Duke issue 1: Difference between revisions

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Publisher	Image Comics; Skybound Entertainment}}
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First published	December 27, 2023}}
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Cover date	December 2023}}
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Written by	Joshua Williamson}}
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Art by	Tom Reilly}}
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Colors by	Jordie Bellaire}}
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Letters by	Rus Wooton}}
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Editors	Sean Mackiewicz & Jonathan Manning}}
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Revision as of 20:31, 29 December 2023

{{#if: Duke 2023 1 cvr.jpg | {{#if: Image Comics
Skybound Entertainment | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: December 27, 2023 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: December 2023 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Joshua Williamson | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Tom Reilly | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Jordie Bellaire | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Rus Wooton | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Sean Mackiewicz & Jonathan Manning | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Energon Universe | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: |

{{#switch:{{#sub:xx|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}}

Duke's entire world has been shattered. And if his country won't give him the answers he seeks, he'll find them himself.

Synopsis

Colonel Hawk meets with First Sergeant Conrad "Duke" Hauser. Once one of the United States Army's finest soldiers, Duke hasn't been the same since he saw his friend, Tyler "Frosting" Frost, killed by a giant robot that turned into a plane. However, Hawk tells Duke his country needs him back, assuming he can stop asking questions. Duke can't abide that, demanding to see the black box from Frosting's plane, but Hawk simply tells him that information is classified. An enraged Duke storms out, vowing find out what that flying robot was and take it out.

Six months later, Duke attends a meeting of alien conspiracy theorists in Washington, D.C. Though he's unsure he's in the right place, he soon meets Doctor Adele Bukhart, a physicist using the meeting as a front for her own mission. Burkhart tells Duke that she used to be part of a project looking for new sources of clean energy. Burkhart had hoped to harness the power of cosmic elements created during the Big Bang that she believed were hidden on Earth. However, she became concerned that the people she worked for had less noble intentions, planning to use it to design weapons of war. Having heard Duke's story, Burkhart believes he's stumbled onto a high-tech arms race and enlists his help to investigate the company on the edge of said race: M.A.R.S. Industries.

Duke sneaks into the M.A.R.S. offices, discovering a hidden basement where hundreds of advanced weapons and combat vehicles are being built, including robotic exosuits, which leads him to conclude M.A.R.S. is responsible for the robot that killed Frosting. However, he is soon discovered and attacked by Mercer. The pair fight for a bit before more M.A.R.S. security overwhelm Duke and drag him out of the building. Mercer wants to kill Duke since he's seen too much, but his employer (watching from a camera hidden in a statue) tells him to stay his hand: his family didn't get this far by killing everyone who poked their nose into their business, and that there are other ways to deal with him.

As Duke heads back to Burkhart's, he calls an unknown contact and leaves a message telling them about what he saw inside M.A.R.S. However, his call is interrupted when he sees inside the meeting: a massacre. Duke finds Burkhart bleeding out and asks her what happened. She tells him a man claiming to be a believer attacked and stole all of her research, save for a single small hard drive. Duke tells her to hold on, but Burkhart uses her dying breath to tell him not to let the drive fall into the wrong hands and to find the truth. At that moment, a squad of police officers swarm the building, ordering Duke to freeze. He tries to de-escalate the situation, but the police open fire on him. Duke flees, jumping out the window of the second story. Though wounded, he slinks off into the night, more determined than ever to get answers.

With Duke now compromised, Hawk is ordered by his superiors to take care of his rogue soldier. His aide, Krieger, tells him that finding Duke will be impossible. Hawk says that if they want to track one American hero, they’re going to need American heroes. Namely, Stalker and Rock 'n Roll!

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
{{#if: ||(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)}}

{{#if:* Duke (1)

Hawk (2)
Frosting (4)
Krieger (8)
Stalker (9)
Rock 'n Roll (10)|

{{#if:* Duke (1)

Hawk (2)
Frosting (4)
Krieger (8)
Stalker (9)
Rock 'n Roll (10)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |
Duke (1)
Hawk (2)
Frosting (4)
Krieger (8)
Stalker (9)
Rock 'n Roll (10) }}{{#if:* Mercer (6)
Destro (7)|

United States military }}{{#if:* Mercer (6) Destro (7)\|	M.A.R.S. Industries }}{{#if:* Starscream (3) Adele Burkhart (5)\|	Others }}{{#if:\|	Others }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}
Mercer (6) Destro (7) }}{{#if:* Starscream (3) Adele Burkhart (5)\|	Starscream (3) Adele Burkhart (5) }}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:\|	}}

Quotes

"I believe this is the new apple from the tree of knowledge, and there is a snake hoping someone takes a bite out of it."

—Adele Burkhart

Notes

Continuity notes

Duke's traumatic encounter with the Decepticon Starscream and the death of Frosting was depicted in Transformers #2.
- Frosting's name is also given here as "Tyler Frost," while the art for Transformers #2 had his first name being "Mike". This is likely just a case of a detail that wasn't communicated between different creative teams since it's so minor. Or perhaps his full name is "Mike Tyler Frost"?
The six-month jump places this story further in the Energon Universe timeline than the concurrently running Transformers. (Possibly further than Void Rivals as well depending on how long it took Jetfire to get to Earth and how long it took Darak and Solila to get off the planetoid.)
One of the conspiracy theorists might be a resident of Farmingham, since they reference a massive truck standing up.
Hanging on the wall at the conspiracy theorist meeting is an "I want to believe" poster featuring the Ark, suggesting that its arrival was more recent and well-known than previously thought.
Burkhart's goal of deriving a clean energy source from raw elements from space seems to point pretty clearly to energon, continuing the theme of the substance playing a crucial role across the various titles.

G.I. Joe references

The character designs for Duke, Stalker, and Rock 'n Roll are all at least partially based on their G.I. Joe Classified Series figures.
Hawk mentions Duke's stubborn and insubordinate brother, a reference to the G.I. Joe member Falcon, who was portrayed as Duke's younger half-brother in G.I. Joe: The Movie and younger full brother in the G.I. Joe: Renegades cartoon.
As Duke drives to the meeting, we see a stack of books on aliens and unexplained phenomena in his car. One of these books says "Mindbender" on the cover, though it's not clear if that is the title or the author.
Among the conversations of the conspiracy theorists, one bit that is overheard is about "a secret society in the ice," likely a reference to Cobra-La.
Another tidbit mentions a man ripping his face off to reveal another face which might be a reference to the preeminent master-of-disguise/sometimes shapeshifter of the Joe mythos, Zartan.
Doctor Adele Burkhart is a minor supporting character from the Marvel G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics, first appearing in the very first issue as a nuclear physicist-turned-whistleblower kidnapped by Cobra that the Joe team must rescue.
The most prominently shown of Burkhart's blueprints depicts the M.A.S.S. Device, the teleporter used by Cobra in the 1983 pilot miniseries for the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon. The blueprint's depiction of the device separated into five components is based on the instruction sheet artwork for its Build a Figure release in the G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary toyline, which required the purchase of five figure-and-DVD box sets to obtain all the components and assemble the full device.
Several of the weapons M.A.R.S. is building are based on classic Cobra vehicles, including H.I.S.S. tanks, F.A.N.G.s, S.N.A.K.E.s, tanks that might be C.A.T.s, and even a stray C.L.A.W.
Mercer is usually depicted as a former Cobra Viper who defects to join G.I. Joe. However, since G.I. Joe and Cobra have yet to form in the Energon Universe, he is depicted here at the beginning of that journey as an enforcer for M.A.R.S.
Both Burkhart and Destro reference the history of M.A.R.S. as a family operation of the McCullen clan, something that dates back to the original file card for the character.
Burkhart notes that the man who stole her research came all the way from Austrailia. Could we be seeing Major Bludd in the near future?
Only identified by her last name, Kreiger is longtime G.I. Joe vehicle expert Cover Girl. Here she is acting as Hawk's aide, similar to her role in the G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra film.

Transformers references

One of the conspiracy theorists insists that there are little green men controlling the alien robots from inside their heads, referencing the Nebulan Headmasters from the Generation 1 cartoon.

Real-world references

The "I want to believe" poster mentioned above is based on Fox Mulder's poster from The X-Files, with the Ark replacing Mulder's more traditional UFO.

Errors

Hawk's nameplate on his desk should really read "Abernathy," his legal last name, not his cool toy trademark. The same should also go for the nametag on Duke's uniform.
The back cover of the comic is patterned after a classified file. However, its warning features some grammatical errors, reading: "The contents of this booklet is confidential. This unauthorized disclosure of information within is prohibited."

Other trivia

This issue contains a four page preview for Cobra Commander #1.
Like with Transformers #1, an ashcan copy of this issue was available exclusively at New York Comic Con 2023 prior to its official release. The ashcan contains uncolored, unlettered pages from both this issue and Cobra Commander #1, with afterwords from Joshua Williamson, Tom Reilly and Andrea Milana.

Covers

Cover A: Duke stands tall as Starscream soars through the sky, by Tom Reilly.
Cover B: Duke on the battlefield, by David Aja.
Cover C (1:10 Copy Incentive): Duke jumps out the window to escape the SWAT team, by Tyler Boss.
Cover D (1:25 Copy Incentive): Duke on explosion background, by Steve Epting.
Cover E (1:50 Copy Incentive): Starscream towers over Duke, by Andrea Sorrentino.
Cover F (1:100 Copy Incentive Foil): Duke atop a defeated Starscream, by Jonboy Meyers.
Cover G: Blank sketch cover.
Cover H (1:250 Copy Incentive): Duke and Baroness, by David Mack.
Bird City Comics exclusive: Duke, by John Giang.
The Comic Mint exclusive: SWAT team reflected in Duke's knife, by Marco Ferrari.
Southern Comics Cartel exclusive: Duke with Starscream flying overhead, by Santa Fung.
New York Comic Con ashcan cover A: Duke corner box art, by Tom Reilly.
New York Comic Con ashcan Big Clutch/eBay exclusive: Cobra Commander corner box art with spot foil, by Andrea Milana.

File:Duke 2023 1 cvr.jpg

Reprints

Duke Volume 1 (June 5, 2024) ISBN 1534398163 / ISBN 978-1534398160
- Collects issues #1–5.
- Trade paperback format.

Volume 1 – cover art by Tom Reilly

External links

References

@@ Line 88: / Line 88: @@
 ===Errors===
 * Hawk's nameplate on his desk should really read "Abernathy," his legal last name, not his cool toy trademark. The same should also go for the nametag on Duke's uniform.
-* The back cover of comic is the patterned after a classified file. However, its warning features some grammatical errors, reading: "The contents of this booklet '''is''' confidential. '''This''' unauthorized disclosure of information within is prohibited."
+* The back cover of the comic is patterned after a classified file. However, its warning features some grammatical errors, reading: "The contents of this booklet '''is''' confidential. '''This''' unauthorized disclosure of information within is prohibited."
 ===Other trivia===

Duke issue 1: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:31, 29 December 2023

Contents

Synopsis

Featured characters

Quotes