(APR-2013) Beast Wars Era Comics - Comments and reviews

Beast Wars was a fairly Significant Era of Transformers, in both Japan and Hasbro markets.

(Western) Beast Wars (1996-1999) (NOTE - in Japan, Season 1 aired in 1997, while the other 2 Seasons aired in 1999 as Beast Wars Metals, after Neo)
JP Beast Wars Second (1998)
JP Beast Wars Neo (1999)

There aren't too many Beast Wars Comics, but if you have read some, let us know about them... or have a refresher read and post up some comments or reviews.

Are any worth buying?

Are there any specific issues or stories you'd recommend to others?

How do they compare to the current era of Transformers comics... and do you think they should revisit this era as a comic?

Are any worth buying?
Definitely, I thoroughly enjoyed The Gathering and The Ascending

Are there any specific issues or stories you'd recommend to others?
Not sure about individual issues since I bought the TPBs, but they are both fantastic as they complement the original series without interfering with it. It was great to see content on characters I have toys of but were never originally included.

How do they compare to the current era of Transformers comics... and do you think they should revisit this era as a comic?
I'd definitely rate the current era of comics over the Beast Wars ones. Afterall it is significantly longer meaning IDW has had time to build a fantastic universe with great depth. I could only hope that IDW would consider revisiting Beast Wars perhaps after MTMTE and RID.

Are any worth buying?
The Gathering and The Ascending are deff a great place to start, great series.

[B]How do they compare to the current era of Transformers comics... and do Would love to see more BW comics!

Are any worth buying?

Only if you love Razorbeast.

Are there any specific issues or stories you'd recommend to others?

Not unless they are a completionist or BW Tragic, in which case they'll likely have them.

How do they compare to the current era of Transformers comics... and do you think they should revisit this era as a comic?

Definitely worth a revisit, lots of stories could be set in the actual Beast Wars timeline using the showcast, and the possibilities of no cast character stories are near limitless.

Comparing to the current crop of comics, the two main release books are Furman penned, so they are very easy to plot out. They are good reads, but nothing great and the Ascending was a fun romp that ties only marginally into the main BW lore. Better than the Costa and McCarthy stuff but pale in comparison to MtMtE and RiD.

My favs:
- Reaching the Omega Point
- Ground Zero
- The Gathering


How do they compare to the current era of Transformers comics... and do you think they should revisit this era as a comic?

I'd love to see a comic series that bridges the end of G2 toward Beast Wars. i.e. the end of the war with Rodimus in charge, the signing of the Pax Cybertronia, Maximal Upgrade etc.

IDW's series were too cluttered. I liked that the Beast Wars cartoon managed to keep the cast down to a few who we got to know well and didn't have to show each new toy (and yes budget restraints were a part of that, but those restraints can be a good thing sometimes). Then IDW comes along and throws in all the remaining toys over the course of a few issues. Then they bring out another miniseries and dump in a bunch of the Japanese toys as well. And the sourcebook is okay (a step up from Armada's but well below Dreamwave's G1 book) but between the missing art, trying to American-ise BWII and BWNeo and errors, it's not a must have.

I did like Don's art on the book, and his pre-earth modes designs for the Predacons are really nice.

All the Dreamwave material is available in a single omnibus book so it's easy to get all of this in one go if it's still in print. (although don't be misled, Omnibus doesn't mean a nice oversize book like a Marvel Omnibus, the BW Omnibus is smaller than a regular comic)

But overall, the focus away from the core characters of Beast Wars, and making it a comic to "sell toys" that were years off the shelf don't make them must reads. Beast Wars's 1990s CGI gave the series a look that a comic just can't match.

Oh and I can't read them, but the Beast Wars manga always looked impressive or amusing. Who wouldn't love manga Rattrap or Gigastorm?

Yeah, I didn't like how they threw in the Japanese BW characters but disregarded Japanese BW canon. One thing I do like about BWII and Neo is how it was intended to be an "expansion" of the Canadian BW series, much like how the UK Marvel G1 comics was intended to be an expansion of the US series. Of course, in practice it didn't work out quite so well, but I always thought it was a poor execution of a good idea. But like it or not, that was the canonical intent of those series. So I wasn't fond of how IDW just decided to completely ignore/override that. Of course, they're kinda doing the same thing now in ReGeneration One by ignoring UK and G2 continuity and only linking with US G1, which I'm also not a fan of. :( As Paulbot said, it does make things feel "Americanised" or "Yankocentric." :rolleyes:

It didn't even seem all that necessary. Simply adding in all the Hasbro BW characters who never appeared in the show was cool enough. The thing I enjoyed about IDW's BW comics was seeing guys like Razorbeast, Snarl, Transquito, B'Boom, Grimlock, Buzz Saw etc. getting more canonical limelight. The story should've focused more on characters like these without needing to touch the Takara characters. That's why I prefer The Gathering over Ascending, as Ascending contradicts Japanese canon way more than The Gathering. With The Gathering I was at least able to suspend some disbelief and invent some bogus fansplanations as to how it could still fit in with JP continuity... but then Ascending came along and blew it all out of the water. :(

Could have been better. All bws come out of stasis pods, they fight. Nice to see other characters shown some love. Need to refresh my mind on them. No need to read if only interested in the tv show. Source book is great to have all the characters fleshed out and in one place, some errors though. I havent read every bw comic to date.

Are any worth buying?
-If you can find them after all these years the Dreamwave BW Sourcebooks fill you in on a lot of characters/toys you may never have seen so worth the purchace.

Are there any specific issues or stories you'd recommend to others?
-Read some of the IDW ones. They are....ok. Nothing I'd majorly reccomend.

How do they compare to the current era of Transformers comics... and do you think they should revisit this era as a comic?
-The current era of comics is far superior. I don't think they need to revist this era as a comic. They are letting the odd character from this era such as Waspinator show up anyway.