The Blog That Goes Ping
“Hot Potato” is a short story appended to issue #1, “ Operation: Lady Doomsday .” It’s fairly slight, but sufficiently interesting and different that I decided to talk about it separately.
“Hot Potato” opens in media res with a fantastic full-page scene that pulls you right into the action:
A team of Joes has infiltrated a nameless “emirate” in the Middle East and gotten their hands on a tape of information that will defuse a tense political situation. When they’re attacked and outnumbered by emirate soldiers, a succession of Joes must relay the tape—the “hot potato”—across the desert to the border. Each Joe in the relay chain hands off the tape to the next, then races back to help defend (and ultimately rescue) the wounded and encircled original team.
The Blog That Goes Ping