Cobra #8
Written by Mike Costa
Art by Antonio Fuso & Werther Dell’Edera
Colors by Scarletgothica
Letters by Shawn Lee
IDW Publishing
Release Date: December 21, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

Right now is a fantastic time to be a G.I. Joe fan (unless you collect the toy line). Although, after reading Cobra #8, it’s a better time to be a Cobra fan. The new Cobra Commander has been chosen and he means business. And, he’s not wasting any time.

You’ve got to hand it to writer Mike Costa. He makes being a bad guy look like a hell of a lot of fun. When I was a kid, I always wanted to part of the G.I. Joe team. My great fear is that kids reading the G.I. Joe comics today will see that being a member of Cobra is a lot more interesting, and in about 20 years, we’ll have thousands of young men starting up their own ruthless, terrorist organization. But I digress.

The first half of this issue is a little slow, it’s a brief recap and update on what went down with the undercover Cobra agent that infiltrated the Joes. The last half of the book is the new Cobra Commander taking over and totally upending everything we knew about Cobra. It’s not often you can say this in comics, but after this issue, truly NOTHING will be the same!

Antonio Fuso and Werther Dell’Edera split art duties for the first and second half of the issue. It’s taken me a long time to get used to Fuso. Way longer than it should have, but now, when he’s not drawing this book, I honestly wish he was. I was totally convinced that he didn’t belong on a G.I. Joe book, that his style just didn’t fit the property. But, I was wrong. He’s come to really make the characters and universe his own and bring them to life in a way that not many artists have before.

In many ways, this is a prequel issue to IDW’s next G.I. Joe crossover, Cobra Command, which starts next month and runs through March. I have to say, after reading this issue, I’m very excited to see what’s going to happen. Cobra is no longer a nuisance. They are a legitimate threat in the G.I. Joe universe. And that’s the way it should be.