Summary:Outside the Interalliance Refugee Facility, the Joes are preparing to go in, weapons at the ready.

Metalhead warns Lt. Stone not to get too close to the fence, lest the radiation fry him where he stands. Lt. Stone tells him to get them past it, they've got business inside. Eagle Eye (formerly known as Ballsitic; see Commentary) reminds the Lt. that it's meal time inside, "Don'tcha think that people might get hurt?"

"Sure," says the Lt. "I know -- Do you think I care?"

"No more'n I do," says Eagle Eye with a grin. "I was just asking."

Metalhead fixes the bars and Quick Stryke cuts 'em down, letting the Joes inside.

"Let's go. Make it quick -- but don't worry about being quiet," says the Lt.

The Joes proceed to tear into the refugee camp like six year olds into a birthday cake. There is no sign given that the refugees are anything more sinister than generically-displaced people of generically-foreign descent. Sgt. Savage, for one, guns down a little girl, while Harpoon and Black Dragon destroy several crates of rations. Freight and Mayday (?) wreck the truck-mounted generator powering the camp.

Interalliance tries and fails to stop the Joes, who make their escape rather handily.

Meanwhile, one of Iron Klaw's men interrupts him during his training (which consists of him wrassling a white tiger; insert Sigfreid and Roy joke here, if you dare!). He karate-chops the tiger, winning the fight and turns on his lackey, asking why the man has dared to interrupt him. The lackey stammers out that he's come to tell him about the Joes attacking the refugee camp.

"Hmm? The noble GI Joes, acting as terrorists?" Iron Klaw says. "This may be some ruse of Interalliance or --"

At that moment, the Klaw's perimeter alarms go off. Iron Klaw tells his men to ready the troops. There's a loud scream as a ship flies into the building.

Iron Klaw tells his men that their response time is unacceptably low and orders them to fire on the ship. He orders his Bone-Splinter Armor ASsault to flank and intercept.

"Don't bother, Iron Klaw,' says the image of a woman. "This was only a first skirmish, to see how you responded under attack! You may call me The Red Scream -- and I am not impressed!"

The ship lands and the image disappears. One of Iron Klaw's lackeys asks if he wants the ship disassembled. Iron Klaw yells for everyone to "GET DOWN!" as the ship explodes.

Iron Klaw muses: "A strange new enemy attacks me on the same day my most ardent foes exhibit extremely uncharacteristic behavior? This cannot be coincidence."

He orders his men to clean up the mess and fill the tunnel and chamber accessed for the attack. He also tells them to redirect air traffic and to go to level-one security. His final instruction is for them to not disturb him, as he has much to ponder.

Cut to: The Joes are somewhere vaguely tropical-looking (there's palm trees, I think this is their island base). It's night. Metalhead is hooking up something that looks like a big needle-nosed tank. Sgt. Savage asks if Metalhead has it done yet. Metalhead says no, he's not working on a toaster, he's got to treat this machine like a lady.

Metalhead radios Stone and Mayday, telling them he's ready to begin testing. Stone attacks via tank, Mayday by air.

Metalhead decides to go with "Ladies First!" and blasts Mayday out of the sky with what we come to find out is a sonic laser cannon tank, which converts sound waves into laser beams. The effect is shown on the page by having the last word Metalhead speaks repeat ("Firstfirstfirst" in the case of Mayday; "Nextnextnext" for Stone).

Metalhead takes Stone out next. The tank has passed with flying colors. Eagle-eye thinks that a portable version could make a handy side arm. Harpoon teases Metalhead, saying "If it uses sound, they picked the right mouth to power it." Metalhead tells Harpoon that maybe he'll make him test #3.

Stone is about to release the Joes on leave when Freight asks if there's another test because of an arriving helicopter. Stone says he doesn't think so, but he's not sure what it is. Clancy has showed up with a high powered escort. Only, they're not there for Clancy, they're there to pick up the Joes for assaulting Interalliance Desert Refugee Base. Commander Roston and her men are there to make the arrest.

Stone asks Clancy what's up, he should know that the Joes aren't guilty. Clancy agrees; he doesn't think the Joes are guilty but the Joes' innocence has to be proved legally, in court. He urges the Joes to give themselves up, saying the Interalliance Council cant' possibly find the Joes guilty. Stone reluctantly agrees and tells the Joes to stand down and surrender. The Joes are lead off to an awaiting plane, in handcuffs according to regulations.

At the (presumably) Interalliance prison where the Joes are being held before their trial, the Joes wisecrack as they're being locked up. Quick Stryke protests that he only sleeps outside. Harpoon doesn't want to bunk with Eagle Eye because he snores. Eagle Eye counters that at least he doesn't smell like fish. Metalhead asks how come Mayday gets a cell to herself. "Maybe she snores," says Black Dragon. Sgt. Savage tells the Joes to settle down, but Stone tells him to let them have their fun, that joking is better than fighting to eas the tension. Especially since things'll get grim soon enough.

Meanwhile, a group of people are meeting in a temple that has fallen into disrepair. A scream like the one 'heard' during the attack on Iron Klaw's headquarters is 'heard' again.

Red Scream arrives at the meeting. "You know why you are here!" she tells the assembled crowd. "To prevent your proud countries from becoming the dirt under the feet of Interalliance as their fist tightens around the world!"

She tells the assembled folk that the temple was chosen as a meeting place to remind them of what will happen to their countires should they falter. The assembled say their resolve will not falter! Red Scream tells them to see that it doesn't. Fail her and the Red Scream will be the last thing they ever hear!

We cut to the Joes on trial the next day. The Joes are confident they'll get off, but the verdict (given by the folks who were at the meeting with Red Scream the night before) is that they are guilty of all charges. The Joes protest, Clancy is gobsmacked and Count Von Rani (Iron Klaw's alter ego and a member of Interalliance) asks that it be entered into the record that the verdict was not unanimous. He believes the Joes to be innocent, but after all, majority rules.

Commander Raston is asked to bind the Joes for transport. Lt. Stone whispers to Eagle Eye to tell Freight to throw a tantrum, the Joes are busting out.

Freight goes into a full-tilt blue wobbly and the other Joes use the confusion to get in on the action, They manage to break out of the courthouse and steal the jet that was going to be used to transport them to prison.

Clancy, still behind, thinks that while the Joes are innocent, they may need an ally.

On the jet, the Joes try to figure out where they can go. For the moment, Stone tells Mayday to keep them on an irregular course, to make it harder for Interalliance to track them. Which is the precise moment that a group of Interalliance jets show up. Mayday manages to evade the jets, rather than opening fire on them.

Black Dragon tells Mayday to remind him to kiss her. She tells him to remind her to get a tetnus shot first (I'm liking this girl more and more), then asks again: where are they going? Stone figures they can't go back to the island, then tells Mayday to go Southeast. He's got a destination in mind, it seems.

Clancy meets up with Dr. Johannson (see "From the Ashes"). He tells her he needs to reach "him." The Doctor says she doesn't know where "he" is, ,she hasn't seen "him" in years and she doubts that "he" is still alive.

For those not in the know, the "He" in question is "GI Joe," the only surviving member of the original "Project GI". See "From the Ashes" for more on "Him".

Clancy doesn't. He tells her to spread the word. The Joes have been framed. If "he" is still alive, he'll hear the Joes may need him. "He was never the type to turn his back on his country -- or his friends." Clancy leaves the Doc holding a dog tag, presumably of the type "he" used in "From the Ashes."

The Joes arrive at the factory that Iron Klaw used when he tried to steal the Ferti-gel (See the original GI Joe Extreme Miniseries). No one will look for the Joes here.

Except for Iron Klaw, who is watiing for hte Joes. Stone accuses Iron Klaw of framing them, but Iron Klaw scoffs at the idea:

"Really Stone! Had I wanted you out of my way, I would have bombed the Courthouse! Someone wants both our organizations eliminated for her own purposes.

"She calls herself "Red Scream" -- I propose that we hang together, to avoid hanging separately!"

"You're serious, aren't you?" Stone says. 'I never thought I'd say this, but, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" -- for now."

Thus are SKAR and GI Joe allied, for the moment and thus ends issue #1.

Next Issue: The Joes begin their desperate search to find the scum who framed them. But even as things look bleak for America's greatest fighting force, rumors surface of a legendary 'Joe who vanished in the year 2000. Has this mysterious lone agent once again emerged from the ashes? And if so, is he the 'Joes last hope?

Commentary: Okay, here's what truly sucks about the Extreme comics, at least from my point of view as a reviewer: I got/read these comics in a crack-headed order and so reviewed them ass-backwards as well. Which makes it hard to comment on the storylines of these issues since plot points that would have come as a surprise had I read them in order.

But hey, what's life without a little difficulty?

Okay, so anybody who has read a comic book series or seen a kid's cartoon series can probably figure out from the first bit that those aren't the real Joes attacking that refugee camp and that the main focus of the storyline is going to be the Joes trying to prove their innocence when no one in the world believes they're not the murdering bastards they are.

The main problem I have with this sort of storyline (other than the fact it's been done to death) is that it makes no sense. You see this sort of plotline a lot with superhero comics and cartoons. A duplicate of Heroic Man shows up and does bad things in order to discredit the Real Heroic Man. For reasons that exist purely for plot convenience, everyone in the free world believes that Heroic Man has gone bad despite the fact that up until now, Heroic Man has done nothing but good for the world. I mean, what sort of paranoid world do superheroes live in for cryin' out loud? I can understand in the case of heroes who are dark and mysterious. It's pretty easy to understand that folks might believe Batman or The Punisher would crack and go rogue. Or, depending on the universe, it's easy to understand folks being suspicious of the X-Men and their quasi-legal status. But I'm supposed to believe that people are going to turn against someone like Superman?! The big blue boyscout himself? Sorry no.

Now, in some ways, the Joe storyline redeems itself in that it acknowledges the fact that folks are going to have a hard time believing the Joes would suddenly flip out and waste a refugee camp. I mean, when even your enemies don't believe you'd do something, chances are it's a setup. It also helps that the Red Scream stacks the deck against them by stacking the jury against the Joes.

But, again, the main flaw of this premise comes back: what about the mountains of evidence showing that this behavior is so far out of character for the Joes that it's ludicrous to think they'd do it. What about the fact that the Joes were, most likely, working on the weapons test during the time that the attack was taking place? Don't they have some sort of evidence showing where they were? (to my recollection we're not told when the attack occurred in relation to the weapons test, so it'd make sense that there's some sort of evidence showing that it would have been impossible for the Joes to hit the camp and be back to the island in the time frame necessary).

This brings up another complaint about the Dark Horse series, particularly these four issues: it feels rushed as hell. This is a storyline that could have (and probably should have) taken a year's worth of issues to unfold. Instead, we get it in three which means that the storyline is condensed down much further than it should have been.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the reason for this was that Dark Horse knew the writing was on the wall for their Joe series and they were doing their best to get as much out as quickly as they could in hopes of sparking interest and sales. They didn't succeed. According to Sgt. Savage of Sgtsavage.com, the Dark Horse series sold horribly, which is why it didn't make it beyond eight total issues. Shame, really, 'cause I think they had something and if they'd had the time they'd needed, who knows...

Now, the complaints about the storyline to the side, I do like a few things about this issue/story arc.

The Red Scream: I like her partly because she's got a motivation other than "I want to take over the world!" Instead, she's out to try and keep Interalliance from stomping all over its member countries. Hard to say how accurate her summation of Interalliance is, since we're not told much about it in the series but it's still nice to see something other than "I wanna rule the world because my parents never paid attention to me when I was a kid."

Mayday: Mayday's rapidly becoming my favorite female Joe, hands down. I've said before, many times, many ways, that I absolutely HATE the fact that female characters in GI Joe seem to be defined purely by who they're dating, who they should be dating and/or how pretty they are (and what makes it even MORE annoying is that it's the FANS who are doing this and the female fans seem to be among the worst offenders. GAH!!!!). Mayday, out of all the female Joes, seems to be the one female character that actively refuses to be paired off with one of the guys. She's openly contemptuous of her male teammates' attempts to flirt with her and, in the opening miniseries, threw Ballistic/Eagle-Eye for trying to put the moves on her. Oh, the fun we'd have if she met up with Lt. Falcon…

The attack on the refugee camp: okay, weird thing to like but I do like that the dopple-Joes attack the camp with actual ferocity. It's not hard to see how folks could presume that these are the real Joes, they certainly do banter like them. The savagery of the attack is also interesting to see; while the panels aren't particularly graphic (thankfully), they do manage to convey the barbarism of the dopple-Joes (the best panels for this are the ones showing Sgt. Savage going after the little girl).

Also it was nice to see Dr. Johannson back, though the reintroduction of "GI Joe" feels forced. Again, this was a spot where the story could have been better if it had been stretched out for a few more issues. As it is, GI Joe shows up again in #2 and #3 with no explanation of how he got back.

So, without further ado (and any more spoilers...), let us avaunt to Issue #2.