Spotlight: Grimlock

« The Transformers: Spotlight #14 »
Me Grimlock star, Scorponok. Slag off!!!!!
"The Transformers: Spotlight: Grimlock"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	April 23, 2008
Cover date	March 2008
Written by	Simon Furman
Art by	Marcelo Matere
Colors by	Zac Atkinson, Liam Shalloo and Andrew Elder
Letters by	Amauri Osorio
Edits by	Andrew Steven Harris
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Revelation

If even Grimlock gets a Spotlight, what chance then, do we have?

Synopsis

Agent Red and Skywatch scientist Weston discuss activating Grimlock. Red feels the recent extraterrestrial robotic activity is a precursor for an invasion and wants Grimlock under their control to help counter the threat. Weston urges caution, stating that the other robots under their control have gone rogue and fears the same with "Thunder-Lizard 1". Red considers this but gives the orders to begin the process.

Grimlock is zapped with electricity, which activates his memories—one where Optimus Prime lambastes him for insubordination, one where he tells his Dynobots not to mind Prime since their controversial methods work, and one of the battle against Shockwave and their subsequent entombment in lava. With this, Grimlock awakens and breaks his restraints; after a brief skirmish with security, he escapes the facility. Agent Red tells Weston to find out what went wrong and "fix it" so that they can try again with the other "Thunder Lizards". A Skywatch employee named Kloss ducks into a room and calls the Machination, revealing that a planted virus has had the desired effect on Grimlock and that he is "yours for the taking",

As Grimlock makes his way down the streets and through inhabited areas, he wonders what the local humans are, and notes that his vocal processor is damaged and his internal chronometer and sensors are not fully functional. He does, however have a transporter chip he can use to recall him to his ship, the Skyfire, but he assumes it's been destroyed.

Abraham Dante combines with Scorponok and transports to the Lahontan Dam, where Grimlock has arrived. Grimlock takes an aggressive stance, but Scorponok tells him that his Dynobots are dead and that Ultra Magnus has him on the list of wanted Cybertronians. He asks Grimlock to join him in the Machination plot to dominate Earth by running interference and delaying Megatron's plans long enough for the Machination to put their plans into action.

Grimlock considers for a second, but smashes Scorponok in the face. He refuses the offer for two reasons: he could turn Scorponok in to Ultra Magnus for redemption, and as revenge for Scorponok once robbing an installation the Dynobots were guarding. The two do battle and Scorponok quickly gains the upper hand, mostly due to his Headmaster upgrade. To be fair, though, Grimlock's out of ammo.

As Scorponok chokes Grimlock, Grimlock nearly passes out, but remembers having betrayed the Dynobots in their battle with Shockwave, dooming them to a living death. He activates his transporter chip, which remarkably still works, beaming him back to the Skyfire, which is somewhere buried in ice. He hopes he can use the ship to find the other Dynobots, make his peace, and bring the Machination down.

As scientists repair the damage to Dante, he is informed that Skywatch have begun work on the remaining Dynobots. He instructs Kloss to install software that will let Skywatch believe they have control of the robots, while they will be used to dispose of their former leader.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Grimlock (1) Optimus Prime (5) Swoop (9) Snarl (10) Sludge (11) Slag (12)	Sixshot (4) Starscream (6) Megatron (7) Shockwave (13) Scorponok (16) Runamuck (17) Ravage (18) Soundwave (19)	Joshua Red (2) Weston (3) Kloss (14) Abraham Dante (15)	Reapers (8)

Notes

Continuity notes

• Despite a rather purposeful moment commenting on a damaged vocal processor, Grimlock speaks in perfectly normal speech here, as he did in Spotlight: Shockwave.
• Joshua Red bluntly states that, following Devastation, the Transformers are public knowledge. Turns out he didn't clear this with IDW.

Transformers references

• The Dynobots' ship is named the Skyfire, a homage to Jetfire's name in the cartoon, and like Skyfire in that continuity, it ends up frozen beneath polar ice.

Real-life references

• Whilst on his rampage, Grimlock passes a jeep with the Jurassic Park logo on its spare tyre.

Errors

• In the Transformers: Mosaic piece, the word is misspelled "mosiac" in the bottom panel.
• The door that Kloss walks through has a hand-scrawled "Control Room" sign on it, with a still-visible artist's note below to "put better font".
• Grimlock's internal monologue, speculating about taking the captive Scorponok back to Cybertron, is incorrectly shown as a speech balloon attributed to Scorponok.
• One of Grimlock's captions typos "strength" as "strenght" (amusingly, it's shortly after he notes damage to his vocal processor). This was corrected for the trade paperback release.
• As Scorponok boasts about his upgraded speed, his speech balloon is partially cut off at the edge of the page, truncating some words. This was fixed for the trade paperback release.
• When Grimlock orbital bounces to the Skyfire, he does so in dinosaur mode, despite multiple instances making it explicit that a Transformer has to be in robot mode for the process, even when it risks breaking cover.

Other trivia

• After the story is an IDWords section about The Reign of Starscream.
• Contains the Transformers: Mosaic "Rank".
• Advertisements originally stated that Grimlock and Mirage's Spotlights were "1 of 2" and "2 of 2", respectively, due in March 2008. Due to a delay in Grimlock's, Mirage's was released first (March 5) and Grimlock's was pushed back to 7 weeks later. Amusingly, both the Mirage ad and the "Focus on: Decepticons!" ad retain their "March 2008" notes. Even the IDWords section features releases for March.

Covers (2)

• Cover A: Grimlock in front of Scorponok's shadow; art by Marcelo Matere.
• Cover RI: B&W sketch of cover A.

A second cover image by Marcelo Matere (third image in gallery) was solicited, featuring Grimlock's dinosaur head breaking through an image of the Dynobots' robot heads. However, this cover was apparently not released at retail, and is not included on the cover checklist on the inside front cover. The cover was recycled, partially recolored and used for the third Spotlight trade paperback, though.

• 
  Meaner than a snake with a broken rattle.
• 
  Too mean for colors!
• 
  Now we know where BotCon got the idea for Shattered Glass.

Advertisements

• Spotlight: Mirage
• "Focus on: Decepticons!"
• The Reign of Starscream
• Classic Transformers Volume 1 TPB
• The Ascending and The Gathering TPBs
• Target: 2006 TPB
• The Art of IDW's Transformers
• Obscure: The Aftermath game
• Transformers Animated books (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: Best of Grimlock (November 24, 2010) ISBN 1600107869 / ISBN 978-1600107863
• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Volume Three (March 2, 2011) ISBN 1600108563 / ISBN 978-1600108563
• The Transformers: Spotlight Omnibus Volume 1 (April 15, 2015) ISBN 1631402463 / ISBN 978-1631402463
• 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 and Josh Burcham
• 
  The Best of Grimlock – cover art by Klaus Scherwinski
• 
  The IDW Collection Volume Three – cover art by E. J. Su
• 
  Spotlight Omnibus Volume 1 – cover art by Jeffrey Veregge
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 40: Maximum Dinobots – cover art by Don Figueroa and Nick Roche