We're opening with Destro and the Baroness here, but the big star of this particular issue of G.I. Joe is...Megatron? From 1993, G.I. Joe #139, "Realignments" Written by Larry Hama, pencils by Chris Batista, inks by Stephen Baskerville, Chi Williams, Don Hudson, and Chip Wallace. (I don't know who inked what, but the art is noticeably stronger some pages than others.)
Megatron is currently blasting the hell out of Destro's shape-changing castle, since the Decepticon believes he was lured there on false pretenses, thinking the castle was a Transformer. Said castle is currently occupied by Cobra Commander and his forces, and the former used-car salesman is mentally scrambling to come up with a deal to get him out of this one. Meanwhile, Cobra ninja Slice is suspiciously overseeing the medical treatment of his "ally," Scarlett; after she was stabbed by Snake-Eyes last issue. Slice still isn't buying her heel-turn, and since Snake-Eyes's cut was so precise it looked far worse than it actually was, he may be right.
Cobra scientist (and possible double-agent) Dr. Biggles-Jones isn't impressed with the energy-inefficient Megatron's tech, and takes a potshot at him with her own "hyper-velocity rail gun." Megatron actually is impressed by that one, and Cobra Commander has his angle: a deal is struck, a trade of Cybertronian technology for upgrades to Megatron. Elsewhere, Destro, the Baroness, and Hawk arrive at Cobra Island; and meet with "Cobra Commander," actually, a disguised Zartan. Destro and the Baroness don't recognize the revealed Zartan until he takes his old form; he had upgraded to a new design with his 1993 figure, which I don't think is as popular as his more traditional look. Zartan tells them Cobra Commander took the late Dr. Mindbender's cloning vat, which would be useless without said doctor, unless mmmmmmaybe he left a disk behind to revive himself...
Megatron is upgraded to his "Generation 2" tank form here. (I have one, from a yard sale, deep in this crowd shot from a decade back!) Per the GCD link, this was the first part of a four-part crossover, even though it doesn't have a big cover blurb for it like you would expect. (Snake-Eyes gets big billing, although he only appears briefly in this one to give Destro the stink-eye, as it were.) I couldn't say if the crossover was Hama's idea, but as usual, he's able to take it and keep the regular plotlines running. Also, if you came to this issue cold (as I mostly did!) you might be curious why Destro and Zartan seem to be working with Hawk and G.I. Joe here; but this was well over ten years into the book's run, and many of the traditional alignments may have been altered by then. More than likely because Cobra Commander was a double-crossing backbiter; you can bet his partnership with Megatron wasn't going to last.
I stopped reading GI Joe right after that very cool two-parter Destro references when he and GI Joe teamed up to save the Baroness. Good stuff, plus they revealed that Cobra Commander's son Billy and Zartan were still alive after the Cobra civil war. After that, and also because of the cartoony as fuck artwork, I left.
ReplyDeleteDidn't care for Transformers Generation 2 either. Just not the same as the previous, original ongoing series that had just been cancelled.
Damn did that really upset me when they did that.
I know IDW had a similar team-up between the two franchises, but they had it set back during WW2, that never seemed to make sense to me.