Comics Bon-Bon Beast Wars Metals Manga Summaries - November 1999 Well, Japan's taking a break from original animation to bring in the translated second and third seasons of Beast Wars, dubbed Beast Wars Metals there. However, the manga, as usual, is taking a different continuity. Some of the alterations are for the purpose of getting a decent amount of story into the 8 or so installments the manga will have, and others are geared towards bringing in more toys (like TM Airazor). The manga picks up after the end of season one, with Convoy having been blown up in his successful run on the Planetkiller. Thanks to Takeuchi Shouichi for some of the story bits. For the most part, I'm just going to use the US names for characters, since they tend to be close anyway (Cheetas versus Cheetor, Rattor/Rattrap, Tarans/Tarantulas, etc), but I'll call the Cybertron leader Convoy. [Corrections thanks to Hydra Darkwings.] Page 1: The shattered body of Convoy drifts in space as a couple of narration boxes explain season one's end and the planetkiller thing. Page 2: More narration. We see Convoy go boom, and Tarantulas (already in Transmetal form) observes as many others go boom. Page 3: Title page, and my first reaction was "what the heck is this?" only with somewhat stronger language. My second was, "please say that gerbil thing isn't Rattrap," followed by the realization that it was. Rattrap has been severely cutesified in beast mode, and looks like a Pikachu with a vest and a cap. Rhinox is transmetalized, and Airazor looks like Artemis with wings. Blackarachnia is not transmetalized, however. I'll be scanning this manga heavily so you can see what the characters look like. Page 4: An army of sparkless drones marches through the rain. Megatron has decided that overwhelming force is now a better tactic, and has made an army of drones. Quickstrike is commanding the drones, half of which look kinda like Scorponok and half of which look kinda like Corahda for some reason. Page 5: The drones attack, causing Rattrap to freak out and bounce all over the place in panic. Page 6: Rhinox tells him to calm down, that the autodefenses can handle this attack. He turns on the autoguns, which then start to make life hard for Airazor, who's still outside! He reaches to turn them back off, when Rattrap argues that this will leave them sitting ducks. Rhinox points out angrily that he doesn't want to be responsible for the death of another Cybertron...and then Airazor gets clipped in the wing. Page 7: Rattrap leaps into action, opening a porthole in the ceiling and then running to transform into robot mode and catch Airazor. He miscalculates by a little bit and ends up having her land on his back. Ow. Her arm is injured, but her pain seems to go deeper than that. She can't find Tigatron. Gasping in pain, she repeats his name. (I'm guessing here...she might be saying Convoy, but it doesn't look like that name, it has one too many characters.) [Guessed wrong, the extra character is sort of a verb. She's gasping something like "Convoy is...Convoy is..." and then we cut to what Convoy is.] Page 8: Megatron has apparently gotten himself set up in a floating volcano sort of HQ, and is surrounded by drones. On a central pedestal stands a hulking figure. Across pages 8-9: A rebuilt and Frankenstein's Monster-ish Convoy strains against chains held by a quartet of drones. He's totally bestial and mindless, lacking a spark now. Page 9: Frankenconvoy hurls the drones aside, prompting a figure atop the central column of the room to enter the scene. Page 10: The newcomer deftly grabs the chains and brings Frankenconvoy to heel. It's Metals Megatron, who can apparently stow his tail in subspace. Page 11: Tarantulas and the drones cheer Megatron on as he announces his plans to use the body of the Cybertrons' dead leader as the weapon which will crush them once and for all! Page 12: We open with a scene of the Cybertrons in their old beast modes. Convoy's eating a banana as he talks to Tigatron. We pull back to see that this is a holographic record of a past event, and Airazor gets all misty about Tigatron. Rhinox announces he has a plan to bring back the spark of Convoy, and he cha-chunks a gunlike object meaningfully. Page 13: Blackarachnia, still on the Destron side at the moment, kicks her way in through the portal Airazor used. Page 14: Rattrap draws his gun, but is disarmed...by Blackarachnia kicking his arm off! Airazor strikes with her claws, but BA ducks under the blow and grabs Airazor by the neck. Page 15: BA slams Airazor (who seems to be pretty useless overall this issue) into the floor, then turns to deal with Rhinox. She wants something from him, and is willing to get it the easy way, or the hard way. Rhinox points his "gun" at her, and she responds in kind for a Mexican Standoff. Page 16: Rhinox puts his "gun" to his head and fires, TOTALLY freaking BA (and the readers) out. With Rhinox dead, BA apparently can no longer get the information she came for, so she leaves. Quickstrike berates her for failing, but she's just not in the mood for his ranting, and kicks his head off. The severed head cries and moans while Quicky's body wanders around. Page 17: BA is surprised by an explosion behind her. The already damaged Axalon blows apart, leaving the bridge area protected by a force field of some kind. The "gun" Rhinox was holding now turns out to be an interface device, and a holodisplay shows his mind traveling into the Matrix to look for Convoy's spark. [The manga specifically calls it Transwarp Space in keeping with Rhinox's odyssey in "Coming of the Fuzors pt 1".] Page 18: Entering the Matrix, Rhinox finds Convoy's spark being dragged down by a pile of mechaghouls, perhaps the memories of all the Destrons Convoy has killed. Pulling out his horn weapon, Rhinox slashes his way past these apparitions and reaches Convoy. Page 19: Convoy just wants to sleep, to go to his well-deserved rest. Hasn't he done enough? NO! Rhinox smashes his fist into Convoy's head, shouting for him to wake up, that the Cybertrons desperately need him. Then a voice booms out.... Page 20: It's Convoy, who has finally agreed to come back. The two sparks streak back to the physical world, while Airazor and Rattrap hurry to get some contraption in place. Rattrap aims a transmitter, while Airazor hauls a parabolic reflector into position. Page 21: Back at the Destron base, Megatron is performing some sort of unholy ceremony. He cuts his thumb and lets a small trickle of his own fluids drop onto a disc. This then energizes a process that will give Megatron complete control over the corpse of his enemy. Frankenconvoy starts to howl in pain and rage, becoming more and more contorted and evil. Page 22: Just as Frankenconvoy is about to come completely to life, Rattrap fires a beam of energy. This bounces off Airazor's reflector and lashes into Frankenconvoy's body. Fur flies, literally, as Convoy's body sheds its organic covering.... Page 23: Metal Convoy stands revealed! Tarantulas is pleased as punch, as the process has apparently worked better than he could have hoped! He smiles as Metal Convoy stands behind him and grabs him around the neck. Wow, even stronger than before! Okay, you can stop... Page 24: As Tarantulas's head flies through the air, he realizes that maybe something went wrong. Airazor, wounded and weary, starts to drop from the sky as Megatron demands that Convoy obey him. Convoy transforms. Page 25: Convoy catches Airazor, who's spending a lot of time being caught, I think. Then the drones launch into their attack. Page 26: Airazor perches cutely on Convoy's shoulder as he whales into the drones with his twin maces, reducing them to spare parts. In the foreground, one drone's head has been split in two and he whimpers as the halves fall away from each other. The face looks Sling-like. [Ooops, it's Metals Terrorsaur being split in half. I guess we'll either not see him again, or lethality is a LOT harder to come by here.] Page 27: Megatron decides he's had enough of this, and opens fire on Convoy. Page 28: The huge explosion destroys pretty much all of the floating base except the boulders Megatron and Convoy are standing on. Oops. It's raining drones. Megatron launches a fierce kick at Convoy. Page 29: Still holding onto Airazor, Convoy parries a flurry of kicks in a very Dragonball Z-ish panel. Megs powers up his gun again, noting that at this range and encumbered by Airazor, Convoy can't hope to dodge. So, just before Megatron fires, Convoy tosses Airazor into the air. Page 30: Convoy leaps at Megatron and lands a few dozen kicks on the tail-gun as it fires. The weapon explodes, ending the fight. [This is the "Mecha Gorilla Kick." Ook.] Page 31: Convoy catches Airazor again and pulls out his surfboard. Rattrap and Rhinox celebrate, while Convoy carries Airazor back to base against the light of the full moon. Looking at the moon, Airazor thinks of Tigatron. Elsewhere, Tigatron stands alone, a tigerskin cloak wrapped around his robotic form. Three other figures also watch the moon, although it's hard to say who they are from the art. My best guesses are Dinobot, TM Cheetor (based on the head deco) and Silverbolt. To be continued, hopefully with Airazor doing something other than getting rescued. Dave Van Domelen, notes that Prowl, Jawbreaker, Scourge and Iguanus are coming out in Japan soon, but they seem to be skipping the first batch of TMII Deluxes and all the Basics except Optimus Minor.