In the book, the team is coming out of the shadows to become a public face for the American military, or as Duke puts it in the issue, so-called "celebrity soldiers." As a gamer, I have to say that this concept sells me on the book. As a matter of fact, this concept is ready made for a role-playing game setting (I wish that Hasbro would let Wizards of the Coast do a G.I. Joe role-playing game, but that is a digression).
One of my favorite lines from the comic comes from Shipwreck: "Do I have to wear this? I'm a Navy SEAL, not a cartoon duck." For the first time, the G.I, Joe team has to deal with marketing: tee shirts and even toys with their likenesses.
This is not a restart, or a relaunch or a revamp. The previous continuity all still seems to have taken place, right down to General Colton, the G.I. Joe of the original "Adventure Team," being put in charge of the contemporary team. These are all of the characters that you know and love, they are just changing and adapting to the world around them, a world where news and advertising are as much weapons as guns and knives.
In addition to the usual, familiar faces, there are a couple of new characters. In accordance with the team's new public mission there is an embedded blogger (named Hashtag by someone who has obviously been on the internet during the last few years) who's job it is to record the team's missions and make sure that everyone knows who they are and what they do. I also like the fact that Cover Girl had been on Project Runway.
The story is pretty fast paced. We are dropped into the action, after things have already hit the fan and then brought up to speed with flashbacks to the G.I. Joe press conference and the events leading up to the current mission going wrong. There are a lot of familiar notes to this story and writer Fred Van Lente is obviously very well-versed in the lore of the Joes. However, this is not a continuity mired comic. You don't have to have read ten or twenty years worth of G.I. Joe comics in order to know who the people are, or what is happening. With a new G.I. Joe movie looming on the horizon, that is probably a big reason for all of this, and I do not think that it is a bad reason either. Unfortunately comics have become wrapped up in a certain kind of fan who knows the trivia and minutia of thirty or more years of continuity and by creating comics that appeal to those people the casual and new readers have been locked out of comics. I applaud IDW Publishing for making a comic that is so new user friendly.
The art is really good as well. I mean really good. With Steve Kurth on pencils and Allen Martinez on inks, the book has a team that is capable of dynamic, engrossing art that is both good in the action scenes as well as the character bits. The art lives and breathes and draws you along with the story.
Is this comic worth buying? Hell. Yes. This is the best G.I. Joe first issue that I have seen in a very long time, better than previous issues from IDW. I would say that this is probably the best first issue that I have seen since Devil's Due had the rights and was publishing a G.I. Joe comic through Image Comics. Even if you're not a fan of the Joes, if you like military stories or action-oriented comics, I really think that you will like this book. It has made me impatient for the next issue. If you didn't pick this book up today, get back to your comic store and get a copy before it is gone and you have to wait for the trade to find out what all of the rest of us are excited about.