GI Joe #1

Writer: Aubrey Sitterson

Artist: Giannis Milonogiannis

Publisher: IDW

I put off reviewing this because the art is so bad it’s almost unreadable. I’m more tolerant than most critics about unrefined artwork, but this should never have gone to print.

When I was 17, I knew a guy who couldn’t draw. He didn’t let that stop him from creating comic books. His proportions were all messed up. The style was inconsistent. The finishing work was sloppy. G.I. Joe #1’s artwork is a little bit worse.

I hate bashing artists, so I want to give Giannis Milonogiannis the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was rushed. I looked up his other work and found that, while I don’t particularly like his half-manga scribbly style, some of his black and white work is not...terrible. Perhaps the coloring is incompatible with his style and gives it a bad impression. Even his work on the previous issue, G.I. Joe: Revolution, was better. At least the characters changed expressions.

That still doesn’t make up for his inability to draw feet or keep things in proportion in this issue. He messes up perspective from time to time. Faces are indistinct (or just left completely blank) when they should be detailed. Characters change scale. Why the hell is everything scribbled? Sometimes he just doesn’t draw hands. They should be there, right in the panel, but they’re not. I can’t tell what anyone’s expressions are supposed to mean. Everyone scowls all the time. Rock n’ Roll doesn’t even have features. He’s just hair and beard. Characters carry guns that look like they were designed by Rob Liefeld. A transformer, Skywarp, shows up as a fighter jet. When he transforms, he’s suddenly the size of a skyscraper.

The writing is predictably hokey at times, but Sitterson manages to move things along with a few good one-liners while touching on about 20 different subplots. The Joes are looking for Dr. X, fending off his ninjas, fighting body-snatchers, investigating anarchists, and preparing for a battle against a biker gang in Mongolia.

I don’t remember Larry Hama’s G.I. Joe run being so disjointed and overloaded. I also remember the series being focused more on war and terrorism. I was never a die-hard fan of the series, so maybe it was always this broad. I just know that this comic has a LOT of stuff going on and I like very little of it. G.I. Joe #1 managed to capture everything I don’t like in a story and wrap it in a wholly unappealing package. If you like straight-forward stories, avoid this at all costs.