IDW - Revolution #2

Title: The Divine Source of Liberty

Written by: John Barber & Cullen Bunn

Art by: Fico Ossio

Colours by: Sebastian Cheng

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Edited by: David Hedgecock

Editor-in-Chief: Chris Ryall

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

The Joes are clearing up in Portland following their attack on the Autobots, and Rom's subsequent attack on them, and Helix points out how only the newcomer opened fire on any of the Joes, and only targeted specific Joes, which annoys Scarlett as she is still angry over Colton's murder.

Rom lands in a nearby forest, and is quickly attacked by Optimus, who demands an explanation as to why he killed those humans. Rom refuses to discuss it with him, beyond that he has killed no humans, and attacks the Autobot leader. Rom starts to leave, but the rest of Optimus' team arrives and join the battle. Before long Rom is pinned down by Optimus and is ordered to explain himself...

Scarlett returns to Governor's Island, location of GI Joe's HQ, where Doc makes a crude joke about there not being enough left of the dead Joes to examine properly, further annoying Scarlett. She goes to see Manheim in a secret lab, where his engineers are taking apart and examining a still living Blitzwing for his experiments. Scarlett is disgusted that Blitzwing is still alive and being tested on, but remembers that she hates the Transformers for killing Colton, so allows him to continue.

Manheim takes Scarlett to visit his new MASK team, and he asks her to keep Blitzwing a secret from them, which she does.

Kup and Aileron are examining the explosion site at Mount Olympus and find that there is some of the Ore remaining, and Kup recognizes the area as having been affected by a space bridge recently, which must have caused the explosion.

The two Transformers drive and fly away from the mountain to report this to Optimus, but are soon surrounded by the MASK team, and Aileron's communications are failing. The MASK team and the Transformers fight it out, resulting in Aileron flying away to warn Optimus, and Kup being captured by the humans, though Matt and the others learn during this battle that the Transformers are more than just simple machines, they are actually alive.

Manheim intends to have Kup interrogated to find out about what is happening to the Ore-13, unaware that someone is watching this entire situation....Baron Karza in Microspace, who is preparing to collect MORE Ore-13 to save Microspace with!

Characters

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet

Arcee - Sports Car

Jazz - Sports Car

Kup - Pick Up Truck Captured by MASK

Decepticon

Soundwave - Personnel Carrier

Blitzwing - Tank/Jet In GI Joe Custody

Other Cybertronian/Colonist

Aileron - Space Shuttle

Primus (Mentioned)

GI Joe

Scarlett

Mainframe

Agent Helix

Roadblock

Rock 'n Roll

Doc/Carla Greer

GI Joe Troops

Joe Colton (Mentioned) Dead

MASK Team

Miles Manheim/Mayhem

Matt Trakker/Spectrum

Brad Turner/Eclipse

Gloria Baker/Aura

Julio Lopez/Gulliver

Sly Rax/Stiletto

Bruno Sheppard/Thunderflame

Vanessa Warfield/Ice Queen

Other

Rom the Space Knight

Baron Karza

Random Human Civilians

Dire Wraith (On Monitor Only)

Action Man (On Monitor Only)

EDC (Mentioned) Merged with GI Joe

Notes

• So Scarlett asks Helix for her opinion on why Rom attacked them, then gets pissed off when she points out that he only killed four of them, and never returned fire or attacked anyone but them...
• Rom's attitude towards Optimus and the Cybertronians is likely due to the Cybertronian's position in galactic society, with their war and the destruction they've caused in the past.
• Optimus re-enacts a scene from the animated Transformers Movie, when he runs down Rom, with him reflected in his grill.
• Doc is a female GI Joe medic here rather than male like the character normally is. This Doc is the male one's daughter.
• The MASK team are unaware that their technology is based at least partly on a captured Transformer. They are also unaware that the Cybertronians are a sentient species, thinking they are just machines.
• It's revealed that the Ore-13 explosion featured in issue one, was caused by Baron Karza transporting some into the Microverse by Baron Karza. Kup recognizes this due to his history dealing with trans-dimensional travel (he was sent to the Dead Universe remember)
• One of the Spectrum mask abilities is to jam transmissions.