Spotlight # 3
Written by Simon Furman
Penciled by Nick Roche
Colors by Liam Shalloo

HOT ROD

Summary:

A minor meteor storm approaches a certain moon somewhere in the unknown reaches of space. Amongst these falling chunks of space debris is Hot Rod, using an unconventional method to reach the moon’s surface. He leaps off the meteor he’d been riding and free-falls to the surface. Knowing a sensor system is in place over the moon’s surface, Hot Rod waits for the last possible moment and engages a blocking null field to cushion his impact. But the field doesn’t make Hot Rod’s landing gentle and the crash knocks him off-line and right into a storm of memories that have been nagging at his mind for a while now. Some time ago on a battlefield designated “Kl-Aleta”, Hot Rod was leading a small Autobot tactical unit on a special mission. Hot Rod’s team consisted of himself and four other Autobots; Download, Gizmo, Backbeat, and Dealer. The five Autobots arrive at their intended location; a temple-like structure named the “Omega Bunker”. They immediately get to work, preparing to breach the structure and retrieve something from within. As Hot Rod and Download prep bore drones to create underground tunnels, Gizmo and Backbeat prepare a holo-matter projector and some low-yield charges respectively. Dealer sets up a communications display that links with their dropship. Hot Rod and Download notice several stature-like sentries situated around the Omega Bunker; these are the Omega Guardians, which protect the bunker from those who would try and steal what it hides within. Hot Rod notes that these sentries are old, but possess power potent enough to be lethal if turned on them, so the Autobots’ only choice is to bypass the Guardians. As Hot Rod’s team prepares to go through with their operation, we fade back to the present as said Hot Rod regains consciousness on the moon’s surface. He ponders if his overzealousness got his team killed back then, but shoves these thoughts aside to complete his current mission. Hot Rod is going to infiltrate a Decepticon penal colony located on this moon. Named Styx, this Decepticon-run prison is the harshest in the galaxy and is supposed to be impregnable. Hot Rod doesn’t believe that as he approaches its walls and fires a device up and over them. The device flies over the prison and lands on its highest point, and then extrudes wires that plug into the structure’s exterior. In the main security room of the complex, the guard on duty notices several strange alarms and alerts going off, seemingly at random, all over the installation. In reality, Hot Rod has utilized his device to create a timed sequence that allows him to sneak past all the guards and security devices in the complex. As he expertly worms his way into the installation and begins making his way towards his goal, Hot Rod’s mind drifts back to his mission at Kl-Aleta. We return to his flashback as Gizmo activates the holo-matter generator and creates “simulacrums” of Hot Rod and the other Autobots and has them attack the stationary Omega Guardians. Backbeat’s charges activate as well, shocking the Guardians to life. As Hot Rod and Download slowly make their way through tunnels to infiltrate the Omega Bunker, the Guardians outside engage the fake holo-matter Autobot simulacrums. Gizmo explains how he’s programmed the simulacrums to respond as realistically as the Autobots they are imitating, but the Guardians will eliminate them soon. Hot Rod and Download make it to the inner-most chamber of the bunker, where they find their goal; the Magnificence. It is a techno-organic-looking orb that apparently is a kind of “all-seeing oracle”, and the Autobots have been sent here to retrieve it before the Decepticons do. Download doesn’t feel right, removing such a divine bauble from its holding place, but Hot Rod knows that the temptation would be too great for the Decepticons and the Autobots have to hide and protect the Magnificence from them. Download haltingly agrees and begins the extraction process to remove the orb from its protective energy shield. Outside, the holo-matter generator overloads and explodes in Gizmo’s face. The small Autobot radios Hot Rod and informs him that the generator is gone and the Omega Guardians have noticed him and the others. Inside the Omega Bunker, Hot Rod orders Gizmo and the others to withdraw over the communication line, but gets no further responses. Download finishes breaking the protective shield and tells Hot Rod that they’ve done it, but Omega Guardians suddenly activate in the room and fire upon the Autobots. Download is engulfed by their blasts and killed. At this point, we fade back to the present as Hot Rod continues his infiltration of Styx. His viral device pops every prison door lock in the place, forcing the Decepticon guards to initiate a “Code-Nine”; meaning all high-ranking personnel are to evacuate to a nearby orbital platform. Hot Rod is using this chance to accomplish his goal, and sticks a Decepticon symbol on his chest, which forms-up a holo-matter disguise on him. He makes it to cellblock Z-Lateral, wearing his holo-Decepticon disguise and begins looking for the Autobot he came here to rescue. Hot Rod had heard reports that this Autobot had ended up here after the mission on Kl-Aleta and put many of his resources into this rescue attempt. Finally, he finds the cell he’s looking for and locates his goal; his comrade Dealer, who was left behind on Kl-Aleta after the mission. Dealer’s seen better days; he’s wrecked-up and apparently spiritually broken. Hot Rod quickly moves to help his friend up, fading back again to remember the events that led Dealer to this. We flash back to the Kl-Aleta mission, as Hot Rod escapes through the tunnels dug under the Omega Bunker, the Magnificence in his grasp. As Omega Guardians fire after him, Hot Rod gets a radio transmission from Dealer, on the surface. A Decepticon raiding party had arrived and Dealer is under fire. He begs Hot Rod for help, but Hot Rod cannot go to his aid; he has orders to secure the Magnificence at ANY cost and hide it in a secure location that only he knows. Apologizing to Dealer over the radio, Hot Rod escapes through an extra tunnel he had the bore drones dig for him and somberly moves to complete his mission. Fade back into the present, where Hot Rod helps the traumatized Dealer to his feet, as he silently recalls that his team was considered expendable in comparison with the mission goal. Hot Rod sticks a Decepticon symbol on Dealer’s chest, which forms-up a holo-matter disguise for him, and the two begin their escape. As he helps the unresponsive Dealer outside, Hot Rod recalls how the investigation into what went wrong with the Kl-Aleta mission revealed that the holo-matter generator that Gizmo used had a faulty power cell, and their communications channel had been unsecured. Since it was his responsibility to double-check the equipment, Hot Rod feels that it was his fault Dealer ended up where he was and the rest of the team was killed. Hot Rod brings Dealer to a nearby shuttle and goes inside. A single Decepticon guard inside sees an exact copy of himself enter the shuttle, then is gunned-down by it as Hot Rod sheds his holo-disguise, which was apparently based on said Decepticon. Seconds later, Hot Rod and Dealer leave the installation in the stolen shuttle as Hot Rod reflects that he’s never been sure that anyone could trust him again after the failed Kl-Aleta mission, so he usually does stuff solo whenever he can. At least then; no one takes a risk but Hot Rod himself. But as he flies away from the moon and notices Dealer giving him a thankful look, Hot Rod feels that he may have earned a bit of redemption. Sometime later at an Autobot orbital command station, Hot Rod waits as Dealer emerges from the repair bay, completely recovered from his ordeal at Styx. Hot Rod begins to offer his apology, but Dealer won’t hear of it. He acknowledges that Hot Rod made the correct decision on Kl-Aleta to complete the mission and thanks him for the rescue from Styx. Dealer even asks if they can be friends. Meanwhile some time later in an undisclosed location, Dealer reports in to a mysterious individual who he apparently is being employed by. Seems Dealer’s plan was to make Hot Rod feel guilty about the Kl-Aleta disaster, and it was Dealer himself who sabotaged the equipment. He even lied about being attacked by Decepticons and set-up the whole Styx imprisonment thing to get Hot Rod to come rescue him. Dealer did this for one thing; to obtain the Magnificence for his employer. The only thing that went wrong was that Hot Rod followed his orders and hid the Magnificence in a location known only to him. But Dealer knows that he can exploit his friendship with Hot Rod to the point that one day, Hot Rod will share the location of the Magnificence with him. Dealer’s employer, the Decepticon Banzaitron, is impressed with Dealer’s duplicity and wonders aloud if he should call him “DOUBLEdealer” from now on.

Slagged!:

-Hot Rod wrecks himself up right bad by free-falling to a moon’s surface from orbit.

-Hot Rod’s squad mostly all buy it in the flashbacks, although we only see Download’s death on panel. Gizmo’s and Backbeat’s deaths are explicitly implied, however.

-Dealer’s been apparently broken down both physically and mentally by his stay at Styx, but we discover at the end of the issue that this appearance had been a ruse. Dealer’s quite the dedicated actor, in that case.

-Hot Rod blasts the Decepticon that he impersonated with his holo-matter disguise.

Sightings:

-Nick Roche’s Hot Rod redesign takes elements from Will Smith’s car from the movie “I, Robot”, particularly the “orb” wheels.

-The guard stuck with monitor duty at Styx is Decepticon Gutcruncher. Gutcruncher was an “Actionmaster” in the Gen 1 toy line, meaning he didn’t have secondary mode beyond robot, but Nick Roche’s slight glimpse at him in this issue shows elements of a vehicle mode added in. Makes sense that Actionmasters would have once had vehicle modes before being affected by the “Nucleon” power source.

-Holo-matter equipment is used at liberty here, just as it was in Infiltration.

-Dealer had a Powermaster toy called Doubledealer from the original toy line. Different Powermaster partners plugged in changed him from Autobot to Decepticon. As an Autobot, Doubledealer was a robot. As a Decepticon, he was a robotic falcon. And both forms turned into a missile truck, which was seen here in this issue briefly. His design from this issue seemed only to be the robot mode and a slightly tweaked missile truck mode. Nick Roche might have taken some hint from the toy Stalker mold (better known in the US as Machine Wars Soundwave) for the tweaked truck mode.

-Dealer’s employer is Gen 1 Decepticon Banzai-Tron (spelled Banzaitron in this issue). Like Gutcruncher, Banzaitron was part of the Actionmaster line and only had a robot mode. Again, Nick Roche adds in elements to this rendition of Banzaitron to make it look like he has an alt-mode.

Hearings:

-Dealer being called just “Dealer” and not Doubledealer off the bat is reminiscent of his only previous appearance in Transformers comics, way back in Marvel UK. In his only other story, he appears in robot mode as “Double” to the Autobots and in falcon mode as “Dealer” to the Decepticons and tricks them into a fight while he walks away with the profits. In this issue, Banzaitron simply dubs him “Doubledealer” after learning of his tricks.

-Banzaitron runs some kind of Decepticon “Secret Service”, indicating that he may be one of Megatron’s top divisional officers.

Wreck and RULE!:

-Nick Roche does a pretty unique job here with the art. You can tell that he’s being a little bolder with his personal style, as everything seems a notch less subdued than his work in the Shockwave Spotlight. His style fits quite well with action sequences and his design work is on par with EJ Su’s and Don Figueroa’s. I kind of got a Dan Reed feeling from some of his renderings of Transformers with the roundness, and an Andrew Wildman feeling with the expressiveness of the faces. He maybe should tone down the faces a bit, as some shots of Hot Rod seemed a bit bubbly and too cartoon-y, but otherwise I really liked the art in this issue. Roche definitely has a bright future in terms of Transformers art and comic books in general.

-Furman turns in another solid character-piece, treating Hot Rod with a bit more maturity than the character is usually granted. The spin of having Hot Rod as a brash, daredevil, but lethally competent Autobot works really well, and honestly the previous portrayals of Hot Rod in the Movie and the Dreamwave comics as an over-eager rookie were getting a bit old, and in some cases, obnoxious. But the Hot Rod who appears in this issue is one I look forward to seeing more of.

-The Doubledealer subplot is set-up reasonably well, if a bit predictably. I also applaud Furman’s use of REALLY obscure characters like Gutcruncher and Banzaitron. Let’s face it, “Banzaitron” is a pretty lame name, but if he can make the character cool, I say, go for it!

Wreck and ROT!:

-Like I mentioned, Roche should have maybe toned-down some of the goofiness of his facial expressions. Rubber-faced Transformers only work some of the time in art.

-If you know what the toy of Doubledealer does or read the Marvel UK story with him in it, the “twist” at the end really isn’t that surprising. I suppose Furman had to re-establish Doubledealer in this continuity, so at least those unfamiliar with him might have not caught on. But for us hardcore fans, this plot twist was kind of obvious.

-Another obvious point is “Anyone who doesn’t have a toy and is in a Furman comic usually will be brutally killed”. So Gizmo, Download, and Backbeat were pretty much expected to bite it the second we saw them. But, I guess it’s just a Furman-thing to expect now.

Final Judgment:

We’ve got another great installment of Spotlight here and another plot-thread set-up. I just hope Furman keeps track of all these threads he’s seeding, as there are a lot floating around now. Hot Rod is set to appear in Escalation, so this Spotlight is a great introduction to him for the uninitiated (however few they are), and Hot Rod’s fans get a great portrayal of him as well. Nick Roche’s art impresses again and I hope we see more of his work in the future. This Spotlight series is one of the best ideas to come out of IDW and they seem to agree as its being extended beyond the initial five. So, I’m fairly excited and intrigued to see what’s next. Peace.

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