YMMV / G.I. Joe (IDW)

• Audience-Alienating Era: The volume 4 Retool by Karen Traviss is a Darker and Edgier, entirely realistic military drama that strips out almost all fantastical elements of the series; something that many fans had been calling for for a while. Unfortunately, what this ended up with was a series that suffered from painful levels of Too Bleak, Stopped Caring and was so decompressed that pretty much nothing at all happened before the series was Cut Short due to low sales. It's entirely possible that the complete failure of the "high-realism" approach led, in part, to the Denser and Wackier lightheartedness of the 2016 revival.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Magnificent Bastard: See here.
• Nightmare Fuel: From vol. 1, what happens to the test subjects of the M.A.S.S. device. Even worse in issue 11, when we actually see the poor guy's body dissolve while he begs for help.
  • Also from vol. 1, the seeming fate of the troops at Cobra's moon base after the M.A.S.S. device is destroyed. The last image of the final issue is them desperately digging a message into the surface:
    HELP US
    • Issue one of vol. 2 makes it clear that there is no rescuing them. They are stuck up there to either starve or suffocate.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Helix's appearances in Revolution were much better-received thanks to playing up her social awkwardness in place of a generic "badass" attitude (and a well-placed "shut up, Wesley" moment).
  • Hashtag gets significantly better when she reappears at the end of the run. It helps that she's nowhere near as stupid. Still, it's telling that she hasn't appeared since.
• The Scrappy:
  • Helix, thanks to being a Canon Foreigner and Spotlight-Stealing Squad with out-of-place-seeming powers who adds another dimension to the much disliked Love Triangle of Scarlett and Snake Eyes.
  • Hashtag, as an unintelligent, inexperienced mockery of Millenials.
• Unexpected Character: Let's be honest: even with the Hasbro Comic Universe existing, nobody saw a Transformer (and an evil one, at that) joining the Joes until it was announced.

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