Ghost in the Machine (IDW)

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"Ghost in the Machine: Optimus Prime vs. Joe Colton"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	September 27, 2017
Cover date	July 2017
Written by	John Barber
Art by	Ron Joseph (pg. 1-7), Fico Ossio (pg. 8-28)
Colors by	David García Cruz (Joseph pages), Sebastian Cheng (Ossio pages)
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	David Hedgecock
Assistant editor	David Mariotte
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

With Baron Ironblood's identity revealed, Optimus Prime joins the fight, and the Revolutionaries make their last stand to protect the Talisman and save its mutated victims.

Synopsis

As a child, Joe Colton became enthralled with the story of World War II hero Sgt. Savage, which he learned about from newsreels, and from his own mother's recollections of Savage as "the right man in the right time." Colton grew up to found G.I. Joe, but threats to Earth soon grew beyond the capacity of the Joe team to handle, like the Decepticon invasion of the planet. And Transformers were not the only aliens that had infiltrated Earth; the shape-changing Dire Wraiths had also infested the world, and they eventually came for Colton, cornering him aboard a helicopter, seeking to possess and replace him. Colton cut off his right hand to prevent the spread of the Wraith infection and leaped from the helicopter into the forest below, but the Wraiths were unconcerned; they were able to use his hand to replicate his form and take his place. Left destitute, Colton worked his way back to civilization, where he ran into a group of young thugs watching a news report on a phone about Optimus Prime's annexation of Earth into the Cybertronian empire. Colton attempted to learn more, but the thugs turned on him and pulled a knife. At the end of his rope but still as skilled as ever, Colton fought and killed them all, took their phone, and made contact with his old acquaintance Garrison Kreiger, who he then met in Paris to discuss the implimentation of the Talisman as a means to kill all the Transformers. Colton adopted the alias of "Baron Ironblood" to gather supervillains for their scheme, including the Iron Klaw, who provided them with a facility to house the Talisman beneath Verenya. But the facility was compromised... and that's where our story began...

In the present day, "Baron Ironblood" leads his army of villains in an attack on the Onyx corporation's Buenos Aires facility in order to recover the Talisman and rescue the captive Kreiger, but in the process, is unmasked by Sgt. Savage. The Joes present are all aghast to discover their founder has turned on them; Savage, in particular, is furious that someone supposedly inspired by him could have turned out this way, and the two men engage in a brutal exchange of blows while the other Joes—including ex-Decepticon Skywarp—fight the Oktober Guard and the biomechanically enhanced Red Shadows on the roof of the building. In the chaos, Mayday seizes one of the Shadows' tentacle-arms and uses it to rappel down the side of the building, smashing her way in through a window so she can help her other teammates inside.

Because things are certainly not going any better inside, where Kup is battling the turncoat Centurion, whose apparent change of heart was a ruse, his loyalty to Kreiger absolute. Garrison Blackrock, meanwhile, has been impaled by Storm Shadow, but finds a way to use the situation to his "advantage" when, with Storm Shadow's sword still protruding from his chest, he jumps onto the Talisman and stabs it with the blade. While Mayday engages Storm Shadow and keeps her busy, Blackrock finds his mind transported through the Talisman to the realm of Infraspace, somewhere between Cybertronian life and death, where he is confronted by the shade of his old master, Onyx Prime. The Talisman, Onyx proclaims, is designed to "inoculate" against a coming threat - one that Blackrock will not see arrive, since his purpose has been served. Onyx reaches out to destroy Blackrock, only to be pushed back by the sudden appearance of Mike Power, the Atomic Man, whose consciousness has survived death thanks to his own contact with the Talisman and its technology. Encouraged by Power to "reinvent himself," Blackrock realizes what he must do. Embracing his Titan Master heritage, the half-man/half-Cybertronian sends out a call...

Elsewhere in the building, Action Man and Bryce Chan are facing down Doctor X, who quickly hits Chan with a stun blast so she can speak to Action Man alone. He is not interested in anything she has to say, reminding her of the horrible things the villains' scheme has caused, like the mutation of the people of Schleteva into Dire Wraiths. Dodging Action Man's shots, Doctor X informs him that they will be able to restore the mutated humans using Storm Shadow's hybrid human/Wraith DNA... whereupon Action Man reveals that he was not aiming at her, and has, in fact, blasted open the containment pods holding those very mutated humans in stasis. The Wraith-mutants flood out of their pods and rampage through the corridors of the building, sending X and Centurion fleeing, while Action Man joins Mayday in battling Storm Shadow.

Back on the roof, an extremely unexpected new combatant joins the fray when the Autobot Titan Metrotitan arrives overhead in response to Blackrock's call. Metrotitan easily shatters the forcefield surrounding the Onyx building, and Optimus Prime himself leaps down into the middle of the fight, quickly pointed toward Colton by Skywarp. Colton breaks away from his fight with Savage and tries to run into the building's stairwell to get away, but fortunately for him, no sooner does he have the door open than the horde of Wraith mutants comes spilling out and set upon Optimus. Informed by Roadblock that the creatures are really human, Optimus is forced to pull his punches... whereas Kreiger has no such honorable compunctions, shooting Savage in the back as he is occupied pleading with Colton to rejoin the side of good.

Meanwhile, back inside, Storm Shadow has overpowered Mayday and Action Man, and appears about to deliver the killing strike when Kup comes crashing through the wall in vehicle mode, running the ninja over. Unfortunately, more Wraith mutants are not far behind him, and it looks like it might be the end for our revolutionaries... until Blackrock reawakens. His experience has made everything suddenly clear to him: using his link to the Talisman and the traces of Storm Shadow's hybrid DNA found on her sword, he can reverse-engineer an energy that will restore the mutated humans to normal. Then, he can use his mental link to Metrotitan to have the Titan broadcast the energy, super-charged by the power of the massive Ore-13 deposit within him. And quicker than thought, he does just that... and as rays from Metrotitan bathe the building, the Wraiths all turn back into humans. Colton is struck dumb with the sheer power on display, greater than anything even he imagined, and Kreiger takes charge, ordering the villains to teleport out via the M.A.S.S. Device. Savage recovers just in time to watch them disappear, and introduce himself to Optimus Prime.

Inside, Doctor X and Storm Shadow take the greatest risk, teleporting out with the Talisman, in the process triggering another wave of its mutative energy—but before it can harm the humans again, Centurion throws himself in its path, sacrificing his life to protect them. Action Man is puzzled as to why Centurion would have done this, but gets his answer a moment later when the Eukarian suddenly returns to life, revealing that his body is now inhabited by the spirit of Mike Power, who has combined with Centurion to become a new being. Despite the loss of the Talisman, against all odds, it looks like a happy ending... until one of the restored human-Wraiths, a young woman, comes up, unable to find her boyfriend, who was mutated alongside her. Mayday sadly realizes that he must have been one of the Wraiths they killed back in Schleteva before discovering what they really were... a grim reminder for the revolutionaries that next time, they're just going to have to work harder and be better than ever.

The M.A.S.S. Device returns the villains to the Iron Castle in Kalistan, where they are greeted by the Iron Klaw. With the Talisman now back in their possession, it is time for Colton to prove that he is the "right man" for this time, as they prepare to take the fight to Cybertron itself!

To be continued in First Strike!

Featured characters

Character in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"I'm in Paris. How soon can you meet me?"
"I'm thousands of miles away, Kreiger. I have no money, no passport, and one hand. Make dinner reservations."

—Garrison Kreiger and Joe Colton

"Do you honestly think I would spend decades with a Cybertronian and allow him to switch sides after five minutes of conversation? I'd be offended if I weren't so amused."

—Kreiger on Centurion's double-cross

"Well, that's my ninja crap quotient for today."

—Mayday has just about had it with Storm Shadow

"The Cybertronians need to be stopped!"
"They're people, Colton—metal, sure, but my fight was never about what's different between us—I fight for what's the same. You think I'm a joke? Want to know why I talk like I do? Because I like the future. I didn't fight through World War II to let you decide who deserves to be called a person!"

—Colton and Sgt. Savage

"I can't believe it worked..."
"You seemed sure..."
"Oh, I was faking it."

—Blackrock and Mayday

"I'm Sgt. Savage. Nice to meet you."
"Indeed. My name is Optimus Prime."
"No way. And here I thought my name was badass."

—Savage and Optimus Prime

Centurion: "Perhaps this is as much a "win" as you could derive from the circumstances."
Kup: "I been around long enough to know that doesn't make it better."
Blackrock: "And I've seen enough to know we have a lot to learn."
Action Man: "I know I do. You're right, Mayday. So..."
Mayday: "...next time, we do better."

Notes

Continuity notes

• BNN, the news network reporting on the aftermath of All Hail Megatron was introduced in issue #14 of the 2009-2011 Transformers comic book, in which a similar report on the Decepticon invasion, also spotlighting Devastator, was shown. Maybe it's even supposed to be the same broadcast!
• As part of the All Hail Megatron flashback, Colton and Scarlett walk past a young Marissa Faireborn, who was revealed to have been on the scene in Robots in Disguise #29.
• Colton and Scarlett observe the damaged Statue of Liberty, which has a hole blasted through it, but is otherwise still standing. This rather specific bit of damage was done in All Hail Megatron #12, when Omega Supreme pinned Devastator against the statue and fired his blaster through him (and it) at point-blank range.
• Colton losing his hand to the Dire Wraiths was first revealed in First Strike #0. That story came out in June, but was originally intended to be released in July as part of Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #3, which was also the same month in which this issue was meant to come out (see "Other trivia" below). Various delays did not do this any favors!
• The young hoodlums watch Optimus Prime's speech from The Transformers #49. However, see "Errors" for issues with the timeline.
• The Schletevan bunker in which the Talisman was housed in Revolutionaries #1 is revealed to have been provided to the villains by the Iron Klaw. The facility was an I.R.O.N.-owned one (as hinted at by the presence of the corporation's logo on its walls in that issue), and as explained in Revolutionaries #3, the Klaw is the majority shareholder in the I.R.O.N. corporation.
• Blackrock communes with Onyx Prime via infraspace, the limbo between life and death that made its sole previous appearance waaaay back in 2007's Escalation #6.
• Mike Power appeared to die in issue #6. While punching out Onyx Prime, Mike—adopting the guise of a child—tells Blackrock that "bullies won't keep us down", alluding to his troubles with neighborhood hoodlums Finney and Pidge in that issue.
• Optimus Prime compares the M.A.S.S. Device to orbital bounce technology, the teleportation technology used by the Autobots back during Simon Furman's tenure on IDW's titles from 2005 to 2008. It's called an "orbital bounce" because the traveler's signal leaves one location on Earth, zooms up into space, where it's "bounced" off an orbiting body back down to a second location on the planet. This is how the M.A.S.S. Device worked in IDW's first G.I. Joe series, relying on a "relay star" satellite to "bounce" the signal, but that satellite fell out of orbit in 2013's G.I. Joe: Special Missions #5. It remains to be seen if Destro launched a second satellite, or if the advancements that have implicitly been made to M.A.S.S. (such as the fact it no longer requires those teleported to wear "recall" tags in order for them to be teleported back) mean it no longer requires it to operate.
• The woman looking for her boyfriend appeared on the first page of the first issue of the series, as did her dog and her departed lover.
• Having not previously been shown to be part of Colton's evil cabal during Revolutionaries, Miles Mayhem appears among the amassed villains on the final page. How he came to work with the group is detailed in First Strike #3's back-up strip.
• After Centurion claims to spending decades alone, Kup brings up his exile in the Dead Universe. However, see "Errors" below.

Transformers references

• Mayday refers to Blackrock with the nickname "G.B."—short for "Garrison Blackrock" in this continuity, but also a reference to the original version of the character from the Marvel comic, who was "G.B. Blackrock". This probably stood for "Gary Bennett", which was the name of the real-life friend who writer Bob Budiansky named Blackrock after.
• When Centurion dies, the color fades from his armor in the now-traditional manner that began with Optimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie.

Real-life references

• Kreiger paraphrases Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias when he gloatingly calls upon Mayday to "look unto his works and despair!"
• While fumbling over Colton's name, Skywarp calls him "Coulson".
• Blackrock calls himself "the best programmer since Ada Lovelace", history's first computer programmer.
• Major Bludd bids the heroes "Ooroo" as he teleports out, an Australian slang term meaning "see you later".

Errors

• This issue presents Colton as losing his hand to the Wraiths prior to Optimus Prime's annexation of Earth. That would mean that it was his Dire Wraith duplicate who was appointed head of the Earth Defense Command in The Transformers #56, and that the real Colton never had that role. This contradicts First Strike, which has consistently been written from the perspective that Colton was only replaced after being appointed to that role; issue #0 had Colton familiar with the Decepticon Blitzwing following his capture in The Transformers #57, but was unaware what had become of him after that (his Wraith doppelgänger had handed him over to Miles Mayhem), while issue #2 described how he attempted to go through official channels to sanction use of the Talisman against the Transformers after Prime annexed Earth, only to then discover that the Wraiths had infested the government.
• Continuing from the previous issue, the caption box introducing Rock 'n Roll misrenders the middle word as 'n' , with an extraneous apostrophe, in line with his profile in Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #3, but not with the entirety of G.I. Joe vol. 5.
• For the single panel in which she appears, Ossio continues to draw Cover Girl as part of this Joe team, as he did last issue, when the script called for Lady Jaye. In contrast to last issue, however, here, Cover Girl is colored with her correct blonde hair. So who even knows who's supposed to be there?
• Kup claims to have been alone in the Dead Universe for twelve billion years. The Transformers #56 established that he'd been trapped there for fourteen billion years.
• On page 27, Action Man uses the common American misspelling of "bullocks" instead of the correct British "bollocks".
• In the Easter egg section, the Predacon starship from Beast Wars (identical to the craft Shockwave used to shoot down the Axalon) is erroneously referred to as the Nemesis.
• Also in the Easter egg section, a typo credits Robots in Disguise issue #19 with containing Marissa's appearance in All Hail-era New York, instead of #29.

Other trivia

• Originally solicited for release in July, this issue arrives significantly late, two months after the fact, in the final week of September. It was intended for release before the First Strike crossover began, but in practice, wound up released on the same week as the fourth issue of the series. Oof.
• This oversized issue retails at $4.99, featuring 28 story pages instead of the standard 20, and an eight-page bonus section looking back over some of the many, many Easter eggs sprinkled into all eight issues of the series.
• Though the caption referring to the "Iron Ring" appears to be a location caption, John Barber would later confirm on Twitter that it was the name of Ironblood's supervillain alliance.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Our heroes recover the Talisman, by Igor Lima, and Thomas Deer
• Cover B: Oh, really, Joe Colton? A stick? Against a Transformer? I think not! By Tone Rodriguez and Thomas Deer
• Cover C: Heroes and villains, by Santiperez and Jay Fotos
• Retailer incentive cover: Optimus Prime and Mayday by Pierre Droal

• 

  Kup practices his dead-lifts.

• 

  Stick versus ion blaster? Optimus: 1 / Joe: 0.

• 

  Blackrock tries to kiss Mayday (who ain't having it) while Action Man evilly grins. Is this a Harvey Weinstein production?

• 

  The Force Awakens!

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