Beast Wars: Transformers video game advertising comic
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| "Beast Wars: Transformers" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Hasbro | ||||||||||||
| First published | April 1998 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | May 1998 | ||||||||||||
| Art | Geoff Senior | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | PC/PSX video game continuity | ||||||||||||
After a crash-landing, Maximals and Predacons scan beast modes and start the Beast Wars.
Synopsis
[edit]After a battle above the "Planet Energon" between two warring factions, the Maximals and the Predacons, a pair of scout ships, one from each side, crash-land onto the planet's surface. The Maximal ship lands in the jungle area of the planet and six Transformers emerge from the wreckage. Desperate for energy, the Maximals discover energon nearby, which they notice has no effects on the planet's indigenous lifeforms. One Maximal scans the form of a cheetah and becomes "Cheetor".
Elsewhere, the crash-landed Predacons also scan beast forms and one takes the form of a tarantula, becoming "Tarantalus" [sic].
Cheetor orders the other Maximals to find more animals to scan while he goes looking for the Predacons. As he runs off towards the Predacons' ship, Tarantalus lies hidden, waiting to launch a vengeful sneak attack on the hapless Cheetor.
Tarantalus leaps out and transforms, engaging Cheetor from above. However, Cheetor dodges the enemy's missile fire and retaliates, threatening to get "really nasty" with the spider-bot, which Tarantalus scoffs at.
Featured characters
[edit](Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons | Other |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
[edit]"I'm going to pull your legs off one by one, then I'm going to get really nasty."
"I think not... fur-ball!"
- —Cheetor and Tarantalus exchange banter.
Notes
[edit]Continuity notes
[edit]
- This comic presents an alternate telling of the cartoon's early events, specifically from the first episode, though with several notable differences.
- Six Maximals, instead of four, are said to emerge from the wreckage of the Maximal ship.
- The ships are both described as "scout ships". Neither resembles either the Axalon or the Darksyde.
- The planet which the two ships crash is dubbed 'Planet Energon'.
- Cheetor also seems to be in command of the Maximals here (or at least high enough in rank to give out orders), as well as being a bit on the psychotic side, threatening to mutilate Tarantulas during their battle (see above quote).
- Energon is depicted not as a fuel which overcharges the Transformers, but as a Kryptonite-like substance ala Tox-En that is "lethal to Transformers, as it drains their power", though the scanning Beast Modes to protect oneself from energon's harmful effect is unchanged.
- This comic is the first piece of English-language media to depict a Transformer scanning and replicating an alternate mode under their own power. All past media required them to use external scanning and rebuilding mechanisms to achieve this, but here, Cheetor is shown using the method that will become standard in pretty much all future Transformers series: a scanning beam is projected by his optics, and his body then reconfigures itself into its new form. The first ever use of this method of scanning was seen in the first episode of the Beast Wars II anime, which debuted earlier in the very same month this comic was published.
Errors
[edit]
- Tarantulas's name is consistently misspelt as "Tarantalus".
- Presumably, given who appears in the game, the "six Maximals" should be Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rattrap, Dinobot, Rhinox and Airazor, but of the three shown (visible at the top of this article), only Cheetor is recognisable - the other two are generic blue and brown characters.
- Similarly, while Megatron, Scorponok, Tarantulas, Blackarachnia, Inferno and Terrorsaur appear in the game, neither of the background pair resemble their ostensible counterparts, although the blue one with a Hot Rod-style spoiler on the back does appear feminine.
Other notes
[edit]- This comic was produced as part of an advertising promotion of the PlayStation/PC Beast Wars video game in the UK and first saw print in April 1998 in several video game magazines cover-dated May 1998.
- Magazines this comic is known to have appeared in include Computer and Video Games #198, GamesMaster #68, PC Zone #63 and PlayStation Plus #32.
- Cheetor has quite a potty mouth in this comic.
Reprints
[edit]- Reprints The Gathering #4, The Transformers: Windblade (vol.2) #6, "Of Flying and Falling" (from the Synergy anthology), Transformers: Beast Wars #9: "Thicker Skin", The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers #3, and "Optimus Primal vs Megatron!".
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Transformers: Best of the Beasts; cover art by James Biggie
