IIRC, there's really no explination as to why Duke and Roadblock show up at the funeral, and armed to boot.

Oh, well.

Duke's overblown arrogance is astounding here. He's gonna make "real soldiers out of them"...uh...yeah. Stalker and Snake-Eyes were in 'Nam. Not to mention Torpedp's a SEAL, Gung Ho's a marine and Ace is USAF, but that's a technicality. Hama makes Duke the "bad cop" from his first appearance.

Oddly enough, this is not unsimilar to Sgt. Slaughter's entrance in ARISE, SERPENTOR, ARISE. Some hard-ass sarge shows up at the right time to save the day. Hmmmm....

Did Hawk request Duke, or was Duke adding to the team in light of what happen on Staten Island? U.S. general was killed on U.S. soil by a terrorist, an unprecedented event, surely the Pentagon would take a look at the GI JOE team and say "this unit needs to shape-up or ship-out!"

Transitional issue, really, after this many of the original 13 Joes are going to be background characters...except Stalker, Snake Eyes, Scarlett and Hawk of course.