Sedition by Numbers Part 3
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 Ra, Ra, Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine! | |||||||||||||
| "Sedition by Numbers Part 3" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | December 8, 2010 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | December 2010 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | David Lapham | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Werther Dell'edera | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Arianna Florean | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Neil Uyetake | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Andy Schmidt | ||||||||||||
| Assistant editor | Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
Brought in as a true agent of Cobra, Mad Monk falls under the sway of the charismatic ideologue Krake.
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
In Somalia, Michael Monk is unimpressed with his men, who are leering through a pair of binoculars at an insurgent camp — specifically, at the pizzas that the rebels are eating. Suggesting that they could get in and grab some of the pizza before the planned airstrike, the Colossus World Security soldiers try to appeal to Michael's reputation as the "Mad Monk", but he shuts them down, not wanting to jeopardise the mission for such a petty reason. Looking through the binoculars himself, however, Monk sees something far worse than bad pizza: the rebels beating and yelling at an innocent family. Ordering his men to get out of the jeep, Monk single-handedly storms the camp, eliminating the rebels and rescuing their captives all on his own.
Two days later, Monk is brought by helicopter to an International Humanitarian Aid Foundation orphanage in Kenya, one used to raise a new generation of Cobra loyalists. Met by Dr. Lester Horvath, Monk assumes he is to be reprimanded for his improvisation, but with the desired results obtained, Colossus does not care about the methods used. Instead, Horvath wants to tell him about the Lome System, the numbered scale that Horvath created for ranking people and placing them in hierachies; though Monk thinks that the entire thing sounds like nonsense, according to Horvath, Monk's status as a very rare and valuable "seven" means he is overqualified for his current position. Though he has the opportunity to leave and end their association while keeping his family cared for, Horvath is offering him a new position, one with world-changing consequences.
At dinner with his family, Michael Monk sings the praises of his new superior, Krake. His wife Tara, however, isn't happy; she hasn't seen her husband in nine months, and on his return, all he can talk about is his new job — and so she wants a divorce. Over Michael's angry protests, Tara explains that she's been seeing someone else, causing her husband to angrily leave the house; but all of this was a ruse orchestrated by Horvath, who offered Tara better accomodations and new doctors for Hannah in exchange for her "performance", wanting Michael to have no more ties to his previous life. Later, Horvath overhears Krake explaining more of the ideology of the Movement to Monk; ideology that is fully persuasive, as Krake believes every word. As he listens, Horvath destroys the last traces of his former relationship with Dr. Ruth Westholme.
For his first mission for the Movement, Monk begins training a hand-picked team taken from his fellow Colossus recruits... and, much to his consternation, his bullying former drill sergeant Eric Raston, who was foisted on him despite his wishes. Two weeks of training later, Monk's team is carried by Cobra aircraft to the airspace above their target: a United States Air Force cargo plane, down to which they slide through a chute that magnetises itself to the other plane's hull. Cutting into the plane, they drop in and take down the guards with knockout gas and gunfire, before breaking into the hangar that contains their objective: a container of advanced missiles. Monk urges the team's hacker, Baker, to hurry with his disabling of the security system protecting the missiles, but it's already too late... because the highly-trained special mission force G.I. Joe are here to stop them!
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
Characters in italics are shown only in flashback. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| G.I. Joe | Cobra and allies | Others |
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Quotes[edit | edit source]
"Move it, Baker! Get a hold of yourself, and get the job done."
"Ease up, Monk. Take a breath, son... do it right, not stupid."
"Too late for that... you all passed stupid a long time ago."
- —Mad Monk and Baker are interrupted by Duke.
Notes[edit | edit source]
Continuity notes[edit | edit source]
- Horvath's "one and only friend", and Monk's new superior, is revealed to be Krake, a Cobra operative who first appeared in the previous month's G.I. Joe vol. 1 #23.
- Finally, some actual G.I. Joe characters appear! The team members — Duke, Scarlett, Stalker, Heavy Duty, and Rock 'n Roll — all appeared in the first arc of Origins, though team members Snake Eyes and Breaker are absent.
G.I. Joe references[edit | edit source]
- Though the Cobra escort vehicles don't seem to be based on an existing toy, they do share some similarities with the Firebat and A.G.P..
- Rock 'n Roll sports a cap and a tan shirt, much like his second toy from 1989.
Errors[edit | edit source]
- If Monk is impossible to lie to, why is he taken in by Tara's "performance"?
Covers (3)[edit | edit source]
- Cover A: Cobra High Command, by Tom Feister.
- Cover RI: Mad Monk is in with the snakes, by Werther Dell'edera and Arianna Florean.
