You are making me feel better about Hot Rod. I understand his character more. It makes sense if he is somewhat outside of the general command structure. He doesn't follow Prime's lead. Nightbeat told him Prime didn't give orders to orbital jump into the action in Brasnya, but he did anyway, and, as Chip1123 said, he stayed behind on Earth. Ultra Magus isn't a regular troop either.dotCommunism wrote:Does he actually outrank Prowl? Prowl just says that he doesn't outrank Hot Rod, which could also mean they're the same rank or that Hot Rod is outside of the traditional command structure due to his role. Of course the command structure itself seems pretty ill-defined in general.
I think you could make the case that rather than having authority, Hot Rod's mainly a free agent within the Autobot ranks. Due to his ability and specialization, he's allowed to mainly operate on his own, especially due to his authority issues (which I'm not sure is necessarily supported by this version of the character) and the trauma he underwent when his entire team was wiped out in his spotlight.
This doesn't mean I'm not still a little dissappointed that he edged Jazz out of the special mission, but Hod Rod is far more interesting in IDW, so let him at it.