The New Colossus
From Transformers Wiki
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| Revolution Chapter 4: "The New Colossus" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | November 2, 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | October 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | John Barber and Cullen Bunn | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Fico Ossio | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Sebastian Cheng | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Tom B. Long | ||||||||||||
| Editor | David Hedgecock | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | 2005 IDW continuity | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | Current era | ||||||||||||
When Miles Mayhem makes his move, Optimus Prime's team must unite with Snake Eyes, Rom, and the Micronauts to fight off attack from the combined forces of M.A.S.K. and the Dire Wraiths!
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Synopsis
Snake Eyes silently sneaks past Victorion and Jazz to infiltrate Autobot City, then distracts Windblade by tossing a coin to create a noise for her to investigate. After slipping by her, though, he suddenly finds himself face-to-face with the Micronauts in their tiny spaceship Heliopolis, and, thinking he is under attack, slings a few shuriken at them. Micronaut warrior Acroyear flies out of the ship to counterattack, whereupon Arcee, having detected Snake Eyes, arrives to join the battle. The three stab at one another in a brief scuffle that draws the attention of Optimus Prime, Windblade, and Soundwave, which is quickly brought to an end when Soundwave knocks the fight out of all of them with a sonic shockwave. Peering closely at the Heliopolis, Windblade sees the Micronauts inside, and she and Rom—who finds that his armor resonates with Acroyear's just as it did the spacebridge—realize that they are lifeforms from Micronus Prime's realm of Microspace. With the Transformers' attention diverted for a moment, the injured Snake Eyes is able to activate a distress call...
...which is summarily ignored by Miles Mayhem when he receives it at G.I. Joe headquarters on Governor's Island. Mayhem has more pressing matters to deal with, like the growing impatience of his allies... the Dire Wraiths! Mayhem is revealed to have been conspiring with the alien shapeshifters, helping them and Baron Karza obtain Ore-13 in return for gaining dominion over Earth. In contact with the Wraith leader Caleb Awan, Mayhem informs his alien allies that Karza has discovered a massive cache of Ore-13 beneath Autobot City, and the time has come to drop all pretense and take it for their own. Matt Trakker walks in on the last second of the conversation and is immediately confused by what he has heard, but Mayhem merely tells him to get ready for the attack. The Wraiths, too, ready themselves; in their own base of operations, Awan assumes his true Wraith form and infuses himself with the power of the last of the Wraiths' supply of Ore-13.
Back in Autobot City, Rom apologizes to the Micronauts for the recent actions he undertook that put their universe in danger. The little visitors don't understand a word he says, since they don't speak English, but take a shine to the Space Knight nonetheless. Arcee, on the other hand, is still spoiling for a fight with Snake Eyes, but Optimus orders them all to set their conflicts aside, and requests that Snake Eyes contact his team so that they may all work together against the threat of the Dire Wraiths. After a moment, Snake Eyes indicates his wrist-communicator in silent agreement.
Scarlett and her team arrive back on Governor's Island following their attack on the Wraiths at the Earth Defense Command's old Bikini Atoll facility, only to discover that Action Man broke in and liberated Kup during their absence. The revelation that they were secretly holding an Autobot prisoner led Joes Mainframe and Agent Helix to develop serious doubts about Miles Mayhem and his motivations—doubts that Scarlett is now informed have been borne out, as Mainframe and the whole M.A.S.K. team have vanished with their vehicles...
The forces of M.A.S.K. arrive on the doorstep of Autobot City, where the conflicted Trakker is pressured by Mayhem into attacking Victorion. The combiner is prepared to take them all out quickly and easily with her gravity powers, until the sky opens and a massive swarm of Dire Wraiths joins M.A.S.K. in tearing into her. Victorion falls before their combined power, but as they penetrate the city and head straight for the Ore-13 chamber, Prime's forces, Snake Eyes, Rom, and the Micronauts all bar their way. Unfortunately, things look bad for the heroes as the Wraiths are able to channel the power of the city's ore to make themselves stronger; Mayhem is even confident enough in their victory that he reveals the full extent of his evil intention to rule Earth to the rest of M.A.S.K. No sooner has he announced his plans, however, than the smirking Awan-Wraith has his minions turn on M.A.S.K., tearing Mayhem's Switchblade vehicle out of the sky. Furious, Mayhem activates his own countermeasures, using the Cybertronian technology built into the vehicle to activate Autobot City's spacebridge, opening the way for Baron Karza to emerge from Microspace and aid him. The Awan-Wraith scoffs at the inches-high figure of the Baron, but soon finds himself laughing out of the other side of his face when Karza uses his "Enerchange" ability to merge himself and the Wraiths together into a frightful, final-boss fusion of Microspace, Wraith, and Cybertronian powers that looms over all our heroes!
Back on Governor's Island, Agent Helix laments the Joes' lack of any useful equipment, thinking that, with all the M.A.S.K. tech gone, all they have left is the gear that the Cybertronians have already shown they can easily shut down. But Mainframe has the answer: all their high-tech, networked gear might be off-limits... but the base is full of mothballed classic G.I. Joe vehicles and weaponry that they can use to join the fight!
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | G.I. Joe | M.A.S.K. | Micronauts | Others |
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Quotes
"I wish I could understand him... but I do like his outfit."
- —Acroyear on Rom, while giving the Space Knight a thumbs-up
"Cry me a river, Trakker! But make sure it is a river of our enemies' blood."
- —Miles Mayhem is as subtle as the average episode of M.A.S.K.
Notes
IDW continuity notes
- Several references are made to various Revolution tie-in one-shots that take place between the previous issue and this one:
- Following on from the Joes' discovery of the Dire Wraiths' existence last issue, the G.I. Joe: Revolution one-shot details their attack on the Wraith-held Bikini Atoll base, which Scarlett's team is shown returning from in this issue. The one-shot was naturally intended to come out between these two issues, but due to scheduling problems, it was not released until later in November, after this issue.
- Concurrent with that battle, the events of The Transformers: Revolution one-shot also took place, in which the Dire Wraiths attacked the White House.
- While most of the Joes were away from their base on the Bikini Atoll mission, Action Man broke in and rescued Kup in Action Man: Revolution. That story took place at night on the same day as the Joe and Transformers issues; this issue of Revolution is set at dawn the next morning.
- As hinted at by their holographic conversation last issue, Baron Karza's ally on Earth is Miles Mayhem, who is also in league with the Dire Wraiths.
- Caleb Awan and Axiom were both introduced in the ROM: Revolution tie-in one-shot, and their brief history is covered in Axiom's profile in the back of this issue. It is noted that, in addition to representing a fusion of Ore-13 and Wraith magic, Axiom also incorporates the bio-mech combination technology of "Micromeld" from the Microverse.
Transformers references
- When Karza emerges from the spacebridge, his alien language is represented using Cyberglyphics. His response to the Awan-Wraith's mocking of his stature translates as "Yo mamma"!
Other franchise references
- For the best part of its first three pages, the issue goes without any speech bubbles or captions (other than the title), in homage to the famously silent issue #21 of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic, which also saw Snake Eyes infiltrating an enemy fortress.
- The "Enerchange" ability Baron Karza uses to fuse with the Dire Wraiths has been featured before in IDW's Micronauts comic. It is the series's way of adapting the Micronauts action figures' interchangeable parts and armor into an in-story super-power.
Real-life references
- Like all chapters of Revolution, this issue takes its title from a poem: in this case, "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus.
Other trivia
- This issue was originally solicited for release in October, but it arrived a little late, slipping into the first week of November.
- Backmatter for this issue consists of more full-page character profiles, this time for Soundwave (written by John Barber, art by Guido Guidi), Baron Karza and Oziron Rael (both written by Cullen Bunn, art by Jack Lawrence and Ander Zarate), Snake Eyes (written by Aubrey Sitterson, art by Robert Atkins and Simon Gough), and Axiom (written by Chris Ryall, art by Ron Joseph and Jay Fotos).
Errors
- The fluid coming out of Arcee's gouged out eye is colored like blood...
- ...and, on page 19, she is seen with both eyes intact.
- IDW have spent the last handful of years spelling Space Bridge as "Spacebridge," but on page 18 of this issue, it's rendered as two words, the "classic" way of formatting the name and the way IDW used to back in the day.
- When Miles Mayhem speaks the Spanish phrase "Viva la revolucion!", there should be an acute accent in "revolución".
- Baron Karza's profile in the back spells Micronus Prime's name as "Micronus-Prime".
Covers (8)
- Regular cover: Jazz, Arcee, and Snake Eyes, by Tradd Moore and Felipe Sobreiro
- Subscription cover A: Baron Karza and the Dire Wraiths, by Brandon Peterson
- Subscription cover B: Wraparound cover of Metrotitan, Shipwreck, Major Bludd, Agent Helix, Ironhide, Gloria Baker, Jazz, Rock 'n Roll, Shockwave, Snake Eyes, Miles Mayhem, and Baron Daegon charging into action, by John Byrne and Len O'Grady; part of a series of interlinking covers that homage Byrne's original covers to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition from the late 1980s.
- Subscription cover C: Propaganda poster of Acroyear by James Biggie
- Subscription cover D: Arcee and Snake-Eyes action figures by Adam Riches; part of a series of "action figure" variant covers by Riches. Arcee is based on the Generations figure with a variety of tweaks to make her look more like her IDW self.
- Retailer incentive cover A: Snake Eyes versus the Micronauts, by Ken Christiansen
- Retailer incentive cover B: Optimus Prime by Guido Guidi; part of a series of "retro" covers by Guidi.
- Retailer incentive cover C: Matt Trakker's Thunderhawk, Space Glider, and Acroyear, by Art Baltazar; part of a series of interlinking covers.
Reprints
Other than full or partial collections of Revolution.
- N/A
