The Search for Siren
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 In which Siren has already been successfully searched for! | |||||||||||||
| "The Search for Siren" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | April 30, 2014 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | April 2014 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Paul Allor | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Steve Kurth | ||||||||||||
| Inks by | Allen Martinez | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Joana Lafuente | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Shawn Lee | ||||||||||||
| Special Thanks | Max Brooks | ||||||||||||
| Editor | John Barber | ||||||||||||
| Editorial consultant | Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
The G.I. Joe field team must escape from a Cobra training camp for child soldiers, but prove to have traitors in their midst.
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
Hashtag is horrified at the sight of Cobra's child soldier training camp, and immediately starts thinking of how to rescue the children, but Cover Girl shuts her down — they aren't prepared for a rescue mission at all, and need to get out without being caught to come back with a stronger force, because if they get caught, they'll lose the opportunity to mount a rescue. They make to leave, but immediately walk right into one of the trainees — and though a quick-thinking Hashtag tries to assure her that they're "playing a game" where they try to hide from the other adults — the young girl cries out to alert the children's drill instructor, Big Boa, to the intruders. With a change of plans forced, the Joes open fire on the Vipers moving in towards them, but are unwilling to risk hitting the children who come running in, armed with batons, to attack them at Boa's urging. In the chaos, Siren grabs her son Isaac, assuring him that the soldiers are here to help them... though she doesn't confirm when he asks if they're G.I. Joe.
In the midst of the gunfight, one of the children asks Roadblock to help him, and the Joe makes a command decision; shouting out for any children that want to be rescued to follow him, Roadblock and the other Joes flee through the old castle. A rocket launcher-armed Viper tries to use his weapons to take out the Joes at once, but his comrade — worried for the safety of the "L'il Vipers" — grabs his arm and knocks off his aim, saving the children's lives but sending Hashtag and Isaac tumbling to the floor. As the Vipers are taken out with headshots, Roadblock moves to go and collect them; Siren insists that she is coming too, but Roadblock refuses as she'd slow him down, and Cover Girl pulls the Cobra agent away.
Unharmed by the fall, Isaac takes Hashtag by the hand and offers to show her a way out, but as they run, one of the other trainees calls out to Isaac... who is the trainees' unit commander, and a Cobra loyalist all the way through. Angry that his plan to infiltrate the Joes was thwarted, Isaac draws a knife and stabs Hashtag in the side; as she pulls the knife out and tries to drag the struggling Isaac away, the other trainee asks if the Joes can really get her out. Hashtag wants to, but her attention is caught up in keeping the kicking, biting Isaac under control... but decides that if she can't save them both, she has to save the one who wants to be rescued. Letting Isaac run away, Hashtag accompanies the girl instead.
Having knocked out a room full of Vipers, Roadblock is presented with a new threat: Big Boa, a towering woman who stands even taller than the massive Joe. Launching quickly into an attack, Boa knocks Roadblock back with a vicious headbutt before he can do anything; the two fight brutally, slamming each other into the stonework of the crumbling castle, but Boa eventually gets the upper hand, Roadblock prone as she punches him into submission. Boa taunts the machine gunner, claiming to have trained ten-year-old girls tougher than him... just as the girl Hashtag was rescuing runs into the room and strikes the instructor across the knees with her baton, sending her to the ground writhing in pain.
Roadblock carries the girl out to the Joes' boat, where a small number of rescued children are being helped aboard. With the team preparing to leave, Siren is furious that Isaac has been left behind; she knew that he was being indocrinated by Cobra, which is why she contacted the Joes seven months before. Unwilling to leave her son behind, Siren stays on the shore and fires at the departing vehicle; and soon, the training facility is being packed up into waiting ships to take the children to a new site. In a quiet corner, Isaac tells his mother that though he loves her, they both belong with Cobra... and that if she betrays them again, he will kill her himself.
Back in New York, the rescued children are reunited with their families. Though Cover Girl encourages Hashtag to go down and speak to the families, the communications specialist confesses that it doesn't feel like a victory to her — if they had gone in sooner and with more force, they could have rescued all the children. Though she seems to take Cover Girl's advice to focus on the win that they have made rather than treating it like a defeat, in the dark command center of Fort Jay that she later retreats to, Hashtag rewatches the message from the desperate Siren... and wishes that she could have done better.
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| G.I. Joe | Cobra | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes[edit | edit source]
"Too bad. I really thought you were gonna be a challenge. But I've trained ten-year-old-girls who are tougher than you."
(The trainee hits Big Boa across the knees.)
"Aim for the kneecaps? Right? Aim for the kneecaps?"
"I like your gumption, kid. But when you're fightin' someone that big, you'd best skip the quips and just run."
- —Big Boa, the rebellious trainee, and Roadblock
"Isaac, you are the most important thing in my life. I would do anything to make sure you're safe and happy."
"I am happy. And with Big Boa looking after us, we're probably the safest kids on Earth. I love you, mom. But we're where we belong. You need to accept that. Because if you betray Cobra again? I'll kill you myself. Now give me a hug. People are watching."
- —Siren and Isaac Craft. That's one creepy kid you've got there, lady.
"We did the best we could do, under the circumstances. I know that. In my head, I know that. It's just... if we'd gone in sooner, gone in bigger... ...there were a lot of other kids in that compound. I just wanted one clean victory. That's all."
"This is a victory, Hashtag. And we don't get a lot of them. You start treating them like defeats, you'll drive yourself crazy."
- —Hashtag is encouraged by Cover Girl
Notes[edit | edit source]
Continuity notes[edit | edit source]
- This issue confirms that the events of G.I. Joe vol. 3 took place over the space of 7 months; pretty much all of that time must have been spent on unseen missions between issue #5 and issue #7, with issue #6 falling somewhere nebulous in between.
Errors[edit | edit source]
- "L'il Vipers" is definitely not correctly abbreviated; it should be "Lil' Vipers" or "Li'l Vipers".
Other notes[edit | edit source]
- As with the previous issue, no title for this issue appears within, so we're using the first line of the solicitation in lieu of any other title. It's admittedly not a great one, since there's no actual "Search for Siren" taking place in this issue; maybe "Siren's Song Part 2" would be more appropriate?
- This is the last issue of G.I. Joe vol. 3; with G.I. Joe: Special Missions coming to an end the same month, IDW's own-continuity G.I. Joe titles would go on hiatus prior to the launch of G.I. Joe vol. 4 four months later (though Larry Hama's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero continuation carried on releasing, while Transformers vs. G.I. Joe debuted the next month).
- At the end of this issue is a page of thanks for everyone who contributed to G.I. Joe vol. 3: Arthur Adams, Paul Allor, Robert Atkins, John-Paul Bove, Alex Cal, Juan Castro, David Garcia Cruz, Mark Deering, Juan Doe, Ryan Dunlavey, Chris Evenhuis, Romulo Fajardo, Jr., S.L. Gallant, Simon Gough, Carlos Guzman, Clint Hilinski, Jamal Igle, Steve Kurth, Joana Lafuente, Gilberto Lazcano, Shawn Lee, Tom B. Long, Allen Martinez, Phyllis Novin, Atilio Rojo, Tim Seeley, Neil Uyetake, Fred Van Lente, Nicole Virella, Freddie E. Williams II, and Kito Young. Phew!
Covers (2)[edit | edit source]
- Cover A: Hashtag and Siren behind shattered images of the Cobra trainees and the G.I. Joe team, by Steve Kurth, Allen Martinez and Joana Lafuente.
- Cover RI: The volume 3 G.I. Joe team, by Freddie E. Williams II and Priscilla Tramontano.
