I am determined to give a straight up review on this movie. I really am.

Tuesday night I went with a few friends to the midnight premiere in Grand Rapids, MI, of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. We arrived around 11:15pm and managed to find four seats for all of us. Immediately I remembered why I hate the general public: non-stop douche-baggery for 45 minutes until the previews started, and then of the 560 people (not including myself and my three buddies) could not shut up even into the previews and through the movie. This is a major annoyance for me, but the atmosphere isn’t really the point here.

Coming into this movie, I had just watched the first Transformers movie about 8 hours before because I hadn’t actually sat down and purposely watched it in the past given my extreme disgust with Michael Bay. So, I had the plot in my head: Megatron was beaten, Shia LeBeouf proved he can scream a lot, there was a yellow Camero Transformer (Bumble Bee) that was pretty cool, and Optimus Prime was a totally awesome dude.

The movie began… and I cried. (spoilers abound)

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G.I. Joe #1 Cover B

G.I. Joe #1 (IDW )
Writer:  Chuck Dixon
Artist:  Robert Atkins

G.I.Joe is the comic that started me down the long road to being a comic book geek.  It along with a few other 80’s properties are near and dear to my childhood.  The comic book that Marvel put out ruled over all that was produced in the name of G.I. Joe toys in the 1980’s.  The cartoons were great to watch, but ultimately they were cheesy and nobody ever died.  Between the lack of mortality in the G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons I was woefully unprepared for Roy Fokker’s exit from Robotech.  On the other hand the comic books brought action, humor, character development, and even death.  To my 10 year old mind the stories they told drew me in deeper and had more of a lasting impact on my imagination than any 30 minute cartoon could.

I have the full run of the Marvel G.I. Joe, some more beat up than others, and I still find entertainment in their pages.  When Devils Due publishing announced they were bringing G.I. Joe back to comic books continuing the saga Marvel started, the 10 year old inside the 20-something year old me did a little jig.  I collected all of them as well, including the short run of FrontLine AND the even shorter run of G.I. Joe Reloaded.  The stories weren’t quite as satisfying at first, but they hit their stride and I was a huge fan by the end of their run.  Hasbro put the licensing back up for negotiations and IDW won the bid.  Last fall they put out a special Issue 0 that highlighted the three series they would be producing on a regular basis.  Issue 1 of the core series came out on 1/14/2009 and after reading #0, I picked it up with some trepidation.

Review and opinion forthcoming. (more…)