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'G.I. Joe' writer explores espionage in 'Cobra Files'

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY
Ronin, Chameleon, Flint and Lady Jaye are part of a clandestine team to solve problems before they happen in "G.I. Joe: The Cobra Files."
  • %27The Cobra Files%27 debuts in April as part of IDW%27s %27G.I. Joe%27 relaunch
  • Chameleon is the star of the book and a former agent of Cobra
  • Mike Costa will be reinventing more characters%2C including a new person from the classic Cobra roster

For a G.I. Joe comic book that's called The Cobra Files, there is a distinct lack of Cobra Commander, Destro and the rest of the big-time villainous power players.

That's just how writer Mike Costa prefers it, though. "I like the weird little world that I have," he says.

IDW's three G.I. Joe titles begin their relaunch next month with an all-new No. 1 for Fred Van Lente's flagship G.I. Joe series, but the only thing that's changing about Costa's current Cobra book — which ends its 21-issue run next week — is the name.

Antonio Fuso is sticking around as artist for G.I. Joe: The Cobra Files (debuting April 24) and the retooled series is keeping the same noir-ish espionage bent that it's had since Costa, Fuso and writer Christos Gage rolled out their first Cobra miniseries in 2009.

And Costa carries over the aspect that has made Cobra one of the more popular G.I. Joe comics in recent memory: "The stakes being much more emotional than physical, though there are physical stakes, and always dealing with the moral question of what it is they're doing," the writer says. "If you can be a good guy doing bad things and still stay a good guy, that's really the whole theme of the book."

While G.I. Joe will be dealing with the elite military squad's new and very public persona after being a top-secret unit for years, Chuck Dixon's G.I. Joe: Special Missions and Costa's The Cobra Files will focus on more clandestine operations.

However, Special Missions is more reactive in the scope of its characters and ops, and The Cobra Files focuses on a small cast — Chameleon, Ronin and a pair who will be in the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation movie, Flint and Lady Jaye— who take on the missions no one knows about and are proactive about fighting to save the day.

They'll be getting inside information from the evil organization of Cobra from Tomax and the previous Cobra Commander's son Billy, and then use it to take care of problems before they become problems and foil the machinations of guys like the mercenary Major Bludd.

"They're not a rock 'n' roll team like the main book or even the Special Missions book. The only real warriors on the team are Flint, Lady Jaye and Ronin. Chameleon really isn't a field agent and she's the star," says Costa, who adds that not only is the first issue of The Cobra Files a great jumping-on point for new readers but it's arguably the best G.I. Joe issue he's written.

"It's basically what I had always wanted the book to be: smart, fun, dark action."

After being the focus of a couple recent story arcs, Chameleon is the main star of the new "G.I. Joe: The Cobra Files" series.

The major refocus of the book will be on its main character. Chameleon, an ex-Cobra agent, has been the star of an arc or two of Costa's series but The Cobra Files is all about her.

While she was in Cobra, she never killed anybody or did anything too bad, but was able to justify working for terrorists, sociopaths and murderers in her own way. However, she came to realize that her employer wasn't the greatest in terms of her long-term future when her life was threatened.

"She sort of switched sides to survive, and came to find out that working for G.I. Joe was only slightly better," Costa explains. "She's trying to navigate that moral landscape and really create a moral identity for herself and figure out if it's too late for her to maybe do some good and whether or not that's who she's going to be."

Also not helping matters is that she's not a trained soldier, yet she's continuously put in life-or-death situations and not handling it well.

"That's something I don't know if we've really seen explored very often in books like this, the real trauma of violence on someone who is just not prepared for it," the writer says. "Chameleon's a really interesting character because she's so broken, basically."

One of the hallmarks of Costa's Cobra series has been the reinvention of and improvement on colorful and somewhat ridiculous Cobra characters from the 1980s toy line and cartoons. Before Gage left, he and Costa put cool spins on Crystal Ball, Croc Master, Serpentor and Big Boa, among others.

"There's always a kernel of reality at the core of all of these characters somewhere.

For a while, it was almost a competition between the two of us — like who could figure out the most ludicrous character. But now that Chris is gone, I'm just in competition with myself," Costa quips.

The Cobra Files No. 1 will introduce somebody new from the classic Cobra roster, and the first arc, which starts with issue 2, brings in a whole group of characters readers haven't seen yet. (It won't be the Dreadnoks, although they'll be making an appearance in the second story line of Dixon's Special Missions.)

While he's not the guy Costa's bringing in, the writer says Raptor, Cobra's resident taxman-turned-falconer, is the one most requested by fans for a modern makeover: "There has got to be a way to unlock Raptor and make a guy who dresses up like a bird and has a giant aviary somehow scary and interesting."

The Baroness stars on a "Cobra Files" variant cover by Brandon Peterson, but the series will focus mainly on lower-profile Cobra characters such as Major Bludd.

Costa admits that working with smaller characters in the Joe universe has always been his forte. At the beginning of Cobra, he tended to use the most obscure characters possible, like Chameleon and undercover operative Chuckles, because "no would care how I messed with them because they don't care about them anyway."

Ironically, he did have Chuckles nuke Cobra Island and put a bullet in the head of Cobra Commander, one of the most recognizable figures in G.I. Joe lore along with Duke and Snake Eyes.

"I wrote a couple of scenes with Duke, and it's too much pressure. The character's too iconic," Costa says. "Flint is the biggest character I'm dealing with now, and I like it because he's always been the second banana."

Costa was able to play with the big toys in the Joe sandbox with the recent "Cobra Command" story line that starred the all-new Cobra Commander, Krake. However, he doesn't really fit with what Costa wants to do with The Cobra Files and is much better utilized in Van Lente and Dixon's books.

"My corner is supposed to be small and dark, and Krake is a little too big for that. Luckily the fans seem to like it. That works for me," Costa says.

"I don't feel any pressure to deal with Cobra Commander, Baroness and Destro. I get to play with characters like Major Bludd who really isn't that crucial in the G.I. Joe cosmology, but for my book he's a really big character."

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