Spotlight: Grimlock

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« The Transformers: Spotlight #14 »
File:Spotlightgrimlock.jpg
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 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.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans Others

Notes

Continuity notes

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.

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.[1] Amusingly, both the Mirage ad and the "Focus on: Decepticons!" ad retain their "March 2008" notes. Even the IDWords section features releases for March.
  • It is a common misconception that all of the pages that were of an inferior visual quality were done by Liam Shalloo. However, the pages in question were colored by one of the other colorists on the book.[2]

Errors

  • 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.


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 and used for the third Spotlight trade paperback, though.

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Reprints

References

  1. ↑ http://idwpublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=64871#64871 IDW forums, Mar 24, 2008
  2. ↑ Liam Shalloo points out the misconception on the Allspark forums.
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