Spotlight: Megatron

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Publisher	IDW Publishing}}
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First published	February 6, 2013 (1st printing); May 1, 2013 (2nd printing)}}
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Cover date	February 2013}}
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Written by	Nick Roche}}
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Colors by	Len O'Grady}}
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Editor	John Barber}}
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{{#if: Spotlight Megatron cvrA.jpg | {{#if: IDW Publishing | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: February 6, 2013 (1st printing)
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{{#switch:{{#sub:dark prelude|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}}

Freshly reborn in his new body, Megatron confronts Starscream over the failure of his leadership.

Synopsis

Led through the Decepticons' meagre base complex by Soundwave, Megatron takes stock of both his new form, and the deplorable conditions the Decepticons have succumbed to in his absence, stranded on an asteroid with so little energy that they have resorted to cannibalizing each other's bodies. Parading before what remains of his troops, he attempts to reinvigorate them with an impassioned speech, but meets with little enthusiasm from the disheartened mechs. Shockwave proposes further testing of the space bridge nodes integrated into Megatron's new body, stolen from Metroplex, but Megatron rebuffs him, quietly suspicious of his motives, but also with a more important task in mind: confronting Starscream.

Approaching Starscream in his darkened throne room, Megatron finds that their meeting does not go as expected, with a timid, broken Starscream seizing Megatron's cannon and pointing at himself, ready to be killed by his reborn leader. Eager for the traditional sport he has come to expect from his treacherous lieutenant, Megatron continues to needle and taunt Starscream over his failures as a leader, his inability to employ the Matrix, and his spectacular destruction of the Decepticon infrastructure. At last, Starscream can take no more and opens fire on Megatron, but immediately realizes his mistake and flees, blasting his way out of the base and taking wing in jet mode. Having eked what he desired out of Starscream, Megatron transforms and pursues, engaging his subordinate in a dogfight across the asteroid. Starscream leads Megatron into a tunnel and collapses it on top of him, but this does little to stop the Decepticon leader, who bursts through the rubble and seizes the Seeker. Megatron asks if Starscream truly wishes to die, and Starscream replies in the positive, but Megatron refuses to grant him even that and taunts him further, causing Starscream's anger to flare and the battle to continue. The Decepticons assemble below to watch the fight as Megatron accuses Starscream of desiring punishment for his failures, and Starscream retorts that Megatron cannot possibly know what it was like for him: after desiring leadership for so long and finally gaining it, his dream was destroyed when he found he could not make the Decepticons obey him. This is the last straw for Megatron, however, who knows entirely too well what it is like to have a dream destroyed—the Decepticons, his dream, have been destroyed... by Starscream. Beaten to within an inch of his life, Starscream lays before Megatron's primed cannon and begs for the end, but Megatron will not deliver it, explaining the simple reason he has kept Starscream around all these years: in his greatest moments, Starscream's presence reminds him of his need to watch his own back. He offers Starscream the chance to return to the Decepticon ranks, and Starscream weakly accepts.

The battle done, the other Decepticons gather around the two combatants, and Megatron addresses them once more with bombast and rhetoric, promising retribution against the Autobots for their sorry state. As the cry of "All Hail Megatron!" rings out, Megatron looks upon his troops. Soundwave lurks, Shockwave plots, Starscream lives to scheme—the Decepticon house is in order once more, everything is as it should be, and victory is assured.

Featured characters

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Autobots }}{{#if:{\|border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background:transparent"
Megatron (1) Soundwave (2) Pounce or Wingspan (3) Viewfinder (4) Sunstorm (5) Blitzwing (6) Windsweeper (7) Skywarp (8) Rumble (9)	Razorclaw (10) Shrapnel (11) Acid Storm (12) Needlenose (13) Shockwave (14) Starscream (15) Astrotrain (16) Kickback (17)

|

!! style="background:#ededff" | Decepticons }}{{#if:| !! style="background:#fbefde;" | Humans }}{{#if:| !! style="background:#ffeeb8;" | Others }}{{#if:| !! style="background:#d5e6d5;" | Misc }}{{#if:| !! style="background:#fedeb5;" | Misc }} |- {{#if:|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |

}}{{#if:{|border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background:transparent"

|- |style="background:transparent; border-right: 0px" valign="top"|

Megatron (1)
Soundwave (2)
Pounce or Wingspan (3)
Viewfinder (4)
Sunstorm (5)
Blitzwing (6)
Windsweeper (7)
Skywarp (8)
Rumble (9)

|style="background:transparent; border-right: 0px" valign="top"|

Razorclaw (10)
Shrapnel (11)
Acid Storm (12)
Needlenose (13)
Shockwave (14)
Starscream (15)
Astrotrain (16)
Kickback (17)

|}| | style="background:#ededff;" valign="top" |

Megatron (1)
Soundwave (2)
Pounce or Wingspan (3)
Viewfinder (4)
Sunstorm (5)
Blitzwing (6)
Windsweeper (7)
Skywarp (8)
Rumble (9)

Razorclaw (10)
Shrapnel (11)
Acid Storm (12)
Needlenose (13)
Shockwave (14)
Starscream (15)
Astrotrain (16)
Kickback (17)

}}{{#if:|

| style="background:#fbefde;" valign="top" |

}}{{#if:|

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Quotes

"This Matrix, Starscream... was it everything we hoped it would be, all those years we pursued it? Did planets fall before you as you brandished it? Was victory a mere formality after tilting it back-and-forth under a strong light? Did your followers respect you simply by dint of you prancing around with it tassled to your neck? Of all the treachery you've peddled over the eons, Starscream... this spark-quenchingly wretched mess you've made of leadership is the most affronting."

—Megatron

"This is not you, Starscream! I don't expect a backbone, but I expect a viciousness, an acidity... some self-preservation! You want me to destroy you?"
"Yes..."
"You really want me to end this all, don't you?"
"Yes!"
"Well, think back on the last thing you really wanted, Starscream, and remember what an utter failure that was, too."

—Megatron and Starscream

"What a mess... should we stop them?"
"If you do, I'll teleport my fist inside your abdomen and wave."

—Windsweeper and Skywarp

"I free slaves. Implant ideology. I build them up. I liberate cities. I topple worlds. It takes eons. Then I slumber for three. Tiny. Years. And when I wake up, this is all I have left. Say it again. Say that I have no idea what it's like to see a lifetime's work destroyed and made mockery of. You and I have one thing in common... the person responsible for leaving both of our lives in tatters... is you."

—Megatron, to Starscream

"The Decepticons. A million years to create them. A thousand days to destroy them. A hundred words to rebuild them. Everything is as it should be."

—Megatron

Notes

Continuity notes

This issue takes place during IDW's ongoing Transformers series. Chronologically, it would appear to occur right after Megatron's return in issue #13; that issue ended with Megatron requesting the Decepticons be assembled so he could address them, as at the start of this story, and also saw Starscream lose the Matrix, which he no longer has in this issue.
Continuing the common thread linking this new run of Spotlights, the space bridge technology that Megatron's new body contains is revealed to have been derived from Metroplex, who Megatron was shown to be searching for in Spotlights Orion Pax and Thundercracker. When and how the Decepticons obtained the tech, we do not yet know, but this probably explains why, when he appeared before in Spotlight: Metroplex and the Ironhide mini-series, Metroplex had to fly through space, instead of space bridging away as he did in Spotlight: Thundercracker—because the Decepticons have stolen the equipment that allows him to do so.

Transformers references

Like any good Marvel UK-er, Roche includes a reference to Megatron's rarely-seen ability to link up interdimensionally to a black hole, only ever used in-fiction in the Marvel UK stories "Raiders of the Last Ark" and "Resurrection!". It did get a previous mention in IDW continuity, though, in issue #22 of the ongoing, when Ratchet and Perceptor discussed it as an implausible rumor.
A passing reference is made by Megatron to Soundwave's sneakery and general untrustworthiness, something that originates with the character's original bio, but never got a lot of face-time in fiction outside of, again, the Marvel UK comics. This side of Soundwave was actually a big part of his early portrayal in IDW continuity, back in Spotlight: Soundwave; Roche has brought it back to the fore after it fell by the wayside in All Hail Megatron and the ongoing, which opted to present the slavish Megatron loyalist of the Generation 1 cartoon. Later issues told from Soundwave's perspective would treat him as the ultimate loyalist, however it was noted that Soundwave sensed Megatron's distrust when he was assigned to Bludgeon and this issue is told entirely from Megatron's perspective. This allows Megatron's view of Soundwave as being inherently untrustworthy to be his interpretation and eliminates nagging continuity holes. Soothing.
Of course, neat-freak Windsweeper is the one to mention what a "mess" Megatron and Starscream are making while they fight.

Edits

In the version of the issue packed in with Megatron's Generations Thrilling 30 toy, several edits to the speech bubbles are made:
- On page 9, Megatron's fourth speech bubble in panel 1 has "Their underlings consume and cannibalize one another." changed to "Their underlings consume and cannibalize each other's parts."
- On page 12, Megatron's third caption in panel 2 has "he also appears to be nursing some raw and bloody emotional wounds" shortened to simply "he also appears to be nursing some raw emotional wounds", with the caption itself resized accordingly.
- On page 16, Megatron's repeated questioning of Starscream's death urge is toned down and made entirely rhethorical, with Starscream's repeated confirmations and an additional in-between question by Megatron cut out, and several speech bubbles shuffled around and moved to subsequent panels to make the omissions less glaring. Even Megatron's final speech bubble on the page (see "Quotes" above for the original, unedited dialogue) is omitted.
- This is continued on page 17, where Megatron's first speech bubble in panel 2 is omitted and his second speech bubble is shortened from "You don't seek oblivion--you seek punishment." to "You know you deserve to be punished!", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
- It's continued again on page 20, with Starscream's speech bubble in panel 5, "Then…just… end this…", replaced by a much smaller speech bubble that simply says "Uhhnnh…" Megatron's tiny speech bubble on the subsequent page in which he replies "No." is omitted as well.
On the other hand, on page 13, Megatron's caption in panel 3, "Or at least not to die.", is left unchanged.
Likewise, on page 16, Megatron's first caption in panel 4, "Not dead.", is left unchanged as well.

Errors

Skywarp ought to be on Earth at this point in time, having chronologically last been seen at the end of the Bumblebee mini-series. Whether or not he was captured by Skywatch at the end of that story was left unclear, but it seems unlikely he could have reached this asteroid. Of course, he can teleport, and he was later seen with Megatron in part 5 of Revenge of the Decepticons.
On page 21, Megatron's second large speech bubble in panel 1 is missing a space between "ultimatevictory". Oddly, this error only appears in the version of the issue packed in with Megatron's Generations Thrilling 30 toy, but not in the original single release nor in the trade paperback collection, despite this speech bubble being otherwise unedited.

Covers (6)

Cover A: Megatron amid space debris, surrounded by bits of Starscream, by Nick Roche and Len O'Grady
Cover B: Megatron illuminated by the light of his cannon, by Livio Ramondelli
Cover RI: Megatron by Clayton Crain
Cover RE: Megatron standing proud as Soundwave and Shockwave look on, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez, exclusive to Stadium Comics.
Second Printing: Cover A with a purple-tinged background
Hasbro exclusive cover: Cropped-in version of cover RI, exclusively available with Generations Deluxe Class Megatron

Pick up after yourself, Starscream!
Mean, mean Megatron.
From hell's heart, I stab at thee.
The boys are back in town.
Déjà vu?
Please buy me!

Reprints

The Transformers: Dark Prelude (August 14, 2013) ISBN 1613777167 / ISBN 978-1613777169
- Collects Spotlight: Orion Pax, Thundercracker, Megatron, Bumblebee, Trailcutter and Hoist.
- Each of the characters receiving the Spotlight also had new Deluxe Class toys as part of the 2012–2013 Generations line, 'Thrilling 30'.
- Cover gallery.
- Trade paperback format. New cover art by Nick Roche and Josh Perez.

The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 3 (February 24, 2016) ISBN 1631405403 / ISBN 978-1631405402
- Collects Spotlight: Thundercracker, Bumblebee & Megatron, More than Meets the Eye Annual 2012, issues #9–11, #12–13 & "Signal to Noise", and Robots in Disguise Annual 2012 & issues #10–11.
- Bonus material includes alternate covers.
- Hardcover format.

Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 48: Revenge of the Decepticons (April 17, 2019)
- Collects The Transformers (2009) issues #13–18, and Spotlight: Megatron.
- Bonus material includes a Spotlight: Megatron sketchbook.
- Hardcover format.

Dark Prelude – cover art by Nick Roche and Josh Perez
The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 3 – cover art by Marcelo Matere and Tom B. Long
The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 48: Revenge of the Decepticons – cover art by Don Figueroa, Nick Roche and Len O'Grady

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