The big guns are rolled out as Heavy Duty, Rock 'n' Roll, and Breaker join the crew. It’s nice to see some more original faces because so far we’ve been stuck with Duke, Scarlet and Snake Eyes. Heavy Duty surprisingly looks like Roadblock, so there’s some character blending going on. I guess the comic isn’t big enough for the two of them, although I think it would have been better to have Roadblock since he was introduced first in the GI JOE timeline.

This series is getting better. I wasn’t too keen on the first issue, but now it’s starting to look like Hama’s 1980s GI JOE. Some things are a little hard to swallow, like Snake Eyes’ accident and how it’s been rewritten from his original helicopter crash. It’s been hard to break away from what we’ve all been told about our beloved GI JOE--a cold turkey disconnection--but thanks to some valiant efforts things are brightening up. I think this is the best issue of GI JOE Origins yet. I’m really starting to like this new bad guy, Chimera--he’s got balls, which as we know not many of the villains in GI JOE have. He shoots people who talk back and kidnaps governors’ daughters. At first, I thought this Chimera guy may end up being Cobra Commander, but now it seems he is just the introductory antagonist who brings the Joes together. The GI JOE team tracks Chimera to the Nevada desert where they discover his underground compound. Now, since this is the early days of GI JOE in this issue, there is no Pit..yet. I have a feeling we were just introduced to the future HQ, which is pretty cool. What better why to obtain a super secret hideout than to beat the living hell out of the guy who owns it and take it from him?

Larry Hama is back in the game with issue #3 and now I’m kind of glad the series has been given the go ahead for extension. Although things have been changed and updated for the new generation, this has a good GI JOE feeling. There are no goofy uniforms yet, but there’s still time to add those. The remaining issues should be good and let’s hope the creative crew keeps reintroducing our favorite characters.

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