Deep Terror Epilogue
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| "Deep Terror Epilogue" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | September 5, 2012 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | September 2012 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Chuck Dixon | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Alex Cal | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Romulo Fajardo, Jr. | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Neil Uyetake | ||||||||||||
| Editor | John Barber and Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
G.I. Joe have won a victory over Cobra, but with new threats looming, can they keep up?
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
Scarlett and Team Bravo have been brought back to the USS Flagg in Philadelphia, G.I. Joe's new base for intelligence operations following the evacuation of Fort Baxter. Scarlett has her doubts about the run-down, decommissioned aircraft carrier, but Mainframe reassures her that it will suffice for their newly set-up command center — prompting Dial-Tone to remark to Spreadsheet on their fellow Joes' evident new romance. Elsewhere on the Flagg, Bildocker banters with Cutter about the decripit state of their posting, and is soon interrupted — and struck dumb — by Covergirl, who's looking for Shipwreck. Cutter directs Covergirl to a lower deck, but just after she leaves, Ship enters the room where Bildocker and Cutter are hanging out — and doesn't take kindly to Bildocker's description of him as a "sea monkey". As they argue, the nearby Mainframe is brought some information by Dial-Tone, who warns that he's not going to like it...
On a plane in flight, a defiant Copperback fights with her Joe captors, preferring to be killed than to submit. Duke has other ideas, however, and tases her before giving her an ultimatum: either she help the Joes find Destro, or she gets locked up in Supermax for life. Reluctantly, Glynis agrees to help them, and Duke has Ace turn the plane around and take them back to Florida.
Cobra Commander arrives at what's left of Section Five, where Dr. Mindbender has been retrieved from the depths of the mine; the Commander is unhappy with the fact that the Joes were still able to attack and destroy the facility despite Cobra's media campaign against them, but Savane assures him that the team has been compromised and that they are only able to mount small-scale operations. Mindbender begins to insist that Cobra get the facility running again, but the Commander executes Mindbender's men, angry at the scientist's insubordination and failure to prevent the Joes from destroying Section Five; Mindbender is to be reassigned elsewhere, to more practical roles, despite Mindbender having finally achieved a breakthrough in his work.
Scarlett is shocked by what Mainframe shows her: video evidence that the thought-dead Snake Eyes is alive! Before Mainframe can explain where they got the footage, Scarlett kisses him, before furiously hunting down Agent Helix, currently in the process of sparring with Torpedo and Deep Six on the deck of the Flagg. Scarlett confronts Helix, angry about being lied to about the ninja's survival, but Helix didn't lie: she told Scarlett that Snake Eyes was "gone" and that Storm Shadow "took him", and let the intelligence specialist fill in the rest herself. This isn't good enough for Scarlett, who knocks Helix to a ground with a punch that she fails to see coming despite her total battlefield awareness; the two get into a brutal bare-handed fight until Shipwreck breaks them up with a hose.
At a senate hearing, the White House G.I. Joe liaison is asked to confirm the truth of the documents on G.I. Joe's existence released by Cobra... and denies it, despite being ordered to back them up by Cobra, who are supporting his play for a Senate seat. The man pledges to pursue the documents to their origin, which Error 404 is confident they won't be able to do... especially when Cobra Commander insists to him that they not be traced back to Cobra. That night, the liaison is confronted by the Baroness in his Washington, DC home, and is given an ultimatum as punishment for his betrayal: either he kill himself and leave a Cobra-written suicide note, or the Baroness will murder his family before faking his suicide...
Scarlett recaps the Joes' war with Cobra: they have brought the organisation into the light, eliminated a large amount of their command structure, and destroyed their facilities. But it's not enough, and in return, Cobra have severely harmed the Joes, killing many of their number and orchestrating the cutting of the budget to the bone. Scarlett declares that the time has come to end Cobra as a threat, taking advantage of the cracks in their command structure and the fact that they have lost the use of the Arashikage clan... which brings her to G.I. Joe's newest enemy. Snake Eyes has rejoined his old clan... and the Joes won't be taking him in alive!
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
Characters in italics appear only as video or images. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| G.I. Joe | Cobra | Others |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Quotes[edit | edit source]
"I thought Fort Baxter was a dump. They should have turned this tub into hairpins a long time ago."
- —Scarlett doesn't think much of the USS Flagg
"Fifty says Scarlett takes the weird chick."
"What? This ain't pay-per-view, Bildocker."
"I know. It's free."
- —Bildocker and Stalker comment on the Scarlett/Helix fight
Notes[edit | edit source]
Continuity notes[edit | edit source]
- Helix evaded the issue of Snake Eyes to make it seem like he was dead back in issue 12. She didn't technically lie there, either!
- The Joes' screen lists off several prominent members of Cobra who have appeared previously in IDW. They include the Baroness, Cobra Commander, Destro and Stormshadow, all listed as "alive", as well as several other characters listed as "deceased" or "captured":
- The original Cobra Commander is "deceased", having been killed by Chuckles in Cobra vol. 1 #12; Xamot is also deceased, killed by the detonation of a nuclear warhead in the following issue.
- Dr. Orizama is "deceased", killed by Snake Eyes in G.I. Joe vol. 1 #27.
- Major Bludd and Tomax are both "captured", being in the custody of the intelligence unit over in Cobra vol. 2.
- Dr. Mindbender is "deceased?", having fallen to his apparent death in the previous issue of G.I. Joe, though his survival was evident to the reader. Copperback is "captured" and Urso is "deceased", also from that issue, though G.I. Joe: Special Missions #11 will show that Urso isn't as dead as he appeared.
- Zartan is "deceased", as his plane was brought down by a bomb placed by Snake Eyes in Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow #15, though he, again, was shown to the audience to have survived.
- Krake is uniquely listed as "unknown". The Joes don't know it, but he is the former identity of the current Cobra Commander — though you'd think they'd have figured that out, considering he disappeared right when the new Commander first showed up...
G.I. Joe references[edit | edit source]
- The USS Flagg hails from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, in which it was the largest single playset available. The original was named for General Flagg, the original commander of the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe team, but that can't be the case in IDW continuity; the IDW Flagg was commissioned in 1943, and General Flagg is established in G.I. Joe vol. 3 #3 to have been Duke's commanding officer before he joined the Joes.
- Tripwire is sporting a new design far more closely based on his original action figure and cardart than the helmetless, night-vision-goggle-wearing redesign he has previously had in IDW continuity.
- Cutter's evident pride in being a member of the United States Coast Guard seems to draw on his original filecard, which described him as kicking up a stink when he found out there weren't any coasties in the Joes, resulting in him joining the team.
Errors[edit | edit source]
- On page 11, the text on Error 404's shirt is backwards.
- Why does Cobra Commander care about the document leaks being traced back to Cobra? They already publicly participated in the reveal of G.I. Joe to the world.
Covers (2)[edit | edit source]
- Cover A: Scarlett, by Alex Cal and Joana Lafuente.
- Cover RI: G.I. Joe vs. Cobra from Duke and Chuckles to Serpentor and the Baroness, by Robert Atkins and Simon Gough; combines with the RI covers to Cobra vol. 2 #17 and Snake Eyes #17 to form a larger image.
