Does anyone have any idea of when it is most likely we will find out who the new Transformers comic publisher and why it has not happened yet?

[Haywire]

I think the very issue is that the Beast Wars is specifically the battle that happens on earth. There's no guarantee that any other group of Maximals or Predacons from that era would have scanned Beast modes (and, in fact, one group on another world scanned plants), and without that, the whole Beast Wars moniker is kind of worthless. So, any writer tackling Beast Wars has to use the established cast and story, sidestep it with a "meanwhile, on the other side of the planet" sort of thing, or throw out the original premise and go in another direction. Which is either going to be unsatisfying, or possibly offend fans of the original. And it doesn't help that the overlying endgames in both Beast Wars and Beast Machines were so epic. A writer could do "Maximal Missions" and "Predacon Plots", but would those be as well-loved as the originals?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

They could mix up a retelling of the cartoon just by not having such a hard limit on the cast size. Use the whole toyline*, including the 3H guys. Why not? Stop trying to weave characters and their plotlines around the cartoon story and try inserting them wholly in it. The show will always be the show. We can have an alternate version of the story** that by design has more room for new and alternate stories.

* Yes, IDW 1.0 sorta tried that and it sucked. Most of the cast faded into the background because it was not possible to give the spotlight to everyone. But that's when they were tying to tell stories in four issues. Transformers comics stopped doing that.

** Yes IDW 2.0 sorta tried that and it sucked. But they kept the cast small and they forgot to have personalities or development for the characters they had.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

There are so many directions you could take a Beast Wars comic.

Spoiler

You want to do something closer to the cartoon? You could just add in the idea that the "beast" side of these characters kind of have minds of their own. Making them lose control sometimes in battle. Same plot, but with a slight twist.

You want to tie this into the original cartoon? Have post-Beast Machines Megatron time travel from the future to advise/take over for his younger self. If Primal can show up in a dozen different spin offs, then Megatron can show up in ONE, right?

You want to tie this into G1? Have the Dinobots active on Earth alongside the BW cast.

You want something original? Have this version of Beast Wars take place on a alien world. Just let the artists go crazy designing alien beasts that Hasbro can turn into toys later, if they get popular. You could do the same thing by having it take place on Future-Earth, and having theoretical future-animals.

You want something more "robots in disguise"? Have the Transformers take their beast modes in order to go undercover to bust a intergalactic animal-fight ring. There's aliens kidnapping animals from different worlds and making them fight against each other, taking bets on which beast will win. The Transformers are trying to find out who's running these fights and put a stop to it.

You want the Transformers to be able to interact with other non-Transformers? Have the Transformers be able to understand animal-talk. Talking animals might be weird, but you could probably make it work. And they could try and integrate with different animal "societies".

You want a more traditional war comic? Bridge the gap between Beast Wars and Beast Machines, and show a group of Transformers trying to fight off the invading Megatron.

You NEED to have humans involved? Have humans time travel from the future to hunt the Beast Wars cast in the past, to stop them from changing their future.

You want something REALLY crazy? Show us post-Beast Machines Cybertron. Sure, we sorta got that in Universe, but put the focus more on what everyone being resurrected as techno-organics would actually mean. Maybe even show us a step BEYOND techno-organics, whatever that means.

You just want something a *little* different? Have it take place in the ocean. Instead of land-animals, everyone's sea-animals now. It's a gimmick, but it'd be something.

Do Myth Wars with mythical animals!

But, I just get the feeling Hasbro wants to do something safe. And safe usually means "the same as what we did before".

 

[Sabrblade]

I mean, this discussion basically inspired me to go post my own pitch for a new Beast Wars series over in the Show Ideas thread.

 

[Soundwave2.0]

The problem is that G1 started fractured, even just in the US; Marvel Comics vs Sunbow Cartoon. Then G2 as the weird 90's growth on the side of the Marvel continuity. G1 has iconic bits, but it in itself has no definitive iteration. You can make an argument that the Sunbow toon/movie is much more well known than the comic, especially now, but the Marvel comic is still influencing the franchise to this day. Hell, Primus long ago overtook everything else as the core origin story.

Also I think this phenomena got a boost when Dreamwave did a pretty straightfoward G1 retread and then died after only a handful of years, leaving IDW needing to go with a much more original direction to differentiate themselves from a series that wasn't even 4 years old at that point, so in just a handful of years, we went from 2 main US G1 continuities, to 4.

Beast Wars, though? Aside from some oddities with the initial toy bios, basically just had the cartoon (in the US at least). That's it. It's iconic to Beast Wars in a way that the G1 toon or comic could never be to G1, just by nature of being a singular oddity. It didn't get a real comic series until like a decade after it started..

I think it's only really notable because Beast Wars/Machines is so much different than everything that came before and everything that came after. Even something like Transformers: Animated has deep roots in G1, even if it has an aesthetic, style, story and characters all of its own. And even THEN, they'd probably be REAL skittish at trying to reimagining TF: Animated.

Beast Wars is that like times ten.
To the point where, ironically, Beast Wars sees more reimagining in non-Beast Wars stuff (IDW's G1, Rise of the Beasts) than it does from the stuff specifically about Beast Wars.

How popular and successful were the beast wars toyline by its itself?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

It was a phenomenon in North America, but less so everywhere else.

 

[Sabrblade]

Most unsuccessful toylines don't tend to last for four whole years with a few final pieces creeping into both a fifth and a sixth year.

 

[Donocropolis]

Most unsuccessful toylines don't tend to last for four whole years with a few final pieces creeping into both a fifth and a sixth year.

Hell, there are stores out there RIGHT NOW that still have a few Trasquitos on the shelf.

 

[Sabrblade]

Hell, there are stores out there RIGHT NOW that still have a few Trasquitos on the shelf.

Point me in the direction of one. I need a new Transquito. My vintage one broke years ago.

 

[Donocropolis]

Point me in the direction of one. I need a new Transquito. My vintage one broke years ago.

The easiest method will be the "warmer/colder" style directions. Just start driving and I'll take it from there.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I saw one at a comic shop a couple years ago. It warmed their shelves for a while but somebody did buy it.

 

[Soundwave2.0]

How about a series like the Transformers movie but it is Optimus that is tured into Nemesis Prime by unicron and after he loses Nemesis joins the Decepticons.
There has been Megatron going good so how about an Optimus going bad and reading what is going on in his head?

 

[Sabrblade]

How about a series like the Transformers movie but it is Optimus that is tured into Nemesis Prime by unicron and after he loses Nemesis joins the Decepticons.
There has been Megatron going good so how about an Optimus going bad and reading what is going on in his head?

The Netflix WFCT cartoon says hi.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

The Netflix WFCT cartoon says hi.

It also insists on being called "anime" for some reason, but that's a different issue.

 

[Dekafox]

By strict technical definition Simpsons is anime and Star Trek is toku, but colloquially they're not. Guess someone at Netflix subscribes to the former?

 

[Sabrblade]

Netflix likes to believe that all "serious" cartoons aimed at older audiences are anime, and everything else aimed at younger audiences are not.

Guess they better hope they never get something like Hello Kitty or Hamtaro.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Netflix likes to believe that all "serious" cartoons aimed at older audiences are anime, and everything else aimed at younger audiences are not.

Guess they better hope they never get something like Hello Kitty or Hamtaro.

As it is, how would they classify Pui Pui Molcar?

 

[Donocropolis]

Oh man, that show popped up on our Netflix home screen a while back, so we had to watch an episode to see what it was all about. Unfortunately our son outgrew this type of show years ago, as this would have been something he would have loved back in the day. Such a bizarre concept, but adorable in execution.

 

[Andrusi]

Netflix likes to believe that all "serious" cartoons aimed at older audiences are anime, and everything else aimed at younger audiences are not.

Guess they better hope they never get something like Hello Kitty or Hamtaro.

I mean, they already had Precure Glitter Force.

 

[Soundwave2.0]

If the publisher reprints the uk issues, instead of making new ones, could that be used as a way to build to a sequel to aspects of evil by getting us readers up to speed of the uk run?