Origins issue 19
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 "Andy, sales for Origins are dropping, what do we do?" "I dunno, Carlos, get Larry to do "Silent Interlude" again?" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | September 22, 2010 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | September 2010 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Larry Hama | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Joe Benitez | ||||||||||||
| Inks by | Victor Llamas | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | J. Brown | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Andy Schmidt | ||||||||||||
| Assistant editor | Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
G.I. Joe's silent warrior tangles with terrorists in the frozen wilderness.
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
As Snake Eyes prepares to jump from a transport aircraft, he and the pilots are stunned momentarily by a painfully loud sound wave. The ninja parachutes down to the ground, where he finds a wolf ensnared in the barbed wire fence of the enemy compound; though he knows that doing so will alert his foes to his presence, he cuts through the fence and frees the wolf, before taking cover under a tarpaulin. When two men on a snowmobile arrive to investigate, the ninja leaps out, cutting them down with his sword and taking their vehicle for himself.
In the underground base, the terrorists that the ninja seeks have detected the plane that he came in on, and prepare to unleash their sonic weapon on it; but as they do so, disrupting the pilot's controls, Snake Eyes comes crashing into the base on the snowmobile, eliminating the guards with sword and gun. The terrorist leaders hit a "panic button" to seal blast doors to protect them, but Snake Eyes jams the doors using a borrowed wrench and knocks the two out with a flying kick, shutting down the sonic weapon — and saving the pilot's life —- before ensuring that the terrorist leaders don't follow him with a grenade.
Snake Eyes fights his way out of the base and makes his escape, pursued by more terrorists on snowmobiles... but his foes don't get far, as they are attacked by a pack of wolves, the wolf that Snake Eyes saved among them! Believing his mission completed, Snake Eyes prepares for extraction on a Fulton recovery device, but there's a complication — the terrorist leaders, still alive, have taken to the air in a helicopter gunship, aiming to kill the ninja! Snake Eyes, however, isn't concerned, and points to the side of the helicopter... where he stuck a sword into the fuel tank during his escape. With a cocky wave goodbye, Snake Eyes is lifted up and away by his transport while the helicopter, drained of fuel, goes crashing into the ground... and though the pilots survive, they are now trapped with a ravenous wolf outside...
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| G.I. Joe | Terrorists | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes[edit | edit source]
"In the darkling wood
A leaf falls in silent arcs
Steel glints in shadow
Arashikage no Hebime"
- —Larry Hama, title page
Notes[edit | edit source]
G.I. Joe references[edit | edit source]
- Containing no dialogue or sound effects at all, this issue is a homage to the legendary Marvel Comics G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #21, "Silent Interlude", also written by Larry Hama and focusing on the silent Snake Eyes. That issue would also be homaged later by Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow #21.
- The wolf that Snake Eyes befriends is a nod to his classic lupine companion Timber, who himself drew on how the Marvel Snake-Eyes was said to have been "living in the mountains with a wolf" when Hawk brought him out of retirement. This one can't be Timber, though, as a wolf by that name would later appear in G.I. Joe vol. 2 #21!
Real life references[edit | edit source]
- The terrorists' green-and-yellow bodysuits and face-masks seem to be inspired by Marvel Comics' Hydra; Hydra were the villains of Larry Hama's "Fury Force" series pitch that was reworked into G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, with Hydra's place being taken by the similarly serpentine-named terrorist faction Cobra.
- Snake Eyes is evacuated with a Fulton surface-to-air recovery system, or "skyhook".
Errors[edit | edit source]
- On the first page, Snake Eyes' plane is shown with two pilots, but on subsequent pages it only has one.
Covers (3)[edit | edit source]
- Cover A: Snake Eyes on a blood-splattered canvas, by Joe Benitez, Victor Llamas and J. Brown.
- Cover B: Snake Eyes in shadow, by Joe Benitez, Victor Llamas and Andrew Crossley.
- Incentive cover: A reprint of the G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary comic pack cover of Silent Interlude", by Ashley Wood; this cover came with a reprint of "Silent Interlude".
