Spotlight: Wheelie

« The Transformers: Spotlight #15 »
Wheelie looks tough now, but the chaosteros has his revenge inside.
"The Transformers: Spotlight: Wheelie"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	June 18, 2008
Cover date	June 2008
Story by	Simon Furman/Klaus Scherwinski
Script by	Simon Furman
Art by	Klaus Scherwinski
Colors by	Klaus Scherwinski
Color assist by	Josh Burcham
Letters	Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt
Edits by	Denton J. Tipton
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity

Wheelie is here, cower in fear!

Synopsis

Wheel-yee! How can you talk such rubbish? Most of us have brothers and sisters and our parents love us all.

Eager to aid the Autobot war effort but constantly overlooked due to his stature, Wheelie is ecstatic when he is finally asked to help with the search for habitable worlds. Shortly after leaving, though, his ship hits a radiation belt that shorts out his systems, and he is forced to make a crash-landing on the world of LV-117, a planet which turns out to be populated with giant monsters. Wheelie does what he can to survive and fends off the denizens. After attempting to use the universal greeting on a chaosteros, Wheelie loses one of his arms. He subsequently retrieves it from the beast's dung, but thereafter his arm does not properly transform, causing him excruciating pain whenever he enters vehicle mode.

Eventually, he sights another ship crashing to the surface. When he tracks it down, he finds Decepticons Spectro and Spyglass preparing to torture an alien they have captured. Wheelie frees him, and sneaks aboard the ship amidst the confusion. Unfortunately, the crash has damaged the ship beyond repair, dashing his plans to use it to escape. Suddenly remembering the third member of Spectro and Spyglass's trio, Wheelie turns around to find Viewfinder, impaled in his command chair by a large piece of the shattered canopy. Pausing to wonder whether Viewfinder or he himself was the lucky one, he goes off in search of the alien he set free, eventually finding and befriending him.

The alien, named Varta, speaks entirely (through a universal translator chip) in rhyme and reveals that he has a spaceworthy ship. The only thing it lacks is a power source, and Wheelie happily volunteers the energon converter he's been lugging around. They work together for a time to patch up the ship and get it ready to fly, with Wheelie adopting Varta's strange, rhyming speech in the process. As they prepare to launch the ship, they are ambushed by Spectro and Spyglass. The Decepticons shoot Varta in the back and threaten to finish him off if Wheelie doesn't climb out of the ship and let them have it. Though he initially considers taking off and leaving Varta, he realizes that if he does so, he would be turning his back on what it means to be an Autobot. He solemnly descends the ladder while the pair absconds in the rocket, congratulating themselves on their bluff—they had used the last charge in their laser to stun Varta. Varta is surprised that Wheelie would give up his freedom for his sake, but Wheelie says it really all came down to faction... that, and he removed the safety catch from the energon converter used to power the ship, causing it to explode in midair.

A year later, Varta and Wheelie have salvaged what they could from the wreckage of both their ship and the Decepticon cruiser and made a new home for themselves. No longer depressed, Wheelie feels renewed hope for the future and gazes up at the massive Autobot emblem adorning the top of their makeshift home. Meanwhile, in the nearby ruins of an ancient temple, a wall painting of a Quintesson begins to crack, the eyes glowing through the rock...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Ultra Magnus (1) Springer (2) Wheelie (3) Perceptor (4) Hot Spot (5) Jetfire (6)	Spectro (9) Spyglass (10) Viewfinder (12)	Arachnosaur (7) Chaosteros (8) Varta (11)

Quotes

"Your words are jumbled, strange, a structure we must rearrange."
"Um. Wheelie is, ah, my given name, and... er... you and I are a bit the same."
BLEEP <SYNTAX ERROR>
"Cadence, meter, and pitch are vital to the switch."
"Everyone's a critic."

—Varta can't even understand Wheelie's first attempt at rhyming.

Notes

Continuity notes

• Although this issue features the unambiguous deaths of the Reflector trio, they appeared alive and well in subsequent Transformers comics published by IDW (most notably, the All Hail Megatron series), creating one of the most notable longstanding continuity errors in the IDW timeline. This was not resolved until September 5, 2012 with the publication of The Transformers: Robots in Disguise #9 where it was explained the Reflectors had managed to travel through time with the space ship that crash lands on LV-117.
• Wheelie's choice as an explorer comes after Hubcap, Bumper, Scrounge, and Roller. Why does Roller get no love??? Also, if we are to take the list literally, this is another character named Bumper: the original was killed in Megatron Origin ("Space Opera Part 1: The Stars My Destination" places Wheelie's disappearance after Hot Rod joined the Autobots, which according to Autocracy happened after Megatron Origin.)
• Wheelie's distress call in this issue is received by Optimus Prime, as seen in Spotlight: Optimus Prime.
• First appearances: Hot Spot

Real-life references

• LV-117 might be a reference to LV-426, the planet on which the film Aliens took place.
• LV-117 might also be a reference to John-117, the protagonist of the Halo video games.
• Artist Klaus Scherwinski based Wheelie's design upon a detailed transforming garage kit by JizaiToys.

Errors

• This issue does not feature a brief character bio on the inside cover. However, a big empty block of space where the bio is supposed to be remains.
• Spectro and Spyglass were last seen in toy-based character models in Spotlight: Sixshot. Here, they are based on designs from the Generation 1 cartoon.

Other trivia

• The issue includes 5 pages of sketches by Klaus Scherwinski
• The Quintesson cameo was foreshadowing plans that Furman, in the end, didn't get to use.
• It also includes two Lil Formers strips featuring Wheelie, one of which indicates his Spotlight wouldn't have been released until after Roller and before Kranix. In the other, Alpha Trion tells Wheelie he was in the #7659 position to become Prime, after Twin Twist and Roller. Some candidates that Wheelie beats out are Erector, Chip Chase, GoBots Leader-1, Turbo, Scooter, and Small Foot, and #7666 — Starscream!

Covers

— all by Klaus Scherwinski

• Cover A: Wheelie with slingshot in the Chaosteros's shadow.
• Cover B: Retro-style cover with the issue's major players.
• Cover RI: B&W sketch of cover B, without the additional lettering or spotlights.

• 
  He comes from the north, he comes from the south, I shoot my slingshot in his mouth!
• 
  Wheelie's kickin' it old skool. Aww yeah...
• 
  Oh no, oh no, oh no! Where did Reflector and Varta go?

Advertisements

• Angel: After the Fall in IDWords section
• Star Trek: Mirror Images
• The Dreamland Chronicles
• All Hail Megatron
• Speed Racer: The Next Generation and other DVDs (back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers: Spotlight Volume 3 (September 17, 2008) ISBN 160010245X / ISBN 978-1600102455
• The Transformers: The Premiere Collection Volume 2 (June 17, 2009) ISBN 1600104371 / ISBN 978-1600104374
• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Volume Three (March 2, 2011) ISBN 1600108563 / ISBN 978-1600108563
• The Transformers: Spotlight Omnibus Volume 2 (September 9, 2015) ISBN 1613779429 / ISBN 978-1613779422
• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 40: Maximum Dinobots (September 6, 2017)

• 
  Spotlight Volume 3 – cover art by Marcelo Matere
• 
  The Premiere Collection Volume 2 – cover art by Nick Roche & Josh Burcham
• 
  The IDW Collection Volume Three – cover art by E. J. Su
• 
  Spotlight Omnibus Volume 2 – cover art by Jeffrey Veregge
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 40: Maximum Dinobots – cover art by Don Figueroa and Nick Roche