IDW - Micronauts: Wrath of Karza #4

Written by: Cullen Bunn and Jimmy Johnston

Art by: Andrew Griffith and Ron Joseph

Colours by: David Garcia Cruz

Letters by: Tom B Long

Assistant Editor: David Mariotte

Editor: David Hedgecock

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

Oz and his crew have captured Mebros and begin interrogating him to find out what is happening here. They learn that Acroyear has been taken to be reconditioned to rejoin Karza's forces, and that they are actually inside a prison facility that is orbiting Earth, which is also holding the larger Cybertronian prisoners as well. Biotron hacks into the prison's computers and locates where the other prisoners are, and even locates where the ship that shot down the Heliopolis is, and that it's crew is still aboard...

On Earth, Karza is leading the battle against the Earth's military, and despite their tiny sizes, their sheer numbers are overwhelming the Humans almost to defeat. Commander Raith rejoins Karza, and reports that Acroyear has been reconditioned and assigned to a new fleet. Karza is pleased, but begins to wonder where his wife is...

Inside her workshop, Shazraella is working on a new suit of armour, where she is approached by the last Time Traveler, where he convinces her to join forces with him, but she promises that if he leads her astray then she will come after him.

Back at the prison, the crew of the Sharkos are hanging out in their rec room, when they are attacked by Omegatron, who has been smuggled aboard by the still threatened Membros. Membros uses Omegatron's attack on his crew as a distraction, and flees whilst he is busy, and mutilates the entire crew, bar Centauros. The centaur-creature tries to avenge his dead crewmates, but is himself killed by the newly arrived Larissa. Oz and the others take command of the ship, and launch it towards Karza for a final confrontation.

Karza notices the Sharkos as Raith and Membros' crews ship, and realizes that something is wrong, so he has Raith shoot it down. Oz and his crew leave the ship and begin battling against Karza and Raith. Karza prepares to have more troops aid him, but Oz reveals that they freed the Transformers, and they are currently taking down the bulk of the army. The Acroyear swarm arrives and prepare to battle, however Acroyear, amongst the numbers appears and reveals that the Conditioning failed, and he now controls the entire Acroyear Swarm.

Not one to be outdone, Karza pushes a button and deactivates the Swarm, leaving both sides to just a few fighters. Acroyear lunges at Raith and the two of them fall off the platform to battle alone, and Karza is left to face Oz and his Micronauts alone....except..he is never truly alone. Shazraella appears, fully armoured up and infused with the powers of the last Time Traveler!

To be concluded!!

Characters

Micronaut

Oziron Rael

Larissa

Phenolo-Phi

Acroyear

Biotron

Microtron

Alphatron

Betatron

Gammatron

Omegatron

Ministry of War

Baron Karza-Micronus Prime Fusion

Lady Shazraella Enerchanged with Time Traveler

Commander Raith

Membros

Centauros Killed by Larissa

Antron Killed by Omegatron

Lobros Killed by Omegatron

Kronos Killed by Omegatron

New Acroyear Swarm Defected to Micronauts, Disabled by Karza

Giant Acroyear

Other Microspace Denizens

Time Traveler (Voice Only) Enerchanged into Shazraella's Body

The Emperor (Mentioned) Dethroned

Autobot

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab

Arcee - Sports Car

Jazz - Sports Car

Notes

• This is the penultimate issues of this Mini-Series, leading into the First Strike One-Shot, and then the post-First Strike rebranding series of "Rom and the Micronauts"...YAY!!! My favourite two non-Transformers IDW products!
• Despite seemingly being Enerchanged with Micronus' body still, Karza appears to be smaller than the first time we saw this body (he towered over Optimus and the Autobots before, but is now only about twice the size of an Acroyear here. This imples that Micronus has the ability to mass-shift, which Karza is tapping into.
• The name of the ship used by Membros' team is the Sharkos....we learn this just before it gets shot down! YAY!
• Hey...where is the Time Mask? Is it a coincidence that he has vanished now, and the evil Time Traveler has just appeared to Shazraella? Hmmm?
• Despite his emotional outburst when he thought that Larissa was dead, he doesn't seem to care that she is alive here...he even seems to be unmoved when he thinks she is going to die when she gets knocked off the platform.
• The Autobots being able to just shove the Microspace vehicles to one side just really shows how easy this war should have been....in other words....WHERE IS VICTORION?!?! JUST GRAVITATE THEM INTO A BALL OF MUSH!!
• It appears that the Giant Acroyears, seen a couple of times in the past, are formed by various Acroyears Enerchanging together into this larger form.
• So....how did Acroyear a) resist his reconditioning and b) manage to take control of ALL the Ministry of War Acroyears...it hasn't been that long has it?!
• Also, Karza just turns off all of his Acroyears. we learned before that these newer ones are mostly machine now, so I'm not questioning that, but how does he intend to take over the Earth with the largest chunk of his army now gone?
• Shazraella's armour appears to be the same one that Larissa used in her flashforwards and future self from the Annual issue. (It is also of course based on Karza's own armour)
• The preview for the next issue asks us "who will make the ultimate sacrifice?". Well considering Shazraella is a part of the Ironblood Alliance of Evil, with no sign of Karza, and his invasion seemingly not coming to anything afterwards, it seems likely that Karza will sacrifice himself to save with Shazraella or Larissa in some way.