Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Transformer Spotlight: Grimlock
IDW Comics
Furman, Matere, Atkinson, Shalloo & Elder

An odd issue as the plots from the Devastation arc get wrapped up in a series of Spotlights. This issue wraps up one of the more minor ones. I found the issue to be unsatisfying on that end, but a couple of technical mistakes bothered me enough in the issue for me to really end up disliking it.

Let’s get down to it. Grimlock is unearthed and is trying to be controlled by the government the same way two of Soundwave’s cronies were controlled. Actually it failed and so does this test with Grimlock. If you fail with two small Transformers why would they try to control a huge one? So Grimlock escapes.

The headmasters enter the fray with Scorponok. I guess Scorponok is controlled by a human but has his memories or something. This is a gray area. Scorponok tries to lure Grimlock to his side. Grimlock gets angry and fights him instead. Grimlock is about to lose when he escapes in a way I don’t quite understand. I think he was beamed to some ship or something. I guess this ship has been orbiting Earth all this time. I really didn’t quite understand what happenend but it appears Grimlock left Earth.

Now for the parts that stuck with me that a quality control department would have caught. First, the typo. Page 13 has the word “strenght”. Nice, but I’m not done. Page 16 has Scorponok talking about Scorponok. Did he mean to say Grimlock? Or was the word bubble meant for Grimlock to speak despite the fact that he isn’t on the panel? One more. Page 19 has two word bubbles falling off the page. Was this a paper cut gone wrong or was it a misalignment of the bubbles prior to printing? I’m thinking the later because every issue in my LCS has this without affecting the opposite side of the staple. You make the call. Are these mistakes something to harp on?

The art seemed half finished in some spots. The coloring of Grimlock and Scorponok are almost the same and yet they actually shouldn’t even be close. I found the art to be either rushed or lazy and either are not a good thing to have.

Throw in the fact that this story just didn’t satisfy any of the loose threads from Devastation and we have a real dud.

What did I like about the issue? I liked the dilemma that Grimlock found himself in. He was faced with the prospect of being alone. With no other Dinobots or Autobots what does he do with himself? Throw in the mix that the enemy is making him an offer and we have a good foundation for a story. This saved this issue from shooting a complete blank in the goggle department.

Mistakes made this issue impossible to score fairly. You ask someone to spend four bucks on something I would hope someone would give it a once over. Paying a dollar more than the norm in the industry warrants some flack for this number of screw ups in one issue.

2 out of 5 geek goggles.