MP38 Supreme Commander Convoy (Optimus Primal).

[Verno]

Convoy from the BWII movie is the same character as Convoy from the BW series. The BWII movie was intended to be a crossover between BW and BWII, and BWII and BW Neo were meant to be "Expanded Universes" for Beast Wars. They were always meant to be in the same continuity, I've never read or heard anything from any official Takara canonical source which establishes them as separate continuities.

Optimus Primal, the legendary general commander, that appears in BWII isn't Optimus Primal from the Mainframe TV show. They are in different universes. They share a name, but are not the same character. Thus, they warrant different numbers.

What was meant and intended by the BWII episode in 1998 was clearly proven to be impossible by subsequent fiction.

Two characters. Two universes. Same name. It's pretty straight forward really.

The show isn't entirely essential for knowing the characters (that's what tech specs bios are for ), or for collecting some really great toys. Just out of curiosity, how did you decide which BW toys to collect before the show came out?

My first introduction to Beast Wars was the show. Not all of us were on the alt. toy forums throwing around the trukk not munky bollocks in 1996.

Well if an avid BW fan like yourself is on the fence about picking this up I'll be interested to see how it sells. I guess given it is Convoy it may do well. But I can't imagine repaints of lessor BW characters selling well with a mass retail release.

I think it's aimed at the Japanese market, where it should do well. I think we'll see a Burning version of it at some point down the track too.