I'm curious who originated the practice. Wouldn't surprise me if it was something that came about under Nova's rule.

 

Yep, it appears to be the Cybertronian equivelant of the Scarlet Letter mixed with traditional Arabian punishment. In a society of castes it would mark them out, and naturally mark them out as disposable once the way kicked in. Makes me want to go an mod my Movie Payload and Swindle to have claw hands too.

 

Assuming they even know what happened to him?

I know how loathed Autocracy is, but the panel where Pax is being repaired by Shockwave, and "Based on recent events, your survival was deemed....logical"...

Hidden message?

 

So was Glitch a victim of Empurata too?

 

I'd assume they don't. They never learnt his name, his appearence is radically altered, and one would assume that once he totally threw his lot in with Megatron he wouldn't bring it up. That's part of what makes it so genius. It's over to Barber now.

 

All the way up until the page right before the reveal, I thought it was going to be

Spoiler

Ultra Magnus

.

Beat me to it. Now what was the exact inner monologue from the Spotlight....

For those who can't wait to get hold of the full issue, here's what I culled as the four most vital pages: scans_daily | More Than Meets the Eye - Shadowplay conclusion (SPOILERS)

This was a masterpiece of writing that has all of us scrambling through back issues to pick out minutia. THIS is how you pull a twist ending. THIS is how you astonish your readers, not simply shock them.

Bravo, sir. Bravo

 

They knew his name.

Roberts was just clever in that he made sure to conspicuously avoid using it.

 

wow.
That wasn't the giant earth shattering reveal I was expecting, but I can honestly say I did not see that coming. Bravo.

Honestly if the point is to completely reconstruct an individual than they certainly did it!

and yay Rang! (LOL)

 

Yeah, it's now the explanation for all the one-eye no-face guys running around.

 

Here's another piece of food for thought.... how did the government find out about the plot in the first place? Prowl wasn't going to say anything, so that means there has to have been a mole in there.

You don't suppose that Skids has been an Institute doubleagent for longer than we thought? As in, back to this era of Cybertron?

After all, not only was he there for the explanation of the plot, but his abilities are almost perfectly suited to the Institute's aims.... and it was HIS grappling winch that jammed up, almost blowing the plot (had it not been for Windcharger saving the day)

 

Oh man. Amazing Spider-Man 698, your ending just got curb-stomped by James Roberts.

 

They should form a gang and go on a crime spree.

 

YOU SIR! How many Internets do you want? Because you just won them all!

 

Double agent? Probably not. Sleeper agent? Quite possibly.

But the winch jamming up was actually because Glitch got too close to Skids.

But with pincers for hands, how would they snap their fingers as they march intimidatingly towards their adversaries?  

 

I'm aware Skids SAID it jammed up because Glitch got too close.

What he said and what happened may be two different things.

 

Not gonna lie, the more I think about it, I think this beats the big Overlord reveal in issue 6.

 

That's gonna get retconed.

But this shit man, this shit is here to stay!

 

Did you forget thetime machine?

 

no, but come on, given how amazing this has been I don't think they introduced that as a huge "Deus Ex MAchina"....for "Just in case"......

 

Especially considering it's been explicitly established as not enabling forwards-and-backwards time travel (barring interaction with crazy time-planets, that is).