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Spotlight: Nightbeat

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👁 Spotlight Nightbeat cvrA.jpg

Nightbeat, P.I.?
"The Transformers: Spotlight #2 Nightbeat"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published October 18, 2006
Cover date October 2006
Written by Simon Furman
Art by MD Bright
Colors by John Rauch
Letters by Sulaco Studios
Edits by Chris Ryall & Dan Taylor
Continuity 2005 IDW continuity
Chronology 2006-7

Lured by an ancient relic, Nightbeat discovers something sinister...

Contents

Synopsis

Autobot officer Nightbeat has always been a 'bot fascinated by mysteries, enigmas, and puzzles. When a mercenary named Krakon proffers the would-be detective an ancient flight recorder — one that supposedly belonged to the original Ark, Nightbeat can't help but accept the offer. But when he makes contact with his benefactor, things quicky take a turn for the strange: when Nightbeat arrives to pick up the flight recorder, he finds that Krakon is on the brink of death; the alien's last words are a sputtered warning about a "hole in the world...." Unable to turn down the lure of this mystery, Nightbeat quickly puts himself on the case. Everything in Krakon's collection, he notes, is untouched — everything, that is, except for the flight recorder that Nightbeat came to collect in the first place, prompting Nightbeat to reflect upon the mystery of the first Ark. Originally commissioned to plot a course from Cybertron to the Benzuli Expanse, it was lost to history without ever reaching its destination. And although some 'bots think that the circumstances behind its disappearance should remain a mystery, Nightbeat is not one of them.

Nightbeat's first stop is the distant world of Gorlam Prime, the planet where the flight recorder was excavated in the first place. Reformatting his body to transform into a local automobile, Nightbeat slips in via orbital jump and merges with the local traffic as he takes in the scenery. He immediately clues into the fact that something's isn't right: although the people of Gorlam Prime only had their industrial revolution a few centuries ago, they've rapidly evolved in the interim — far beyond their projected development — and have developed into a civilization of mechanically augmented cyborgs. Combined with a series of mysterious, deep-reaching excavation shafts, Nightbeat immediately suspects that an off-world presence is secretly interfering with the cultural and technological development of Gorlam's inhabitants.

Upon reaching the fourth such excavation site, Nightbeat finds evidence that seemingly confirms his suspicions: metal fragments of Cybertronian origin that date back to the era of the original Ark! His curiosity undeniably piqued, Nightbeat sends a summary of what he's uncovered so far to his ship as a precaution, and heads deeper into the shaft to investigate further, unaware that he's been tailed by a quartet of tiny Transformers...

Nightbeat continues to explore the depths of Gorlam Prime, discovering another oddity: a network of tunnels scaled to Transformer proportions. Compelled ever onwards, Nightbeat finally reaches a the strangest feature of all: a gigantic "sea" of silvery liquid, stretching in all directions. Further investigation reveals that the "sea" is, in fact, a gigantic portal to somewhere else: the "hole in the world" Krakon warned him about. Nightbeat takes a few cautious steps into the shallows, but is unsettled by the sensation and retreats immediately, coming face-to-face with the four small Transformers.

Though Nightbeat tries to communicate with the unknown Cybertronians, the diminutive robots surround him... and when strange, silvery creatures rise from the portal, Nightbeat realizes he's in over his head and makes a break for it. Unfortunately, his four pursuers are faster, more agile, and better-armed than he is; dodging a neural disruptor, Nightbeat is unprepared for two more of the small 'bots to deploy a payload of explosives in front of him, causing him to swerve into a branching tunnel. Too late, Nightbeat realizes that that's what his pursuers wanted him to do. Trapped in the dead end, he is knocked offline by another neural disruptor and captured by the tiny Transformers. Strapped on an operating table, Nightbeat flashes in and out of consciousness as a shadowy figure alters his brain. Nightbeat, unable to move or resist, realizes that he'd been deliberately lured to Gorlam Prime thanks to the false promise of the flight recorder, and drawn into the depths of Gorlam Prime to fulfill the needs of his captors. As Nightbeat overhears snatches of conversation about a "Dead Universe" and an "Expansion", his captor places a cerebral implant inside his head that configures him into a sleeper agent...

A routine sweep of the Durzan Sector proves no challenge for Nightbeat, who's back aboard his ship with no memory of his adventure. Bored and desperate for a good mystery to solve, he's fortuitously interrupted from his humdrum mission by a transmission from Optimus Prime who requires his deductive services on Earth.

Nightbeat eagerly agrees, but not before first suffering a minor cerebral surge that he can't explain. In fact, he muses as he sets a new course for Earth, he just can't shake the feeling that he's missing something...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Continuity notes

  • When seeing the inhabitants turning from organic to mechanical, Nightbeat wonders if Cybertron has a similar origin. Remember that, it becomes important later.
  • As Nightbeat first confronts the Micromasters, three distinct figures can be seen emerging from the void. They never appear on panel after becoming fully formed, but it was likely some combination of Nova Prime, Jhiaxus, Galvatron, and according to the below referenced script, Straxus. We also see an extreme close-up of Straxus' face as he regards the implant that will be placed in Nightbeat's head, and it matches the design that Dan Khanna created for the IDW version of the character that will formally debut in Spotlight: Cyclonus. However, it's unknown what came first, the face, or Khanna's design for Straxus, as there's a significant real-life time-gap between the character's appearances.
  • Just before the comm signal from Optimus Prime arrives, Nightbeat considers dusting off one of the "Big Three" mysteries. Thanks to More than Meets the Eye #29 and Lost Light #16, we know he's referring to the aforementioned first Ark, the "Seething Moon", and the mystery of Rung's alternate mode.

Transformers references

  • The Ark is the traditional name for just about any given Autobot spacecraft; appearing in both the Generation 1 cartoons and comics as the primary mode of transportation for Optimus Prime's Autobots. The concept received a drastic reinvention for its appearance in the IDW continuity: later issues would reveal that the original Ark we see in this isuse was helmed by Nova Prime, and that all future Arks—such as the ones that appear in the concurrent Infiltration miniseries—were named in honor of the original lost vessel.
  • The four tiny Transformers that pursue Nightbeat are Micromasters: more specifically, Hyperdrive, Blackjack, Road Hugger, and Detour, reimagined here as the artificially engineered end-point of Gorlamite evolution. None of these little Transformers will show up again outside of Furman's run — except for Blackjack, due to some extenuating circumstances... but see "Trivia" below for more on that.

Real-life references

  • As he drives through the streets of Gorlam Prime, Nightbeat observes its cybernetically-augmented inhabitants and wonders if his own race once went through a similar transitional phase. While no concrete origin story has yet been established for the IDW Transformers, a similar origin story was concocted for those "distant dimensional analogues" of the Transformers, the GoBots.

Errors

  • During Nightbeat's monologue on page 6, "it's" should instead be "its".
  • This issue predates later fiction that would more clearly establish how Transformers in this continuity acquire vehicle modes, so we can't label it as an error, per se, but how Nightbeat changes his vehicle mode is at odds with what we'd later learn. He transports down to Gorlam Prime with his standard robot mode, and then, seemingly on the fly, transforms into a Gorlam Prime-specific vehicle mode, with his robot mode adjusted to match. At the end of the issue, after his memory has been wiped, he is back in his original robot mode. Whilst this kind of on-the-go alt-mode switching wouldn't be out of place in some other continuities, where Transformers can quickly trans-scan new vehicle modes, subsequent IDW fiction would cement that in this continuity, taking on a new alternate mode requires manual reconstruction.
  • Compounding this oddity, Nightbeat mentions that he's "[made] refinements to his exostructure" as he lands on Gorlam Prime (perhaps suggesting that Furman's intent was that he'd physically rebuilt himself?), but the accompanying art shows him in his Cybertronian robot form before switching to his Gorlamite sedan disguise.

Other trivia

  • The shadowy figure who's seen operating on Nightbeat here goes unnamed and largely unseen, but Spotlight: Hardhead, released a few years later would reveal that it was Straxus.[1]
  • Blackjack makes his debut here as a Gorlamite Micromaster, explicitly confirmed in later issues to be the product of experiments conducted on Gorlam Prime's population. Another, non-Micromaster Blackjack debuted in 2015 in The Transformers vol. 2 #39 to advertise the concurrently-released Menasor toy. This phenomenon will crop up a few more times!
  • This issue was released with four different covers, including a "sketch" version of the MD Bright cover. For BotCon 2006, IDW sold an exclusive version of the comic with all four covers stapled together as a single thick book. This multi-cover issue was sold well before the issue hit comic stores.

Covers (4)

  • Cover A: Nightbeat with flashlight, by MD Bright and Josh Burcham (colors).
  • Cover RI-A: Nightbeat with an Ark hologram, by James Raiz and Josh Burcham (colors).
  • Cover RI-B: Nightbeat and metal sea, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham (colors).
  • BotCon Exclusive Sketch Cover: Uncolored Cover A (front) and B (back)

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References

  1. ↑ According to the script for Spotlight: Hardhead.
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