Guess what happens in G.I. JOE Movie Prequel #4? Oh, you probably need some more information to work with, don’t you?

OK, then, here’s the setup: A mysterious cell of environmental terrorists takes over a new dam in Russia, and demands the facility be shut down or in thirty minutes they’ll begin killing their hostages--the U.S. Vice-President among them--and in an hour they’ll blow up the dam and everyone in it themselves. So the U.S. sends Snake Eyes in--there’s no explanation of how he manages to get to Russia within half-an-hour; he must have been stationed conveniently nearby--to take out the bad guys before they take out the dam.

OK, now guess what happens in G.I. JOE Movie Prequel #4. Yeah, there are no surprises here, but just in case you’re extra sensitive there are spoilers coming.

Snake Eyes hits all the Solid Snake beats--excluding crawling around in a cardboard box--before killing the bad guys and saving the days. The bad guys make with the fiendish megalomaniacal ranting and total disregard for life. The bureaucrats take all the credit. The Russians are completely incompetent.

I’m not saying all of this predictability is necessarily a bad thing. Chuck Dixon is an excellent craftsman, and even a by-the-numbers story from him is a pretty entertaining thing. Gallant does a capable job, although some of the action is a little hard to follow.

Nevertheless, the end whole is less than the sum of its parts; it’s a ho-hum premise that delivers no surprises, there is no character development or insights, no particularly clever sequences. This comic book seems to serve no purpose other than fulfilling IDW’s licensing obligations or churning out a product to hopefully realize a return on their licensing costs.

Non-G.I. JOE fans should stay away from this one. Save your $3.99 to give G.I. JOE: Cobra or the “regular” ongoing series a try.

G.I. JOE fans, on the other hand, will be mostly pleased, even if for no other reason than the book will lead them to reminisce pleasantly about Larry Hama’s similar, but superior, G.I. JOE: Special Missions.

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