Spotlight: Shockwave

Script: Simon Furman
Art: Nick Roche
Lettering: Sulaco Studios
Colors: Josh Burcham
Editor: Dan Taylor
Covers by: James Raiz, Nick Roche

• Major characters (in order of appearance): Shockwave, Grimlock, Swoop, Slag, Sludge, Snarl.
• Originally published:

Synopsis

Six hundred thousand "Meta-Cycles" [sic] ago, while the Cybertron Civil War raged, the Decepticon Shockwave foresaw that the incessant fighting between Autobots and Decepticons would cause an Energon crisis which would have a devastating effect on Cybertron itself. Acting alone, Shockwave commenced a the project he called 'Regenesis', distilling raw Energon and loading it aboard missiles which he sent to various planets, one of which was pre-Ice Age Earth.

"Much later", after the last Ice Age was done and mammoths were dying off as a result, Shockwave travelled to Earth to regulate the planet's wild Energon reaction. Unbeknownst to the Decepticon, the Dynobots had tracked him to the planet. During the war, the Dynobots had lost face to Shockwave after he had foiled a vital Energon-gathering mission, and all five Transformers were hungry for for revenge.

The Energon reaction on Earth's surface was causing energy fluctuations dangerous to unshielded Transformers. Shockwave was prepared, but the Dynobots had no protection. Slag's novel solution involved using their ship's CR chambers to re-design the Dynobots' secondary modes to resemble native animals; the alt-modes' synthetic flesh would act buffer the Energon radiation. When Grimlock rejected Earth's Ice Age mammalian lifeforms, Slag discovered fossilised remains of dinosaurs, which Grimlock immediately took to.

The Dynobots located Shockwave on the surface and attacked him. Shockwave, confused by the assault which had no basis in logic, seemed easy prey for Grimlock's squad. Then something happened; with his core logic failing him, Shockwave abandoned calculation and for the first time experienced rage. His brutal retaliation battered the Dynobots, quickly stripping them of their protective synth flesh and thus forcing them into stasis lock. Shockwave prepared to steal their vessel, but before he could do so, the Dynobots' ship acted on a commnand pre-programmed by Grimlock and fire upon a nearby volcano. The blast cracked the earth open, spilling Shockwave into a pit of molten lava.

We skip ahead a few thousand years to Nevada, 2006, where a team of archaeologists have unearthed a massive, metal, purple hand...

Errors

• None identified as yet.

Items of Note

Simon Furman continuing his trend of approaching the original G1 continuity with an adult sensibility, and although this issue is certainly Shockwave's, the "Dynobots" are a definite item of interest. The million-year hibernation in the Ark and Spike's interest in dinosaurs have been removed from continuity, and Furman's G1 plot has taken a Cold War approach to the interstellar struggle between Autobot and Decepticon; a group of transforming chrome dinosaurs on Earth would seem to have no place in the IDW story arcs. Slag's creative solution to the Energon radiation problem (which also ties into Beast Wars) is also Furman's solution to the Dinobot problem, a solution completed by Shockwave's stripping the synth-flesh from the Dynobots; it's not hard to imagine the obstinate Grimlock refusing to abandon his intimidating secondary mode just to hide himself from a race of tiny fleshbags.

This issue is also noteworthy for tying into established story points. There is a direct link with the Stormbringer arc, as in the final panels, Megatron orders Bludgeon to find out what the missing Shockwave was working on. In addition, there's a link to what seemed a throw-away line in the Mechatopia.com website, which mentions a find in Nevada and "dinosaur-variant mechanoids".