Earthfall: Part Four
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 Yes this looks very heroic. | |||||||||||||
| "Earthfall": Part Four | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing, Ted Adams | ||||||||||||
| First published | November 2, 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | October 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Chris Ryall and Christos Gage | ||||||||||||
| Art by | David Messina | ||||||||||||
| Inks by | Michele Pasta | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Shawn Lee | ||||||||||||
| Editor | David Hedgecock | ||||||||||||
A helpless Rom encounters the dangerous Sorcerer Wraiths as their plans become clearer.
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
At Vandenberg Air Force Base, an excited Leonard Song is showing his colleagues footage of the silver alien who destroyed the town of Cooper's Mill. His friends are less than impressed believing the creature to be a sub-par CGI image and that Cooper's Mill was destroyed by a faulty gas main. EDC agent David Dubosky however is quite interested seizing Leonard's phone and dismissing his friends before leading the young doctor to a special room where Rom is being held.
Held within a Dimensional Binding Prism, Rom is unable to properly interact with the world around him. As such he is forced to watch as doctors attend to Camilla Byers unsure of how many Wraiths are present and questioning their plan. Not far, Darby Mason is being praised for Rom's capture and is making ready to leave though she insists on confronting Rom. At a signal from Camilla, she fires her EMP gun at the Prism causing it to lose power. No sooner has Darby been seized by Dubonsky, does Rom break free. The stench of Wraiths is near-overpowering and despite its failures, Rom has no choice but to use his Analyzer to see who's who.
Finding the room infested with Wraiths, Rom shouts a warning to any humans that might still be in the military and engages his foes in melee combat until his Neutralizer reboots. As the Space Knight tears through the Wraiths, one of them manages to knock out Darby for use as a hostage. At such a range, a Neutralizer blast would slay both Darby and the Wraith so Rom detaches his weapon and reconfigures it into a lance-like weapon which he lobs at the Wraith, killing it. Seeing an opportunity, a Wraith Soldier jumps at Rom who responds with his blade. Dubonsky goes to check on the progress of Camilla's Wraith conversion, speaking only to the growing Wraith, before "fleeing in terror" from the police officer.
As the few remaining humans prepare to flee, Darby remains behind to find Camilla. No sooner have the two reunited are they interrupted by the howls of the Wraith Soldier, Rom is torturing for information on the Wraiths' plans much to Darby's horror. Camilla confirms to Rom that the Soldier has told him all it knew and he grants it a swift death. Once outside, Darby announces her intent to leave something Rom sympathizes with and wishes her good fortune. Asking Camilla if she would like him to end her suffering, Camilla reveals she's staying with Rom as she heard the Wraiths thinking about something in Seattle. Saying a final goodbye to Darby, Rom says that although he often fights battles alone, he always has allies in war...
...a statement unknowingly true as in Pismo Beach, a group teenagers are stargazing only to see two meteors crash land. Though briefly awed, the humans find nothing special and leave, missing the arrival of the Space Knights, Orphion and Livia.
Featured characters[edit | edit source]
Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Space Knights | Dire Wraiths | Humans |
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Quotes[edit | edit source]
"Hear me, humans If any there be. Your military is severely infested by Dire Wraiths. I have come to burn them out."
- —Rom being all badass.
Notes[edit | edit source]
Continuity notes[edit | edit source]
- Leonard Song shows his friends social media footage taken during ROM #1.
- The Dubosky Wraith mentions "that first giant robot attack", presumably referring to the events of All Hail Megatron.
- Rom's Analyzer reveals all three armed soldiers in this story to be Wraiths, plus Countdown who we already knew to be one. The soldier in a hazmat suit and Leonard Song are not Wraiths. Whether Commander Stamm and Doctor Shen are Wraiths or not has yet to be revealed.
Real world references[edit | edit source]
- Leonard Song's friends joke about him being the next Edward Snowden, an American computer professional known for leaking U.S. government secrets.
- Darby, while pretending to have captured Rom, compares seeing him again to the sci-fi film The Terminator, where main character Sarah Connor went through a similar experience of being stocked by a cyborg.
- The teenage boy in the final pages mockingly calls his pedantic friend "Neil deGrasse Buzkill", after American astrophysics Neil deGrasse Tyson, infamously known for his...overly-analytic tweets about pop culture.
Errors[edit | edit source]
- A caption identifies the E.D.C. as the "Earth Defense Corp." when it's actually the Earth Defense Command.
- The man in the hazmat suit reads to the Analyzer as human yet he comments under his breath that the Wraith presence within Camilla is growing nicely. Then again he could just have good cloaking technology.
Covers (5)[edit | edit source]
- Regular cover: Retro Rom by Christian Ward.
- Subscription cover A: Rom flies through space in a homage to Iron Man #80 by Al Milgrom.
- Subscription cover B: Rom in psychedelia by Jefferey Veregge.
- Subscription cover C: Rom flies through space by Loston Wallace.
- Retailer incentive cover: Rom flies out of a purple vortex by Pop Mhan.
