As far as I know, “Revelation” was originally slated to be the next six-part mini-series following “Devastation”, until falling sales forced IDW to rethink their plans for the Transformers comics. But loose story threads were hanging out there that had to be resolved, and so thankfully long-time readers got the answers in four Spotlight comics, namely Cyclonus, Hardhead, Doubledealer and Sideswipe, now collected together as a trade paperback. These four spotlights vary in the amount of focus actually given to the title character, which was probably inevitable given the need to focus more on plot than character, even within the character-focuses “Spotlight” format.
Cyclonus: Quite a bit is revealed about the title character. In this continuity, Cyclonus was one of the crew of the first Ark who went into the Dead Universe with Nova Prime. He is on a specific mission in the normal universe, but takes time to pay a visit to Cybertron where he laments the destruction of Cybertron’s ‘perfection’. Much of Cyclonus’ inner dialogue reveals him to be someone who believes strongly in the superiority of Cybertronian life, which ties in with Nova Prime’s goal to remake the universe in its image. His desire for revenge draws attention to himself, leading Ultra Magnus and Hound’s group to the nega-core, and the reason that Thunderwing was taken is finally revealed.
Hardhead: The events of Nightbeat’s spotlight are finally resolved, all because Nightbeat himself figures out that his memories have been tampered with. This particular story could have worked just as well without Hardhead in it, making it a case of fitting his character into the plot rather than vice versa, but the narrative still works well. I find it very interesting that micromasters are apparently the inhabitants of Gorlam Prime who have been modified to take on Cybertronian bodies, and the fact that they were originally humanoid in size explains the small size of the Micromasters. Nice idea.
Hardhead himself is a character I’ve never paid much attention to, and I imagine his use in IDW’s comics has given him more development than he’s had in any other TF continuity. I like the guy and his stoic, no-nonsense approach to life. He realizes he’s a grunt who is given dirty jobs because he’s tough and capable, and that sooner or later his number will be up.
Doubledealer: Here’s another relatively undeveloped character, and one I’m mainly familiar with due to the toy, which my brother had when we were kids. Not exactly a triple changer, but a figure with a robot mode and two alt-modes, a truck and a bird. This particular story was set up back in Hot Rod’s spotlight, and the events of that story are finally resolved. It’s interesting mainly to watch Doubledealer try to play his con-game on Hot Rod, who in a nice bit of logic not usually associated with the character, has worked it all out. This chapter fits the least comfortably into the Revelation storyline since the events with Hot Rod and Doubledealer only play only a small role. The main story is really the attack on Thunderwing and the creation of the Autobot pretenders so they can enter the dead universe.
Sideswipe: This particular spotlight really isn’t about Sideswipe, even if he does get some focus in a few key scenes. All the dead universe plotlines are tied up here, and all those plot threads set up earlier on with the first Ark, Nova Prime, etc. are explained and resolved. For once, the character of Nemesis Prime actually makes sense, given what happened to Nova. Optimus gets to prove that he is indeed the noblest of the Primes, despite his doubts back in his own spotlight.
So, having read all the “–ation” storylines, or most of them anyway, how does Simon Furman’s grand storyline look? Unfortunately it was the victim of pacing, being too slow at the beginning for most readers, and wrapping up too quickly in “Revelation” and “Maximum Dinobots”. But there’s a lot to appreciate about his ideas, including the use of characters from all across the G1 era, rather than just the 84-85 years. The threats on multiple fronts, including the war, the Dead Universe characters and the Machination all allowed for layers to the plot that kept things interesting. There’s a definite ‘galaxy-spanning’ feel to the story, with groups of Transformers scattered on many planets. It doesn’t feel like there’s just a small war on Earth and Cybertron, with nothing happening anywhere else. I think the storylines have been well worth my time to read and enjoy, and I think the payoff for all the ‘slow burn’ stories early on was worth the wait. All of this was probably more interesting to me than All Hail Megatron in the long run, though I enjoyed that story as well.
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