Energon Universe FCBD 2024 Special
Writers: Daniel Warren Johnson, Robert
Kirkman, Joshua Williamson
Artists: Ryan Ottley, Lorenzo De
Felici, Jason Howard
Colorists: Annalisa Leoni, Matheus
Lopes, Mike Spicer
Letterer: Rus Wooton
Editors: Sean Mackiewicz and Jonathan
Manning
Designer: Andres Juarez
Cover: Ottley and Leoni
Published by: Image
Released: May 4, 2024
Despite growing up in the '80s, I am largely out of the loop, or at least on its outskirts, when it comes to G.I. Joe and Transformers. My action figure collecting focused on Masters of the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and while I was aware of the massively popular Hasbro properties, I didn't dive deep.
Although I picked this issue for #FreeComicFriday because of “Transformers One” debuting in theaters this week, we'll touch more on my Transformers knowledge deficit tomorrow. Suffice it to say for now that I don't even know if “Energon” has a hard or soft G.
G.I. Joe had a lot that appealed to me – a massive roster of colorful characters, ongoing continuity – but I only had a handful of the toys. The earliest I remember was Wild Bill and his Dragonfly helicopter. Despite my tendency to hang on to a host of artifacts from my childhood, I don't have that one anymore, which is a shame because when I searched Google to find the name of the chopper, I saw it selling on eBay for over $200.
The only individual figures I remember getting were Big Boa, the masked Cobra boxer, and Law & Order, the military policeman with accessory German shepherd. I even only bought one G.I. Joe comic, #86, which marked the toy line's 25th anniversary. I read it multiple times, but never felt compelled to get any others.*
There were other figures I wanted, like the Cobra B.A.T., which seemed more sci-fi and comic book-ish to me. That's probably the same reason I coveted the special order Super Trooper. My love of crossovers can probably explain the appeal of wrestler/soldier Sgt. Slaughter, despite me not being super into G.I. Joe or wrestling. The other one I really, really wanted was the special William “The Refrigerator” Perry figure, which I feel needs no explanation.**
I watched the “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra” movie with Channing Tatum and the subsequent sequel with the Rock. Neither of those really worked for me, nor did the more recent “Snake Eyes” entry.
But none of that would stop me from checking out yet another iteration of G.I. Joe continuity, especially in a shared universe with the Transformers, especially one overseen by “Walking Dead” and “Invincible” co-creator Robert Kirkman, especially when the sample is free.
The tone is as deadly serious as the Michael Bay Transformer movies tried to be and, for all I know, lots of other Transformers media have accomplished. Seriously: Megatron gouges out Optimus' eye; he responds by slicing off Megatron's arm with an energy axe and then kicking him out the cargo bay of a spaceship.
Megatron hangs on with his remaining arm but is shot multiple times by Starscream, who even I know is always ready to betray the Decepticons' big boss. Megatron falls toward a planet I later determined to be Earth, then wakes up screaming his betrayer's name. He's armless and held in place by some machinery as two guys who look kind of blue study him. Megatron breaks free, kills one of the guys I thought were aliens, then demands to know where his missing limbs are. He finds one and reattaches it, only to be attacked by a horde of what I again thought were aliens, including this guy:
Their leader manages to jam his spear-trident thingamabob in Megatron's remaining good eye. The blinded bot flies up and out of the underground or possibly mountain-based facility, lands in the snow and declares he's coming for Starscream.
From there we jump into the “Void Rivals” section with a full-page closeup of a half-pig, half-snake-looking alien, arguing with another alien who doesn't speak very good English or Basic or whatever the common tongue of this particular universe is. That guy's name is Slizardo, and he's asking the pig-snake fellow, whose name I didn't catch, about the location of a certain alloy. He lost it to a race or group known as the Quintessons and says the alloy was Zertonian.
I didn't know what was going on, having only read the first issue of “Void Rivals,” but I did recognize the Autobot who emerges from the shadows. It's Hot Rod, and he wants information the pig-snake guy – who he identifies as a Skuxxoid – has to find a missing ally. He obliges, Hot Rod departs, the Skuxxoid says he's going home to his family and some little robot guy watching from a distance says: “It is as you suspected, my lord.”
Over to G.I. Joe, where Colonel Hawk is berating Duke for proposing that they recruit the Baroness, of Cobra fame. Duke explains his rationale – she's “a skilled fighter … one of the best strategists in the world … (and) isn't afraid to get her hands dirty.” This dialogue occurs over art of a sequence in which the Baroness is attacked by a couple of armored fighters, keeping them at bay until Duke offers her a lift on his motorcycle and then a job with G.I. Joe.
We go back to Flint, looking over dossiers of G.I. Joe and Cobra figures even I recognize and admonishing Flint and Lady Jaye, revealed to be the two armored figures who attacked Baroness. Apparently they were supposed to recruit Baroness, but Hawk says that's OK because now she's joined Duke and Hawk is making more than one team.
I had read somewhere that the new G.I. Joe stuff involved Baroness switching sides, so that wasn't a surprise to me. The idea that the “Real American Heroes” aren't being open with one another and are engaging in some cloak-and-dagger shenanigans feels modern enough and not particularly shocking. I was mildly surprised that Hawk, Duke and Flint are all different characters.
None of these stories was off-putting or inaccessible, but some of the details were hard to work out. Thankfully, there's a note on the last page from Mackiewicz that, not unlike Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski's rug did for his room, really ties the issue together.
It informs readers that “Void Rivals” #1 stealth-launched the new shared universe, with an unannounced appearance by a Transformer named Jetfire. I did buy that issue, reasoning that a new title from Kirkman that's generating buzz is a worthwhile investment, but, having no emotional or nostalgic ties to the Transformers, I didn't keep going. The first trade is nevertheless on my Hoopla account to read, because Kirkman's batting average is pretty darn good.
The Transformers series, written and drawn by Johnson, had launched soon after with Megatron conspicuously absent. In a “Cobra Commander” limited series, it was revealed that he was “imprisoned in Cobra-La, where he was being tortured and interrogated by Cobra Commander.” I thought that meant this guy was Cobra Commander...
… but no, the Internet tells me that's Golobulus.***
Anyway, that and other limited series are moving toward the formation of G.I. Joe, which is an interesting perspective instead of the group already being up and running.
As Free Comic Book Day issues go, this one's a win. I'm not sure it would have gotten me to start buying any of these titles in the absence of the risk-free accessibility provided by Hoopla and libraries, but it was borrowing other works of Kirkman's that made me give “Void Rivals” a try, so at least I'm open to it. I do like shared universes and crossovers and seeing where individual stories fit into a greater whole. As long as the stories continue to be interesting without relying solely on established familiarity with the properties, I'll probably read some more.
* - The fact that Larry Hama continues
to write this series, through the decades and different publishers,
makes me curious to dig into it at some point though.
** - But if you disagree, fine: It was a G.I. Joe action figure of Refrigerator Perry.
*** - I don't know who that is.
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