Transformers - Spotlight: Blaster

Spotlight: Blaster is a good demonstration of the way the format found itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand it's been irritating to have ongoing plots sneak into the Spotlights but on the other something like this standalone character piece feels like a waste of pages now the box has been opened.

In this case the focus is firmly on the Autobot communications officer and his role in the war as a propaganda broadcaster,  boosting the morale of the Autobots with his rousing speeches. The speeches we hear admittedly aren't very inspiring but it's a nice bit of thinking for Furman, albeit still in the frame of reference of the civil war rather than the full blown Cybertronian culture James Roberts would later explore, and that sort of thing is difficult to write anyway. So Furman gets a pass there and the scenes of bustling Autobots listening in gives a good background canvas with lots of fun cameos to spot. 

The bulk of the plot revolves around a second attempt to assassinate Blaster (the issue opens with his deactivated body floating in space before being returned to the Autobots after the first), the twist being that the would be killer is - duh duh duuh - a fellow Autobot. The resulting attempt to lure said killer into the open is good hokey fun, even though if Blaster was half the asset the story makes him out to be it would never have been considered. 

The traitor is found in short order to be Beachcomber, and this is where the issue falls down. Obviously the irritating Minibot was being mentally controlled in what feels like a Saturday morning cartoon climbdown. Wouldn't it have been much more exciting to play with the pacifist aspect of Beachcomber's character and have him reluctantly resolve to assassinate The Voice for his stirring propaganda prolonging the war? Instead the resolution is used to set up an obvious rivalry between Blaster and Soundwave that to the best of my recollection never bore fruit.

Underwhelming (but truth be told competent ) conclusion aside this is an interesting look at Blaster taken in isolation. However,  in the wider context of the IDW universe and the way the recent Spotlights have been heading you have to question if this story had to be told here and now.

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