Deep Terror, Part 3
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| "Deep Terror, Part 3" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | July 11, 2012 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | July 2012 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Chuck Dixon | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Will Rosado | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Romulo Fajardo, Jr. | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Neil Uyetake | ||||||||||||
| Editor | John Barber and Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
Can Scarlett, Mainframe and Team Bravo survive under a Cobra assault before reinforcements arrive?
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
At the point of a Viper's pistol, Scarlett drops her rifle and slowly rises to her feet... only to disarm her captor and throw him in front of her other two guards, obstructing their line of fire. As she ducks into a corridor, the guards make to pursue, but the one that Scarlett threw to the ground shoots them dead, revealing himself to be Mainframe! Scarlett wants to know where the rest of the rescue mission is, and is angry to learn that Mainframe stowed away with the rest of her team, seeing the computer specialist as more of a liability than an asset.
Duke — insisting that Tripwire not call him "sir" — makes last-minute preparations for Team Hammerdown's rescue mission to Section Five, despite hold-up with Bildocker arranging the team's fuel allotments for their flight. The team's plane finally takes off, though Bildocker is still in the process of negotiating for the final leg, but the rest of G.I. Joe central command has more pressing issues to deal with: a flash mob at the front of Fort Baxter, protesting the Joes' existence as an army of "secret killers", thanks to Cobra's Error 404 releasing the base's GPS coordinates!
In the mines of Section Five, Gilberto and team Bravo come across a lake surrounded by glowing crystals, in a stratum that Dr. Mindbender had supposedly determined did not contain the element, abellium, he was searching for. Making their way to the island in the center, and noting the presence of trilobites in the water (that Gilberto claims were not present when he was last there), the Joes tool up with a supply of explosives and food to fend off their pursuers. Above them, Urso and his Viper team descend into the tunnels to try and find them, while Copperback assures him that Scarlett's presence is a "controlled situation"; but she is soon proven a liar when Scarlett cuts through the Vipers' lines of descent from a nearby tunnel, causing them to fall to their deaths and break Urso's Flight Pod in the process! Urso wishes to come back up and hunt Scarlett down, but Mindbender sees the Joes in the mines as a greater priority. Making their way down the only path that their targets could have gone down, Urso's team sends a drone to scout ahead — just in time to warn them of a timed explosive that detonates, flooding the tunnel with the Vipers in it!
Dr. Mindbender, trying to get a response from Urso, is cornered in his lab by two Vipers — Scarlett and Mainframe. While Mainframe ties Mindbender up, Scarlett uses his equpiment to contact Hammerdown's flight, but finds that they're still ten hours away. Scarlett gripes about Mainframe stowing away and giving her one more soldier to worry about, but when he tries to defend his capabilities, she realises that he stowed away to impress her; and though she thinks it was stupid and adolescent, she reciprocates when he kisses her on the lips. With more pressing concerns, Mainframe manipulates the bulkheads to isolate most of Cobra's search teams and releases the mine's prisoners, while Scarlett radios Stalker; the rest of Team Bravo have found themselves at a location designated "5-XX-5", something that shocks and upsets Mindbender. Their coordination is interrupted, however, when Urso and his Vipers burst into Bravo's tunnel in an enormous drilling machine! Stalker and his team are forced to flee blindly into the tunnels, while Scarlett finds that Hammerdown is still 8 hours away, and that Cobra forces are in the process of cutting their way into Mindbender's lab; with few options available to them, all Scarlett can think for Hammerdown to do is avenge them...
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
Characters in italics are shown only in flashbacks. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| G.I. Joe | Cobra | Others |
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Quotes[edit | edit source]
"Will I ever get used to being called "sir"?"
"Protocol won't let me call you "Duke" anymore, sir."
"Well, I'm changing protocol as of now, Tripwire."
- —Duke and Tripwire
"Must I tolerate this?"
"So don't look."
(Scarlett kicks over the chair that Mindbender is taped to.)
- —Dr. Mindbender doesn't think much of Scarlett's kissing session with Mainframe.
Notes[edit | edit source]
Continuity notes[edit | edit source]
- Team Alpha, who make up the core of Team Hammerdown, appeared during the "Cobra Civil War" and "Cobra Command" arcs under the command of Flint. Their numbers there included Tripwire, Beachhead, Roadblock, and Hard Drive, all of whom appear as part of Hammerdown here. Tripwire also mentions "elements of [...] Fox", a contraction of Team Foxtrot, who appeared previously in G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes; their numbers included Lighthorse and Iceberg, who appear here. (Well, it might be Iceberg; it's not too clear.)
- The creatures spotted in the water are trilobites, a prehistoric group of arthropods extinct in the modern day. Now, if you remember from G.I. Joe vol. 1 #10, Mindbender was obsessed with achieving time travel...
Errors[edit | edit source]
- Gilberto says that Mindbender's chosen element was not found on "this strata"; it should be this stratum, "strata" being the plural.
Other notes[edit | edit source]
- Having been snuck into crowd scenes by Robert Atkins a number of times before, Puerto Rican G.I. Joe Hot Sauce makes his first scripted appearance. He gets officially named in the next issue!
Covers (3)[edit | edit source]
- Cover A: Vipers descend into the mines, by Tommy Lee Edwards.
- Cover B: Recondo, Leatherneck and Stalker knee-deep in the crystal lake, by Will Rosado and Romulo Fajardo, Jr..
- Cover RI: Uncolored and cropped version of cover A, by Tommy Lee Edwards.
