ROM (1979 series) #4

Picking up directly from the previous issue, Rom and Firefall — Archie Stryker in the stolen Galadorian armor — clash in mid-air above West Virginia. Rom holds back, reluctant to harm a human and reverent of the sacred armor Stryker wears, while Stryker presses the attack relentlessly, blaming Rom for the deaths he witnessed when his neutralizer banished Dire Wraiths disguised as humans. Every blow from the Living Fire further damages Rom's cyborg circuitry.

Meanwhile, Dire Wraith operatives posing as federal agents — including one identified as Agent Seven — have chloroformed Brandy Clark and are transporting her in a limousine toward Project Safeguard. Unknown to them, Brandy recognized the smell of chloroform from her science lab job and only pretended to be unconscious. Steve Jackson, following in his car with headlights off, pulls alongside. The Wraiths fire a heat ray at him, but Steve realizes from the alien weapon that his kidnappers are not human — they are the Dire Wraiths Brandy had warned him about. Brandy seizes her moment, grabs the wheel, and forces the car off the road. In the crash, Agent Seven dies and reverts to his true alien form before crumbling to ash. Steve, shaken, finally accepts that Rom and Brandy have been telling the truth all along.

In the hills, Rom regains control of his damaged circuitry by lowering his external temperature to sub-zero cold, quenching the Living Fire and making the Firefall armor sluggish and malleable. He hurls the armor's own flame back at Stryker, then rockets skyward with Firefall in pursuit. During a break in the combat, Rom tells Stryker of his friend Karas — in flashback, we see the two as young men on Galador, saving each other's lives during a river crossing, and later volunteering together to become Spaceknights. Karas took the Firefall armor and its Living Flame, while Rom received the Neutralizer. At the first battle against the Wraith fleet, Karas broke ranks and charged alone — and vanished. Rom believed him dead, and the Wraiths must have captured him and stripped his armor to fuse it onto Stryker.

Stryker refuses to believe any of it and renews the attack. Rom, pushed to the limit, strikes back with full force, severely damaging the Firefall armor. Stryker feels it — the neuro-link between his body and the armor means he feels every blow as physical pain. Rom makes the grim point: Stryker is not wearing the armor. He is the armor now, fused permanently, his humanity lost just as Rom's was two centuries ago. The issue ends with the battle unresolved, and Steve and Brandy reunited on the roadside, Steve now a convinced believer in Rom's mission.