IDW - Revolutionaries #3

Title: Enter the Shadow: The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Ron Joseph

Colours by: Sebastian Cheng

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Edited by: David Hedgecock

Assistant Edits by: David Mariotte

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

The Revolutionaries visit Richard Ruby, the former Adventure Team member, Bulletman, and have him tell them how his team found the Talisman in the 80's, under the guise of being interested in his story for a film.

Ruby recounts how Lt Kreiger killed a scientist, Dr Marsh, and took his research that was stored on a blue and silver tape player. Three days afterwards, the Adventure Team arrives at the pyramid where he is working from, and are forced to fight off an army of robotic mummies, but Joe Colton managed to get into the temple during the battle, soon followed by Miles Manheim. Ruby recounts how Colton was so interested in these robots because they reminded him of an army of robots his own mentor, Sgt Savage, fought in Kalistan in 1943, but they were never able to study them, however, one of his fellow soldiers, Kreiger, became obsessed with them...

Colton manages to locate the tape deck, which is playing by itself, when he is suddenly surrounded by the robot mummies, he's almost knocked into a chasm, along with the tape player, but the small device suddenly transforms into the Decepticon Soundwave!

Colton is confused, but assumes the robot is just a piloted mecha, but Soundwave soon reveals that he is not piloted, and opens fire on the human (this still being when he saw humans as unimportant). Soundwave leaves Colton to die in fire, but Manheim appears and rescues his teammate. The two Adventurers soon track Soundwave to a hidden chamber that is glowing a strange purple.

Soundwave smashes down the wall, and uncovers Kreiger working on the Talisman, with an army of his mummies around him. The mummies attack Soundwave to try and stop him, with Kreiger assuming that he's a "mothership" of some sort.

The rest of the Adventure team enter the pyramid, and join the fight, with the humans all joining in to fight the giant robot. Despite this, Soundwave simple unleashes a sonic pulse, and sends the mummies and humans flying. He then fires at the humans, scorching Atomic Man's artificial arm, and manages to crush Bulletman's rocket pack. During the chaos, Atomic Man feels compelled to touch the Talisman, and is granted a new arm by it. Soundwave studies this, and finds it interesting, but soon gets annoyed by the humans continuing to attack him, so he just leaves, since he has nothing to gain by fighting them, or taking the Talisman.

With Soundwave leaving, the team discover that Atomic Man's new arm has given him some sort of telekinetic powers, and Kreiger ended up getting the Talisman, before it was taken by British Intelligence.

The Revolutionaries thank Ruby for his time, and lie that they'll pass on his story concept to their bosses. The team leave, having actually made a massive lead in discovering the secrets of the Talisman, since Blackrock knows Kreiger, and knows that his company IRON was formed after that event, and also reveals that Iron Klaw, aka Count Van Rani, has succeeded him in running the company (someone who runs Kalistan incidentally, where the Iron Troopers were found), and he in turn has appointed an interim CEO...someone that Mayday should know...

Elsewhere, the former Cobra member, and current CEO of IRON, Tomax is met by Doctor X and Baron Ironblood, who warn him that the Revolutionaries are going to come to him regarding the Talisman soon, and offer him their "help". Tomax at first declines their assistance, until he is told to have a "change of heart" by a steampunk looking Autobot!

Characters

Autobot

Kup - Pick Up Truck

Garrison Blackrock/Sovereign - Head

"Hearts of Steel Bumblebee" - Locomotive

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab (Mentioned)

Thundercracker - Fighter Jet (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Soundwave - Tape Deck (80's Flashback Only)

Shockwave - Flying Artillery (Hieroglyph Only)

GI Joe/Action Man Programme

Ayana Jones/Mayday

Ian Noble/Action Man

Action Man of 1980's (Mentioned)

Mayday's Team (Mentioned) Currently Mutated by Talisman

Adventure Team

Richard Ruby/Bulletman

Joe Colton/GI Joe (80's Flashback Only)

Miles Manheim/Mayhem (80's Flashback Only)

Lonzo Wilkinson/Stalker (80's Flashback Only)

Mike Power/Atomic Man (80's Flashback Only) Mentioned as being killed by Kreiger

Screaming Eagles

Robot Steven Savage/Sgt. Savage (1943 Flashback Only)

Garrison Kreiger/Blitz (1943 and 80's Flashback Only)

Darren K. Filbert/Grill (1943 Flashback Only)

Doctor X's Faction/Cobra

Mercy Gale/Doctor X

Baron Ironblood

Tomax Paoli

Cobra Commander (Mentioned)

Other Human

Richard Ruby's Director

Dr Elliot Marsh Killed by Kreiger (80's Flashback Only)

Hideaki (Mentioned)

Count Van Rani/Iron Klaw (Mentioned)

Other

Binaltech Mummies (80's Flashback Only)

Black Cybertronian (80's Flashback Only) Dead

Iron Troopers (1943 Flashback Only)

Microtron (Hieroglyph Only)

Biotron (Hieroglyph Only)

Buster the Dog (Mentioned)

Notes

• This story is mostly a flashback of Bulletman's with the framing device being the Revolutionaries listening to his story under the guise of movie producers
• Amongst the hieroglyphs in the temple are etching of an Acroyear, a Biotron, Shockwave, a Decepticon insignia, a DD (likely referring to Dungeons and Dragons) and what appears to be a Visionary chest plate. I smell more franchises joining the Hasbroverse!
• The "Adventurer" seen in Road to Revolution is identified here as a young version of the GI Joe member, Stalker.
• It's never addressed here, but there's a dead Transformer behind the Talisman in the temple. That's likely what attracted Soundwave to the temple, in his search for Shockwave and Bludgeon (See Spotlight: Soundwave). I would guess that he's somehow related to the Hearts of Steel Bumblebee who appears at the end of the issue.
• The Talisman is shown this issue to be able to recreate organic flesh into machinery, as it does for Atomic Man's charred arm, and would likely have done so to the mummies in the temple (ie the inner organic parts under the bandages were turned into machines). Considering this, and it's earlier use to turn humans into Dire Wraiths, it seems likely that it has the power to change one life-form into another one.
• It's off-headedly mentioned that Kreiger killed Atomic Man, most likely he killed him to get a hold of his new mechanical limbs and study their strange abilities
• So....Hearts if Steel Bumblebee is in this universe now....considering HOS is a completely different continuity to the Hasbroverse (with HOS being confirmed to be actually the past of the X-Files comic timeline). Maybe this "Bumblebee" just happens to look like him, or is a dimensionally displaced version of him? Perhaps Axiom Nexus spat him out into the wrong universe of origin, assuming this one was close enough?
• The Micronauts and present-day Talisman are absent in this issue. It's likely that the Micronauts are looking after the Talisman at Onyx HQ, considering their unclear connection to it.