Polar Battle Bear (Beastformers)

This article is about the Beastformer. For the G.I. Joe vehicle, see Polar Battle Bear (G.I. Joe).

Polar Battle Bear is a Beastformer from the Generation 1 continuity family.

White Leo's army has several beasts who look like big brutes but are quite gentle souls. Polar Battle Bear (ポーラバトルベア Pōra Batoru Bea) is not one of them. Quite the opposite, in fact: though he looks soft and can glide across the ice with grace like a champion ice skater, he's very rough around the edges, rude and impulsive. He's a big dreamer and always works with the "go big or go home" attitude. He does have a softer side though, as he's always ready to stand up and defend younger beasts.

Following the war, he returned to his homeland of North Yutoranta to rule as its King, bringing his big plans with him. He works incredibly well with his subordinate Emperor Cuttledeep, despite the two having been on opposite sides during the war; both are very ambitious individuals who love the challenge of a big project.

In battle, Polar uses his skating skill to maneuver around opponents with surprising speed. His MVP Weapon, the Polar Freezer (ポーラフリーザー Pōra Furīzā), can fire a beam that freezes enemies in place, setting them up for his favorite method of combat... bodily smashing into them at high speed and knocking them into next week.

Toys

Transformers: Beastformers

• Polar Battle Bear (Beastformer, 1987)
  • Beast ID number: 48
  • Accessories: Axe

Part of the second series of Takara's Beastformers toys, Polar Battle Bear is an anthropomorphic polar bear in light blue robotic armor. The rubsign on his chest reveals one of three symbols; Fire, Water or Wood.

He came in a green-grid generic "Destron Beastformer" box, with a bio card with a painted character image on a jungle backdrop. Re-released in Series 3, the box was unchanged, but the bio card replaced the painted image with a simpler line-art image, first used in Hasbro's Battle Beasts cast poster. In both Series, depending on the "Pack" he came in, there was a chance of his bio card being replaced with a rare "Secret Photo", "Bewitching Serpent Seal", or "VS Holography Mirror" card.

Beastformers

• Polar Battle Bear (Beastformer, 1988)
  • Beast ID number: 48
  • Accessories: "Polar Freezer" MVP Weapon

Re-released in the Transformers-less Beastformers sequel series, Polar Battle Bear was given a straight re-release with new packaging and a new, more filled-out bio card with corrected coloring. This new card also gave his weapon, now branded an "MVP Weapon", the name "Polar Freezer".

He was sold in two similar-but-different styles of boxes. One wholly-generic version, sold in large display boxes like the Transformers releases, advertised the chance for the included bio card to instead be a rare holofoil card of White Leo with a "Burstsun" rubsign in a baggie taped to the back, so you could apply it to the Beastformer of your choice. The more common version has a slightly different box with a peg-hole in the top flap, and has a sticker on the bottom with his name and role on it.

Late in the run, the "mood ring" styled rubsigns were replaced with new rubsigns that revealed full-color Fire/Wood/Water images on black backdrops. (These rubsign variants also happened at the same time in the Hasbro Battle Beast version of the line.)

Notes

• Despite the similarity between their names, no association between Polar Battle Bear and Battle Bear was ever established or even hinted at.
• Polar's 1987 checklist-poster art incorrectly colors his weapon silver. The recolored art used for 1988 materials corrects this mistake.
• His 1988 bio card gives him the nickname "Polar" (ポーラ Pōra), and notes he was born on Zemlya island in the sea just north of North Yutoranta.

Foreign names

• English: Pillaging Polar Bear