"G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra" opens August 7, but let's do this now, before the probable disappointment sets in...

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You know how every time I do a Deadpool-centric strip, I moan and groan about having to fill in all his word balloons with yellow? Yeah, this one is my penance for that...

The Snake-Eyes figure is a few years old--2001? Really? I wanted to say it's from the Valor vs. Venom line, but I don't think that's right either. He does have the molded lips, though; that some people don't seem to like on the movie Snake-Eyes.

I figure I'll probably see G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra at some point, but I'm not enough of a fan to run out and see it opening night, even if the advance word said it was great. I would guess it would be a passable enough summer movie, with probably more than a couple groan-worthy sequences. I also think any screen time devoted to the tragic backstories of the bad guys; like Cobra Commander's tragic childhood, Destro's devotion to his heritage, or the Baroness's Stockholm Syndrome; is wasted. While the characters can be fleshed out, the villains here don't really need to be humanized or made sympathetic: they're bad guys in a kids' toy line, and it should be acceptable for them to merely be evil bastards.

I Googled it for a bit, but didn't find what I was looking for: I'm 90% sure it was a Toyfare interview, but not quite positive. Larry Hama, the man behind Marvel's G.I. Joe comic and the Hasbro filecards; referred to a movie with a leper (or severely burnt?) ninja as an inspiration for Storm Shadow and his white gi uniform. For some reason, I want to say it was Lady Snowblood, but that was Kill Bill, right?

Another silly thought: Deadpool is one of the Marvel Universe's premier martial artists, but where did he train? I don't recall him ever having a master or being part of a school like Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow's Arashikage Clan or anything. Granted, a lot of Pool's skill seems to be natural, due to his unpredictable and erratic mindset, but I'm still curious if anyone has touched on that.

Would Deadpool take a job from an upfront terrorist organization like Cobra? Well, in the pages of Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth, he takes a couple million for a job from Advanced Idea Mechanics. A.I.M. always seemed more horrible than a lot of the other fictional bad guy organizations like HYDRA or Cobra; after all, A.I.M. made MODOK, among other things. They were an evil that could very probably experiment on you, and I'm pretty sure Pool's going to realize before long that anything A.I.M. has it's paws on can't be good.

This strip takes place out of our regular "continuity," the current story with the Falcon. And I'm still on vacation: I'm home after a great week in Montana (a sentence that as a kid, I would've never thought would come out of me) and seeing my family and an old friend from high school! I met his family, and forgot to take any pictures even though I had my camera in my damn pocket. But, I'm still off work, so I'd better find something to do...