The introduction of the villainous Transformer Blackarachnia primed more Transformers to crash onto the prehistoric Earth.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Transformers: Beast Wars #8, on sale now from IDW Publishing.
The Beast Wars rage even more fiercely as new Maximals and Predacons are potentially being added to the ranks. The introduction of the villainous Transformer Blackarachnia has now led to other protoforms being primed to crash land on prehistoric Earth. This sinister situation not only sets the stage for new Transformers to show up, but it also explains some of the backstories of the original cartoon series.
Blackarachnia’s plan doesn’t go exactly as she anticipated it, but she still puts a wrench in the false sense of security that the Maximals had developed since their last encounter with the Predacons. Here’s what she does with the series’ wayward protoforms and a look at what exactly protoforms are.
The Fall of the Protoforms
Having defeated Cheetor, Blackarachnia makes her way into the computer room of the Maximal’s ship, the Axalon. Hacking into the mainframe, she connects with the many protoforms that the Maximals released in stasis pods when they crash-landed on their mysterious new home.
From there, she uploads a patch into most of the protoforms that reformats their psyches. They’re given the deadliest, most violent Predacon programming possible, switching their faction allegiance so that they’ll be unbelievably evil the second that they’re released from their stasis pods. Rhinox interrupts her, however, and she’s forced to make a hasty retreat before she can complete the job.
Optimus Primal is livid at the turn of events and is determined thereafter to take the fight to the Predacons. He’ll more than likely have his work cut out for him, however, with most of the new Transformers coming out of the woodwork being built to terrorize instead of maximize.
What Are Protoforms?
Protoforms were a concept introduced in the original Beast Wars cartoon, though they were subsequently added retroactively to the previous Generation 1 stories and from there, later continuities. This living metal form is the most basic state of a Cybertronian. They are usually contained within stasis pods if the unprogrammed Transformer is being transported off-world.
The stasis pod will scan an alternate mode for the Transformer, whose form will then be rearranged and made permanent to match this transformation. Nearly the entire cast of Beast Wars introduced beyond the first two episodes began on the show as protoforms that scanned some sort of animal and were thus reborn with a new identity. Though they had lives beforehand on Cybertron, they seemed to have forgotten these events and gained entirely new identities upon scanning their new forms, likely due to the damage sustained when crash landing.
As mentioned, the reprogramming that Blackarachnia caused made over half of the protoforms in the comics Predacons by default. This helps to explain why, in the show, many of them had evil tendencies beforehand. Thus, it’s likely that the comics will be introducing Predacons such as Inferno, Rampage and Quickstrike sometime soon. Likewise, Maximals such as Tigatron, Airazor and Silverbolt could also be the next to be introduced.
Due to the fact that it’s not hamstrung by the budgets constraints of early CGI, the comic book can also introduce some of the toy-exclusive Maximals and Predacons that the Beast Wars cartoon never used. Some of the Japanese-exclusive characters from the anime Beast Wars sequels could also show up in some form. One way or another, both sides of the battlefield will be seeing a lot more combatants in the coming issues, with Blackarachnia’s sinister web drawing in more Transformers than ever.
About The Author
For all the latest Comics News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
