C2E2 2013 INTERVIEW: JOHN McCREA

I must have told the story about a thousand times.  When I was in my senior year of high school, my friend, CJ, got me back into comics by lending me three books:  EVIL ERNIE, PREACHER, and HITMAN.  From that moment, my life changed.  John McCrea illustrated HITMAN back in the day, and it was great to meet him.  Some of you will recall when I wrote about meeting him last year, but this year was waaaaaay better.  Not just because I got to hang out with him for quite a while, and not just because he drew one of the awesomest sketches any artist has ever done for me, but because I also got to interview him.  I stopped by on Friday and asked if I could do an interview with him, and he asked me to come back on Sunday, when things were a bit quieter.  (It should also be mentioned that when I stopped by that first time, he was working on a sketch of Tommy Monaghan for a fan.  While he was doing this, his phone rang, and he talked with someone who was either his wife or his child.  The whole time he talked, he didn’t stop working.  He produced this amazing sketch.  It was the finest example of multitasking I’d ever seen.)

I came back on Sunday, and he was working on a sketch of Wolverine for another fan (who was absent at the time).  He asked if I minded whether or not he worked while I interviewed him, and I said I was completely OK with that.  However, after we’d been talking a little bit, he stopped working on the sketch.  It seemed like he was having a lot of fun with the interview, which I consider to be one of my finer moments (if I don’t say so myself; more on that in my C2E2 wrap-up).  Here is what he had to say . . . .

[WARNING:  Here there be HITMAN spoilers.  If you haven’t read the series, you might want to do so before reading this interview.]

JOHN BRUNI:  First of all, HITMAN was one of my all-time favorites—

JOHN McCREA:  Thank you.

JB:  Do you ever miss it?



JM:  Of course.  I think I worked on that book for seven years of my life pretty much solidly.  I did a few other things here and there, but it was seven years of Tommy and Natt, and they all sort of seemed like friends.  When the book ended, it was like—well, you’ve seen the ending.  It’s a real tearjerker.  When I read the script, I had a little tear in my eye.  Just saying bye to Tommy and his friends, it was a relief in one way.  It was a slog, physically producing that much work, but to say goodbye to Tommy and Natt was quite a tearful experience.  I do miss them, but at the same time, it was the right end.  They had to go.  Garth [Ennis] and I were adamant that [UNCLEAR, BUT HE SAYS SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF “THEY HAD TO DIE], otherwise it would ruin the whole thing anyway.  People ask us if there’s a chance with the New 52 of bringing them back.  No.

JB:  It was one of the greatest endings in comics ever.

JM:  Part of it’s the fact that it’s finite.  You have the whole story, and it’s not just rolling on and on forever.  They lived by the gun, they had to die by the gun.  It was the right ending.  It improves the story, I think.

JB:  Very Butch and Sundance.

JM:  Oh God yes.  I think Garth wrote that in the script.  It was Natt who said it, wasn’t it?

JB:  Yeah.  Why do you think the book didn’t hit it off with a wider audience?



JM:  Garth and I always intended for it to be finished around about . . . originally we hoped for seventy issues.  There were a few other stories we wanted to tell, one of them being the JLA/HITMAN story, which we eventually did.  DC told us at a certain point that the sales are okay.  Probably pretty good by today’s standards, but for the time they were okay.  They were going to cancel it.  We had a choice between finishing it at 60 and finishing it properly the way we wanted to, chopping out the non-essential stories, or we might make it [to 70] or we might not.  We didn’t want to risk that, so we just finished it.

JB:  That sounds like the smart way to go.

JM:  Well, DC were honest and decent about it.  They let us know, so . . . it could have been a disaster.  It has a good, solid fan base, it just wasn’t big enough to continue the series.

JB:  There is still one character from the book lurking around the DCU somewhere.  Will there ever be a Bueno Excellente one-shot?  [Come on, you all knew I was going to ask it.]

JM:  We’re all hoping for that.  He was one of the most deranged human beings I ever got to draw.  Him, and possibly Six-Pac is still around.  I think a mini-series would be a pretty sweet thing.  An untold story, four issues.  If only people had realized how wonderful a superhero team [Section Eight] were, like the JLA.  We could have had action figures.  A little wind-up guy, or maybe a Dog Welder with detachable dogs.  What I would do for that!

JB:  You and Garth Ennis do a lot of work together.  How did you guys meet up?



JM:  We went to school together.  We’re from Belfast, and he was in my brother’s year at school.  He knew I was into comics, and after I finished school, one of the first things I did was run a comics shop.  I started one of the only comics shops in Belfast, and Garth used to come in and buy his comics.  One day, he just said we should do a book, and that turned into TROUBLED SOULS about the Troubles in Northern Ireland.  It was very successful, and that was that.

JB:  TROUBLED SOULS also has Dougie and Ivor from DICKS.

JM:  That’s true.  That is true.  They were incidental characters in TROUBLED SOULS.  We kinda-sorta made fun of them.  Garth in particular is not enamored of TROUBLED SOULS, so he kind of wanted to piss all over it.  He used Dougie and Ivor as a way to do that.  We’re working on a new book in the series now.  Garth’s written it all, finished it about two years ago, and I’ve been slowly grinding my way through it.  I’m on issue four at the moment.  Two more to go.

JB:  Some of the covers are pretty crazy.  Is there anything you wouldn’t put on the cover of DICKS?

JM:  I haven’t run into it yet.  There might be.  There are a few things, but I don’t want to even answer for fear of getting arrested.  So far, not yet.

JB:  Garth Ennis has a reputation for going a bit too far, like with CROSSED.  Would you ever want to work on the book?

JM:  I read one issue of CROSSED, and that was just about enough for me.  It was too much for me.  When I read a comic, I like to enjoy myself, not be harrowed to the marrow.  It was too harrowing for me.

JB:  Have you ever thought to yourself that you might be going too far with DICKS?

JM:  Oh God no.  Never.  When I first started doing these books, William [Christensen, editor-in-chief of Avatar Press] kept saying, “No, no, no, you haven’t got the idea.  Not enough.  Not enough.  You’ve got to make it worse.”  Now, I think I’m at the level I think he’s happy with.

JB:  If you had to be Dougie or Ivor, which one would it be?

JM:  My God, what a choice!  Uh . . . probably Ivor.  He’s just happy in his own self-absorbed moronic way.  Dougie’s just miserable because he’s relatively intelligent and can see the terrible travesty which is his life.  So yeah, I think it’d be Ivor.

JB:  Can you talk about what’s in store for us with DICKS 3?

JM:  Satan and the Dong are both back.  They’ve teamed up, and they’re trying to destroy the world.  It’s up to Dougie and Ivor to travel through time, collecting the icons of bigotry that the Dong are using to destroy the world.  They have to go back in time to gather these objects in order to stop the Dong.  Much hilarity ensues.  At one point, Dougie and Ivor get to meet Garth and myself.  They end up in our studio . . . by, uh, complete coincidence, and even more hilarity ensues.

JB:  So they get to meet their gods?

JM:  Exactly!  Not just meet them, they do quite a lot more.

JB:  That sounds very cool.  What else do you have coming up besides the new DICKS?

JM:  I’m working on MARS ATTACKS for IDW.  I’ve finished the ten issues, which was supposed to be continuing, but they decided to can it and do mini-series instead.  I’ll be doing MARS ATTACKS/JUDGE DREDD, a four issue mini-series which is written by Al Ewing, who writes JENNIFER BLOOD as well.  It’s fantastic.  It should be out in the not-to-distant future.  I’m working on something called PROGENITOR, which is written by Phil Hester for David Lloyd’s new online comic called ACES WEEKLY.  So, I’m busy.

JB:  Speaking of IDW, they have a lot of franchises from the ‘Eighties.  Is there any one of those that you’d like to work on?



JM:  I wouldn’t mind doing the Turtles.  I like the Turtles.  I’m not really a TRANSFORMERS guy.

JB:  What about G.I. JOE?

JM:  When I was breaking into comics, I did two stories for ACTION FORCE, which is the British name for G.I. Joe.  I did a Snake-Eyes five-pager, and I did a Storm Shadow five-pager.  I enjoyed those.  I like the ninja guys.  I would love to do Snake-Eyes.

JB:  Thank you very much for your time.

JM:  It’s been a pleasure.  Cheers.

At about that point, he realized that he’d forgotten about his previous sketch, which he put the final touches on before starting the sketch for me.  I requested Tommy Monaghan and Natt from HITMAN sitting at Noonan’s bar, just having a drink, and the request seemed to surprise McCrea, but he was happy to do it.  I hung out with him, just talking while he drew.  I told him about how even my mother enjoyed reading HITMAN almost as much as I did.  We talked about other things Mom liked to read, which comprised of a lot of Garth Ennis’s work.  It was one of the few things that brought me and her together, especially near the end of her life.

While we hung out, talking about this and that (he mentioned that he was persona non grata over at DC, except for the short he did for GHOSTS), I can’t tell you how many fans came up and saw what he was doing for me.  Each and every single one of them said, “That is the coolest sketch ever.”  One of them said, “I wish I’d thought of that.”  I talked with a lot of fellow fans while McCrea worked, and I discovered that I’m not alone in thinking that some of the best parts of HITMAN were the quiet moments at the bar, when Tommy and Natt were just shooting the shit, maybe talking about THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.  Why?  Well, it’s because that’s what I do with my friends.  I hang out in bars and just talk the night away.  I felt a real connection with Tommy and the boys in those moments.

I was going to run a scan of the sketch he did at the end of this piece, but I think I’ll save it for my wrap-up.  It is seriously that good.  Stay tuned!

C2E2 PANEL: IDW

I got to this one a little early, surprised to see how many people were already in the room.  This surprised IDW’s Dirk Wood, as well.  “Are you guys here for the IDW panel?” he asked, confused.  To his shock, everyone said yes.

Shortly, he was joined by Ted Adams, Andy Diggle, Phil Hester, Menton3, and latecomer Mike Costa.  Then, since there were so many of us, they decided to start early.

Wood led the charge, and I have to say I was impressed with his presence.  His deep voice boomed across the room, and he seemed very much at ease, almost to the point of cockiness.  He had a Han Solo-ish kind of charm as he addressed all of us.  If only all comics companies had a guy like him for their public announcements.

First up was Star Trek news.  For a while, they’ve been building up to the movie with their prologue, and about a week after the film debuts, they’re going to release their epilogue, which takes up exactly where the movie ends.  The prologue—COUNTDOWN TO DARKNESS—has a bunch of easter eggs hidden in it that no one will apparently understand until they see the movie.  Interesting.

And now they have X-FILES news!  Coming soon, season 10!  That’s right, Chris Carter has given IDW his blessing.  This is how the series would have continued if it had been given the chance.

They also announced something called WILD BLUE YONDER, which is creator owned.  It’s nice that they do that every once in a while.  While they own some pretty kick ass properties (and some that are not so kick ass), it’s good to have some creator owned work out there from this company.  It worked out pretty well for LOCKE & KEY, didn’t it?

Do you like TMNT?  They have a new storyline coming up called “City Fall,” which is supposed to be a big deal.  I don’t care much for the series, but that might mean something for someone out there.

KISS KIDS?!  Really?  For everything that IDW does correctly, there are maybe two turds they give birth to.  KISS comics was bad enough.  Now they have to go the route of LI’L ARCHIE?

Here’s something kind of cool:  SUPERMAN SILVER AGE DAILIES ’58-’61.  People care so much about comic books that they forget that a lot of their favorite characters had comic strips in newspapers for years.  Personally, I don’t give a shit, but I’m glad to see a generally forgotten art form is going to survive through this.

In related news, they have more Artists Editions coming soon.  These books are huge, like the size of actual comic book paper, and they look like they just came off the artist’s desk, blue lines and all.  The next one they’re doing is THE BEST OF EC, and it’s all hard to find stuff.  They’ve done Jack Davis, Will Eisner, and Sergio Aragones, and they show no sign of slowing down.

In July, they have a Rocketeer/Spirit crossover with DC done by Mark Waid and Paul Smith.  If that’s your thing.

Phil Hester is working on THUNDER AGENTS.  Apparently, this is a classic book with superheroes done right.  Their powers come with a price:  whenever they use them, it takes years off their lives, or it gives them great pain, or they lose more and more of their souls.  When these guys die, they stay dead.  In the words of Chris Ryall, “With great power comes great paychecks.”  This actually sounds pretty cool to me, so I’ll have to look into the originals before giving the new stuff a try when it comes out in August.

Coming soon:  WIZARDS & ROBOTS by will.i.am with covers by Menton3.  Speaking of Menton, he’s got something new coming soon called MEMORY COLLECTORS.  Menton says that he was kind of put off by people saying that MONOCYTE was an amazing book, but it was also confusing as all hell.  His goal this time out is to have a clearer story and some sexiness to it.

Ah.  Some G.I. JOE news.  Costa does the COBRA FILES book, which is my favorite of the new titles.  He has an announcement to make:  the next story arc will be the most devastating he’s ever done.  While he is introducing new Cobra characters, he says that in #7, all characters will be emotionally destroyed.  At least, those who survive.  Any other book (including JOE books), I wouldn’t believe it.  Costa’s got a stone where a heart should be, so I believe him.

LOCKE & KEY NEWS!  Joe Hill has been saying that “Omega” is the final story arc.  Well, not anymore.  He couldn’t finish it all in “Omega,” so now there is going to be one more story arc beyond called “Alpha.”  It’s two issues long, and it will be the end of the series.

Wood talked a bit about how IDW wound up working with Hill.  Adams had read 20^th CENTURY GHOSTS when it was only available in the UK, and he was really impressed with it, so he contacted Hill, eager to work with him.  LOCKE & KEY is the result of that.  No one at IDW knew Hill’s dark secret at the time.  In fact, when it was revealed that Hill is Stephen King’s son, it took them all by surprise . . . until they actually met him and saw how much like his old man he looks.

All right, now for some bad news:  IDW has acquired POWERPUFF GIRLS through a deal with Cartoon Network, in which they also got Samurai Jack and Ben10 and a number of others.  They also have Rocky and Bullwinkle now, as well.  And yes, they also have Sherman and Peabody.  I could see Samurai Jack, but the others?  Do we really need to bring Gold Key-type stuff back?

They announced a collection of something called THE RED STAR, but I don’t know what that is.

Remember those joke MARS ATTACKS covers they came up with a while back?  They decided to make one of them a reality:  MARS ATTACKS VS. JUDGE DREDD.  *sigh*  Yes, that’s going to be a thing.

Whoa!  IDW is bringing back Kevin Eastman’s classic, ZOMBIE WARS?!  When Wood asked the audience if anyone else remembered this series, I was the only one who clapped.  They’re going to reprint the originals and do some new material.  That’s pretty fucking amazing and completely unexpected.

The last announcement was for something called THE OTHER DEAD, which will apparently be an animal zombie book.  I have zero expectations for that.

They opened it up to questions, and because they’re promoting KILL SHAKESPEARE, they said that anyone who posed their question in a Shakespearean fashion would get prizes.  I probably could have done it, but I was really hungover and didn’t care enough.  However, two audience members managed to do so.  One of them was a bit herky-jerky, but the other did pretty fucking well.

I asked if they had any plans to work with Joe R. Lansdale again (since he did so well with the Lovecraft and Bloch adaptations).  Nope.  No plans, but like with Joe Hill, they have an open door policy for Lansdale.  Anytime he wants to come in and play, they’ll accommodate him.

I also asked about the possibility of doing a new INFESTATION series, but with the POWERPUFF GIRLS.  All right, I was maybe trolling them a bit with that one.  Wood didn’t rise to the bait.  He joked that it could happen.  At least, I hope it was a joke.

My last question was that since they’d picked up so many ‘Eighties properties, would they be picking up SECTAURS as well?  I baffled everyone in the room except for Costa, who wound up explaining it to the others.  Wood said they were open to ideas.  In fact, I got the impression that one of the reasons for doing this panel was not only to make announcements about new projects, but also to gather ideas for new projects from fan suggestions.

So maybe we’ll get new SECTAURS stuff from IDW soon.  Probably not, but if we do, you’re welcome.

I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t talk TRANSFORMERS, but that was all right.  I had plenty of fun, and I learned a lot of cool shit.

COOL SHIT 1-17-13

G.I. JOE #21:  In today’s issue of G.I. JOE, the role of Hawk will be played by Bruce Willis.  Seriously, this one could have been an ‘Eighties action movie.  Hawk has retired and is living out in the woods when he is suddenly beset by the forces of Cobra, intent on kidnapping him and extracting intelligence from him.  They don’t count on him remembering his training, and they certainly didn’t expect him to be living with Timber, Snake-Eyes’s wolf.  One man against a team of terrorists?  Yeah, that’s some John McClane shit right there.  Oh yeah, and apparently Cobra has iPads with the Cobra insignia on it instead of the usual Apple.  That definitely makes sense.  The only problem is, the cover shows Flint, not Hawk.  Or maybe it’s the movie version of Hawk as portrayed by Dennis Quaid, but that makes no sense, as the worlds aren’t connected.  Am I nitpicking here?  Yeah.  Fuck it.  On to the next one . . . .

STITCHED #11:  Let’s face it, when Garth Ennis stopped writing this book and Mike Wolfer took over, things haven’t been going so well.  Not that Wolfer is a bad writer (although he is a much better artist than he is a writer), but he just didn’t have the same quality as Ennis did.  However, in this issue, we finally find out what caused the Stitched to exist, and it’s a pretty interesting tale.  Hint:  ancient, black devil cum is responsible in some way.  That’s definitely something Ennis would have done.  Hats off, Mr. Wolfer.

CROSSED:  BADLANDS #21:  Speaking of books Ennis used to write . . . .  Unlike Wolfer, David Lapham is an intense motherfucker and constantly tries to one-up Ennis.  Sometimes he succeeds.  This is one of those instances.  Remember Amanda from the “Psychopath” storyline?  The one with Lorre?  Well, she’s back, and it seems that her encounter with Lorre messed her the fuck up.  She’s batshit crazy now, seeing Lorre in every stranger she meets.  And yes, she’s willing to kill all of the suspected Lorres in the world.  Now she might have gone completely off the deep end, though, especially now that Danger Montana is in her life.  He looks suspiciously of a guy who is very familiar with lost arks, temples of doom, last crusades, and crystal skulls.  In fact, he claims that those movies are based on his life.  Even stranger than that is the company he keeps.  In my opinion, there’s no way that this is actually happening.  Amanda is probably already dead, and this is a goofy afterlife or something.  Then again, Lapham is a rabid beast.  He could do anything, so I’m definitely along on this ride.

AND NOW FOR A SPECIAL EDITION OF . . .

SHIT SHIT

Remember a while ago when I brought you news of IDW’s newest bullshit crossover?  And you all called me crazy, that it had to be a hoax, that no one would ever go ahead with such an awful idea?  Behold!  IDW has revealed the proof!  This month will be consumed by their MARS ATTACKS crossover!  Now, MARS ATTACKS is pretty cool, but the other series they’re going to cross it over with?  Uh . . . it’s so bad, it’s sickening.

Shit, I know I’m kind of late with this one.  It just slipped under my radar.  Apparently, three of these books are already out.  First up:  Popeye.  Yes, Popeye.  The guy with the giant forearms and the spinach habit.  Second up?  KISS.  Yeah, no kidding.  The aliens actually go up against fucking KISS.  This week, it was Ghostbusters, but that was just to be expected.  The one that’s going to hurt the most for me is next week’s, which involves the Transformers.  The final one is supposed to be something called Zombies vs. Robots, so I don’t really give much of a fuck.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, they have incentive covers for comic shops.  Though they’re not really actual storylines, the fact that someone thought this shit up disgusts me.  One of them features Opus, from Bloom County.  Or Outland, if you’re too young to remember that.  Or how about a Judge Dredd crossover?  Maybe you’d like to try out Chew and Madman, or how about Spike, from the Buffy universe?  Or . . . fuck it.  I can’t go on.

I told you so.  That’s all I’m trying to say.

COOL SHIT 1-3-13

G.I. JOE:  COBRA #20:  With all the attention I pay to THE TRANSFORMERS here, one would think I’d bring up G.I. JOE a bit more often.  The thing is, all three books have been lagging, ever since they did that stupid Hunt for Snake-Eyes thing.  Let’s face it, the only way that story arc could have worked out in an awesome, unexpected way was if Snake-Eyes really did turn out to be a traitor, and he died in a very obvious, very gruesome fashion.  Now that the bullshit is out of the way, we can get back to the grown-up G.I. JOE kind of action IDW has been getting us hooked on ever since they picked up the series.  Flint and Lady Jaye are in serious trouble as they infiltrate a Red Oktober installation on a mission that doesn’t even exist on paper.  Now that they’ve been captured by a crew of thugs and murderers who have no regard for human life, it falls on Joe HQ to sort things out behind the scenes.  The problem:  the only person who seems capable of doing that is Tomax Paolo, who has been a prisoner of the Joes for . . . how long now?  Coming soon, they’re going to discontinue the three series in favor of three new series.  Personally, I think we’d be better served with one series, considering how for the past couple of years, we’ve been treated to one long story broken up over three monthlies.  Might as well just consolidate the whole thing.  I can understand having one main JOE book and then having a SPECIAL MISSIONS book, just like back in the ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties, but come on.  I have faith in the storytelling, but do we really need three JOE books?  That's kind of like breaking up an adaptation of THE HOBBIT into three movies--oh, wait.

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #34:  Now that we’ve been through several decades worth of story, we’ve finally reached the mid-point, according to writer Scott Snyder.  At first glance, it’s a sedate issue, but when you think more about it, it’s a harbinger of things to come, and is thus a very important issue.  With a bit of quick exposition, we learn the fate of Will Bunting, the first chronicler of Skinner Sweet’s life, and who has replaced Bunting at the VMS.  We also get to see Abilena Book in her old age as she denies having been granted visions by being bitten by Sweet years earlier.  We get to meet the new enemy of the series, and we get a massive slap to the face in regards to how things are going to go for the rest of the series.  Here’s the problem:  THEY’RE GOING ON HIATUS.  Snyder says the next story is written, but he also says that they’re taking some time off to recharge their batteries (and to give the artist more time to illustrate the series, as he doesn't want to take any more breaks).  I can only hope that Vertigo will actually still be around when they do come back.  Many of you are familiar with my ranting and raving in regards to HELLBLAZER’s cancellation, and how I believe that Vertigo will be gone by the end of 2013.  I love FABLES and all the related titles, but I’m pretty sure they could survive in the DCU and make everyone a lot of money there.  Right now, AMERICAN VAMPIRE is the only book that has me hoping that Vertigo will survive.  They’ve done a lot of great work over the years, including my two favorite books of all time (PREACHER and TRANSMETROPOLITAN, even though the latter did, indeed, start out at the short-lived Helix).  HELLBLAZER, the Lansdale JONAH HEX, THE SANDMAN, 100 BULLETS, I could go on forever about all the wonderful books they’ve done.  Maybe Shelly Bond can do great things now that she’s in charge (and I know she’s edited many good books that I’ve enjoyed over the years), but considering all the really, really, really, really, really bad decisions DC has made recently, Vertigo is a dog with rabies.  It’s only a matter of time before someone puts it down.  I hope AMERICAN VAMPIRE gets finished before that happens.

COOL SHIT 2-17-11

THE BOYS #51: I’m seriously starting to think I have to ban this title from Cool Shit. It’s too consistently good, and I know I’ve got to be boring you by blathering on like a fan boy. I can’t help it, though. Butcher’s a busy guy this issue, getting blackmail information on not one but two of his opponents. In Rayner’s case, it’s kind of sad, even though she completely deserves it. Monkey, on the other hand, continues to be one of the darkest comedy relief characters in the history of comics. The true star of this issue, however, is Ms. Bradley’s simulation. If the Boys ever went head to head against the Seven, only two people would certainly live, and a third is in question. If you think about it, you won’t be surprised by this result. Still, I wonder what circumstance they considered. By the way, a giant bulldog fucking an impotent athlete-cripple-fetishist is ALWAYS funny. Mr. Ennis, you once made the promise that this book would “out-PREACHER PREACHER.” Today, you delivered. Hats off to you, sir.

G.I. JOE/COBRA #13: As I predicted, this is indeed the last issue. Of all the Joe books, this was my favorite. It was a hard, ugly piece of work, but its chill always managed to find the core of my bones. I’ll miss it, but the ending is so perfect that to continue afterward would be nothing less than a betrayal of the story. Remember how on the cover of #12 they said that a major character would die in that issue? #13 rendered the teaser moot, considering how many major characters died in this one. (Shakespeare’s tragedies had more survivors, to give you an idea.) This one ends with a bang. Literally. Not to say that action took the center stage. As always with this title, philosophy underlies every thrown punch, every fired bullet. Every explosion triggered starts with an idea (and maybe a bit of Machiavellian maneuvering).

As a side note, IDW has a kinda-sorta sequel for this series planned. Now that Cobra Commander is dead (from last issue; I wouldn’t put THAT big of a spoiler in Cool Shit), there is a power vacuum, and everyone in Cobra wants to fill it. COBRA CIVIL WAR probably won’t be as awesome, but G.I. JOE/COBRA fills me with faith that it will at least be awe-inspiring.