Comics Bon-Bon Beast Wars Metals Manga Summaries - December 1999 Reminder to those coming in late, the manga storylines are inspired by the show (in this case, dubbing of the 2nd and 3rd seasons of Beast Wars), but often go off on their own tangents to explain things, since they only have 7-10 installments to work with. New elements here may reflect aspects of the show in Japan, or may be completely new to the manga. Thanks to Hydra Darkwings for pointing out a few things about the final scene. [And a few corrections/speculations from him in brackets.] A few more additions from Michael Robinson, who is working with the manga translation project. His comments in {curly brackets}. p1: Tarantulas and Blackarachnia are out on patrol. Tarant's in his cycle mode, but with his head sticking up, while BA is standing confidently astride Tarant. They run into a mysterious cloaked figure in the driving snows. Tarantulas transforms (dropping BA to the snow) and attacks with his buzzsaw weapon. The cloaked figure dodges and then draws a katana. p2: Big title page splash, the figure is revealed to be Tigatron, who neatly bisects Tarantulas with one slash. p3: Tigatron goes after BA, who dodges a couple times and then loses her footing on the snow. She's forced to catch the katana blade between her feet, in what has to be the most innuendo-laden panel of the entire issue. p4: Blackarachnia shoots webbing out of her feet, catching Tigatron by surprise. He cuts out of the webbing, but by this time BA and Tarant are both gone. He soliloquizes for a bit. p5: Tigatron's thoughts turn to the oh-so-kawaii (cute) Airazor and he wanders away. Meanwhile, it turns out that BA grabbed the Tarantulas halves and jumped into a tree to hide. Despite being split in two vertically, Tarant seems to be more or less okay. He may be of two minds about the whole experience, though. Literally. }-> p6: Megatron rests in his bath, recovering from the hideous wounds suffered last issue, and he feels haunted by the ghost of the original Megatron. He's still pretty fragged, however, and when Waspinator comes to him with a report of a stasis capsule splashing down, there's not too much he can do about it. [Hydra thinks that this is the actual body of Megatron G1, but as yet there's not enough evidence either way to be sure.] p7: Megatron swats Waspy aside and smiles as he gloats about something. Perhaps he knows more about this capsule than the Cybertrons do? The Cybertrons, meanwhile, fly to where the large pod has crashed. It is more than just a stasis pod, it's an entire ship! [Apparently, this ship is the Axalon. No, I don't know how it got out in the ocean, probably part of that big infodump last issue. The Destron command ship, for what it's worth, is called the Hindenburg.] p8: The main level is partly flooded, but Convoy, Rattrap and Airazor are able to move around and try to get the computers working. A dark figure watches them from the shadows. Convoy splits from the other two, who soon find a bunch of dead mechanoids (no faction markings) which seem to have been partially eaten. [The dead gumbies are all Cybertrons, who lost horribly to "Metalized Lord Megatron" and his forces in the battle prior to the start of the Metals storyline.] p9: A huge capsule rests in the center of the room, with a big "X" painted crudely across it. Given his keen sense of danger, of course Rattrap tries to open the capsule. It opens slowly and ominously...and is empty? p10: But the waters around them aren't, as Rampage bursts from below like a demon, his head a shadowly mass with glowing eyes. Convoy hears this and rushes to help. p11: Rampage catches Rattrap's tail in his mouth. Rattrap releases the tail in order to escape, and Rampage slurps it in like so much metallic spaghetti. Thenhe grabs Designated Damsel In Distress Airazor by the head and brings her closer to his ravening maw. p12: Convoy arrives in the nick of time, severing Rampage's right arm with one of his maces. It hits the water uncomfortably close to Rattrap, and Airazor flies out of reach. p13: Convoy reveals what he found out from the ship's computers. This is Protoform X, also known as Rampage. Created as part of an experiment to make an immortal Cybertronian, he was insane and had to be locked away. Rampage basically gloats a bit, and Convoy wonders how he got out of the prison pod. Airazor points a finger of accusation at Rattrap, who retorts that crabcakes got out long before they came on board. Convoy tells them to stop bickering and concentrate on the task at hand. {Rampage is not just a monster in attitude here, he's a spark vampire of sorts. But he doesn't just suck out the spark of a victim, he tears them apart to get at the spark.} p14: Rampage attacks, growing a new right arm as he does so, and Convoy barely ducks under it. Convoy counterstrikes. p15: Convoy attempts a body-blow with his mace, but the crab jaws in Rampage's abdomen open up and swallow Convoy's arm! To free himself, Convoy is forced to hack off his own arm at the elbow. Yes, this is going to be a big story for lost body parts. p16: Convoy gets free and launches a savage kick at Rampage's head. The mad mechanoid's head explodes...and then regrows. Can nothing stop this monster from the deeps? p17: Rattrap tosses Convoy a demolition charge, and as Convoy catches it he is in turn caught by one of Rampage's massive pincers, which comes out from behind his back to help out. Rampage then stuff's Convoy's head into his abdominal mouth. CHOMP. Convoy's headless body falls back. p18: BOOM! A powerful explosion rips through Rampage's guts, hurling Convoy back against the wall next to Airazor. p19: Convoy's okay, he has a spare head, and he transforms to beast mode. He reveals that, just before his robot head was bitten off, he put Rattrap's bomb in his mouth. And so, having disposed of the monster, exit our heroes, stage left (after putting in a call for transport to Rhinox). p20: Sploosh! Rampage emerges from the water in beast mode, larger than ever, and grabs Convoy in one massive claw before going back underwater. Rampage gloats that it will take more than a puny bomb to destroy him. p21: As Convoy struggles against Rampage, he radios Rhinox. If one bomb isn't enough, how about an airstrike? Rhinox sends Convoy a tactical map of the area, showing what I'm guessing are volcanic seamounts. Convoy orders Airazor and Rattrap to fire on his position. p22: Airazor and Rattrap zoom to the ship's tactical computer and launch a full barrage of missiles. None of them hit Rampage, but they saturate the seabed...which starts to react. p23: BAWHOOM! One undersea volcanic eruption, made to order. Convoy gets out his skyboard. p24: The shockwave propels the two combatants towards the surface, but Convoy is still firmly in Rampage's jaws. They break the surface and fly into the air. p25: Convoy condemns Rampage to eternal exile and tears off his own arm (yes, that leaves him at no arms and one head). p26: Convoy shoves the skyboard into Rampage's mouth. Well, fires it at full ramming speed, really. p27: The board keeps thrusting, carrying Rampage higher and higher. Soon Rampage is enjoying a view of the planet from orbit. In a role- reversal, Airazor catches Convoy for once, as Rattrap whines for someone to come get him out of the ocean. p28: Back at the ship, Rhinox has some good news for them. Exactly what that news is, however, I don't know. Maybe he's caught Tigatron on his sensors. Meanwhile, on Cybertron.... General Jaguar reviews his Destron troops. General Jaguar is the original Jaguar (Ravage) rebuilt into a new body, this one based on the McDonald's Jaguar/Panther toy from several years ago. Then he hears laughter from the sidelines. {The Destrons and Cybertrons have signed a peace treaty, and General Jaguar was to be the envoy of the Destrons, sent by the Trypticon Council.} p29: It's his son, Jaguar (the Metals Ravage figure), in an oil-stained cloak with broken manacles on his wrists. General Jaguar is shocked to see him, since he's supposed to be serving a very long jail sentence for slaughtering a whole lot of innocents. General Jaguar disowns his son and orders his troops to open fire. {Jaguar is nuts. He thinks he is serving the will of Primus, killing all Transformers because they are all born guilty. Not even a high-gravity Destron military prison could hold him.} p30: Jaguar nimbly dodges all the attacks, pulling out his twin pistols. p30-31 splash: In a very Hong Kong Action panel, Jaguar does the good ol' two-gun action, calmly and coolly killing all around him. p31: Jaguar promises his father he will solve the problem with Megatron and Convoy...by killing all the Transformers on the planet. General Jaguar, for his part, is headless and probably dead (despite the way beheadings seem to be only an inconvenience in this series, it's strongly implied that this one did the job of patricide). Dave Van Domelen, notes that Agenda could easily be redubbed so that Jaguar's on a solo mission of mass-murder, simply playing the sides against one another for his own amusement. But there's no guarantee that this is how the dubs will play out.