IDW - Rom #7

Title: Reinforcements Part 3

Plot and Script by: Christos Gage and Chris Ryall

Pencils and Inks by: Paolo Villanelli

Colours by: Alessandra Alexakis

Letters by: Shawn Lee

Editorial Assist by: David Mariotte

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

Following the fight at Cooper's Mill, a human recovery team arrives and rescues Camilla, concerned about her injuries, and the lack of any attackers. The Space Knights watch them from a nearby ledge, whilst in their cloaked forms. Livia uses her Analyzer to determine that all of the humans are indeed human, and watch as they leave with Camilla, to give her treatment.

Following their departure, Rom leads the other Knights to his cavern hide-out, where he tries to explain the situation on Earth, including the Wraiths managing to use technology to improve their powers, despite that being blasphemous to their species, and also points out that Earth is a Cybertronian colony world now, meaning that destroying the planet, as the other Knights wish to do, will just lead to a war. Orphion agrees that this will likely cause a problem, but considering that Earth is fully infested in Wraiths, it is a necessary war to help save the galaxy from a massive Wraith threat.

Beach Head and Grunt, of GI Joe, have located Rom's location, and are shocked to learn that he has two new allies. They over-heard about Orphion's plan to destroy the Earth and shoot at him. A battle starts and Rom manages to show Livia that the humans aren't Wraiths, so she agrees to not kill them, only disable them, leading to them having their flight packs torn apart and easily defeating them, for now...

In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Darby Mason is finally leaving her grandmother's house so she can spend time with a new friend she met, who also has PTSD, allowing them to be a mess together.

Meanwhile in a city, four addicts join a new support group, which reportedly has had great results, and they meet it's enigmatic lead, Kagan Knight. One of the addicts is unsure whether he can trust Knight's new group to help him through his problems, since he's been let down so many times before, however when Knight transforms into his true Dire Wraith form, he relents, and the group appear to see him as a god-like figure, and open themselves up to him, causing a blinding light to emit from them, and into the Wraith.

Following their draining, all that is left of the humans addicts are their clothes, Knight wonders if these souls are going to be enough to please "The Great One", but if he isn't pleased, then he will just offer himself up to it as well...

At Vanderberg AFB Sub-Sector S-7, Agent Dubosky meets with Corporal Song, who reveals to Dubosky that Rom hacked into the internet when he arrived on Earth to learn our languages and the geology of the planet, but he never cut the connection, meaning they can send Rom false information to manipulate him!

Characters

Solstar Order

Orphion Injured by Joes

Rom

Livia

Rom's Former Partner (Mentioned) Dead

Dire Wraith

Dave Dubosky

Kagan Knight

"Friends of our Enemies" Staff

"The Great One" (Mentioned)

GI Joe

Beach Head

Grunt

Scarlett (Mentioned)

Scarlett's Team (Mentioned)

Other Human

Camilla Byers Taken to Hospital from loss of arm

Darby Mason

Grandma Gay-Lyn Mason

Ruan Sablik

Corporal Song

Addicts Absorbed into Kagan Knight

Cooper's Mill Recovery Team

Paramedics

Soldiers

Cooper's Mill Guards (Mentioned) Missing/Dead

Other

Cybertronians (Mentioned)

Notes

• It's very likely that "The Great One" is the same shadowy Wraith we saw at the end of last issue, whom I referred to as "Legion"
• It's not clear what the addicts in the side story this issue are actually addicted to. One of them mentions AA and NA (alcoholics and narcotics anonymous) so maybe they're just addicts in general?
• One of the investigators at Cooper's Mill dismisses the attack being due to Cybertronians, due to the damage not matching their sizes....guess they still don't know about Blackrock being a Transformer yet then?
• Rom is revealed to have cloaking technology to make him invisible. But before I can moan that he never seems to use it for covert missions, it is mentioned that it uses up a lot of energy.
• So...did Kagan Knight also absorb the baby that one of the addicts was holding? If so then...harsh!!
• Rom brings up that Optimus has claimed Earth to be one of their Colony Worlds, which is the main plot line over in the Optimus Prime transformers comic title
• Beach Head and Grunt immediately know to refer to Livia as a female, but the Joes in the past didn't seem to realise that Arcee was female...guess they're learning to gender their robot-like alien invaders now!
• Why don't the Joes know that Rom's Analyzer isn't a weapon?! Surely they saw it used during the Revolution!?
• Also, it seems that the events of the Revolution comic storyline are being referred to as "Revolution" in universe too, this is likely just a military code-name for the events or something.
• It's confirmed that Rom learned human languages from tapping into the internet...guess he has a lot in common with Biotron from Micronauts that way!
• So...Countdown/Agent Dubosky is still allowed to be on the loose? WHY HASN'T ROM TOLD ANYONE THAT HE'S A WRAITH YET!??!?!!? 
• Orphion mentions that Dire Wraiths are able to take over Cybertronians....this is a terrifying thought....