Snake Eyes Declassified #1
Originally Presented on August 20, 2005 at Comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Very Good
The origin of the most mysterious G.I. Joe begins!
Writer: Brandon Jerwa
Pencils: Emiliano Santalucia
Colors: John Rauch
Letters: Steve Seeley
Cover Art: Emiliano Santalucia & Jeremy Roberts
Publisher: Devil’s Due Productions
Review: Delving back into the loose framework of a past created by Larry Hama, Brandon Jerwa begins his examination of the most popular G.I. Joe’s origin story.
To a degree, this reminds me of when Paul Jenkins told Wolverine’s origin - it was a revelation that was largely unnecessary, but done because it was a popular character. The big difference here is that Snake-Eyes, and the rest of the team, still remember the events of this story, they’ve just never been told in their entirety to the reader before. The parts we have heard are familiar - this miniseries exists largely to fill in the blanks, a job it’s handling quite well thus far.
I was surprised to se that Jerwa kept the origin set so firmly in Vietnam - it worked fine when the character was created in the early 80s, but it’s really starting to make the character dated 25 years later, and it’s not like he’s got suspended animation as a fallback like Captain America does. Still, if you forget the anachronisms, it’s a really strong story. We see that a younger Snake-Eyes is much the same man he is now, we see the bonds that formed between him, Stalker and Storm Shadow, and we see the greatest tragedy of his life.
Emiliano Santalucia and John Rauch do a beautiful job with the artwork. The colors, straight from the pencils, give incredible depth and range. The core G.I. Joe title has undergone a makeover in artwork recently as well, and this artwork in this book seems to fit that world very well.
Much of what we get in this book is information we already knew, or at least could extrapolate from what we’ve read in the past. What happens next is going to be of far more interest. We knew, really, where Snake-Eyes started from - now I’m anxious to see where he’s going to go next.
Rating: 8/10