IDW - Rom and the Micronauts

Writer: Christos Gage

Artist: Paolo Villanelli

Colourist: Alessandra Alexakis

Letterer: Shawn Lee

Editors: Carlos Guzman & David Mariotte

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

D'rge and Karza discuss their potential new alliance to deal with their now mutual enemies, with The Absence joining them to at that he has a plan for them to work together to defeat the Micronauts and Rom alike. He teleports them all away to their goal...

A few hours later, the Micronauts arrive at the Dire Wraith's lighthouse, having been following Karza's signal but find it abandoned. They detect Wraith signals there too, but since there's no sign of a battle they assume that the two forces have teamed up. They head off to find Rom, as they figure he'd be interested in working together since the Wraiths are involved.

Inside the Lighthouse, one piece of the Absence remains and reports to the others that the Micronauts are doing as they planned.

Later, the Micronauts find Rom and his human allies, Darby Mason and Camilla Byers, in Utah having just taken down a Wraith cell, and they agree to join the Micronauts in taking down Karza and the Wraiths alike. Rom uses his Analyzer to detect a location where Wraith and Microspace technologies are the highest, and determines that that must be where they are hiding. He sends a message to Orphion and Livia, who are currently dealing with another mission, to tell them where they are going and they head off.

Soon our heroes arrive at the Yucca Mountains in Nevada where they immediately attack the Wraiths, but unfortunately they planned for this, and using a combination of Karza's Enerchange ability, and D'rge's magic, Karza begins to Enerchange with Rom himself. Rom tries to fight off the Baron, but he's getting weaker as Karza is stealing his strength, whilst the rest of the team are busy with the Wraiths, and cannot help their ally.

Orphion and Livia manage to arrive, just in time to see Rom seemingly reduced to nothingness and Karza has taken all his power. The other two Knights attack Karza, but he easily defeats them, and leaves with the remaining Wraiths, planning to kill the Knights at a later date.

Later, the Knights are revived and they confirm that there is no sign of Rom, or the Micronauts. They swear to take down Karza in the name of Rom, and will get revenge for him...

Some time later still, the Micronauts manage to unearth themselves from some rubble they were trapped under during the battle, where they make shocking discovery, Rom is not dead, he has been transported to Microspace. They decide to head to Microspace to rescue him, and also see if he has some way to stop Karza, since their powers are now connected through the Enerchange...

In Microspace, Rom is floating in space, surrounded by a Reptos swarm....

Characters

Solstar Order

Rom Displaced to Microspace, Energy Drained by Karza

Orphion

Livia

Fy-Laa (Mentioned) Dead

Micronaut

Larissa

Phenolo-Phi

Acroyear

Biotron

Microtron

Dire Wraith

The Absence 

D'rge

Lava Monster Likely Killed by Orphion and Livia

Wraith Troops

Wraith Cows Killed by Rom's Team

The Presence (Mentioned)

Human

Darby Mason

Camilla Byers

Action Man (Flashback Only)

Scarlett (Flashback Only)

Roadblock (Flashback Only)

Snake Eyes (Flashback Only)

Other Joes (Flashback Only)

Miles Mayhem (Mentioned)

Other Microspace

Baron Karza

Reptos Swarm

Other

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab (Flashback Only)

Notes

• It's confirmed here that The Absence is in various locations at once, partly explaining his translucent appearance and intangibility 
• It's also confirmed that The Presence is not literally under the Earth's crust, but in a "Synchronic Dimension" that appears to be connected to the crust
• Larissa has been given a slight redesign, giving her a fully shaved head, likely to help distinguish her from Darby Mason, who could honestly be her alternate universe self, they look so similar!
• Orphion and Livia are fighting against a lava monster of some sort...I guess that explains where they were during the First Strike tie-ins, but....WHY AREN'T WE SEEING THAT STORY?!?
• Rom doesn't look in any way concerned that Darby is wearing his dead best friend's arm on her arm does he? Also his other human friend still has Dire Wraith powers.....I think we're missing a story here!
• Biotron kept up to his promise to analyse the Wraith magic so the Micronauts can be protected from it
• From the looks of it, Karza didn't just steal Rom's strength and size, but also his Neutralizer energies...who wants to be that he'll turn against the Wraiths and kill some with that power in this series?
• The beam of Neutralizer energy that Orphion and Livia shoot up in memorial for Rom's "death" is a reference to what Rom did to memorialize his family's murder by the Wraiths in his annual.
• Oh hey! Rom was sent to Microspace! I look forward to returning there for the first time since pretty much the start of the Micronauts series!
• It's mentioned a few times that there is a Microspace colony on Earth now...I want to see that!
• Considering how Microspace looks peaceful, and the Reptos as alive again, we can assume that the Time Travelers were successful in stopping the Entropy Cloud...yay!

IDW - Rom vs Transformers: Shining Armor #2

Written by: John Barber &Christos Gage

Art by: Alex Milne

Colours by: Josh Perez

Letters by: Tom B Long

Editor: Carlos Guzman

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

A few weeks before the attack on the Xetaxxis Solstar station, a Decepticon team led by Starscream are approached by Vekktral and his Dire Wraiths. At first Starscream is uninterested, but when he learns of Vekktral's encounter with Stardrive, he becomes interested, as he wants to know how she's been staying alive without access to Energon, and determines that if they get that secret then they can stop worrying about raiding other planets to get more...

A short while later, an Autobot shuttle holding Sky Blast, Bumblebee and Ultra Magnus inside come across a Decepticon team destroying a Galactic Council ship. They kill the Decepticons, but find the Galactic Council crew inside, all dead. They find it weird how the Decepticons were seeming to be trying to hide their involvement in the attack, since normally they'd announce this attack proudly. Magnus hacks into the computer and finds out that the ship was heading towards Xetaxxis for the negotiations, so they head there too...

About a week later, Rom attacks the newcomer Autobots, assuming they are allied with Starscream, but soon realizes that the two groups of Cybertronians are enemies too. He tries to form an alliance with them, but Magnus simply shoots him away, assuming, and insisting that the Solstar Order and Decepticons are allied together, and that Stardrive is a Decepticon who has been coated in the Solstar Armour, though Bumblebee points out that the Decepticons and the Knights are fighting each other too..

Outside, Sky Blast reports that the Station is falling apart, and the only thing keeping it in place is the force-field around it, as he observes some of the crew escape in shuttles and escape pods. 

Inside, Magnus drives into Starscream, splitting him away from Stardrive, whom Bumblebee tries to help up, she assumes he's attacking her and shoots him away. Suddenly Sky Blast appears and attacks her, in order to protect Bumblebee.

Vekktral takes the chaos as an opportunity to send one of his troops to merge with the newcomer Autobot, which causes Sky Blast to mutate into a horrifying monster, and the Wraith's mind to be merged with him, creating a new primal creature. Everyone is shocked that a Wraith and a Cybertronian can merge, and how messed up they are.

The Knights attack the new Sky Blast-Wraith, but cannot do anything to harm him. Starscream and Doomwings go to retrieve the Energon Synthesizer and leave whilst everyone else is distracted, but Doomwings is grabbed by the monster and torn to pieces.

Starscream is pissed off with Vekktral for letting his new troop kill one of his men, but Vekktral reveals that he is not in control of the monster. The Decepticons try to fight off the monster too, but end up heading out of the station themselves.

Bumblebee approaches Stardrive again, insisting that she explains who she is, and when he learns that she isn't a Decepticon, but a Solstar Knight, he explains that the Autobots are opposed to the Decepticons and their allies too, which now includes the Dire Wraiths. Magnus interrupts them and disables the force-field of the station, hoping that the re-entry into the atmosphere will kill the monster.

Magnus summons the Autobot shuttle remotely for them to escape in, whilst everyone else starts evacuating too. However Starscream destroys the shuttle before leaving with the other Decepticons and Wraiths, intending to recover the Synthesizer from the rubbles of the station on the planet below.

Stardrive takes on her aerial form and flies the two Autobots into the planet's atmosphere, knowing that they cannot survive the fall without her.

Following the destruction of the station, the Solstar Knights follow Stardrive down to the planet. Livia and Sata dismiss Stardrive as having chosen her "own kind" over them, but Rom still believes she is loyal to them, so they go to find her.

The Decepticons arrive too, hoping that the Synthesizer has survived, but soon learn that the monster managed to survive the station's destruction too, and is heading towards the planet too.

On the planet's surface, Stardrive and the Autobots are in a crater, where Magnus attempts to arrest Stardrive for breaching the Tyrest Accord by sharing herself, and her technology with an alien empire. Bumblebee calls Magnus out on being ridiculous, but he doesn't care. However he is soon blasted square in the chest by Rom who threatens to do the same to Bumblebee if he doesn't surrender, as he mourns the supposed death of his teammate....

Characters

Autobot

Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport Seemingly Killed by Rom

Bumblebee - Car

Sky Blast - Rocket Merged with "Soldier"

Decepticon

Starscream - Jet

Dirge - Jet

Ramjet - Jet

Thrust - Jet

Blitzwing - Tank/Jet

Astrotrain - Galactic Council Shuttle

Doomwings - Jet Killed by Sky Blast-Wraith

"Plasma Torch Guy" - Jet Killed by Autobots

"Bulldozer" - Bulldozer Killed by Autobots

Megatron - Tank (Mentioned)

Solstar Order

Stardrive - Spacefaring Car

Rom

Livia

Sata

Orphion (Footage)

Nikomi (Footage)

Dire Wraith

Vekktral

"Soldier" Merged with Sky Blast

Dire Wraith Troops

Other

Galactic Council Crew Killed by Decepticons and Dire Wraiths

Stardrive's Classmates (Mentioned)

Notes

• Looks like my guess from last month about this Ultra Magnus not being the Minimus Ambus incarnation was correct, he acts nothing like out little rules-stickler from Roberts' work
• The Dire Wraith's original attempt to form an alliance with the Decepticons was to point out that they both can change forms...nice try kiddos!
• So it looks like the Galactic Council ship was indeed attacked by the Decepticons, and since we see some of their corpses here, it's likely that the Wraiths only used some of their body parts to take on their forms, just like one did with Joe Colton on Earth...though I guess this could be another group of Galactic Council crew members, but it's unlikely.
• The "Plasma Torch Guy" is based on a Prime Aerial Vehicon. The Bulldozer guy appears to be just a generic with his bulldozer shovel stored on his shoulders.
• So turns out that the Galactic Council-Solstar Order negotiations were actually a real thing, but the Decepticons and Wraiths simply ambushed the Council ship en-route and took their place for this attack.
• Awwww....All of Stardrive's trinkets got destroyed with the station...including her pig-alien teddy thing from last issue :(
• I was a bit worried about all the non-Knight crew members and dignitaries on the station when it blew up, but then I noticed that a load of shuttles left the station a few pages earlier.
• Sky Blast is a direct import of the Mini-Con character from Armada, just upscaled into a full-sized Autobot here.
• So....we heard about how terrifying a Cybertronian-Wraith hybrid is from Orphion back in the Rom series....EEEP!
• The problem now, is that just about all of the characters left in the story, excluding Sata and Stardrive herself, are known to be active in the modern day setting, so we know no-one else important is likely to die off in the remaining three issues of this series, so there's less of a threat element here...
• So...Stardrive's vehicle mode has a flight mode too? I'm not sure if she's a triple changer or just developed a space-faring version of her car mode. You'd think she'd have mentioned this during her issue-long intro last time huh?
• Wonder if we'll get a cameo of Tyrest next issue so he can call on the next Ultra Magnus, or see this one vanish for the process instead?
• Technically, Ultra Magnus is wrong about Stardrive sharing Cybertronian technology with the Solstar Order. She is Camien, not Cybertronian, they have different technologies.
• The next issue preview claims that they have crashed on a mysterious planet....aka the planet Xetaxxis, which we've been told the name of a few times now?