4 out of 5

He did the 90s with Brutalists, and now Michel Fiffe – Copra indie-r quickly rocketing to more widespread fandom – takes a stab at 80s nostalgia with his G.I. Joe miniseries.  And like that Image title, Fiffe steeps himself pretty deeply in series lore and adds some appropriate stylistic tics to his instantly recognizable layouts and style.  While I found Brutalists a little off-putting for those reasons – very much of a ‘you had to be there’ mindset – Sierra Muerte is a fast-moving kick, embracing the high-action, high drama romp of the franchise and giving it a little bit o’ blood, black humor, and the kind of top-down plotting and pacing that has, at points, made Copra such a must read.  You definitely get tossed in the deep end of a mess of characters, and ultimately references to evil serpent-types and secret bases will seem like nonsense unless you care – same goes for a “showdown” between two characters, which otherwise will come off as a randomly highlighted scuffle – but the “bad guys steal weapons; good guys wants to stop that” setup is certainly easy enough to parse, and the plus of the robust cast is that you keep getting tossed into some new and wild conflagration with wildly designed and quirkily codenamed characters every few pages, keeping the mini-series flying along.  And this is just my anti-90s-Image bias speaking, but those stylistic adaptations for Joe – making his foreground characters a bit more defined, really going to town on some of the detailing (Fiffe is a bit looser on his own title) – make for an amazing looking book, and IDW’s printing seems to really favor Michel’s pastel-y color blends.  The B-cover showdowns and the back page glory shot (this is repeated each issue) are poster worthy.  (…And I didn’t mind that it was repeated each issue because of that.)

Also, don’t mind that 4.99 price tag: Chad Bowers delivers excellent G.I.Joe comic / Snake Eyes histories in issue 1 and 2, definitely helping those of us not so lore inclined, and an interview with Fiffe in issue 3.

For fans of the comic / show, I imagine Fiffe’s Sierra Muerte is a downright hoot.  I was never a G.I. Joe kid, not in the slightest, and so a lot of that just comes across as usual comic book drama to me, and perhaps Muerte is a little too over-stuff with clear fan service.  But just rated as a comic, Fiffe, artistically, is at the top of his game, and delivers a prime slice of silly but exciting actionry.