There was a memorable moment in November's Transformers #2 (we wrote about it here) where Decepticon Starscream, dogfighting with a US Air Force fighter jet, changes into his robot form, forces his opponents to eject from their plane, and then claps his metal hands together, gleefully splatting one of the humans in front of the other. It was grimly funny and seemed to exist purely to illustrate just how evil the Decepticons really are.
In Duke #1 (written by Joshua Williamson, drawn by Tom Reilly and colored by Jordie Bellaire), it becomes clear that there was more to that scene than we initially realised. The surviving pilot is none other than Conrad "Duke" Hauser, a legendary hero from the world of G.I. Joe. He's been left traumatised by the encounter and now he has a lot of questions...
Spoilers for Duke #1 ahead!
We pick up with Duke six months after the incident. Rattled by what happened to him and on an enforced "vacation" from the Army, he has become obsessed with discovering the truth about what he encountered. This leads him to a meeting with Dr Adele Burkhart, a disgraced scientist who has stumbled onto what she describes as a "high-tech arms race," which in turn leads him to the mysterious M.A.R.S. Industries.
Joe fans will immediately recognise that as the name of the manufacturer that will eventually supply terrorist organisation Cobra with their weapons - and indeed when Duke breaks into their facilities he sees tanks, choppers, submersibles, and a whole army's-worth of deadly-looking wargear in the process of being manufactured. We also get a brief cameo from the villainous Destro.
Duke returns to Dr Burkhart to find her mortally wounded by an unknown assassin. As they're talking, armed police burst in and shoot up the room (leading to the issue's one duff note - Duke is tough, but even he shouldn't be able to survive this much gunfire!) forcing our man to go on the run.
The final couple of pages make it clear that Duke is facing peril from multiple sides. Destro is gunning for him, he's wanted by the police, and even his former colleagues in the US Army are after him. The end of the issue sees Colonel Hawk dispatching familiar Joe characters Stalker and Rock 'N' Roll to bring him in.
Good stuff this! While Larry Hama and Chris Mooneyham's revived G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero continues to be an action-packed war story (and is in its own separate continuity to the Energon Universe comics), Duke is operating as both a slow-burn thriller, and as a prequel to a more familiar G.I. Joe setup.
Destro and M.A.R.S. Industries aren't yet the threat that we know they will become. Cobra doesn't appear to be a thing at all (a short epilogue teases the forthcoming Cobra Commander comic, which launches on January 17). As Williamson noted in our recent interview, the various factions in this world aren't fully established yet.
At the same time, the arrival of the Transformers on Earth has clearly made a significant impact on the world. A brief flashback aside, we don't see any of the robots in disguise in this issue and Duke currently believes that they are simply advanced human technology. That won't last - others are already starting to notice them - but for now Duke the comic is intent on exploring Duke the man, and the origins of the G.I. Joe world as we know it.
Of course, the peril of a prequel is the urge to make everything a reference to future events, often at the expense of characterisation or action. Duke avoids this by putting our hero's troubled state of mind front and center and by lightly subverting the franchise's gung-ho attitudes to conflict. This is a more thoughtful and surprising take on the G.I. Joe world - and that's no bad thing.
Duke #1 is out now from Skybound.
Daniel Warren Johnson's new take on Transformers is a thrilling fresh start for the robots in disguise. Find out more in our interview with the writer/artist here.
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