The Energon Pub

I recently bought some of the past issues is IDW's Transformers, including the spotlight on Shockwave. In it, Shockwave basically kicks the afterburners of the Dinobots (including Grimlock). Just like he did in the old Marvel series.

Yet, in another spotlight, it appears that Sixshot had the "option" of destroying all of the Terracons.

This completely confuses and baffles me. I mean, Grimlock on his own, is supposed to be one of the most powerful Transformers in existence, perhaps only being eclipsed by Galvatron, Megatron, and Optimus Prime (and even that is debateable). Yet the combined might of all the Dinobots can't even cause damage to Shockwave?? I mean, it was almost like he was toying with them in that fight. The Dinobots are supposed to be the one sub-group that no one messes with...the only way to beat them is to sic a gesalt or a sentinel robot on them.

Grimlock on his own, should be able to trash Shockwave any day of the week.

Why is there such a discrepancy in power levels in these comics?

I've been wondering this myself. Although, to be fair, Shockwave and the Dinobots are supposed to be polar opposites: logic vs random.

I think that hey use popular characters and just do what they want to advance the particular plot....

Either way I'd like the Dinobots to do some winning in the future....

megrimlock wrote:I recently bought some of the past issues is IDW's Transformers, including the spotlight on Shockwave. In it, Shockwave basically kicks the afterburners of the Dinobots (including Grimlock). Just like he did in the old Marvel series.

Yet, in another spotlight, it appears that Sixshot had the "option" of destroying all of the Terracons.

This completely confuses and baffles me. I mean, Grimlock on his own, is supposed to be one of the most powerful Transformers in existence, perhaps only being eclipsed by Galvatron, Megatron, and Optimus Prime (and even that is debateable). Yet the combined might of all the Dinobots can't even cause damage to Shockwave?? I mean, it was almost like he was toying with them in that fight. The Dinobots are supposed to be the one sub-group that no one messes with...the only way to beat them is to sic a gesalt or a sentinel robot on them.

Grimlock on his own, should be able to trash Shockwave any day of the week.

Why is there such a discrepancy in power levels in these comics?

Althou I agree that the fight seemed to be 1 sided.Shockwave is supposed to be at pretty close the equal of Megatron in every universe except the G1 cartoon.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:

megrimlock wrote:I recently bought some of the past issues is IDW's Transformers, including the spotlight on Shockwave. In it, Shockwave basically kicks the afterburners of the Dinobots (including Grimlock). Just like he did in the old Marvel series.

Yet, in another spotlight, it appears that Sixshot had the "option" of destroying all of the Terracons.

This completely confuses and baffles me. I mean, Grimlock on his own, is supposed to be one of the most powerful Transformers in existence, perhaps only being eclipsed by Galvatron, Megatron, and Optimus Prime (and even that is debateable). Yet the combined might of all the Dinobots can't even cause damage to Shockwave?? I mean, it was almost like he was toying with them in that fight. The Dinobots are supposed to be the one sub-group that no one messes with...the only way to beat them is to sic a gesalt or a sentinel robot on them.

Grimlock on his own, should be able to trash Shockwave any day of the week.

Why is there such a discrepancy in power levels in these comics?

Althou I agree that the fight seemed to be 1 sided.Shockwave is supposed to be at pretty close the equal of Megatron in every universe except the G1 cartoon.

And Grimlock is supposed to be at a pretty close the equal of Prime himself. You add that to the 4 other Dinobots (3 of which are supposed to be in the upper echelon of strength levels of all Transformers) and Shockwave should in no way be able to physically manhandle the Dinobots like that.

Nor should Megatron be able to do that, as has been shown in the Marvel series.

This issue is the problem I had with the Marvel comics. Megatron, Shockwave and Galvatron were portrayed as so powerful I could never understand how there was a war still going on. Megs and Shockers should have annihilated the Autobots millenia ago.

IDW Shockwave may have been having a bit of an Ore-13 moment--super energon--. Just a theory.

Who know about the rest. If they made the dinos too powerful, well it would make things way to easy for the autobots. Call the dinobots, we need to win. They were designed as more of a counter to the Constructicons/Devastator even though they had their moments with others.


Of course that was the old continuity. In this new one, they seem to be just an elite force of bots, not necessarily really strong. In fact, in the new IDW-verse I get the feeling that they were considered more powerful because of who led them and how, and not necessarily that they were that much stronger than others.

I thought Shockwave got a burst of "Super strength", in his Spotlight. Not from Ore-13, but from his survival instincts. (something akin to the mothers lifting cars to save their kids theory)

Didn't he say that he was loosing control of his logical thinking because his survival instincts had kicked in? (could be completely fabricated here, will have to re-read the comic)

That and he got some good shots off on the Dino's who never were the most controlled unit of warriors.

He de-activated his higher functions, thus basically making him an animal, and unlocking any survival combat instincts that might've been repressed by his logic. I found it very plausible.

The way I see it, the Dinobots are like a shotgun blast -brief but awesomely powerful if up close and on target, otherwise just a loud noise.

Shockwave? well, he's a laser beam - powerful, unrelenting and with surgical precision.

Shockwave's power is equal to that of Megatron and he's like... turned up to 11

The way I see it, the Dinobots are like a shotgun blast -brief but awesomely powerful if up close and on target, otherwise just a loud noise.

Shockwave? well, he's a laser beam - powerful, unrelenting and with surgical precision.

Shockwave's power is equal to that of Megatron and he's like... turned up to 11

I concur, plus the Dinobots' may have been weakened by the unstable Energon levels of Earth, especially after their protective coating got burnt off. (Forgive the lack of official terminology, I'm going completely off memory here.)

Grimlock basically lost because he got his organic parts destroyed in the Shockwave spotlight. Shockwave only needed to wait for him to stasislock.

Stormwolf wrote:Grimlock basically lost because he got his organic parts destroyed in the Shockwave spotlight. Shockwave only needed to wait for him to stasislock.

Exactly!

Dead Metal wrote:

Stormwolf wrote:Grimlock basically lost because he got his organic parts destroyed in the Shockwave spotlight. Shockwave only needed to wait for him to stasislock.

Exactly!

The Dynobots Organic components being destroyed will probably open the way for them to "upgrade" into their full metal Dinosaur alt modes in the future.

i_amtrunks wrote:The Dynobots Organic components being destroyed will probably open the way for them to "upgrade" into their full metal Dinosaur alt modes in the future.

I hear this will be a prominent plot point in the Snarl Spotlight....

This is a point I have never understood - in all continuities, the Dinobots are portrayed as four of the most powerful transformers in existence - plus Swoop who is no push over.

Despite this, in Marvel first Shockwave, then Megatron, then Gaurdian (okay, the Dino's did get their own back on him in round two), then Megatron and the Constructicons and Soundwave, then Galvatron (plausible I guess) all kick the Dinobots all over the place.

Then you have Blaster standing up to Grimlock one on one which should not be possible and Thunderwing taking out Grimlock and his super duper Pretender suit in Matrix Quest. You could say they drew against Trypticon but then again he was recalled by Ratbat, not because of the damage he was suffering but because of the fuel he was using up.

In fact the only outright win the Dino's get in the Marvel run was the excellent face off against the Predecons.

Compare that to the damage they do in Dinobot Hunt and you think they were pushed over a bit easy.

Then in the movie, Devastator beats the stuffing out of them.

Then in IDW Shockwave just brushes the Dinobots aside again.

For all their faults, I think DW were the only ones to capture the Dinobots perfectly when they launched their attack on Iacon in that it was only the Omega Supreme type bots that were able to stop the Dinobots attack, and before hand when they took Octane out of it - Slag with his head was a bit disturbing.

jdwals wrote:This is a point I have never understood - in all continuities, the Dinobots are portrayed as four of the most powerful transformers in existence - plus Swoop who is no push over.

Despite this, in Marvel first Shockwave, then Megatron, then Gaurdian (okay, the Dino's did get their own back on him in round two), then Megatron and the Constructicons and Soundwave, then Galvatron (plausible I guess) all kick the Dinobots all over the place.

Then you have Blaster standing up to Grimlock one on one which should not be possible and Thunderwing taking out Grimlock and his super duper Pretender suit in Matrix Quest. You could say they drew against Trypticon but then again he was recalled by Ratbat, not because of the damage he was suffering but because of the fuel he was using up.

In fact the only outright win the Dino's get in the Marvel run was the excellent face off against the Predecons.

Compare that to the damage they do in Dinobot Hunt and you think they were pushed over a bit easy.

Then in the movie, Devastator beats the stuffing out of them.

Then in IDW Shockwave just brushes the Dinobots aside again.

For all their faults, I think DW were the only ones to capture the Dinobots perfectly when they launched their attack on Iacon in that it was only the Omega Supreme type bots that were able to stop the Dinobots attack, and before hand when they took Octane out of it - Slag with his head was a bit disturbing.

This is precisely my beef with all of the continuities portrayal of the Dinobots. The only way you should physically be able to beat the Dinobots (via pure strength) is with either a gestalt, or a sentinel (Omega Supreme-type) robot.

I mean, I could accept Shockwave/Galvatron/Megatron getting the upper hand on the Dinobots by using some type of strategy that essentially "outsmarts" the Dinobots.

But what we have seen is basically Shockwave/Galvatron/Megatron decide to just turn up the juice, and physically manhandle all of the Dinobts. I mean, even on his own, Shockwave shouldn't be able to beat Grimlock (remember, Grimlock is supposed to be pretty much the strongest Autobot in existence, or at least close to par with Prime himself). And then you toss in the combined might of Slag,Snarl,Sludge, and Swoop? Forget about it!

jdwals is right. DW was the only continuity to truly capture how powerful the Dinobots are supposed to be. As soon as they attacked Iacon, Shockwave didn't hesitate to activate multiple sentinel robts to defend themselves. Any other individual Decepticon or group of Decepticons that tries to go against the Dinobots should effectively be considered dead on arrival.

I finally found this issue to purchase. Pretty neat, but I agree, Shockwave laid waste and I don't think he should have been able to do that!

But that was definately cool how we get to see how the dinobots get their metallic beast forms, in this continuity, by their *skin* melting off. Very cool.

are they going to apear in the IDW comics again?

If they don't it will be a huge dissapointment. I mean, the next series is called Devastation and it's suppose to be just that, devastation, and I think the Dinobots and devastation have a good relationship.. !

It's basically the Silver Surfer syndrom.

Everybody knows that hero "a" is a complete powerhouse, so if you need to show how powerful villain "z" is, have him beat the supposedly unstoppable "a".

i think the fight in the shockwave spotlight was going down like that because they kept having buffer problems and shockwave alreay modded his internal systems to elimintate that problem....had it not been for that im pretty sure grimlock would have killed his ass one deep....i would like to say its the same as trying to run while u are out of breath....lol

Shockwave laid the ssmack down with that enormous blast which probably rivals/exceeds the yield of Megatron's fusion cannon - and yet all it definitively did was cook off the Dinobot's organic coating, exposing them to the Earth's energon fields. They didn't display any serious physical injuries; Grimlock even got up and kept moving for a while before the energon radiation zapped him.

Also note, that the Dinobots were effectively fighting with a severe handicap - they couldn't use their robot modes, which would be at least somewhat better armed and much more 'familiar' to them.

And additionally, Grimlock is seldom uberbadass unless you're reading a fanfic or something by Furman. Your list of times the Dinobots have lost is evidence of that.

The above has a good point. They were pretty disabled in multiple ways. And it was the stasis locks that really kicked their butts!

I agree with everyone about the unequal portrayal of our Dinobuddies. I never understood the Marvel version of them, but I just took that storyline as a standalone one and independant from what we all know in the animated and toy versions. Still I do like the fact they are one of the strongest groups and IMO should've taken down Devastator in the classic animated movie.

Now when will they ever reissue our beloved G1 dinobuddies?!