“Do you feel the pain, human? Do your senses scream as I strike time and again at the armor which you thought was only lifeless metal?”

Rom and Firefall (Archie Stryker) erupt out of the underground complex and into the West Virginia night sky, locked in a furious battle as Firefall unleashes the Living Flame of Galador and Rom debates the consequences of using his Neutralizer on a misguided human. On the road below, Brandy’s questions to the federal agents who took her into custody are ignored. She quickly realizes from their reactions to Rom’s battle in the sky that they’re Dire Wraiths. When she goes for the wheel, they take her out with a lungful of chloroform. They don’t realize that her boyfriend Steve is rapidly catching up on the road behind them.

Firefall has the upper hand and sends Rom plummeting to the ground. Rom is attack by a few of the Wraiths left behind in the complex, but Neutralizes them all to Limbo. Firefall again mistakes this for the murder of humans and continues his attack, ignoring Rom’s attempts to explain the truth. Rom finally uses his Neutralizer on Firefall, causing Archie to feel pain through the armor. He didn’t realize the suit was grafting itself to his skin and nervous system, that they were becoming one. Rom reveals this all to him, but Firefall keeps lashing out in rage.

Steve catches up with the Wraith car, sees an unconscious Brandy, and tries forcing the other vehicle off the road. The Wraith Agents produce alien laser pistols, causing Steve to finally start believing Brandy’s claims. In the back seat, Brandy, who held her breath and pretended to pass out from the chloroform, waits for the right moment to strike.

Rom’s suit finally adjusts itself to regulate against the heat of Firefall’s Living Flame, rendering it ineffective. Rom takes the offensive, pummelling Firefall out of the sky. Firefall crashes to the road, right in the path of the Wraith car. Brandy uses the distraction to shove one Wraith out the door (he’s promptly run over by Steve) and fight the other for the wheel. The car crashes. Steve helps Brandy out and they look to the driver, who died in the wreck. His body slowly morphs back to its true Wraith form before dissolving. Steve finally believes.

Rom confronts Stryker, telling Archie about the bond he forged with Karas, the brave knight who originally occupied the Firefall armor. He tells Stryker about pain and duty and sacrifice, all while pummelling the Firefall suit again and again and again. Stryker finally breaks down, believing he’s become a monster, just like Rom. Rom says they’ll never be the same unless Stryker uses the armor for the forces of good. Rom reunites with Brandy and Steve and leave Stryker a broken man in a battered suit of armor he’s only now realizing he’ll never be able to remove.

Right up front, the glaring problem I have with this issue is: How the hell did Steve get on the tail of Brandy’s captors? I like the revelation that they’re Dire Wraiths hoping to mess with Rom through his first contact on this world. I love how the scene is structured to gradually reveal to Steve the truth of what’s going on. I love how Brandy handles herself and that we don’t see Steve continue being such a huge hemorrhoid mite (excepting his use of “My girl!” and continuing frustration at her being a woman with an “independent attitude”). But how did Steve get there? When we last saw him, Steve was standing in Brandy’s apartment after she’d already been taken. Did he see the goons driving away and pursue? Did he simply pick a road out of town and drive until he caught up to the first car he could find? It’s never really explained. He’s just there.

This issue is pretty much all action, with the Spaceknight battle and road chase batting back and fourth every two pages or so, which creates a great sense of momentum that drives the story with more energy than verbose comics of this era were accustomed to. Don’t get me wrong, a quarter of every panel is still filled with Mantlo’s purplish prose, but the art puts a wind behind it that pushes it forward with zeal and gusto as both scenarios maintain a constant evolution.

While it’s far from resolved, the Archie Stryker/Firefall arc reaches a head. He’s been so focused on getting his perceived revenge that only now are the consequences starting to sink in of the opportunities granted to him. He never knew about the grafting of the armor, that the metal was a new skin for his sense of pain to reverberate through, that he’d be locked in this shell for the rest of his miserable life. Rom’s had a bit of angst over this, himself, but it was still a choice he willingly made, fully aware of the repercussions, and he sees the armor as a tool that ultimately benefits his quest and his people. Archie didn’t get that choice. He was an angry fool conned by villains using him for their own gains. The truth of the Dire Wraiths still hasn’t been demonstrated to Archie yet, so it’s unknown how much of that aspect of Rom’s explanations has sunk in, but he’s definitely left questioning his choices and his new reality by the end of things.

Rom continues to make himself a surprisingly iconic hero given his bland design and lack of any form of face beyond a gleaming plate of steel and blazing balls of red where his eyes should be. I dislike the easy save of his suit adjusting its temperature to nullify the effects of the flame, but I’m otherwise impressed by the passion and dedication of his quest. As I mentioned above, this is a man who buried his humanity, and yet it’s led to actions that are all the more human as, despite the risks and the continuing misconceptions of the populace, he refuses to give in. Even when he’s being pounded on by a human and questions the right to fight back, he takes a stand when enough becomes enough, taking out Archie in a way that exposes the man to the truth and leaves him alive and free to make a new choice in life. There is anger from Rom in the final moments of the battle, violence and shouted lessons emphasized by fists, but it’s something that had to be pulled from him by a blind man who wouldn’t stop attacking the being he mistakenly thought to be an enemy. Issues could be raised of Rom “beating a lesson into him”, but I defend it in an extreme case like this as a line has been crossed and violence, both physical and emotional, is the only way to bring it to a halt.

Random thoughts:

• I caught someome mention that Sal Buscema faces resemble the scowl of an extreme bowel movement… and they aren’t wrong. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it is constant and a bit amusing.
• Say what you will about the faces, there’s stretches of the Rom/Firefall battle that are absolutely beautiful as they wail on one another in the night sky, cosmic forces erupting from each blow.
• Interesting that the Limbo teleportation aspects of the Neutralizer is only attuned to Dire Wraiths, and when fired on any other species, it’s more a typical beam weapon.
• Love that we finally flashed back to Karas for a bit, selling in a single page the bond between Rom and his fallen friend. Though there is a bit of inconsistency in how Karas is the voice of patience and calm one moment, then goes to his final fate the next in an act of impulsiveness.
• I know a bit of recap is never a bad thing in a monthly series, where you have to clue new readers in and give a little reminder to the existing audience, but we didn’t need to interrupt things with a full one-page “previously on” spread of Archie Stryker’s arc, much of which happened in the previous issue. Just use a panel or two, nothing more.
• I really love the little touch of Brandy recognizing the odor of chloroform from her job in a science lab and playing possum until an opportunity arises.
• For what’s supposed to be a tie-in property to a children’s toy, I’m a bit surprised (and impressed) by the image of the dead Wraith in the car wreck. Before he turns to dust, we have a full closeup of his twisted, broken body in human form, eyes rolled up and blood streaming from his mouth. And then there’s Steve being unable to swerve in time to keep from hitting the other Wraith with his car.
• Oh, and then there’s the revelation that the dark sorcery powering Wraith technology requires living sacrifices, which may have been the fate of the people they occupy the identities of and is used as a threat against their own should somebody screw up. I wonder if this was their reason for attacking Galador, that they needed a fresh populace to butcher as a tribute to more power. It’s never stated, but it’s certainly a juicy idea that has me thinking.

This is an absolute roller coaster ride of an issue, taking several of the major plot threads and kicking them to another level as they converge in the midst of a non-stop action sequence.