Cover Girl

This article is about the G.I. Joe member. For her origin issue, see Threat Matrix, Prologue: Cover Girl.

While G.I. Joe recruits its soldiers from all over, there a few members with as unlikely a backstory as Cover Girl. Before joining the team, she was living a life of fortune and fame as supermodel Courtney A. Krieger but as time went on, she found that life left her feeling more and more bored and unfulfilled. Seeking something new, Krieger signed up for a military-themed reality TV show and found that she not only enjoyed fighting but was also remarkably skilled at it! Upon joining the U.S. military, she developed a fondness for operating heavy machinery and mechanical work as well. With these peculiar talents, it wasn't long before G.I. Joe came calling for her. Now much more happy behind the wheel of a Wolverine than she ever was strutting down the runway, Cover Girl's unique mix of good looks, mechanical know-how, and love of blowing things the hell up have served the Joe team well.

Her codename is sometimes spelled Covergirl.

Fiction

The Celebrity

Courtney Krieger was born in Peoria, Illinois. Despite excelling in her studies and in sports, Krieger's good looks seemed to be the only thing anybody ever noticed about her. Moving to Chicago, Krieger decided she may as well put those looks to use and started a modelling career, starting off in print before getting signed by a major New York modelling agency and becoming a runway model. Cover Girl profile During this time, she appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine and was a winning competitor on Project Runway. Threat Matrix, Prologue: Cover Girl

As time went on, Krieger began feeling increasingly fed up with the demands and kinds of people she had to deal with in her line of work as well as a general sense of unfulfillment. With her agent telling her she needed a "career reset" so she'd have something to fall back on once she got older and became less in demand, Krieger became a contestant on the military themed reality TV competition Survival Extreme. As part of Team Mayday, Krieger won the show's camouflage, sharpshooting, and grenade launcher challenges and ultimately was one of the two finalists alongside Team Ballistic's Richard Ruby. During the filming of the show's finale, in which Krieger and Ruby would be facing off in a minefield traversal challenge, Krieger got bored waiting inside the makeup tent for her segments to be filmed and went off to look for where the show's fake minefield was set up after getting direction's from the show's host Lieutenant Stone. While she was gone, a group of Nanzhaonese pirates descended upon the crew and took them hostage. As Stone burst into tears and offered to show the pirates where he'd sent Krieger in a desperate attempt to save his own life, another one of the pirates found her by chance and tried to take her into custody as well. Thinking quick, Krieger shot him in the groin with her paintball pistol before hitting him in the head with a rock so she could steal his assault rifle. As others came to look for the missing pirate, Courtney used her camo skills to sneak up on them and take them out. Taking a grenade launcher off one of the pirates, Krieger used her sharpshooting to take out one of the two remaining ones on the beach and then finished the last one off with the grenade launcher. In the wake of her bloodbath, she was complimented by Ruby (a former military man himself), who recommended that she get in touch with a man by the name of "Hawk". Threat Matrix, Prologue: Cover Girl Having now realized just how skilled she really was, Krieger left her modelling in the past and joined the military. In contrast to her previous life, Krieger found that she had a taste for some of the more down and dirty parts of service, in particular the driving and maintenance of armored vehicles. Cover Girl profile During her time in the army, she partook in Survival School at Fort Bragg and spent some time with the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #16

Her expertise in armor eventually earned her a spot in the top secret G.I. Joe team with the code name Cover Girl. The day after she made her late night arrival to The Pit, Cover Girl went to the facility's underground lake for a swim while Shipwreck began a test of the experimental Remora submarine. After a ballast tank failure caused the sub to crash and begin filling with water, Cover Girl dived in after him. While Torpedo wasn't able reach the manual ballast release that would allow the Remora to right itself and float back to the surface, Cover Girl's slimmer figure meant she could easily access it and save Shipwreck from drowning. As Shipwreck and Torpedo returned to the surface, Torpedo identified Cover Girl as Ship's savior, prompting her to introduce herself to her new teammates. The Betrayers Part 1

On her first mission with the Joes, Cover Girl was part of a team parachuting in to Patagonia to make a raid on Castle Destro. Once inside the castle, Cover Girl paired off with Six-Gun and Hat Trick. As they explored the inside of the now abandoned fortress, a gigantic spider robot suddenly burst out of the ground beneath them and began attacking them. The Betrayers Part 2 As the machine made short work of her teammates, Cover Girl took cover and radioed Duke for backup. After he and Beach Head arrived and took it out with an EMP grenade, Cover Girl unloaded her SAW into the disabled machine, distraught over the deaths of her teammates. The Betrayers Part 3 As the Joes' finished their sweep of the castle, Cover Girl joined her teammates outside and paid her respects to Six-Gun and Hat Trick. The Betrayers Part 4 On the plane ride back to base, Cover Girl asked Brainstorm about what he'd found in the castle's lab that had him all shaken up, assuming it must have been some kind of new biological or nuclear weapon, though Crankcase pointed out to her that he doubted something like that would have him so shook. The Betrayers Part 5 As he continued to freak out over the implications of what he'd found, Cover Girl asked him to clarify exactly what was so terrible, prompting him to give a vague explanation about Destro having potentially created the most perfect, most dangerous deployment method in the history of mankind. The Betrayers Part 6

Cover Girl accompanied Flint and Beach Head on a mission to raid the alleged headquarters of Youth Against Animal Testing, an animal rights group that seemingly had ties to Cobra. However, as Flint busted down the door, they discovered the place was empty and concluded that the organization was just a shell. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #15

As part of a training exercise overseen by Stalker, Cover Girl was made part of "Team Black", a group who would be playing the part of an invading force trying to break into The Pit, which would be defended by Team White. As her and her teammates were driven out into the middle of the Nevada desert and left to their jobs, Cover Girl questioned Hammerdown's credentials when he stepped up to play the role of Team Black's commander. As he took off with the rest of the team, Cover Girl broke off from the group, taking a route she believed would be more effective for sneaking along with the tag-a-long Downtown. Hoping that this route might also lead them to some water, she gave Downtown a pebble to keep in his mouth to keep it from getting dry. As they finally found some water, Downtown heard gunshots off in the distance and peaked over a rock to see other members of Team Black getting gunned down by a Cobra Trooper. Waiting until the Trooper had his back to them, Cover Girl charged him with a knife in hand while Downtown laid down suppressing fire with his paintball gun, allowing her to get in close and stab him in the leg. As another Cobra went to investigate what had happened, Cover Girl and Downtown took the downed Trooper's equipment and ran for it. Once they'd gotten away, Cover Girl peaked out of cover and saw the fully equipped Trooper helping his injured ally walk while they held Tripwire at gunpoint, trying to get him to lead them to The Pit. Taking the Trooper's gun, Cover Girl and Downtown followed the two Cobras and their hostage until they sat down to take a rest under a large, shady rock. Forming a plan, Cover Girl had Downtown approach the Troopers with grenades in tow, luring the uninjured Trooper out from under the rock so she could get the drop on him. However, the Trooper noticed her shadow and turned around to shoot her. Though she got nicked by a bullet, Downtown and Tripwire were still able to take care of him. With both Cobras now dead, Cover Girl and her teammates made a long, slow trek back to The Pit and informed Stalker about what had happened. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #18 At an all-hands meeting at The Pit, Cover Girl briefly felt a bit of pride swell up inside her when General Hawk suggested it could've been thanks to her, Downtown, and Tripwire's skills that The Pit's location was kept a secret but had the rug pulled out from under her when he revealed it was just sheer luck. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #19

The Soldier

While Scarlett's team was off investigating the Cobra owned island of Manuatu, Cover Girl was aboard the Terrapin, a Joe ship captained by Deep Six, after having been invited along by Shipwreck. Joining Ship, Keel Haul, Wetsuit, and Torpedo aboard the Remora on a mission to investigate a huge submarine the Terrapin picked up on radar, Cover Girl felt somewhat uneased by going so deep underwater, though she was impressed by the technology that allowed them to do so. After they found the Cobra submarine cruiser Dreadnaught and sent their Seapup drone to investigate the nuke it was dropping an underwater faultline, Cover Girl and the others prepared to board the submarine and try to stop the detonation. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #20 Though they were able to silently infiltrate and take out the crew members for a time, eventually an engineer managed to raise an alarm, prompting the ship's captain to order the room they were in sealed and flooded. While Cover Girl she was able to make it out in time alongside Shipwreck and Torpedo, the other two members of their team were trapped inside the flooded generator room. While Keel Haul prepared to blow the door with a C4 charge, Cover Girl and the others pushed ahead and stormed the bridge, throwing an EMP grenade to shut the sub's systems down. However, while they were in the middle of trying to take the bridge, the nuke went off, causing major damage to the sub as it hadn't gotten clear of the blast radius. With the hull compromised, the captain and the remaining Cobras abandoned ship, leaving the Joes behind. While Shipwreck and Torpedo worked on getting the sub's systems operational again, Cover Girl assisted Keel Haul in checking up on the unconscious Wetsuit. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #21

As the commandeered Dreadnaught surfaced, Cover Girl joined Shipwreck as they walked along the top of the sub and discovered a stern containing a Cobra helicopter. As Keel Haul took off in the chopper and spotted the two Cobra escape subs heading back towards the Dreadnaught, Cover Girl and Wet Suit found a minigun emplacement that they began setting up to defend the ship. As one of the subs surfaced and the Cobras aboard began opening fire, Wet Suit was downed by their gunfire, forcing Cover Girl to get on the minigun and return fire. Though she fended them off, she eventually ran out of bullets and shortly thereafter was shot in the back by a Cobra Diver. Before he could finish her off, however, Shipwreck tackled him and knocked away his gun, allowing Cover Girl to grab it and shoot him in the back of the head. The Diver's bullet having only hit her armor, Cover Girl called Shipwreck's attention to the critically injured Wet Suit. Luckily, just as the battle with the Dreadnaught's former crew came to a close, the Terrapin returned. G.I. Joe vol. 1 #22

As the Joes began working to capture a Cobra operative by staking out locations they were likely to make moves in, Cover Girl and Downtown were assigned to a location in London. Before they got to do anything though, their mission was called off as Joe team Bravo had managed to get a Cobra Trooper in the Republic of Baranique. M.A.S.S. Destruction, Part 1 Once Joe scientists managed to crack the secret of how Cobra's teleportation device worked, Cover Girl was among the Joes who were scanned and had their physiognomy encoded onto a nanomite key. M.A.S.S. Destruction, Part 2

Having evidently elected to join the naval division of the Joes, Cover Girl served aboard the Dreadnaught, which had been rechristened the Tuna by Shipwreck. After Cobra cyber-warfare expert Error 404 remotely shut down the sub's power, Cover Girl was among the Joes who gathered onto the Tuna's tower as it was separated from the rest of the ship while it slowly sank to crush depth. The experience left Cover Girl deciding to go back to the infantry G.I. Joe vol. 2 #7

After G.I. Joe moved their base of operations to the USS Flagg, Cover Girl wandered the ship looking for Shipwreck and ran into Cutter and Bildocker. Deep Terror Epilogue When Storm Shadow blew a hole in the side of the ship and caused it to begin sinking, Cover Girl was found by Shipwreck and evacuated alongside him. Target: Snake Eyes Part 6

The Celebrity Soldier

After G.I. Joe's existence was revealed to the world following the destruction of Nanzhao, Cover Girl was selected as one of the members who'd be joining Duke's new public facing unit of "Celebrity Soldiers". After her commander shut down her attempts at trying to talk about their hook-up the previous night, he introduced Cover Girl to the team's new embedded blogger Hashtag and asked that she show the rookie the ropes, a request she was less than enthusiastic about. As the team arrived at their mission site in Warrenton, Ohio, their Skystorm was shot down by the Cobra forces in control of the town. After the crash, Cover Girl ended up hiding out in a basement with Doc and Hashtag. Homefront, Part 1 While Cover Girl and Doc thought about how they were going to join back up with their teammates, Hashtag spoke up and said that she'd already put out the call for backup, having been livetweeting everything that was going on. Enraged that she'd inadvertently given away their position, Cover Girl smashed Hashtag's phone and began threatening to beat her before Doc calmed her. As the building was rushed by Cobra loyalist townsfolk, Cover Girl gave Hashtag one of her two sidearms and was unimpressed when she learned of the rookie's distaste for firearms. Ordering her two teammates to rush to the roof, Cover Girl began working to neutralize the townsfolk and the W.O.R.M.S. that were leading them. After a grueling fistfight with one of the citizens, the town's mayor managed to knock Cover Girl out briefly with a shock from a taser. After contacting the Baroness to inform her he'd captured Cover Girl, Barnes apologized to her and assured her he was a good man who'd been forced into a bad situation before he was suddenly gunned down by Hashtag, something Cover Girl assured her was the right move. Homefront, Part 2

Returning to the roof, Cover Girl and Hashtag learned that Doc had been in contact with their teammates through Shipwreck's Polly drone. After joining up with the others at the local junkyard, Cover Girl was part of Roadblock's team infiltrating the mall Cobra was operating out of. Grabbing a sniper rifle off of a downed Trooper, Cover Girl fittingly enough provided covering sniper fire as her teammates moved to take out the Troopers surrounding the mall's central ice rink. As the team explored deeper into the shopping center, Cover Girl found the missing Duke strapped to Doctor Mindbender's Brainwave Scanner. After freeing him from the device, she was suddenly attacked by Duke, who began demanding to know what had happened to "Aisha". After snapping him out of it, Cover Girl learned that Duke had heard tell of bombs Cobra had planted throughout Warrenton as part of a plan to frame G.I. Joe for the town's destruction. Homefront, Part 4 Running into Baroness as she held an injured Hashtag at gunpoint, Cover Girl and Duke fired off a few warning shots at the Cobra femme fatale to get her to stand down but weren't able to stop her from detonating the bombs. With Baroness having escaped, the Joes attention turned to rescuing Shipwreck, Doc, and Quick Kick after they got caught inside the flames the explosions caused. To that end, Cover Girl got behind the controls of a Cobra H.I.S.S. tank and began blowing a path for the other three to escape through.

Back at the G.I. Joe base on Governor's Island, Cover Girl listened to Duke complain about how many people really did believe they were responsible for the destruction of Warrenton before they ran into Doc and Quick Kick taking some leave to totally not go on a date. They then ran into Hashtag, who informed them she had enlisted in the army full time. Homefront, Part 5

After receiving some day leave, Cover Girl secretly tailed Duke, following him to North Shore Hospice in Long Island. After he spent several hours inside and left, she went in and pretended to have come there to join him. Though the nurse at the front desk informed her she’d missed him, she still pointed her to where she could go see Duke’s wife Aisha in the visiting area. After meeting Duke’s secret, heavily brain damaged wife, Cover Girl asked the nurse if she could have a brochure for the hospice, claiming her mother had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and that they were looking for a place to take care of her. Upon reading the brochure and learning North Shore had yearly price tag of half a million dollars, Cover Girl began to grow suspicious of Duke. Meeting up with Roadblock at his friend’s restaurant, she told him what she’d been up to and that she suspected Duke of being the mole Roadblock theorized had fed Cobra crucial information about Joe operating procedures in Warrenton. Though Roadblock flew into a rage at her suggestion that his friend would betray the team like that, Cover Girl got him to calm down by explaining that she came to him and not General Colton specifically because she wasn’t ready to throw around accusations. Clarifying that she was investigating Duke to prove his innocence rather than his guilt, she asked if Roadblock would support her in this, which he agreed to. On the ferry ride back to Governor’s Island, Cover Girl ran into Shipwreck, who warned her that he didn’t think her and Duke were good for one another. Threat Matrix, Prologue: Cover Girl

With Hashtag now a full fledged member of G.I. Joe as a communications officer, Cover Girl ran into her while she was in the process of deleting all of G.I. Joe's preexisting social media presence. Cover Girl admitted that she was surprised to see that Hashtag was sticking around, finding it hard to believe that she had any interest after what went down in Warrenton. She then scoffed at Hashtag's reasoning that she stayed on because she wanted to be one of "the good guys" and gave Duke a sideways glance. Siren's Song

During a training exercise and test of the team’s Air Commando glider and quantum stealth technology, Cover Girl and her teammates squared off against Quick Kick in disguise as Snake Eyes. After the exercise ended and the team learned that their Threat Matrix system was showing three potential hotspots for upcoming terrorist attacks. When Duke stepped out of the room and returned claiming to have received coordinates of another terrorist attack not picked up by the Threat Matrix, Cover Girl shared a suspicious look with Roadblock before she was left behind while the others left to deal with the attack. Going to her quarters, Cover Girl got in contact with Scarlett, wanting her and her special missions team to investigate whatever was going on with Duke. Threat Matrix, Part 1

The next day, Cover Girl joined Roadblock and Tunnel Rat on a mission to investigate a Threat Matrix hotspot that lined up with a group of militant Nanzhaonese refugees who claimed to have built a dirty bomb. After they raided their hideout and arrested the militants (minus the one who was planning on detonating the bomb), Cover Girl found that they had some kind of Cobra training manual in their possession. Threat Matrix, Part 2 Having found a secret tunnel leading directly to the New York subway inside the militant's hideout, Cover Girl took the wheel of the Hammer with Roadblock riding shotgun while Tunnel Rat descended into the subway after the dirty bomb toting terrorist. Barrelling through the streets, Cover Girl's driving skills were criticized by Roadblock as they finally caught up with the train as it exited the tunnel. After Roadblock blasted out of the car with his J.U.M.P. pack, Cover Girl attempted to keep pace with the train and then received a call from Scarlett informing her that they'd intercepted a call to Duke's cell phone coming from Castle Destro. Putting Scarlett on hold, Cover Girl got in contact with Shipwreck, who informed her that Duke seemingly just abandoned him and Quick Kick. With that being proof enough for her, Cover Girl asked Scarlett to bring Duke in. Threat Matrix, Part 3

Cover Girl took part in a disastrous mission to South America where the Joes attacked what was supposed to a Cobra convoy transporting missiles but were actually carrying medicine, the Joes having been set up to fail by their enemies. After they returned to base, Cover Girl called Duke out, demanding of him a serious discussion as to why their intel never seems to be trustworthy anymore. Later, Hashtag came to her with intel she'd gotten from an encrypted video she'd received several months ago from the Cobra agent Siren begging the Joes to come rescue her and her son Isaac. Though Cover Girl was initially suspicious of this information, once Hashtag let it slip that she'd already gone to Duke and he was seemingly trying to bury it, Cover Girl agreed to help. Going directly to General Colton for authorization, Cover Girl headed up the mission to a remote island off the coast of northern Africa. After taking out the guards at the front gates of the palace, Cover Girl's team went deeper and deeper into the facility until they finally came across Siren. Siren's Song After it was revealed to the Joes that the facility was a training camp for child soldiers, Hashtag tried to think of how they were supposed to rescue all the children, prompting Cover Girl to remind her they were only there to gather intel, not mount a full on rescue. Though Siren asked that they get her and Isaac out, Cover Girl maintained that they'd have to come back for them. After the Joes were discovered by a child roaming the halls and had their presence revealed, Cover Girl grabbed Siren and pulled her along while Roadblock went after Isaac and Hashtag. As the Joes prepared to leave with what children they could carry and Hashtag returned without Isaac, Cover Girl explained to the furious Siren that her two options were to come with them or stay there with her son, not particularly caring which one she picked.

Once back in New York, the Joes reunited the kidnapped children with their parents. As they watched the reunions from afar, Cover Girl suggested that Hashtag go down there so the parents could thank her personally. Though Hashtag didn't feel like she did nearly enough to help the children, Cover Girl told her that no matter what it felt like, what they accomplished was a victory and that she shouldn't drive herself crazy dwelling on what she didn't do. Siren's Song: Conclusion

The International Hero

After the defunct G.I. Joe was reformed as an international organization, Cover Girl was brought back onto the team. At their new underwater base Lemuria, Cover Girl complained to the ship's captain Shipwreck about the environmentally friendly meals he was having the mess hall serve up but was silenced when he agreed to not give her another lecture on environmentalism if she just choked it down. When Scarlett gave Cover Girl's tablemates Lady Jaye and Gung-Ho an undercover assignment in Athens, she found their cover story of being a backpacking couple sweet. G.I. Joe vol. 5 #1

Cover Girl was part of Roadblock's team on a mission to liberate Hohot from Crystal Ball and the Dreadnoks. As the Joes met up with Ying and Yong, their guides through Hohot, Cover Girl found Ying's British accent rather odd. She ended up having good reason to be suspicious, as the Joes soon discovered their guides were actually Zarana and Zandar in disguise and that they had been led into a trap! As Crystal Ball sicced the Dreadnoks on the team, Cover Girl wasted no time whipping out two laser pistols and fighting back. G.I. Joe vol. 5 #2 As the Joes were swarmed by legions of mind controlled civilians, Rock 'n Roll figured the best solution to help cure them would be to get Crystal Ball away from them and, to that end, suggested Cover Girl secure the team some transport. After Quick Kick cleared a path that she could escape from Crystal Ball's palace through, she had some difficulty finding something, eventually having to settle on a beat up old jeep. Picking up her team, who were fairly disappointed by what she'd found, and their prisoner Crystal Ball, Cover Girl sped off as fast as she could but was soon pursued by the Dreadnoks. G.I. Joe vol. 5 #3 Though she fought back against them with both driving and guns, the Dreadnoks quickly managed to take out the jeep, forcing the Joes to abandon it and make a stand against their foes. Shortly after they did, Skywarp arrived out of the blue but rather than assist the team, he instead said he was only there to bring Doc into custody, something that left Cover Girl rather perplexed. However, this wasn't nearly as perplexing to her as the giant monster that then emerged from underground and dragged the Dreadnoks back down with it. G.I. Joe vol. 5 #4

After Hohot, more and more of these strange monsters began emerging all over the world, leading to G.I. Joe focusing on fighting back against them. With Scarlett needing Roadblock at the base, she placed Cover Girl in command of a mission to repel a monster that had emerged from Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador. After having Skywarp engage the beast, Cover Girl began firing on it with her Wolverine but didn't do much good. After her tank was crushed, Cover Girl was amazed to find Salvo was able to finally push the monster back into the volcano with the aid of two absurdly huge guns. However, the monster's retreat also caused Cotopaxi to erupt. Though her team was now preparing to evac, Cover Girl noticed that there was a village at the foot of the mountain and decided that it was their responsibility to help them get clear of the lava's path. G.I. Joe vol. 5 #5

With Scarlett and Roadblock away on a mission to Cybertron, interim Joe commander Shipwreck picked Cover Girl for his team to stop Cobra as they began robbing a museum in St. Petersburg, less because of any particular specialty she had that would help the mission and more because she was one of the first Joes he found. Getting paired up with the similarly selected Salvo and Lifeline, Cover Girl pursued Ice Queen and Stiletto in the Crossfire but Shipwreck not accounting for the former V.E.N.O.M. agents' transforming vehicles allowed them to get away. G.I. Joe: First Strike Even though she didn't keep her place on Shipwreck's refined fast-response team, she still celebrated with them after they managed to take them down in New York City. M.A.S.K.: First Strike

Working alongside her new, ex-M.A.S.K. teammate Spectrum, Cover Girl built a new vehicle that would see use on G.I. Joe's mission to investigate Cobra activity in the North Pole. Driving out the back of Lift-Ticket's Tomahawk, Cover Girl showed her passenger Roadblock the contribution Spectrum made to the vehicle when she broke their fall by activating it's hover mode. Scarlett's Strike Force #1 Shortly after arriving, the Joes were descended upon by a group of dinosaurs. These raptors were able to keep pace with Cover Girl's new ride, which was briefly wrecked after being smacked around by an anklyosaurus' tail. While she worked on fixing it up, she helped the her teammates ambush Raptor and Croc Master. Scarlett's Strike Force #2 After making their way to the Cobra temple, Cover Girl drove through the hordes of Vipers surrounding the place. During the assault on the temple, Cover Girl came up with the name "Jeep-pocalypse" for her new vehicle but wasn't quite happy with it. Scarlett's Strike Force #3

Notes

• Despite Cover Girl's role as a heavy armor driver traditionally being her main position on the G.I. Joe team, IDW continuity has historically oddly downplayed it — while her introduction in G.I. Joe vol. 1 #7 mentions her specialty in armor, and she talks about driving Wolverine missile tanks in G.I. Joe vol. 3 #5, it otherwise went entirely unused in favor of a more general special forces role until vol. 5. Vol. 3 #1 even lists her specialty as "infiltration" instead!

External links

• Cover Girl at YoJoe.com
• Cover Girl at the TFWiki