I haven't read the latest issues of the main title or Origins yet, though I did just read Helix last night. Honestly, my first thought, from the very first page was, "Helix is Asian?" Her card art doesn't look Asian, nor, to me, does the figure. Was she Asian in the video game?

Anyway, past that, I felt that she was too good. Jay covered a lot of this in his review of the issue, but she seems worse than Ninja Force-era Snake-Eyes with respect to "inherent awesomeness." She's apparently a savant fighter, and never loses. She can master any fighting style after seeing it once? That's the province of Marvel Comics' Taskmaster, who is a full-fledged super villain! Besides that, she always knows how many bullets are left in every gun in the room? And when Duke asks if she's autistic or something (which could be kind of interesting), Hawk says no. So she's super-powerful, with absolutely no known weaknesses? Please! Even the pinnacle of G.I. Joe bad-assery, Snake-Eyes, is horribly disfigured and can't speak!

Other than that, I've been moderately enjoying this run. I loved Hama's story in Origins -- Chimeara was a pretty neat new bad guy. The main book has been way too slow-paced, but it's kind of interesting. I can't stand that they spell out Destro's accent, though, when he's never been written with one before. I also don't like him as a long-haired pretty boy. He works much better as a middle-aged, distinguished gentleman like in the old comics and the movie. I also don't enjoy the de-aging of Duke. He's not very enjoyable as the "young buck" maverick. He works way better as the "grizzled veteran" maverick (obviously, I didn't like that aspect of the movie, either)!

Oh, and I didn't really like Cobra all that much. I can't understand all the praise its gotten from the fan community. I liked Chuckles a lot better in the Marvel run, when he was generally pretty happy-go-lucky. Now he's just depressing.

Just finished reading the Origins TPB and I really enjoyed it. It focused on a small team of Scarlett, Breaker, Stalker, Rock ‘N Roll, Snake Eyes, Hawk, Duke and... Heavy Duty. (Huh?) It was more based in reality and militaristic than the near future/sci-fi feel of the Marvel series. (I haven’t read IDW comics.) They weren’t constantly introducing new figures and vehicles like the Marvel series so the story wasn’t rushed, there was more time for character interaction and combat scenes. The mythos has been altered a bit but it pretty much ended up in the same spot at the end.

I really liked the artwork. It was gritty, which is perfect for an action comic. Everyone had unique facial features and the expressions and body gestures were well done. Things like weapons and vehicles were accurately drawn which is a big plus for me, I like attention to detail.

The only real negative point is the character who was obviously drawn as Roadblock being called Heavy Duty.

Overall, I’d recommend Origins to any GI Joe fan of the pre-Hollywood era.

Now I’m just waiting impatiently for Chuckles’ Cobra TPB.