G.I. Joe: Resolute is an American adult animated web series based on the G.I. Joe franchise. It was written by Warren Ellis, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, and produced by Sam Register, creator of Cartoon Network's Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi and The Looney Tunes Show. It debuted on the web at Adult Swim Video on April 17, 2009, as a series of ten 5-minute episodes and a final 10-minute episode, with a content rating of TV-14-V, and later premiered as a movie on Adult Swim on April 25, 2009. The show has a darker and more realistic tone compared to other installments in the franchise, and also uses elements from both the cartoons and the comics, and is described by Warren Ellis as a "fusion".
Plot
Major Bludd's dead body is found by police at the Lincoln Memorial, with a knife through his heart.
In the Pacific Ocean the USS Flagg, a modified aircraft carrier, falls prey to a saboteur. Explosives rigged in vital areas destroy almost all on board weapons, ammunition, and vehicles, in addition to severely compromising the vessel's integrity. A Joe named Bazooka had been killed prior to the attack while on guard duty. An autopsy uncovers a note hidden in Bazooka's mouth, which reveals the assassin to be Storm Shadow, a former friend of Snake Eyes from his time training as a ninja. Snake Eyes, after reading the scroll's hidden note, departs to confront Storm Shadow and settle their rivalry once and for all.
After repeated attempts to seize power through brute force have failed, Cobra Commander comes up with a new plan to recover Cobra's financial investments, and seize control of world power at the same time. The plan begins with the seizure of the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program array (HAARP), which superheats the ionosphere. Following this, hundreds of rockets carrying solar powered stratellites are launched into low Earth orbit, forming an entire network just below the ionosphere, allowing Cobra to maintain a covert worldwide communication network. Finally, at a decommissioned nuclear missile silo in Siberia, a prototype particle beam weapon is unveiled.
The Cobra operative Firefly fires a special missile package through the wall of the United Nations building in Manhattan, NY, which deploys a small holographic projector. Cobra Commander uses the projector to broadcast a message to the assembled UN representatives, in which he demands that all nations on earth turn control of their resources over to the Cobra organization within 24 hours, or face indiscriminate destruction of their major cities. As a show of force, the cannon is fired at Moscow, Russia, destroying the city and killing approximately ten million people.
Meanwhile, the other Joes on board the Flagg learn from Dial Tone that satellite communications are down due to the superheated ionosphere, and eventually trace Cobra's activity to the HAARP array, the satellites, and the Siberian particle cannon, which lies beneath the decommissioned Russian ballistic missile complex. Logistical personnel explain that the HAARP array allows the particle cannon to superheat the ionosphere, causing it to reflect particles. The energy from those charged particles is dispersed across the super-hot ionosphere, and then reassembled above its intended target. Once there, the particles are focused into a powerful collimated beam, which uses charged particles to wipe entire cities off the map.
Cobra Commander warns his troops that sedition against his authority will not be tolerated, and recounts how he killed Major Bludd himself, for such an attempt.