Spotlight:

[andersonh1]

How about a dedicated Spotlight thread? Since I got a couple today, I'll start things off.

Spotlight: Jazz
Not perfect, but a strong "survive against the stronger opponents" type of story. Jazz rescues Tracks from certain death at the hands of the Predacons, and in the process shows his capabilities as an agent and soldier. The Predacons are sold as "Megatron's elite squad", but I was never quite convinced, given the way Jazz tears through them. The intention is to show just how good he is, but it does make the Predacons look less than elite rather than simply making Jazz look good. Perhaps if there had only been two or three of them, Jazz's success would have seemed more believable. The last minute save by Ironhide is a bit cliched as well, as he saves Jazz just in the nick of time.

I know I've missed quite a bit in the last year, but is this the first time we've really seen Tracks in a major role? Commander Wax-n-buff relates the story as a flashback, which negates any suspense about who lives or dies. But given that we're reading about Jazz and Tracks, I doubt anyone expects them to do anything other than survive, so it's not that big a deal.

The art is very good. I'm always glad to see E.J. Su's art again, and I was delighted to see Josh Van Reyk get co-author credit, since I worked with him on the Mosaic project at one point. Should he be considered an "ascended fan" like Don Figeroa now?

Spotlight: Cliffjumper
This is not the type of story I ever expected to see about Cliffjumper, the little guy with a big attitude. Apparently he's some sort of expert fighter and assassin in IDW's continuity. That's fine, but it does make for a jarring story at first as I read Cliffjumper behave in ways I don't expect. He gets a break from the war in a fairly idyllic place, thanks to his spaceship crashing, and exposure to some rather innocent people either helps him to grow a bit more of a conscience. Or else he's simply afraid to tell them what he's done while fighting the war, for fear of disappointing them. And of course the Decepticons find him, forcing him to fight them to save his new friends. I'm not sure I buy him killing five or six opponents by himself, but that's apparently what happens.

Some nice touches include Cliffjumper's discussion about the differences between himself and the organic humanoids he encounters. He can't feel the heat or cold, and at one point Kita burns her hand slightly while touching his arm, as we might when touching a hot car. Cliffjumper didn't even notice he was hot from being in the sun.

The art's good, if a bit too "anime" for my taste (at least when it comes to the two aliens) and the story focuses on a character who has rarely gotten the spotlight. I don't know that I like it better than the Jazz spotlight, but it's probably the more sound of the two when it comes to the narrative.

[andersonh1]

Spotlight: Revelation

As far as I know, “Revelation” was originally slated to be the next six-part mini-series following “Devastation”, until falling sales forced IDW to rethink their plans for the Transformers comics. But loose story threads were hanging out there that had to be resolved, and so thankfully long-time readers got the answers in four Spotlight comics, namely Cyclonus, Hardhead, Doubledealer and Sideswipe, now collected together as a trade paperback. These four spotlights vary in the amount of focus actually given to the title character, which was probably inevitable given the need to focus more on plot than character, even within the character-focuses “Spotlight” format.

Cyclonus: Quite a bit is revealed about the title character. In this continuity, Cyclonus was one of the crew of the first Ark who went into the Dead Universe with Nova Prime. He is on a specific mission in the normal universe, but takes time to pay a visit to Cybertron where he laments the destruction of Cybertron’s ‘perfection’. Much of Cyclonus’ inner dialogue reveals him to be someone who believes strongly in the superiority of Cybertronian life, which ties in with Nova Prime’s goal to remake the universe in its image. His desire for revenge draws attention to himself, leading Ultra Magnus and Hound’s group to the nega-core, and the reason that Thunderwing was taken is finally revealed.

Hardhead: The events of Nightbeat’s spotlight are finally resolved, all because Nightbeat himself figures out that his memories have been tampered with. This particular story could have worked just as well without Hardhead in it, making it a case of fitting his character into the plot rather than vice versa, but the narrative still works well. I find it very interesting that micromasters are apparently the inhabitants of Gorlam Prime who have been modified to take on Cybertronian bodies, and the fact that they were originally humanoid in size explains the small size of the Micromasters. Nice idea.

Hardhead himself is a character I’ve never paid much attention to, and I imagine his use in IDW’s comics has given him more development than he’s had in any other TF continuity. I like the guy and his stoic, no-nonsense approach to life. He realizes he’s a grunt who is given dirty jobs because he’s tough and capable, and that sooner or later his number will be up.

Doubledealer: Here’s another relatively undeveloped character, and one I’m mainly familiar with due to the toy, which my brother had when we were kids. Not exactly a triple changer, but a figure with a robot mode and two alt-modes, a truck and a bird. This particular story was set up back in Hot Rod’s spotlight, and the events of that story are finally resolved. It’s interesting mainly to watch Doubledealer try to play his con-game on Hot Rod, who in a nice bit of logic not usually associated with the character, has worked it all out. This chapter fits the least comfortably into the Revelation storyline since the events with Hot Rod and Doubledealer only play only a small role. The main story is really the attack on Thunderwing and the creation of the Autobot pretenders so they can enter the dead universe.

Sideswipe: This particular spotlight really isn’t about Sideswipe, even if he does get some focus in a few key scenes. All the dead universe plotlines are tied up here, and all those plot threads set up earlier on with the first Ark, Nova Prime, etc. are explained and resolved. For once, the character of Nemesis Prime actually makes sense, given what happened to Nova. Optimus gets to prove that he is indeed the noblest of the Primes, despite his doubts back in his own spotlight.

So, having read all the “–ation” storylines, or most of them anyway, how does Simon Furman’s grand storyline look? Unfortunately it was the victim of pacing, being too slow at the beginning for most readers, and wrapping up too quickly in “Revelation” and “Maximum Dinobots”. But there’s a lot to appreciate about his ideas, including the use of characters from all across the G1 era, rather than just the 84-85 years. The threats on multiple fronts, including the war, the Dead Universe characters and the Machination all allowed for layers to the plot that kept things interesting. There’s a definite ‘galaxy-spanning’ feel to the story, with groups of Transformers scattered on many planets. It doesn’t feel like there’s just a small war on Earth and Cybertron, with nothing happening anywhere else. I think the storylines have been well worth my time to read and enjoy, and I think the payoff for all the ‘slow burn’ stories early on was worth the wait. All of this was probably more interesting to me than All Hail Megatron in the long run, though I enjoyed that story as well.

[BWprowl]

About the only thing I actually liked about 'Revelation' was the last issue, the Sideswipe book. Just for the art. That painted art is *gorgeous*. I hope we see it again sometime.

[andersonh1]

About the only thing I actually liked about 'Revelation' was the last issue, the Sideswipe book. Just for the art. That painted art is *gorgeous*. I hope we see it again sometime.

I agree about the art. It does look good.

[andersonh1]

Spotlight: Shockwave

I’ve been going back and re-reading back issues, and I thought I’d sporadically post some thoughts on them. One of the first Spotlights focused on another of my favorite G1 characters, Shockwave.

One of the ways IDW has approached the massive Transformers cast is to publish not only the main series of comics that develop the primary plot, but also a series of character based issues. Sometimes these have nothing to do with the overall storyline, but sometimes they really develop the plot or answer some questions in a very satisfying way. Spotlight Shockwave gave a very satisfying answer to a problem that I’d had with Infiltration, namely the presence of Ore-13 on Earth. It seemed very convenient that this ‘super energon’ should just happen to be on our planet in order to give the Transformers a pretext for being here. As it turns out, it was not an accident at all, but part of a deliberate plan by Shockwave to seed many planets with the necessary raw material to allow the ore to form. Shockwave has always been analytical, almost to a fault, and he foresaw that the war would devastate Cybertron and its resources. Disregarding protocol, he initiated a project to produce the resources that would ultimately be needed to win once Cybertron was used up.

The Dinobots (or Dynobots at this point) follow Shockwave as he leaves Cybertron to do some necessary stabilization work on the ore. They too are working without sanction, a fact that will come back to haunt them later. Grimlock is out for revenge thanks to an earlier incident where Shockwave had injured the Dynobots in a fight. In a nice nod to Beast Wars, and a good attempt at explaining why the Dinobots actually have dinosaur alternate modes, Grimlock and the others are forced to adopt biological defenses against the very high energon levels in the atmosphere, which are there thanks to the fact that Shockwave is only in the process of stabilizing everything. Rather than adopt the forms of the ice age mammals, they find the fossils of the larger, more aggressive dinosaurs and adopt them.

The fight between Shockwave and the Dinobots is revealing. It demonstrates just how tough and durable Shockwave is, and it reveals a lot about his thinking. At first, he genuinely seems not to understand why Grimlock has come after him. He pieces together that it’s about revenge, a concept that seems foreign to him. Ultimately he fights back and beats the Dinobots by destroying their outer skin, exposing them to the energy and putting them into stasis. Grimlock fights on briefly, but ultimately succumbs. In a final act of pure spite, Grimlock had set the weapons of his ship to fire and destroy the area, without the knowledge of the others. The Dinobots and Shockwave are buried, to be dug up tens of thousands of years in the future.

Shockwave’s musing about extinction while watching the mammoths march past is one of my favorite sections of the story. The art and inner dialogue really set the scene as the dying mammoth collapses, with the night sky overhead and volcanoes in the background, and Shockwave musing about his own race being just about as unaware of the coming extinction as these animals. Moody stuff, and another good insight into what drives Shockwave’s actions.

Nick Roche’s art has grown on me, but at the time I didn’t care for it as much. Probably due to Shockwave’s far too tall antennae. But despite being a bit more cartoony than I might like, he does a good job of capturing the characters. The art is dynamic and expressive.

Overall, this is still one of my favorite Spotlight issues. The impact on Furman’s main plotline is considerable, and the characters are all very much in character. There are references to Beast Wars and the old Marvel Comics as well. A good use of the spotlight format.

[Dominic]

Shockwave's honest reaction to Grimlock and co attacking him is good. Kudos to Furman for that.


Dom

[Shockwave]

It also kind of reminded me of issue 8 of G1 where Slag is recounting what happened in the badlands. Easily my fave issue of Spotlight.

Although I have yet to get Hot Rod and Doubledealer.

[andersonh1]

I wonder just how much got cut out of the Revelation storyline to make it fit in four issues? The story works as it's presented, but given how much time Furman took to set events up, I doubt they'd have played out nearly as quickly as they did. Any ideas what was removed from the plot? And would the story have ended with the death of Nova/Nemesis Prime, or would the character have carried on into the Expansion storyline?

I don't know if any 'what might have been' info has come out, but I'd be interested to know if it had.

[Shockwave]

That actually would bring me to my one and pretty much only complaint on Furman is that he spends too much time on set up. It's like Lost: You can only build suspense for so long before people just don't care anymore. I suspect that more suspense building is all that got cut. Someone at IDW probably told him "alright, just wrap this up already!"

[Dominic]

That is the common, and probably correct, perception of what happened.

And, given how aimless Furman's writing had been at that point, I cannot say it would have been a bad move.


Dom
-notes Furman is not the only writer to decline.