Beast Wars Metals issue 2
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| Published in | Comic BomBom | ||||||||||||
| First published | November 1999 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | December 1999 | ||||||||||||
| Story by | Shōji Imaki | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Shōji Imaki | ||||||||||||
The monstrous Protoform X has arrived and only Optimus Primal can stop him... in the most gratuitously violent way possible.
Synopsis
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While patrolling a snowy region of Energoa, Blackarachnia and Tarantulas run afoul of Tigatron, the Maximal samurai ronin. Tigatron cuts Tarantulas neatly in half, but Blackarachnia manages to blind him with her webbing and escape with Tarantulas's remains (the halved spiderbot is still alive, somehow). Tigatron's ponderings turn from his failure in battle to that of his beloved Airazor.
At a hot spring, Megatron is still recovering from his injuries, though his thoughts are haunted by the image of his namesake. Waspinator buzzes in with news of a new stasis pod crash, but Megatron slaps him away, as he's in no condition to go after it.
Meanwhile, the Maximals arrive at what they thought would be the stasis pod but is instead the Axalon, which they'd left hovering in orbit but has crashed down into the ocean. Optimus Primal, Airazor and Rattrap investigate their partly flooded ship and find the remains of their Maximal shipmates, who had all died during the space battle with Megatron that led to Energoa. The difference now is that their corpses have been partially eaten! They find a huge capsule marked "X" but it is empty. Cue Rampage, who bursts from the waters behind them.
Rampage eats Rattrap's tail then attempts to gobble up Airazor, only for Optimus to slice off his right arm with his mace. Optimus reveals to his crew that this is Protoform X, an experiment intended to create an immortal Cybertronian, but ultimately went insane and was incarcerated. Now dubbed "Rampage", the huge crab threatens to devour their sparks and regrows his lost arm. He then eats Optimus's right arm to even the score. Optimus kicks off Rampage's head... which promptly grows right back.
Rattrap tosses Optimus one of his demolition charges and he sticks it in his mouth, allowing Rampage to bite his head off. It is a clever ruse, as the charge goes off in Rampage's stomach and Optimus survives by transforming to beast mode (as he has a "spare head": his gorilla head). Thinking Rampage dead, Optimus calls Rhinox for transport, only for the rejuvenated monster to attack once more and seize him in his claws, dragging him underwater.
Optimus calls Rhinox and asks for a map of undersea volcanic activity in his vicinity. He then calls Rattrap and Airazor and orders them to launch the Axalon's missiles at his specified coordinates. They do so and the resulting explosion launches Rampage and Optimus sky-high. Optimus rips off his remaining arm, jams his hoverboard into Rampage's mouth and uses the propulsion to carry the monster into orbit, where he'll be trapped. Airazor catches Optimus and carries him back to the Maximal Scientific Research Laboratory to reconvene with Rhinox.
On Cybertron, General Ravage (a Decepticon soldier of the Great War assigned by the Tripredacus Council to train new Predacon troops to journey to Energoa) reviews his soldiers. Suddenly, he is approached by the cloaked, laughing figure of Jaguar, his son who has escaped from prison. Ravage, having disowned his son for slaughtering civilians in battle, orders his Predacon troops to attack the fugitive. Jaguar pulls some John Woo nonsense and kills everyone with his twin pistols while diving through the air. He believes himself to be on a holy mission to destroy all Cybertronians, whose war he believes will lead to ultimate destruction if left unstopped. Jaguar promises the corpse of his father that he will end the Beast Wars... by killing everyone on Energoa.
Featured characters
[edit](Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons | Others |
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* Denotes character who appears only as an apparition.
Notes
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- Rampage is identified as a Predacon and features the Predacon markings, although he's still a Maximal creation and wasn't around long enough to join Megatron's side.
- Ravage is portrayed by the McDonald's Happy Meal Panther toy, while Jaguar gets the body/toy of his father's cartoon counterpart.
- We now know where all those generic soldiers from last issue came from; evidently there was a huge space battle that happened leading up to the start of the series with a large crew of soldiers on both sides dying in the chaos.
