G.I. Joe vol. 5 issue 5

Distrust and duplicity in the Joe ranks threatens the stability of the team as they struggle to contend with the emergence of more subterranean monsters.

1 Synopsis
2 Featured characters
3 Quotes
4 Notes
5 External links

Synopsis

All around the world, more and more of the mysterious, gigantic monsters encountered by G.I. Joe in Inner Mongolia have begun to periodically emerge from underground. When one appears on the floor of the Indian Ocean, Skywarp engages it in battle while a team of Joes attempt to gather as much data on it as they can. Skywarp is more than willing to simply kill the thing, but the Joes insist he refrain; instead, he tries to immobilize it, but winds up snapping off one of its horns. Wounded, the creature flees, and the Joes happily take the horn back as a biological sample to study.

Aboard Lemuria, the recent discovery of Doc's Dire Wraith heritage has thrown the team for a loop. Grand Slam believes that she and her father are on their side, but Lifeline does not trust her, preferring that he be allowed to examine her in his lab. As Doc's emotions flare, her body begins to shift shape, extruding tentacles from her wrists, which is as much of a shock to her as it is to everyone else. Distraught over her situation, she is left to be confined to her quarters until the team can figure out what to do.

In his cell in the Joe base, the incarcerated Crystal Ball has used garbage to draw a mystic circle on the floor, in which he now meditates, muttering about "briding the gap" and "commanding" the monsters. When Rock 'n Roll brings his dinner, the ex-Cobra mystic intimates that there is another prisoner aboard Rock knows nothing about, and once more reaches out to touch Rock on the forehead, subjecting him to another series of visions embodying his inner turmoil. The sound of Scarlett's voice over the PA system snaps Rock out of it, and he leaves Crystal Ball and attends a briefing with the rest of the team in the mess hall, where Scarlett announces that another of the giant creatures has emerged from the Mount Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador. Agent Helix volunteers herself and Snake Eyes for the mission, seeking to verify a pattern she believes she has detected that will help predict the monsters' appearances, but Scarlett turns her down, as the team's objective is to locate the beasts' origin point, not predict their movements. Scarlett appoints Cover Girl as mission head, who chooses Rock 'n Roll to accompany her; Scarlett instructs them to take "extra firepower" with them

The team deploys to Ecuador, where Skywarp buzzes the monster atop Mount Cotopaxi as Cover Girl uses her "extra firepower"—a Wolverine missile tank—to strike from below. Rock tries using his laser shotgun on the monster up-close, but is kicked away by its massive foot, which is then brought crashing down on top of the Wolverine, destroying it. With Skywarp struggling to overpower the beast, it falls to new team member Salvo to step in, unleashing a hail of firepower from a pair of preposterously massive shoulder-mounted cannons that manages to successfully drive the creature off and back into the volcano. Its return to the caldera sets off an eruption, burying Skywarp in molten lava, but he is not too badly harmed and soon digs himself out. Eager for payback and impressed with Salvo's skills and forthrightness, the ex-Decepticon invites her to accompany him down into the Earth in pursuit of the monster, but Cover Girl forbids it, indicating some nearby villages that the Joes must help evacuate in order to save the inhabitants from the lava flow.

Back on Lemuria, Helix and Snake Eyes covertly commandeer a S.H.A.R.C. to investigate Helix's theory. Unaware of their insubordination, Scarlett leads Roadblock into the bowels of the complex, explaining as they walk that the recent revelations about the Wraiths in their ranks have convinced her to share an important secret with him as a show of trust. That secret, Roadblock soon learns, is that she is illegally holding the Baroness prisoner in the base, a revelation that leaves Roadblock deeply perturbed. Unfortunately, Scarlett's trust in him proves misplaced, as Roadblock retires to his quarters and immediately passes this information on to his shadowy contact... revealed to be ex-G.I. Joe commanding officer Duke!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

G.I. Joe

Others

Stretcher (1)
Skywarp (2)
Shipwreck (4)
Polly (5)
Deep Six (6)
Doc (7)
Lifeline (8)

Gung-Ho (17)
Roadblock (18)
Quick Kick (19)
Dial Tone (20)
Salvo (21)
Duke (23)

Multiple "Fatal Fluffies" (2)
Crystal Ball (11)
Baroness (22)

Quotes

"This is an undiscovered species! Would you just up and kill it?!"
"Yes!"

—Shipwreck and Skywarp debate how to handle the monsters

"You're the only one of these geeks worth their salt."

—Skywarp "compliments" Salvo

"How was dinner?"
"The usual."
"That bad, huh?"

—Scarlett and Roadblock on Shipwreck's cooking

Notes

Continuity notes

Scarlett shuts down Helix by telling her "AWOL outings" are no longer acceptable. Such outings were one of Helix's hallmarks during the Chuck Dixon years on the various IDW G.I. Joe books, as she would often go off-mission with Snake Eyes, and even took to following Snake Eyes on AWOL missions against Snake's own wishes. Scarlett's doesn't sugarcoat it, either, telling her to stow her "cutesy awkward thing"; a rather brusque reference to the nebulous "not autism" (to quote Hawk) that Helix has (barely) been portrayed as having. Scarlett previously displayed her lack of time for Helix's attitude back in 2012's G.I. Joe vol. 2 #17, when the two women got into a fist fight.
We learned that Scarlett was secretly keeping the Baroness prisoner back in issue #2. This issue reveals that, of all things, she was arrested in Monaco for reckless driving before Joe took custody of her.
It was also in issue #2 that we learned Roadblock was secretly reporting to a shadowy figure, revealed at the end of this issue to be Duke. Apparently back in some form of military command based on the desk and office he's shown occupying, Duke was last seen in G.I. Joe vol. 4, having quit G.I. Joe during the timeskip between it and vol. 3 and begun work in the private security sector.

Transformers references

Skywarp's insult of choice in this issue is "geek", which he hurls at the Joes twice. This seems deliberately evocative of his jock-bully manner of speech in the Generation 1 cartoon, and in particular to "Countdown to Extinction," in which he was heard to quip "Geek work's made for a geek!"

G.I. Joe references

Cover Girl drives a Wolverine—her signature vehicle in classic G.I. Joe media, the toy of which her action figure came packaged with.

Real-life references

The Baroness being caught not for supervillainy but for reckless driving nods to the way many real-life criminals have been captured, most notoriously Al Capone, who was put away for tax fraud.

Other trivia

Back matter for this issue includes a two-page "Mission Missives" letters section.
Originally solicited for release in April, this issue continues IDW's ongoing series of delays and arrives in the first week of May.

Covers (4)

Regular cover: Skywarp versus a Fatal Fluffy, by Aaron Conley and Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Subscription cover A: Salvo, Rock 'n Roll, and Cover Girl out in the snow, by Giannis Milonogiannis
Subscription cover B: Snake Eyes by Tom Feister
Retailer incentive cover Scarlett versus the Baroness, by Tom Neely