Spotlight: Optimus Prime

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Does your man have an ass like mine?
"The Transformers: Spotlight Optimus Prime"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 29, 2007
Cover date	August 2007
Written by	Simon Furman
Art by	Don Figueroa
Colors by	Josh Burcham
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Edits by	Dan Taylor
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Escalation

Optimus Prime's search for answers about his predecessors leads to a dark discovery.

Synopsis

In the wake of his brush with death at Megatron's hands, Optimus Prime is pensive. To find out more about the sinister presence he felt while transferring his spark through infraspace, he takes Ark-32 and journeys to the Muta-Gaath Nebula—secret home of Omega Supreme. Unfortunately, another ship observes his transit, its inhabitants vowing to destroy whoever is inside the asteroid base that Omega calls home.

Optimus Prime quizzes Omega Supreme about Nova Prime. He believes that he encountered Nova while in infraspace, and was filled with a sense of dread, something only Megatron and Thunderwing normally cause. Omega explains that Nova Prime felt that Cybertronians were superior to other life forms and had a duty to impress their likeness on the rest of the universe. Optimus surmises that the Ark was not an exploratory vessel, but part of Nova's expansion, something Omega also suspected.

Seriously. Forget Sunstreaker or Prowl. Give this guy a Universe Generations toy.

But before they can further pursue the matter, Monstructor smashes his way in to Omega Supreme's domain. The enraged combiner robot has come for Omega Supreme; Monstructor makes short work of him, ripping off his cannon arm within seconds and nearly crushing him with a shuttlecraft. Optimus Prime's weapons are repelled by an energy-dampening field, so Prime blasts open an airlock, sucking all three of them into space.

Omega Supreme uses his rocket-engine arm to transport himself and Optimus Prime as far away as he can, but they both know Monstructor is hot on their heels. Prime demands answers, and Omega explains that Monstructor was an attempt by Jhiaxus, at Nova Prime's behest, to combine minds and bodies of a group of Transformers to enhance strength and intellect. But the process failed, and the combined form "devolved into a monster". After Jhiaxus and Nova Prime disappeared aboard the original Ark, Omega locked Monstructor away in a dimensionally-displaced prison, an act which Prime finds reprehensible.

Further debate is ended as Monstructor's ship arrives, and the monster dives at them. Omega Supreme tells Optimus Prime that Monstructor has one weak spot, an area of his chest; unable to reason with the giant, Prime strikes the area, and Monstructor breaks apart into his components. Prime swears to the fallen robots that he will help them.

An Autobot cleanup crew arrives later, to restore Omega Supreme and take the Monstructor team prisoner. Omega warns Optimus Prime that if the gestalt technology falls into Megatron's hands, the result will be an all-consuming war. Jetfire takes the combiner robots away, leaving Optimus to reflect on the tarnished legacy of the Prime lineage.

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Optimus Prime (1) Wheelie (2) Ultra Magnus (3) Hound (4) Springer (5) Prowl (6) Sentinel Prime (9) Omega Supreme (10) Crosshairs (18) Gunrunner (19) Override (20) Pointblank (21) Sureshot (22) Dogfight (23) Backstreet (24) Jetfire (25) Strafe (26) Nosecone (27) Lightspeed (28) Scattershot (29)	Megatron (7)	Nova Prime (8) Birdbrain (11) Bristleback (12) Icepick (13) Scowl (14) Slog (15) Wildfly (16) Monstructor (17)

Notes

Continuity notes

You two are not important enough.

Being Prime requires that your altmode has at least six wheels and a trailer. It's tradition.

• When Optimus talks about the Primes, we see a picture of their lineage (the ones before Nova are shadowed). This caused some confusion among fans when "Spotlight: Blurr" introduced the concept of Zeta Prime, Sentinel's successor, even though this issue showed no Primes between Sentinel and Optimus; later, James Roberts would add in Nominus Prime between Nova and Sentinel! "The Crucible" would introduce IDW's version of the original Thirteen Primes, making it likely that the two shadowed Primes behind Nova are members of the Thirteen.
• While it was par for the course at the time, the expanded backstory and lore provided by John Barber and Roberts would make Optimus' veneration of the Prime legacy come off as very strange in hindsight, as it would be firmly established that the Prime legacy had long devolved into a collection of corrupt state puppets, fascists, and murderous psychopaths. Optimus had in fact opposed all three of his predecessors prior to becoming leader himself, and was personally the mentee to Zeta and witnessed his descent into madness.
• Among the Autobots reporting in to Prime at the issue's opening are:
  • Springer, presumably the one reporting on Kup's status.
  • Ultra Magnus, with a new lead on Scorponok—possibly implying that he cut another deal with Swindle.
  • Wheelie, making his first appearance in the IDWverse, wondering if anyone can hear him. The reason for his transmission would be shown almost a year later in his own Spotlight.
  • Hound reporting Sideswipe's desire to follow up on Sunstreaker's disappearance.
• A similar scene starts off Escalation #1.
• This issue establishes that the various combiner teams shown to date in the IDW universe (Technobots, Constructicons, Predacons, the odd Protectobot, and Combaticon) aren't actually combiners yet.
• Also, the Pretender Monsters are not Pretenders nor Decepticons, as they were locked away before the Pretender process and factions were developed. Stormbringer See 2005 IDW timeline.
• First appearances: Wheelie, the Monstructor Six, Nova Prime

Errors

• A strange conversation occurs among the Monstructor bots:

Panel 1:

Unknown: Is it him?

Panel 2:

Birdbrain: Only one sure way to find out.

Bristleback: Which is?

Birdbrain: Smash our way in...

Panel 3:

Bristleback: ...and kill whoever and whatever we find inside!

• It's possible that Bristleback did indeed chime in with his two cents' worth (particularly given the intertwined nature of this team), but considering IDW's history of mis-attributed speech balloons, it also seems likely that Birdbrain and Bristleback's speech balloons got switched in the second panel. Whatever the case, the conversation was not altered for the trade paperback version.

Other trivia

• The issue includes 2 pages of sketches by Don Figueroa—one of Optimus Prime in several stages of transformation (though it's the transformation design of Masterpiece/Dreamwave Optimus, not the IDW one), and the other of the various alternate modes of Sentinel Prime and Nova Prime.
• Colorist Josh Burcham made the vents on the butt of Optimus Prime's Ion blaster a sort of ammo gauge, based upon an idea from fandom. After each subsequent blast, the blue glow dips lower.
• This issue further establishes that the Pretender Monsters are AWESOME and that Monstructor is a total bad-ass death machine. We already knew that, though.
• This issue was reissued in December 2008 as a special 3-D edition, including a pair of cardboard unfoldable 3-D glasses.
• Ironically, Monstructor, the final combiner released by Hasbro, predates Devastator, the first combiner released by Hasbro, in the IDW continuity.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Optimus in spotlight; art by Don Figueroa and Josh Burcham (colors).
• Cover B: Optimus with gun; art by Gabriel Rodríguez.
• Cover RI: Uncolored cover A
• 3-D Cover: Optimus vs Monstructor; art by Hoon.

• 
  Spotlight: Optimus Prime's ass
• 
  Cover B
• 
  Cover RI
• 
  3D cover

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• Devastation, including a 6-page preview
• The Ascending
• Megatron Origin (back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers: Spotlight Volume 2 (February 20, 2008) ISBN 1600101542 / ISBN 978-1600101540
• The Transformers: The Premiere Collection Volume 2 (June 17, 2009) ISBN 1600104371 / ISBN 978-1600104374
• The Transformers: Best of Optimus Prime (June 2, 2010) ISBN 1600106668 / ISBN 978-1600106668
• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Volume Two (October 6, 2010) ISBN 1600107516 / ISBN 978-1600107511
• The Transformers: Spotlight Omnibus Volume 1 (April 15, 2015) ISBN 1631402463 / ISBN 978-1631402463
• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Compendium, Vol. 1 (July 6, 2016) ISBN 163140637X / ISBN 978-1631406379

• 
  Spotlight Volume 2 – cover art by Gabriel Rodríguez
• 
  The Premiere Collection Volume 2 – cover art by Nick Roche & Josh Burcham
• 
  The Best of Optimus Prime – cover art by Livio Ramondelli
• 
  The IDW Collection Volume Two – cover art by E. J. Su
• 
  Spotlight Omnibus Volume 1 – cover art by Jeffrey Veregge
• 
  The IDW Collection Compendium, Vol. 1 – cover art by Jeffrey Veregge

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 39: Hearts of Steel (April 5, 2017)

• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 39: Hearts of Steel – cover art by Don Figueroa, Guido Guidi and Aaron Leach