IDW - Revolutionaries #4

Title: The Iron Klaw

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Fico Ossio

Colours by: Sebastian Cheng

Letters by: Tom B Long

Assistant Edits by: David Mariotte

Edited by: David Hedgecock

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

The villains are based out in Mklavia in Kalistan, under the protection of Iron Klaw, who has somehow gained the Predacons as guards. Ironblood receives a message from Kreiger, saying that Tomax needs an emergency evac from his mission, which Ironblood is annoyed by, but he activates the MASS Device anyway...unaware that Snake Eyes is hiding in the rafters of the castle.

Outside, Kup, Action Man and Mayday are waiting for a signal, and Kup is shown an image of the Predacons, who he identifies, and explains that he trained them before the war, but after the war ended they wound up on Earth working for China, trying to develop combining technologies before the discovery of the Enigma of Combination.

Tomax arrives through the MASS Device, and is chewed out for losing his helmet and Centurion, but he is soon forgiven when he reveals that he has Garrison Blackrock as a prisoner, who they plan to dissect to figure out how he works...

On their way to the castle, Mayday explains her history with Mklavia, saying how she was on an observational team when she first worked for GI Joe, and so knows the area quite well. She then goes on to explain about how Tomax acted as though Cobra were the heroes, and the Joes, and the Western world in general were bad, until they ended up being destroyed when Snake Eyes infiltrated the group and caused an incident involving the death of another mole in the group.

Inside the castle, Blackrock is hooked up to a Talisman look-a-like, and Kreiger uses his mind to try and uncover more of the secrets of the device. Snake Eyes makes a noise, and is discovered, causing the Iron Grenadiers to attack him in response, meanwhile, the rest of the villains realise that Snake Eyes wouldn't be alone, so they deploy the Predacons too...

Outside, the team have lost contact with their team inside, so they decide to attack the castle. Kup breaks down a wall, but finds the Predacons combined into Predaking!

Inside the castle, Snake Eyes is dead, and Kreiger asks Tomax to report on Project: Ice Man, which he appears to be confused about. Ironblood examines the body of Snake Eyes, and discovers that he is a robot! "Tomax" rips off his face, and reveals that he is actually Snake Eyes, who has been using a voice modulator to allow Kup to impersonate Tomax for him (until he turns it off) and he attacks the Iron villains.

Back outside, Kup and Action Man fight Predaking, with Kup noticing that the combiner isn't right, since the Predacons would never work together like this, and determines that they are being controlled some how. Mayday leaves to go inside, and see if there's some way to break the control.

Inside again, Snake Eyes frees Blackrock from his harness, and he joins the battle, along with Mayday when she reaches them. She reveals about the presumed control on the Predacons, so Blackrock approaches the control harness and prepares to slowly release their control...until Snake Eyes just bludgeons the controls, freeing them instantly.

Outside, the Predacons, released from their control, de-combine and are left knocked out due to the shock. Razorcalw however quickly wakes up, and thrashes at Action Man and Kup. Razorclaw is soon concerned about how Kup got there, until Kup exploits his one weakness...he shoots off his head.

The Revolutionaries inside the castle make it to the MASS Device, and are teleported outside the castle, where Kup and Action Man recover them, and they speed away, having learned where the Talisman came from, and where Tomax and his mystery allies are going to be...

In the aftermath, the villains meet up, and decide to "burn" Centurion and Tomax, despite the cost that would cause, but Ironblood isn't worried, as they still have more "surprises".

Elsewhere, Doctor X and Stormshadow are at a facility, where a frozen alternate version of Optimus Prime is sitting.....

Characters

Autobot

Kup - Pick Up Truck

Garrison Blackrock/Sovereign - Titan Master Head

"Project Ice Man"/HOS Optimus Prime - Train Frozen

"Centurion"/HOS Bumblebee - Cabless Train Car (Mentioned)

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Predaking - Predacon Gestalt

Razorclaw - Lion Head Blown off by Kup

Tantrum - Bison

Rampage - Tiger

Divebomb - Hawk

Headstrong - Rhino

Megatron - Tank (Mentioned)

GI Joe/Action Man Program

Mayday

Action Man

Snake Eyes

Joe Colton (Flashback Only)

Duke (Flashback Only)

Big Ben (Flashback Only)

Roadblock (Flashback Only)

Doc (Flashback Only)

Hashtag (Flashback Only)

Zilong Qian (Mentioned)

Unnamed Villain Group/Cobra

Iron Klaw

Baron Ironblood

Garrison Kreiger

Doctor X

Storm Shadow

Iron Grenadiers Many killed by Snake Eyes

Tomax Paoli (Flashback and Disguise Only)

Destro (Flashback Only)

Cobra's P.R. Flack (Mentioned)

Other Human

Mklavian Residents

Isaac Craft (Flashback Only) Seemingly Killed by Snake Eyes

Earth Defense Command (Mentioned)

Skywatch (Mentioned)

Other

Snake Eyes Drone Killed by Iron Grenadiers

Onyx Prime (Flashback Only)

Octopus Aliens (Flashback Only) Killed by Predacons

Notes

• The narration boxes in this issue are actually a transmission being sent to Optimus Prime by Kup
• Iron Klaw, Baron Ironblood and the Iron Grenadiers? I think there's a theme going on here.
• Also of note, the Hearts of Steel characters are being used by them, Iron and Steel are very similar metals...another connection?
• Last time we saw some of the Predacons, they were amongst the attempted attack on Earth led by Galvatron at the end of the Transformers Ongoing. I guess they were abducted by the villains in this story after that fight?
• A large deal of this story is set in flashback form, showing some otherwise missing history from both Transformers and GI Joe, which includes the abandoned story lines from GI Joe's past volumes.
• "Tomax's" outfit is based on his outfit shown in the original GI Joe animated series.
• More of Mayday's back story is given here, she worked at Skywatch (likely the one before Spike took over) and then joined a Joe team with Big Ben and Duke, she left when the team was exposed by Cobra, and joined the EDC, and we know what's happened since then.
• Snake Eyes is revealed to have been under deep cover working at Cobra at the end of the previous GI Joe volume for the Joes, which led to it's disbanding before the current storyline.
• Kreiger is revealed to have made a replica of the Talisman which he has been experimenting on since he lost it to the Adventure Team
• Kreiger and Ironblood see Snake Eyes' disfigured face for a few moments this issue, but we don't get to...not sure if that's good or not yet....
• Blackrock reports that the Talisman comes from Onyx Prime, who was his master before taking on his human persona, and it seems to be able to unlock hidden memories from his past life too.
• Oh...Hearts of Steel Optimus is here too? And he is frozen, and referred to as "Ice Man" just like Megatron from the Live Action Movies.
• It seems like more Transformers from the Hearts of Steel universe have made it to the Hasbroverse, either through a multiversal portal of some sort, or the two universes getting merged due to one of the big universe destroying events from the past few years.
• A brief mention is made to a helmet being used by Tomax in relation to "Centurion" (HOS Bumblebee). This is likely what the Cobra Commander helmet from last issue is for.