Gi Joe #8

At first, I didn't think this was a very good issue.  The whole angle of denying the existence of Cobra, even when other books very much admit to it, seemed off.  But then as I thought about it, and saw the more sinister side of this Joe incarnation in the Helix special, I realized that there's more to this than what we're led to believe.  Also, we get some classic action as Baroness cleans out Castle Destro and a Joe team moves in on it.  We finally get to see some Cobra foot soldiers and also get a little hint into the hierarchy of the group; their standard operating procedure sounds like a cross between an organized crime family and a military operation, which is what Cobra should be.  Finally in the plus column, the contrasting of the gregarious Mainframe with the ever-silent Snake-Eyes as they set out on a road trip was really good character building, and Snakes wanting to listen to an ocean sounds CD was hilarious (also, their destination was a nice nod to the Marvel run but also establishes it as a real-world locale).  The only negative was the characterization of Destro.  Get this maudlin wannabe out of my Joe book and bring back the ever-confident mercenary arms-dealer who's never without a plan.  I know it's an attempt to change the game in the Joe universe, but Destro was a good example of something that wasn't broken and not needing to be fixed.  Otherwise, not too bad of an issue.