Rom vs. Transformers: Shining Armor is a five-issue crossover comic series that ran from July to November 2017. It centers on characters from IDW Publishing's Transformers titles meeting characters from IDW's ROM. The series take place in the little-explored post-ancient pre-modern era, after the 2017 ROM Annual but before Infiltration.

Overview

Two hundred years ago,^[1] the galaxy is wracked by conflict: the Great War between the Autobots and Decepticons has spread beyond their ravaged homeworld of Cybertron and threatens to infringe on the sovereignty of the robophobic Galactic Council. In a neighboring region of space, the silver Knights of the Solstar Order continue to wage war on their hated foes, the villainous Dire Wraiths.

These two worlds collide when a Galactic Council warship shoots down a lost Camien vessel in the Gray Area that straddles the two empires. Drawn to the confrontation Space Knight Rom discovers and rescues an orphaned protoform from the crash site; nurtured via an artificial energon synthesizer and raised as a citizen of the Order, the protoform grows into a young Transformer named Stardrive who eventually joins the Space Knights. In her new role as an interstellar peacekeeper, Stardrive faces discrimination and prejudice from the organic citizens of the Order, who have been taught to view Cybertronians as emotionless killing machines.

When Rom and Livia bring Stardrive along to an orbital diplomatic summit with the Galactic Council, the meeting swiftly goes wrong when the Galactic Council delegates reveal themselves as Dire Wraith imposters; vanguards of a Dire Wraith-Decepticon alliance headed by the Decepticon officer Starscream and Wraith leader Vekktral, an alliance of convenience formed to steal Stardrive's unique energon synthesizer. Hope arrives in the form of the Autobots Ultra Magnus, Bumblebee, and Sky Blast, who join the fight. In the chaos, Sky Blast is forcibly assimilated by one of the Wraiths and mutated into a horrific fusion, forcing Ultra Magnus to crash the space station onto the frozen wasteland of Xetaxxis.

Realizing that they have a common cause, the Autobots and Space Knights agree to a temporary alliance to travel to the wreckage of the station and safely recover the energon synthesizer before the Decepticons can get their hands on it. The airborne Decepticons beat them to the punch and spring a trap for Magnus, Bumblebee, and Sata. Horrified by Livia's increasing ruthlessness, Stardrive nearly comes to blows with her superiors before Sata and Bumblebee arrive... only for Ultra Magnus, having succumbed to the same Wraith mutation that claimed Sky Blast's life, to arrive and, under the control of Vekktral, betray his Decepticon allies, preparing to assimilate them to accelerate the evolution of the Dire Wraith race. The Decepticons join forces with the Autobots to fend off the menace as Ultra Magnus sacrifices himself to kill Vekktral; in the chaos, Starscream escapes and in a final act of sabotage sets the energon synthesizer to detonate, which will wipe out half of the planet.

Bumblebee and the Knights escape to orbit as the resulting explosion sterilizes the planet, wiping out the Wraith infection and thousands of innocent Xetaxxians. The ruthless Livia is pleased with this outcome, but Stardrive is unable to cope with the Order's prejudice and hypocrisy, voluntarily shedding her armor and renouncing her Solstar allegiance. As the surviving participants in the adventure go their separate ways, Stardrive takes up residence on an idyllic, uninhabited world... unaware that a trace of the Dire Wraith infection lingers in her systems.

Creative team

John Barber, writer of Optimus Prime and Revolutionaries, and Christos Gage, co-writer of ROM, jointly write Shining Armor while art duties are handled by frequent collaborators Alex Milne and Josh Perez.

Collections

• Rom vs. Transformers: Shining Armor (March 14, 2018) ISBN 1684051436 / ISBN 978-1684051434
  • Collects Shining Armor issues #1–5.
  • Bonus material includes most of the cover art from each issue.
  • Trade paperback format.

• 

  Shining Armor – cover art by Alex Milne and Josh Perez

Notes

• Over a year before the series was released, John Barber teased the premise in a Reddit Q&A.^[2]

References

External links

• Series announcement at Comic Book Resources