Duke, Vol. 1 [Image/Skybound, 2024]

Written by

O.H.M

Comic Review, Reviews, Sci-fi

Duke, Vol. 1: Knowing is Half the Battle

Joshua Williamson (writer), Tom Reilly (artist), Jordie Bellaire (artist)

My rating: 3.75 of 5

After the stunningly good start of Skybounds new Energon Universe with the Transformers comics + the decent new addition of Void Rivals, I was excited to see how an old childhood favourite like G.I. Joe would be folded into this new shared universe, especially given that I’ve never really enjoyed the previous (many) attempts at merging the two.

Before kick-starting the main book, the publisher made an interesting choice by creating this mini-series that leads into what will become the G.I. Joe book. Here we have Conrad Hauser, a battle-hardened young soldier who has recently seen some strange things involving giant robots and his faith in the army he has been loyal to and his leaders has been shaken. Sidelined and feeling abandoned, he goes on a journey of his own to make sense of it all and maybe get some real answers.

Through these five issues, he finds leads and a whole mess of danger – he is brought face to face with hard truths and some pretty painful moments and even at one point, at odds and against the army he has served loyally. The book also introduces several familiar faces like Clutch, Rock-N-Roll and Baroness – the last of whom I was most intrigued by because it is no secret anymore that in this incarnation of the franchise, she is on the Joe team!

You’ll see a whole lot of devastating action and all kinds of chaos and anarchy as this story barrels along at really high speed. Five issues is not a lot and the creative team takes full advantage of that and to their credit, they set up a bunch of things and put a lot of pieces on the board in very short order, while at no time really compromising the journey of Duke himself. The artwork does a commendable job, though it has some stronger moments than others. The colours and certain energetic pages and panels were the highlight, but that aside, the art is mostly decent.

If you’ve been a Joe fan, it is worth a try and if you’ve been curious about this new universe, definitely a solid jumping on point even if you’ve not read the other two series.