Spotlight: Wheelie

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zigzagger
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Spotlight: Wheelie

Post by zigzagger »

Closing the third volume of Transformers: Spotlights is Wheelie, living it up in his very own spotlight. This is your all purpose Spotlight: Wheelie reaction and discussion thread. Will the years of stigmatisation finally be lifted off our small orange friend? Maybe. But let’s think positive anyway. Anyone who resorts to using tired and overplayed Wheelie gags here will be fed to ravenous pigs. Enjoy!
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Due to ship along with Spotlight:Cyclonus June 18th according to grahamcrackers.com release schedule
http://grahamcrackers.com/newcomics.htm
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Blackjack
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Post by Blackjack »

Wheelie's spotlight. This is gonna be fun. Either it is going to be good, or very bad. Let's hope he doesn't rhyme, or many flak will come from me. Heh heh heh.
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zigzagger
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Post by zigzagger »

Blackjack wrote:Wheelie's spotlight. This is gonna be fun. Either it is going to be good, or very bad. Let's hope he doesn't rhyme, or many flak will come from me. Heh heh heh.
Yeah, I'm optimistic (about both Spotlights coming out the 18th, actually). I have hight hopes for this one. It will at least be fun. Though the survivalist angle has sort have been used before, it will be nice to see it fleshed out a bit more.
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Hennessy
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Post by Hennessy »

I'm just glad that these are finally coming out, it's been a minute since I've read anything TF.
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Blackjack
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Post by Blackjack »

Reflector is being used, am I correct?
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zigzagger
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Post by zigzagger »

Yep.
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Commander Shockwav
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Post by Commander Shockwav »

Well, this was Castaway meets Transformers, wasn't it?

It's a fun little tale, but I'm glad I read Spotlight:Cyclonus after this one and not before, or I could see myself being much too harsh in my evaluation of it.

Storywise, it's a fun read. It's a good example of what Spotlight's should strive for, that is, presenting a self-contained tale where we see the main character take a journey of sorts to become something he or she wasn't at the stories beginning. I think we get that here, along with a clever little twist at the end with Wheelie's trickery that brought a smile to my face. Good riddance, Reflector.

Art was good, but not great, IMO. Clearly, Don, E.J. and Guido are in a league of their own when it comes to drawing bots, but Klaus does an effective enough job with the pencilling here and it's good to have him as another option.

Enter the Quints. Sigh. Never been a fan of them, but who knows? If Wheelie can shine as a character, why not them?

A fun, stand-alone "B-" tale, and I find myself not being the Wheelie hater I once was.

(But if he starts that rhyming up again, count me out)
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zigzagger
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Post by zigzagger »

That was simply delightful! Just as I had hoped. Not necessarily the most exceptional of Spotlights to date (pretty damn close), but still delightful. Memorable too. Dialogue heavy, mostly spoken through internal monologue, Wheelie tells a rather touching story. The plot is very much character driven, not once deviating from Wheelie's story. In this respect, the book fulfills it duty as a Spotlight, and in my opinion, does it quite well. Wheelie is an interesting character - he's humble, flawed, real and at moments quite funny (Wheelie retrieving his arm from Chaosterous' dung pile after a failed attempt to entreat the creature with the universal greeting was an amusing moment). Wheelie plays the survivalist role well, and I was pleased to see this fleshed out further here.

One minor niggle was Varta's universal translator chip "with a twist". It's purpose, cute as it was, seemed almost unnecessary in relation to the story (i.e. similar to Grimlock's supposedly damaged vocal processor in his Spotlight). EDIT: Okay, it's not really that unnecessary. It helped him communicate with Varta, making it somewhat relevant to the story's survivalist theme. And is it safe to assume the image on the final panel means we'll be seeing the Quintessons at some point? I'll reserve judgment of that to a later time.

This was a very unique tale that finally makes Wheelie an interesting character, in my opinion. It 's a wonderfully fun diversion if you are willing to look past the character's history (and the rhyming, brief as it was). Yes, ziggy liked it.
4/4.5 out of 5 (maybe more upon the second reading)
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Halfshell
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Post by Halfshell »

Good fun, with a whacking great two fingers up at continuity.

Hardly surprising that Wheelie was picked ahead of Bumper, seeing as he's dead. And I think that applies to Scrounge too. Unless that was, like, the joke or something. Personally I prefer to view it as step one on the road to completely retconning Morigin out of existence.

Interesting to see how McCarthy's going to justify Reflector in AHM now. Though I forsee a "they had teh teleport all along but forgot!!11" loophole.

Yayyyyyyyy.

Reason for the rhyming's not brilliant, but at least it's an actual reason. Which is more than we got before. Hot Spot's two words, isn't it? Eh, and Banzai-Tron has a hyphen... bugger it.

Was all braced for the "penultimate page reveal" that Furmo's been teasing. Evidently we're including the "how to draw" (or whatever) page that comes after the story in that count... very confused.

But... was hoping we wouldn't see them. Was bound to happen eventually. And it does tie Wheelie back into the previous incarnations. Wild Boy of Quintessa indeedz.
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zigzagger
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Post by zigzagger »

Halfshell wrote: Hardly surprising that Wheelie was picked ahead of Bumper, seeing as he's dead. And I think that applies to Scrounge too. Unless that was, like, the joke or something. Personally I prefer to view it as step one on the road to completely retconning Morigin out of existence.
I have to admit, that panel kind of irked me. Yes, I understood that it was stressing that Wheelie was grossly under appreciated and that this treatment would lead to him proving his worth, but come on...he was reluctantly picked over Roller (and the other two, as already mentioned, are dead. That is, if you're willing to include Megatron:Origin as in continuity). I guess it was kind of funny...sort of. It made me frown. Poor Wheelie :( But, I guess that's why I liked Wheelie here - he's a bit of loser, which makes him believable to an extent.
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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Yeah, this was a good one. It stands alone well but possibly leads into future plots. I liked the messed up arm idea (altough why are all the organic animals trying to eat him?). The conflict with the cons is brief but works. If reflector is in the AHM I'm confused how things are all linked. Maybe the reflector character is a clone or something.

One thought that did come to me though. In Spotlight:Optimus, prime recieves the communication from wheelie. Either he doesnt act on it (which is being a bit of a dickhead) or the next time we see wheelie (and the other inhabitants of the planet) will be when the rescue crew arrive.

Regarding the quints, I dont mind them being in the IDW world but they'll need a major overhaul to be interesting. Lets face it, for non-toy characters they were heavily used in both cartoon and comic.
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Post by Vida »

I really liked this one. I thought it was going to be terrible but Wheelie came out likable which an amazing feat all on its own.

I have a question though. If memory serves, all the other Spotlights have little bios of the character on the backside of the cover. The comic I got just has a big orange spot where text has typically been in the past. Did they just skip out on that this time around?

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Post by inflatable dalek »

A hugely enjoyable romp, it did cheat a bit with the alien giving his name off panel so they didn't have to think of a rhyme for it, but it was still great guns.

IDW's atrocious editing continues though, no misplaced speech bubbles this time and I'll charitably assume they're trying to retcon Origin out of continuity, But someone along the line should have said "Actually guys, we're planning to use Reflector in AHM so could you either not kill them so hard or feature the Firecons instead?"
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Post by Denyer »

Brilliant, especially the details that go above and beyond such as the retro cover. Sumptuous art and colours throughout, stacks of text, more big-picture stuff relating to the Autobot war effort, and some genuinely gripping character writing. Plus whilst the Quints don't need to be anything more than long-lost buried remnants in this continuity, the nod's nice.

The issue as a whole really shows the care and attention that's been given to putting it together. Solid work by Klaus/Simon/Josh, and is this the first regular issue Denton's edited?

4.5/5
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Red Dave Prime
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

A re-read of this has me thinking it might be set further in the future. This would allow the incidents of AHM to pass with the spybots fleeing earth in their ship and crashing on wheelies world (quintessa?) The wheelie issue covers a lot of ground going from the great war to when he crashes, anoher long spell until the decepticons appear and then another year before the end of the issue.
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Post by Halfshell »

Though it being current ties in with Wheelie's appearance in Spotlight Optimus Prime.
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Post by Red Dave Prime »

Actually no. Prime gets image of wheelie just before the start of the devastation arc but that happens near the start of wheelies adventures. Seeing as at least a year passes by the time we get to the finish, the end of wheelie must be happening some months after the devastation arc (which, altough dragged over 6 issues only takes place over a few hours)

The IDW universe needs star dates! :)
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Vida
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Question - Spotlight Wheelie

Post by Vida »

I posted this in the Spotlight Wheelie thread but I feel its been overlooked. In my copy of spotlight wheelie there is no descrtiption/bio of wheelie on the inside/backside of the cover where there has been on all the other spotlights. Is this so with everyone else's issues?

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Post by zigzagger »

It's not in my copy either (and from what I gathered reading elsewhere, that's just how they were all printed). I have the B cover variant though, so I'm not sure if it is different with the other (I some how doubt it, though do correct me). The way I figured it, because this bio is basically on the front of the B cover, perhaps may be the reason why it did not appear on the inside. Though, that really doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, that's all I got.

EDIT: Think I'll move this back with the rest of the Spotlight: Wheelie thread and just leave the re-directory up for a while.
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Post by slartibartfast »

zigzagger wrote:That was simply delightful!
I loved it. Thoroughly enjoyable, if I may join in the consensus.

Was waiting eagerly for this. Picking one of the most annoying characters of the series sort of foretold they were likely to pull something out of the hat in the same vein as Kup. It works mighty fine. Well paced throughout too.

Great work guys.
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