Transformers: Beast Wars: The Revisiting

Transformers: Beast Wars: The Revisiting is an unproduced mini-series from IDW Publishing, meant to follow up from The Gathering and The Ascending. It was to be written by Simon Furman. What is known about the story comes from an outline that was printed in a trade collection for The Ascending. It's plot was to have featured the Vok rewriting history, creating an alternate version of the Beast Wars setting similar to DC's Flashpoint storyline.

Overview

The impetus for the story would have been the Vok altering history so that Megatron's theft of the Golden Disk would have failed and thus the events of the Beast Wars cartoon would never have taken place, with several characters now being in different roles with history altered so drastically. In this new timeline, Big Convoy would have led a team of Maximals to close the temporal anomaly that would lead to prehistoric Earth. However, their ship would be intercepted by the Predacon ship The Razor's Edge, captained by Magmatron, with Megatron being his second in command. Both factions would crash land on Earth and Megatron would trick Magmatron and his elite warriors into exposing themselves to unstable Energon radiation, putting them in stasis lock. Megatron and his warriors, Dinobot, Guiledart, Inferno, Waspinator, Onyx Primal and Rampage would have then scanned beast modes based on the local creatures before setting out to plunder the planet's Energon, to not only empower their forces to retake Cybertron but to also repair the Razor's Edge.

Meanwhile, Big Convoy and his crew, consisting of Rhinox, Panther, Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, Bonecrusher, and Airazor, aboard their ship, the Gung-Ho, plan to guard the site of the Ark until reinforcements arrive as well as repair their own ship. Unknown to both factions, the Vok have already put a contingency plan in place to destroy both factions in case neither learn to work together. A large artificial asteroid dubbed a Planet Buster which, if their plans have failed, will crash into Earth and destroy the Transformers with the resulting Quantum surge.

The first battle between the Predacons and Maximals begins, but during the battle a Vok pyramid trap captures some of the Maximal and Predacon troops, forcing them to work together. However, the trap seems to have a mind of its own. The Vok try to disable the trap, but it seems someone else has taken over their schemes. Not only that, but they have also taken control of the Planet Buster as well, accelerating its course towards Earth!

At the same time, the Planet Buster, which is travelling through time and space, catches the attention of Optimus Primal and his crew, Rattrap Tigatron, Cheetor, Bump, and Heinrad. Detecting it approaching Earth in their ship, the Axalon, Optimus and his crew use their transwarp drive to race ahead of the Planet Buster in hopes of averting the catastrophe.

On Earth, Big Convoy tries to broker a truce with Megatron to free their captured comrades. Megatron appears to agree, but only to get his opponent within range of a Vok weapon he’s discovered. Within the alien pyramid, the Maximals and Predacons are brainwashed into a berserker rage, with Blackarachnia in particular having something… sinister awakened inside of her, something ancient and evil, from a savage era of Cybertron’s past.

Outside, Megatron succeeds in luring Big Convoy into his trap, blasting him at close range and seemingly sending him into a deep ravine. It all seems hopeless, until the Axalon arrives and blasts the Predacons, but not before Megatron uses his new weapon to shoot the ship down, stranding it on Earth as well. After Megatron flees, Optimus and his crew solve the riddle of the alien pyramid, freeing those inside. Back with the Predacons, Megatron’s troops are convinced more Maximals will soon arrive and they will be outnumbered, but Megatron reassures his men that they still have the advantage. For he has a traitor among the Maximals… who has prevented any distress signal from leaving the planet!

With Big Convoy seemingly gone, the remaining Maximals turn to the unsure Optimus for leadership, or merely want to escape the planet themselves. Rhinox manages to restore some order and Optimus briefs the Maximals on the Planet Buster, how that if it crashes into Earth, the slumbering Autobots and Decepticons will be destroyed and all of them might be erased from existence. To add to their problems, Blackarachnia has become increasingly unstable, talking about `ancient ones` and the `coming inferno.`

Tigatron then comes up with a plan. If the Asteroid is locked onto a target on Earth, then if they destroy that target, Earth might be saved. While the Axalon was damaged in the recent battle, only its transwrap drive was completely destroyed, meaning the ship is still spaceworthy. Optimus decides to take a team into orbit to scan for any anomalous energy signatures, while Rhinox decides to take a team of his own to the site of the Ark, dubbed Alpha-Prime, to set up a force bubble around the area in the hopes of protecting themselves and the Autobots and Dcepticons. The teams split up, with Panther and Airazor, along with a now-cataonic Blackarachnia, staying to guard the ‘’Gung-Ho’’

With Megatron, he has observed the Maximals movements and is planning his next attack… but it will not be a frontal assault. Instead, he merely sends a squad to monitor the Maximals at Alpha-Prime and waits. While biding his time, he decides to go out to gloat at the stasis-locked Magmatron and his troops, Archadis, Hardhead, Killer Punch, and Saberback. He knows full well Magmatron can hear everything he says and remarks how long he’d coveted power and how he hated having to follow Magmatron’s every order. But soon all of Cybertron will know the name of Megatron and Magmatron will be merely a forgotten relic of the past.

After finishing their scanning mission in orbit, Optimus and his team return to the Gung-Ho’s crash site, having found the location of the Planet Buster’s homing beacon, in an area of molten Energon ore that they’ll need special equipment to reach. However, as they arrive, the Gung-Ho’s weapons turn on the Axalon, sending it crashing down in a fiery explosion, seemingly killing all aboard.

And inside the Gung-Ho, with an unconscious Panther at his feet, with Airazor now revealed to be the traitor among the Maximal ranks, Megatron watches with glee, knowing that victory will soon be his. As Megatron then prepares to launch the Gung-Ho, having learned of the Planet Buster from Airazor, he spares a passing thought to his remaining troops, who he has deemed expendable. Blackarachnia is still unresponsive, occasionally uttering a word that sounds like ‘mach-mo’.

Notes

• This comic was intended to have canonised the "Swarm" origin story proposed for the Vok by Larry DiTillio, with their goals having been to bring Cybertron into a new Golden Age.