The Energon Pub

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Sonar has a unique and interesting design. Not just a generic with wing kibble and a bat head on her chest.

Ah, so that's how you feel about the bat Optimus Primal toy.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

You do know that that pre-beast Megatron body is just a recoloring of this with Megatron's head attached to it, right?



That's not a Cybertronian design, that's (as you put it) a recycled CGI model, specifically from ReBoot.

Ok so you're trying to be clever, and just being pedantic.




That's what the Bat Primal design looks like. Or this, newer iteration:






This is also a picture of Megatron. You do know that Right?

Dear gosh, what a couple of posts.

I like the art, Burcham does fantastic art, been a fan for a while, it works for me. It looks good. curves/straight don't matter to me, it looks great. It's a new universe, he can do whatever he likes with it.

Nyx isn't some sort of stereotypic "Bat Girl" thingy to break the 4th wall or such, just the new character. All writers add some new characters, it allows them to put their characters into fiction. Drift, Rung, Rubble, Wheezing Arrow, Sharpclaw, etc. I'm good with it.

I'm okay with her inclusion, I don't see what the big fuss is about. It's not going to replace the old Beast Wars

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Nyx isn't some sort of stereotypic "Bat Girl" thingy to break the 4th wall or such,

As the series hasn't dropped yet. It is all speculative conjecture.

ZeroWolf wrote:It's not going to replace the old Beast Wars

I tend to think quite highly of most people on here (that or not at all). However, You should never use that line, in particular. It is reductive towards both concern and critique. While also being dismissive of either.


Let's save the overt positivity until at least a preview appears, too. The IDW track record for Beast Wars to date, leans heavily towards scepticism. Also BW is a 90's property with very different sensibilities to those from the 80's. Setting the proper tone is more important here than anything done with G1.

On the subject, as no secondary media existed for Beast Wars at the time. One thing I would have loved was series done in the style of the original box/bio artwork. It was so detailed and visceral. There really isn't much in Transformers that would have been like it.

My comment came off more sparky then I liked so I'll apologise for that. I meant it more like, no matter what the end product, we'll still have Beast Wars and all its other off shoots. It should have been more hopeful. I also wouldn't judge this solely by the past, as different creators are involved. I honestly can't remember who wrote the Beast Wars Gathering/Ascending. I have experienced this writer's work before, so I have a good feeling about it. The art will end up being more subjective and its more about how much you're willing to look past it. I can ignore a lot if the story is good, but I'm also aware that not every one can. We like what we like after all.

ZeroWolf wrote:I honestly can't remember who wrote the Beast Wars Gathering/Ascending.

Alas it was Simon Furman. I had high hopes for The Gathering/Ascending, with his name attached. In light of his stint on IDWverse being the highpoint for me, personally. Plus his previous experience writing Beast Wars itself, ala Nemesis Part 2. But, it was ultimately squandered opportunity. Wasted on the BW2 & Neo cast.

I'm really trying not to be a downer on this. But I can't really look past the fact this only exists for IDW to make money out of the BW anniversary. When IDW kicked off their Transformers series, it was done purely to bring Transformers back. It was largely unconnected to a current cartoon or specific toyline HasTak were pushing at the time.

This isn't that. As someone with a creative background, it is an issue that bothers me more than anything else. More than the art. Which is far from the worst IDW has put out for Transformers.
That's a three way tie between the "Bayformers-like" Costa Era, Heart of Darkness and The Primacy Trilogy.

Here's a fun hypothetical for ya, ANSR (or, perhaps, for anybody here who'd like to ponder the question).

Hasbro decides that they want to celebrate the Beast Wars anniversary (for once) by created a brand new ongoing Beast Wars comic book series published by IDW, and they in their wisdom have decided to put YOU in charge of it. Yes, total creative control over the story, characters, setting, art, etc. (though, Hasbro still gets to have the final say over everything, of course).

It could be a remake, a fresh reboot, an Elseworlds style "What if?" (though, this format might be more suited to a one-shot or a mini-series rather than an ongoing), or something set in existing Beast Wars fiction (but not Beast Machines since that's a different franchise). The only stipulation being is that it must be Beast Wars (not Beast Machines) with Maximals vs. Predacons and beast modes. Oh, and of course, no NSFW stuff (this is a children's toy property, after all).

With that kind of power thrown into your hands, how you would go about making the new Beast Wars comic series a reality?

I have two ideas.

1)An Elseworlds/What If? tale. Following through on the promise to the ending of The Agenda. A done in one graphic novel style book. Taking the tone of Season 2 and crank it up to the next level.

2)A continuation to Beast Machines. BUT! This is following the PoV of the Predacon Alliance. Absent from the story prior. Who were in fact amassing their feudal society under one banner. Their target? Follow the death of Megatron, the "defenceless" techno-organic world of Cybertron. Cheetor now leads the defending force against a planet-wide invasion. Vehicon drones are all offline. Leaving them as a potential source of new characters down the line. As the sparks of the "dead" need new bodies to inhabit. With new techno-organic Beast Modes. Yes, I would tweak BM just a little to fit more into a BW mold.

Also Nightscream died on his way back to his home planet

I should have further specified that I meant "Beast Wars, not Beast Machines" when I said "that it must be Beast Wars".

Sabrblade wrote:I should have further specified that I meant "Beast Wars, not Beast Machines" when I said "that it must be Beast Wars".

Yes, as I said. A continuation of Beast Machines. But ignore all that, I'm sweeping everything BM under the rug except for the finale. Now you have a weakened Maximal force having to defend techno-organic Cybertron from an invading Predacon army. With random Vehicon drone bodies as a surrogate for Protoform Stasis Pods.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:I should have further specified that I meant "Beast Wars, not Beast Machines" when I said "that it must be Beast Wars".

Yes, as I said. A continuation of Beast Machines. But ignore all that, I'm sweeping everything BM under the rug except for the finale. Now you have a weakened Maximal force having to defend techno-organic Cybertron from an invading Predacon army. With random Vehicon drone bodies as a surrogate for Protoform Stasis Pods.

Yeah, but it's still a Beast Machines setting with Beast Machines technorganic Maximals and Beast Machines Vehicon bodies. That many elements would peg it more as a Beast Machines comic series rather than Beast Wars.

Oh no, no, no.

Predacon Beast Modes are from Elsewhere IE the unused characters and designs from the Beast Wars toyline. Transquito, [Locust] Scourge, TM Terrorsaur etc etc
Meanwhile, the Maximals are being completely redesigned aesthetically. Brought more inline with the visual identity of Transmetal 2. Which is where we left them in Beast Wars. Cybertron had no animals, so their BM visual design didn't make any sense, so it is easy to ignore.

I may not like Silverbolt, for example. But if he is going to be in the series, I'm not going to leave him with a Turkey Beast Mode. Nor Rattrap with no legs etc etc

K.

Anyone else wanna play this game? How would y'all make a new Beast Wars comic series?

I would love to but I would need a think on it of it's just Beast Wars as one idea i had was to create a branch of the franchise were Maximals, Predacons, Autobots and Decepticons were all fighting tooth and nail for Cybertron and it's colonies. Would it have worked? Depends on execution, a lot of it came from thinking about how Cybertron would have looked post Predacons Rising, before RiD 15 put those thoughts to bed.

I would have agreed with All News what if idea, but it would depend on writers as we all know how the last what if IDW did worked out...

ZeroWolf wrote: but it would depend on writers as we all know how the last what if IDW did worked out...

We don't mention That To this day, I don't think IDW should have let it go to print.


That said, as for writing duties. Either Bob Forward (who wrote The Agenda) or Nick Roche (ala LSoTW). As for the former, now I've read all three IDW Wreckers stories via the part work. I'm more inclined to think Roche did the majority of Last Stand, as opposed to Roberts. Since the latter two parts don't have the same tone or vibe to them at all.

To give an idea of a remake/reboot, here's my pitch.

Picture if you will, an idea for a new take on Beast Wars that keeps the core concept of the original show intact but done a bit differently.

From a future Cybertron, a small band of Predacon criminals (led by a wannabe crime boss calling himself "Megatron") have escape the planet aboard a stolen ship. Out in space, the recently-appointed sergeant Optimus Primal of the Maximal Command Security Force is on a nearby moon or planetoid training a few cadets new to the force. Their training exercises are interrupted when a call from Maximal Command orders their vessel, the Axalon, to pursue the escaped Predacon convicts, as Primal's ship is the closest vessel to intercept the Preds.

Sergeant Primal and his cadets take off in pursuit and manage to catch up to the Predacon ship. But a brief skirmish in space creates a transwarp accident that sends the two ships back in time to crash-land on an organic planet that would later on be revealed to be Earth, and where they all scan beast modes based on the planet's various animals, insects, and dinosaur remains.

But this time, while they initially find no humans in the area, over time they gradually do discover traces of a remote civilization. Dirt roads cut through forests, stone bridges built across rivers and lakes, a village of homes made of wood and stone, and even a great castle with a drawbridge and moat overlooking a small kingdom. It is not prehistoric Earth, but medieval Earth, in the age of knights and kingdoms across Europe.

But one question still remains: If this small human kingdom exists, what happened to the humans who built it and lived there? That would remain a mystery, which probably wouldn't be solved until the end of the first season. Were the humans to return by the second season, that would allow us to see how the Maximals would interact with humans, since unlike Autobots they are not giant robots, and humans of the Middle Ages would react much differently from modern-day humans to the existence of extraterrestrials who could change into Earth animals/insects/dinosaurs/etc. (especially to those with dinosaur beast modes).

Also, the Autobot/Decepticon legacy has no significant role in this story, so no appearances of Starscream's ghost, the Ark and its stasis-locked occupants, the Nemesis, etc. Just the Maximals and Predacons and whatever else they come across in this medieval time period. Though, being a BW-original concept, a new version of the Vok could appear and play a role, possibly being the answer to the humans' mysterious absence in the first season.

While Primal and Megatron would still be the leaders, the remaining casts of Maximals and Predacons would be a bit different. For instance, since I don't think any new take on Dinobot could ever live up to the original, I'd leave him out of this and instead do something new by having Wolfang be the Predacon-turned-Maximal of this story, since his mold ended up having both Maximal and Predacon toys.

Plus, while this next decision may seem a bit audicious, there wouldn't be any Transmetals. Or at least, not in the way that they were done before. Instead, by the time of the humans' return to the story and the Maximals finding allies in them (which would actually be a rather long process due to deceptions and machinations caused by Megatron that would prevent any immediate human/Maximal alliances), the two species would work together new suits of armor that the Maximals could wear in their beast modes to essentially make them all knights, and said armor would be specifically designed to pay homage to the Transmetals of the original series (e.g. - Optimus's armor would have a shiny blue helmet and chestplate, and two maces attached to his back).

In a further Transmetal homage, Megatron would have a new design in this series that would be a cross between his pre-Transmetal and Transmetal designs. Picture his Transmetal robot mode, but in the color scheme of his pre-Transmetal form. His fake T-Rex head torso is also replaced by his pre-transmetal torso. Though, his does not have his VTOL fans since his beast mode is just his normal pre-Transmetal purple T-Rex form. And while he would have two normal arms and hands in this design, the T-Rex head of his beast mode could be pulled out from where it is stored on his back to he held in his right hand as a laser gun that wraps around his wrist to hide his hand inside it, along with his tail still being held in his left hand as a shield/lance/whatever-kind-of-weapon.

But while I'd be getting rid of Transmetals as body upgrades, I would still keep Megatron's dragon form upgrade but only as an end-of-series final form upgrade that would be the main instrument of his endgame, rather than how the original series had him get that form and then decide to use something completely unrelated to it (the Nemesis) as his final instrument of destruction. In this version, the dragon form itself would be that instrument, in his bid to become the most powerful Predacon in existence, in an unholy ascension.

Sabrblade wrote:To give an idea of a remake/reboot, here's my pitch.

Picture if you will, an idea for a new take on Beast Wars that keeps the core concept of the original show intact but done a bit differently.

From a future Cybertron, a small band of Predacon criminals (led by a wannabe crime boss calling himself "Megatron") have escape the planet aboard a stolen ship. Out in space, the recently-appointed sergeant Optimus Primal of the Maximal Command Security Force is on a nearby moon or planetoid training a few cadets new to the force. Their training exercises are interrupted when a call from Maximal Command orders their vessel, the Axalon, to pursue the escaped Predacon convicts, as Primal's ship is the closest vessel to intercept the Preds.

Sergeant Primal and his cadets take off in pursuit and manage to catch up to the Predacon ship. But a brief skirmish in space creates a transwarp accident that sends the two ships back in time to crash-land on an organic planet that would later on be revealed to be Earth, and where they all scan beast modes based on the planet's various animals, insects, and dinosaur remains.

But this time, while they initially find no humans in the area, over time they gradually do discover traces of a remote civilization. Dirt roads cut through forests, stone bridges built across rivers and lakes, a village of homes made of wood and stone, and even a great castle with a drawbridge and moat overlooking a small kingdom. It is not prehistoric Earth, but medieval Earth, in the age of knights and kingdoms across Europe.

But one question still remains: If this small human kingdom exists, what happened to the humans who built it and lived there? That would remain a mystery, which probably wouldn't be solved until the end of the first season. Were the humans to return by the second season, that would allow us to see how the Maximals would interact with humans, since unlike Autobots they are not giant robots, and humans of the Middle Ages would react much differently from modern-day humans to the existence of extraterrestrials who could change into Earth animals/insects/dinosaurs/etc. (especially to those with dinosaur beast modes).

Also, the Autobot/Decepticon legacy has no significant role in this story, so no appearances of Starscream's ghost, the Ark and its stasis-locked occupants, the Nemesis, etc. Just the Maximals and Predacons and whatever else they come across in this medieval time period. Though, being a BW-original concept, a new version of the Vok could appear and play a role, possibly being the answer to the humans' mysterious absence in the first season.

While Primal and Megatron would still be the leaders, the remaining casts of Maximals and Predacons would be a bit different. For instance, since I don't think any new take on Dinobot could ever live up to the original, I'd leave him out of this and instead do something new by having Wolfang be the Predacon-turned-Maximal of this story, since his mold ended up having both Maximal and Predacon toys.

Plus, while this next decision may seem a bit audicious, there wouldn't be any Transmetals. Or at least, not in the way that they were done before. Instead, by the time of the humans' return to the story and the Maximals finding allies in them (which would actually be a rather long process due to deceptions and machinations caused by Megatron that would prevent any immediate human/Maximal alliances), the two species would work together new suits of armor that the Maximals could wear in their beast modes to essentially make them all knights, and said armor would be specifically designed to pay homage to the Transmetals of the original series (e.g. - Optimus's armor would have a shiny blue helmet and chestplate, and two maces attached to his back).

In a further Transmetal homage, Megatron would have a new design in this series that would be a cross between his pre-Transmetal and Transmetal designs. Picture his Transmetal robot mode, but in the color scheme of his pre-Transmetal form. His fake T-Rex head torso is also replaced by his pre-transmetal torso. Though, his does not have his VTOL fans since his beast mode is just his normal pre-Transmetal purple T-Rex form. And while he would have two normal arms and hands in this design, the T-Rex head of his beast mode could be pulled out from where it is stored on his back to he held in his right hand as a laser gun that wraps around his wrist to hide his hand inside it, along with his tail still being held in his left hand as a shield/lance/whatever-kind-of-weapon.

But while I'd be getting rid of Transmetals as body upgrades, I would still keep Megatron's dragon form upgrade but only as an end-of-series final form upgrade that would be the main instrument of his endgame, rather than how the original series had him get that form and then decide to use something completely unrelated to it (the Nemesis) as his final instrument of destruction. In this version, the dragon form itself would be that instrument, in his bid to become the most powerful Predacon in existence, in an unholy trans-ascension.

An interesting idea, would you keep the fuzors? As it could give us a Griffin Maximal (a chimera combiner predacon would be ace, combines in alt and robot modes)

ZeroWolf wrote:An interesting idea, would you keep the fuzors? As it could give us a Griffin Maximal (a chimera combiner predacon would be ace, combines in alt and robot modes)

There would need to be a very specific reason and new origin for them, since stasis pods wouldn't be in this story either.

Though, I do have one idea related to Wolfang that could open the door to Fuzors.

Said idea would be that, at some later point in the story, he'd be captured by the Preds and experimented on by their scientist (Tarantulas or otherwise), turned into a horrific cyborg in an attempt to turn him evil again, so as to repurpose the Max-B toy as this mutilated cybernetic form of Wolfang. Anyway, he'd eventually break free of his reprogramming and rejoin the Maximals, but have to go living with his disfigured new form.

With this idea in mind, the Pred scientist could create Fuzors through genetic experimentations done on his fellow Predacons, turning one into a cool, majestic-looking griffin Fuzor and another into something more hideous and gruesome like a bat/scorpion Fuzor, something that the medieval humans would mistake for a demon.

Thinking more about this, this could make a distinction between the Maximals upgrading themselves by forging armor with the humans while the Predacons upgrade themselves through ghoulish experimentation, creating a sort of "Transmetals vs. Fuzors" kind of theme in later parts of the story, with Wolfang's Cyborg Beast form being the closest we'd get to a Transmetal 2 before Megatron gets his dragon form.

Sabrblade wrote:
With that kind of power thrown into your hands, how you would go about making the new Beast Wars comic series a reality?

Since it's a comic and CGI costs are not a concern,I would make the cast bigger,to feel like a war among factions instead of small squads.You can still have the focus on smaller group,but it would be within the larger context of an army.Think of something like Star Wars the Clone Wars.
I would have the planet being earth-like,but I would consider making the planet not being Earth,making a mistery of why are there so many Earth's animals in there.

TulioDude wrote:I would have the planet being earth-like,but I would consider making the planet not being Earth,making a mistery of why are there so many Earth's animals in there.

Intriguing. Kinda like the question of why so many Star Trek aliens look like Earth humans.

Ah-ha! Sabrblade, you did one of those things where you ask a question mostly just because you want to give your answer! Haha I caught you.

And also,

Your idea is pretty genius! I really like it.


I'll give some thoughts to this question:

What really drew me in with Beast Wars was the mystery of the planet they were on, and also their desperate situation of being trapped and remote. So I don't mind the idea of them having ended up on a completely different Earth-like planet because that gives the writes more room to play with.

Remember how there were two moons at the beginning of BW? Seems like a really great idea would be if they actually landed on one of those moons, maybe on the moon there was vegetation and animal life. So, maybe they find all the Vok experiments on that moon, like the flying island and stuff like that, and even more than that. Maybe a lot more of the episodes are dedicated to all kinds of strange artifacts. Then in the huge finale to S1, they have to get off the moon and onto what turns out to be Earth.

Then on Earth, there are other weird artifacts, but also buildings and temples and stuff of different design and structure than Vok-only stuff. Maybe the Vok and primitive humans built these things together? But then we find out some kind of fourth party is involved, maybe something that ties back to Unicron (I dunno, just making it up as I go, but that would bring some dramatic stakes I think). Like some kind of 'Disciples of Unicron' that are working with the Vok to use the humans, but have their own secret plans to turn on the Vok. And the Beastformers get right in the middle of all of that. Possibly meet some pretty cool human characters too amongst the tribes that are involved (more developed than the humans in original BW).

Basicaly--Beast Wars meets Halo 1 meets Indiana Jones!

Personally, I want to know more about the leadup to Megatron organizing his crew of cronies and stealing the golden disc. We're rewatching through the series right now and that part of the show is a big mystery. The relationship between Dinobot and Megatron and why they harbour such animosity toward one another is just aching to be explored.

TOO MUCH ENERGON! wrote:Personally, I want to know more about the leadup to Megatron organizing his crew of cronies and stealing the golden disc. We're rewatching through the series right now and that part of the show is a big mystery. The relationship between Dinobot and Megatron and why they harbour such animosity toward one another is just aching to be explored.

Agreed.

TOO MUCH ENERGON! wrote:Personally, I want to know more about the leadup to Megatron organizing his crew of cronies and stealing the golden disc. We're rewatching through the series right now and that part of the show is a big mystery. The relationship between Dinobot and Megatron and why they harbour such animosity toward one another is just aching to be explored.

Unfortunately, this will be a different continuity from the cartoon.

It may go into that, or it may not. But it won't have any bearing on the cartoon's story or its version of the characters.

Though, two stories set in the cartoon's world did show the Golden Disk heist and Megatron's escape to the past. The heist was seen in 2007's "Theft of the Golden Disk" animated short produced by Octavirate Entertainment, and the escape was seen 2006's "Dawn of Future's Past" comic book produced by Fun Publications and later included in Shout! Factory's 2011 Complete Series DVD release of the cartoon.

"Dawn" was produced first, while "Theft" was made a year later as a prequel to "Dawn", but with some characters (Terrorsaur, Scorponok, and Tarantulas) in different bodies due to the CG limitations of the production at the time, so we just have to pretend that they have the same bodies in both stories since, in-story, they're supposed to be the same.

"Theft of the Golden Disk" can be watched on YouTube. Here's the trailer (watch it first), and here's Part 1 and Part 2.

"Dawn of Future's Past", meanwhile, is out of print but can be read online at places like ReadComicOnline. I'd post a link to it but that site has a TON of still-in-print comics and it wouldn't be right to link to it publicly in this forum. You can find it there under the "Transformers: Timelines" series as Issue #1. Otherwise, if you want a direct link, PM me.