Helix in and they provide us with a bit of background that slightly illuminates how hard it was to get her to open up. Plus Bombstrike I mean hello she really is working very hard to take Lady Jaye’s place as my favourite female Joe is on the case and what they find well this goes a very long way in showing us Helix’s mindset and how she used everything she could to find piece of mind in doing what she could to find a way to ease her troubled mind.
The way that this is structured so that we get a nice smooth ebb & flow in everything we see is extremely well done. The use of infiltration tactics and the gun fights and general overall fighting that we see with each new turn not only manages to capture those snippets of who Helix is but just what kind of woman she is and how far she’s willing to go to get what she wants. While yes what she’s doing is kind of noble but for all the wrong reasons and happening in all the wrong ways it is still some very powerful characterisation for a character that isn’t even present.
The interiors here are utterly amazing! The attention to detail that is on these pages is so sensational and seeing how Netho is able to manipulate the varying weight of the linework to create such fine lines that work together to really bring this to life in such a perfect way amazes me with every page. Then to see how it’s inked just as finely and finished off with the colours the gradation and the smoothness of this is as good as Monkey Shoulder Blended Malt Scotch. The utilisation of page layouts and how they show the angles and perspective in the panels demonstrates a stellar eye for storytelling. The way that backgrounds are utilised is beyond expectation and really does wonders in expanding the story through size, scope and location.
This is the kind of storytelling that we used to get from Wolfman/Perez in the 80’s and there is an excitement that comes from just looking at the interior pages. Then add to that the quality of storytelling, the strength of characterisation and what we see this team encountering in their search for their missing comrade and this is unbelievably good stuff. This is why comics are made, why we love them and why the Joe franchise will never ever go out of style.