Comics

G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero #290

/ / Comics

Set immediately after the Battle of Springfield, G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero #290 offers another single-issue spotlight. This time around the subject of the issue is the elite Russian special mission force the Oktober Guard. The severe injuries to the team’s sniper in Springfield offers a look back in flashbacks to the origin of their transformation from regular soldiers to cyborgs.

In order to save one of their own, the Oktober Guard will need to raid Revanche and steal the robotic parts needed. Sadly, the group doesn’t realize they are walking into a trap before it is too late. While the Guard manages to make it out alive with the parts the came for, Revanche isn’t too worried about the theft as their control of the parts within the soldiers gives them an advantage for the future.

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Red Sonja #7

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Kicking off a new arc, Red Sonja #7 opens with an introduction to Baroness Drang who has locked away Red Sonja in her dungeon for a week proving on drugged food and water which the She-Devil with a Sword has refused to consume. Meanwhile, Sitha is working with Kebra others to loot Drang’s treasure chamber bidding her time waiting to break out Sonja.

Despite being the beginning of a new story, it feels like we’re plunged into the second or third issue of an arc with Red Sonja #7, and I’ll admit feeling a bit lost as both Sonja and Sitha seem to have at least a week worth of tale untold with us jumping into the middle just in time for a weakened Sonja to faceoff with the powerful, but not all that interesting or well-developed, Drang and Sitha to come to the rescue.

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Elektra: Black, White & Blood #3

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Three more tales of Elektra through the years, all presented in black, white, and red, are collected here. My favorite from Elektra: Black, White & Blood #3 is “Weapons of Choice” which sees Elektra, when still working as an assassin for the Hand, attack the Red Room whose students at the time included Natasha Romanov. This is a thread that I’d like to see pulled on and a rematch of the pair, at some point, on more even terms.

In a bit of a flashback to her past, “Split” catches up to pre-assassin Elektra breaking out of the asylum she’d been locked away in with the help of Typhoid Mary. And in “With a Passion” Elektra’s love/hate relationship with Daredevil is examined as are Matt Murdock’s failed attempts to save the woman he loves.

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The Human Target #6

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The Human Target #6 marks the halfway point of the twelve-issue maxi-series which begins with Christopher Chance telling Ice that he suspects her best-friend of the murder attempt on Lux Luthor‘s life (which poisoned Chance instead). Let’s just say she doesn’t take his suspicions all that well.

We may not get much in the way of moving the case forward (with Ice continuing to be a distraction), or any new cameos from the Justice League International, but we do get a return in the jealous Guy Gardner who attempts to break-up the pair of squabbling lovers and faces Ice’s fury. The scene, and its aftermath remind us that we are in a Black Label comic, separate from the current continuity of the DC Universe. As for the case, Chance needs to get back to work with only a handful of days left to find his answers.

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Usagi Yojimbo #27

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On their travels, Miyamoto Usagi and Yukichi encounter a young woman, Shizuye, at a shrine in the woods. From an old man, the pair learn that the shrine is dedicated to another young woman, Midori, who met tragic end in the haunted woods at the hands of a merchant who eventually also ended the lives of himself and his family. After fending off three men hired to kill Shizuye, the ronin stick around to watch and make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.

Although neither Usagi or Yukichi see any ghost discussed in the story (or at least don’t realize that they do), “A Ghost Story” is appropriately tired as the merchant’s jealous wife’s attempts to kill the servant eventually lead her to an unexpected encounter in the woods putting an end to Shizuye’s troubles for good.

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