IDW - Scarlett's Strike Force #3

Written by: Aubrey Sitterson

Art by: Nelson Daniel

Colours by: Ryan Hill

Letters by: Taylor Esposito

Editors: Tom Waltz & Chase Marotz

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

The Joes in the jungle-overgrown Arctic ride around, following a smaller team led by Spirit, trying to find the Cobra Temple, ultimately locating it, and finding a massive army of Vipers surrounding it.

The Joes attack the Vipers, but Quick Kick remains behind, with "Friday", when the former discovers Storm Shadow following him, and the two start to fight.

Quick kick appears to be winning the fight, until another ninja joins in, the female, former Storm Shadow, who has joined up with Storm Shadow as his sidekick, Tempest. The two escape with a ninja smoke ball, allowing them to escape, promising to fight him again later.

In the temple, Crystal Ball is putting the final touches on his master-plan, all whilst the Joes outside and tearing through the Vipers outside. Salvo and Spitfire defy orders and enter the temple, gunning down a bunch of Vipers performing some sort of ritual. Unfortunately this was part of their plan, as they bleed out, powering up an engraved mural of Golobulus, which lights up.

The temple starts to shake, as the Joes just manage to escape, the members of Cobra rise up on a meteor and plan to resurrect Golobulus from the stars, hoping for it to devour the planet below....

Back on the Lemuria, Helix and Snake Eyes are still in the brig, beginning a plan to start a game of D&D when the power goes out, forcing their energy-bar powered cells to go out, allowing the prisoners to escape.

Scarlett soon screams at Shipwreck for his new power source failing, and has him and Gung-Ho work on repairing it now.

The escapees soon come across Skywarp, who explains that he is the one who disabled the power grid, as a way to allow them to escape and join forces with Duke. The two are sent off to grab a vehicle to escape with...

Characters

GI Joe

Scarlett

Roadblock

Skywarp - Fighter Jet

Quick Kick

Salvo

Spitfire

Spirit

Cover Girl

Dial Tone

Shipwreck

Polly the Parrot

Gung-Ho

Snake-Eyes

Helix

Rock 'n Roll (Mentioned)

Cobra

Cobra Commander

Storm Shadow

Lady Storm Shadow/Tempest

Destro

Crystal Ball

Dr. Mindbender

Vipers Most Killed by GI Joe

Golobulus (Mural Only)

Other

"Friday"

Notes

• YAY! It's the last issue! And without failing to disappoint, it ends on a cliffhanger. Oddly this issue doesn't include any "The end" or "letter from the writer" section, as you would normally find in a final issue of a series. I guess IDW didn't want Sitterson to write something stupid again, like he did about 9/11 last year....
• Um....how did the Joes not notice the giant temple surrounded with snake monsters with a giant red sky around it? Did they really need to bring Spirit with them to find it?
• In case it wasn't clear, Helix is getting Snake Eyes to play Dungeons and Dragons (another Hasbro product) whilst in the brig.
• So...my only guess for why the hydrothermal generator scene was added last issue was so they had a reasonable method for Skywarp to disable it in this issue
• Quick Kick brings up how Storm Shadow owes him some teeth....then shows that his mouth has no missing teeth (certainly not the ones he was missing before anyway!)
• So...Lady Storm Shadow, a powerful warrior, who was upgraded with Dire Wraith technology, and was strong enough to disable a Eukarian, Antagony, all by herself, was apparently defeated by the Male Storm Shadow, and forced to be his sidekick....yeah I don't accept that!
• My guess last issue turns out to be wrong, Skywarp's assets to be given over to Duke were Helix and Snake Eyes, not the captive Dire Wraiths.
• Last issue, Crystal Ball appeared to be talking about using Rock 'n Roll's blood to power up the resurrection of Golobulu, but here they just use some of the Vipers instead....is this bad writing, or did Sitterson just change his mind?
• Cobra Commander screaming "Cobra-lalalalalala!" is a reference to the 80's GI Joe Movie.
• So....I know everyone has already brought this up, but why are Lady Storm Shadow, Destro and Dr Mindbender on Earth? They were all major parts of the Iron Ring's attack on Cybertron, and are all being held in cells on Cybertron. We know this issue is relatively contemporary to Optimus Prime, as both SSF#2 and Optimus Prime #15 mentioned/showed the newly opened Ore-13 mine in Kentucky, and we know from the latter that Colton, and his cohorts are still imprisoned at that time...so why are they here?!?!
• And in a scene that was cut from this issue, following the final page, the Solstar Order send a team to Earth to kill all the Dire Wraiths impersonating the Joes and Cobra members, freeing their captive real counterparts, allowing for this series to just be forgotten about in a later reboot :)