Beast Wars Sourcebook Issue #3 continues the tradition of the Sourcebook by being filled with errors. The most glaring one that I can find is that IDW let Frank Milkovich contribute his art.

There are some pretty silly things when it comes to the text, too. TM Rhinox is apparently a vok-created body that Rhinox uses to travel the multiverse post-BM, and Shadow Panther isn't Ravage but he's just like Ravage.

Oh, and Ramulus is "even-tempered".

I think IDW is just messing with us, now.

That was seriously the best they could come up with?

Click to view attachment

God has forsaken us.

It's also worth mentioning that this guy drew like 10 characters.

Meanwhile, no Nick Roche anywhere.

Don't expect mercy Walky, after all they likely followed this

Ah, but while Ramulus is even-tempered, he can also be goated into rash action, as per his weaknesses. These might seem completely contradictory, but...um...nice picture.

Also, Ravage apparently transforms into a "name". It seems under the art for his cassette mode, someone forgot to take out the place-holder word "Name" and replace it with the actual description, like "cassette".

There are some interesting little additions, though. Transmetal 2 Prowl is apparently Binaltech Prowl II, the one made from Chip Chase in the BT story blurbs. There's also the suggest that the Transmetal Rhinox seen in the Unicron Trilogy is actually BW Rhinox, plucked out of the Matrix after his death and transmetallized by the Vok into being a dimension-hopping "catalyst of change". Finally, Scarem is apparently fully aware that he is a Maximal protoform under the control of a Predacon shell program, and is constantly raging against it internally.

Neat tidbits, but still don't make up for the art in some cases. Rartorarta is freaky looking enough without having him hunched over so that it looks like his head is in his chest. And Quickstrike, poor Quickstrike...

Huh, I was told it didn't ship today...

But BW Rhinox WAS plucked out of the Matrix...in Universe.

Oh BALLS.

I want to see what the hug Silverbolt he was using for reference for that pic...

I didn't see it today either, but now I doubt I'll even buy it.

But Ravage transforming into a name sounds hilarious.

Can we stop having exceedingly tenuous and poorly-thought-out Rube-Goldbergian "this new character MUST be this other original character!!!!!" fanon getting canonized? This is painful.


M "Binaltech Prowl Was Painful Enough As-Is. And Don't Even Get Me Started On The Crap Armada Rhinox Got Put Through..." Sipher

hee hee hee. isn't he a sheep though?

I'd have been fine with Prowl being a reincarnation of the original because his Bio alludes to that idea.

Other than that.

I'd have been happy with Prowl simply being a delusional nut who thought he was G1 Prowl but really isn't. It's funnier.

(Also, who WASN'T on the goddamn Axalon anymore?)


M "The More Hoops You Need To Invent To Jump Through To Explain Why X Is A, The Less Reason You Have To DO It" Sipher

And now the inevitable countdown until Ben "reviews" the sourcebook by defending all of his choices.

Absolutely terrible. I'd say expected except IDW promised us there wouldn't be these glaring errors anymore. Yes, the horrendous art isn't an "error", but stuff like Ravage's altmode being NAME and Rartorarta being out of order (seriously, how freaking hard is it to alphabetize a list?!) IS.

The weird thing is, I actually kinda liked Milkovich's Rattrap...the robot mode doesn't have a great pose, but it's a decent rendition of the character, and he actually draws the beast mode like it looks on the show. Rhinox is passable, but Silverbolt...ye gods. Razorclaw looks horrendous (for an example of how he SHOULD be done, look at Rockbuster). Khanna's Rampage is good, but I would swear that he just lifted it exactly from the art he did of Rampage before (a minor complaint, I know). And why the hug are Powerpinch and Scissor Boy in the exact same pose, reversed, except with completely different details? Here's a hint IDW, you don't make the exact repaints look different by making the same artist do them. Random 'bots have alternate head designs when others don't. The whole thing looks like it hasn't been inked, just penciled and colored.

And that's just the art...the writing...ugh. The quotes are horrible, and this is indefensible for the show characters who HAD a plethora of good quotes to use. "Peace is the absence of conflict and the presence of justice" is NOT something that Optimus Primal would have ever uttered with a straight face. Rampage wasn't evil, he was tortured. "Be a straight shooter and your friends and enemies will respect ya." (Rattrap...what?!) "The only true loyalty is to oneself" (Scorponok...that's like, the exact opposite of his personality). I still hate how all the show character bios aren't personalities, but a personal history of their show exploits. Honestly, I love Ben Yee, but he was NOT the person to do this book.

Click to view attachment

I think it was this.

Powerpinch and Scissor Boy aren't even redecoes. They're the same toy in the same colors, just released in different markets.


M "How Does No-One CATCH This?" Sipher

I like the 70s Marvel vibe that Milkovich and Williams bring. Of course, I'd also like it if Bill Sienkiewicz did some profile art. IDIC, man.

---Dave, who still can't get Diamond to cough up a copy of #1, and the CBR he found has no Bump. He needs Bump. (Edit: and yes, if you wanna unload your copy of #1, I'm interested.)

Big Daddy. Sadly.

Why does he look so mechanical?

There was a meat shortage on the Axalon. Silverbolt, being the noble, self-sacrificing soul he is.....well, you get the picture.

I didn't see it at my LCS either, but I didn't look very hard or ask, since I didn't see it on the list

Likewise. The guys at my LCS know I look forward to the BW stuff, so it definately must not have come in. That happens from time to time. they get 'shorted a box', which means that it's usually in in a day or two.

But seriously, judging from the comments so far...? Yikes.

Eesh, glad that my LCS didn't get it in yesterday. I still think that bringing in every single japanese character was a huge mistake.

It's funny. I think the biggest mistake with the profiles is that they aren't FUN. Whatever Beast Wars was or wasn't it was always FUN. Okay, so a lot of the Japanese stuff is hokey... but it's FUN. It's hilarious!

And what about the 'abilities' sections of the profiles? Why weren't they written more like the original Beast Wars tech specs? I mean the original Beast Wars tech specs WERE basically insanely overblown abilities sections. Some writing like THAT in the book would really have made it snap pop and crackle.

The books seem EMBARRASSED by their source material. For god's sake... why? Things can't be hokey and silly? It's not like what they write in the profile books will make any difference to how Furman writes the characters anyway. All in all I just find the whole project utterly pointless.

Plus the whole same-name-equals-G1-character is *really* out of character with the Beast Wars show. I understand there were more hints in the tech specs... but even in them it was often just a silly fanboy nod.

--Boltax.
(As for the art -- dammit there's no excuse for drawing the Beast Wars Show guys without getting their characters right. Even if you ARE a terrible artist you should be familiar with WHO they are... even if you just copy a goddamn screencap or something.)

Something that really irks me is the way they keep changing the function of characters. Yeah, I kind of understand it for the Japanese ones (strategist sounds much more anglais than "scheme soldier"), but there's really no excuse for the American ones. "Monkeys are really agile, right? Well, Optimus Minor's function of 'Ground Commando' doesn't really fit with that, so I'll make it 'Infiltration'. Oh, and Scavenger's function of 'Infantry Commander' doesn't jive with this brand-new personality I've scratched on a cocktail napkin, so let's make him 'Psychological Warfare' instead."

Read through the Japanese profiles first, like always.

I was a bit impressed (for the first time ever), as it seems with this issue Yee has finally decided to cut the bull**** and stop making up completely new personalities for all the Japanese characters. The characters are all pretty identical to their source characterizations, albeit with a few things either added or left out (no mention is made of Saberback's sorcery or Rockbuster's friendship with Big Convoy, for example).

Still, he left in quite a few things I was certain he'd eliminate for being "too silly", such as Scylla's crush on Scuba.

Yee also added on to some vaguer back stories about the characters, adding depth to them. For instance, Powerhug's backstory states that he suffered a defeat at the hands of the Autorollers and now hates them for it, while Yee embelished on that with some stuff about a martial arts dojo and murdered students.

Anyhow, I hope this "no bull****" direction continues into the last issue, as the completely made-up bios were my biggest complaint about the previous two installments.

Why is he a fat mouthless hunchback? It looks like art of a totally different character had Silverbolt-y details added by the cleanup guy. Seriously, did this image begin life as the DW profile art of Bombshell?

Ben's already said that the only bit of fun and humor is going to be from Waspinator's profile in book 4. Clearly, we were all mis-remembering the one liners, physical humor, jokes, and silly expressions ALL the characters made on the show, and only Waspinator was a source of mirth in the GRITTY AND DARK world of Beast Wars.

Ben's World of TransFormers...

...is really boring and stiff.

The advertisement blurb on the back of each issue highly touts Yee as "ZOMG consultant on the Beast Wars TV series!!1!"

What did his consultations provide to the show, exactly?

"Ya know, this episode would be a lot better if you sucked all the life out of it. Don't worry, just divert all instances of humor to Waspinator."

Not entirely pleased with this one, even though I'm not much of a Beast-era fan. Some of the art does not compute, i.e., Silverbolt, and some of the profiles needs editing. Nothing against most of the artists but, still, couldn't they have put in some physical DIFFERENCES when it came to several of the characters? Like Prowl (that forms Magnaboss) compared to Lio Junior? Oy vey...

oh god... i really thought it would have got better. i was wrong.

IDW was supposed to be the anti-Dreamwave but we get stuff like this put out and makes me wish for the Dreamwave days again.

I always got the impression that they asked him for some details to make sure the show lined up correctly with G1 (like making sure the Nemesis ended up in the right place, the Ark was set up properly, etc.) That doesn't mean he has any writing ability or character-making ability, just that he served as a reasonably good source of data. Nowadays writers would probably just use the TF wiki.

My comic shop didn't get this in this week either, but sad to say, it's becoming really apparent that outside of the art problems (which really required someone to send a memo around all the artists saying THEY ARE PARTIALLY ORGANIC and DON'T DRAW THEM LIKE THE hugging TOYS), a heck of a lot of the problems with the writing come down to Yee. I mean, it's bad enough that Furman openly admits to never having seen BWII or Neo, and yet is writing about those characters professionally, but Yee *has* seen them, and is arbitrarily changing whatever the hell he feels like for... no actual reason. Personalities, motto-quotes, functions... there's so little respect here for what's already established that it's painful. I've got nothing against him personally, but it's apparent to me the fact that Yee had the ears of the BW writers to keep them straight on their G1 continuity (which could have been fulfilled any one of the many decent website around today, nothing comparable to which existed back then) gets him a lot more credit and clout that his knowledge and skill actually deserves. It didn't mean he was in any way qualified to write this book, and the result SHOWS that he was a bad choice.

Oh, and there's the DESIGN problems as well, of course, but... maybe the atrocious whitespace-filled page layouts with no wrapped text and consequently shrunken pictures have been improved in the third issue...?

I'll allow Scavenger, since his original tech spec bio was written for Inferno and IDW had established him as a new character. I think the whole thing's kinda silly, but hey, new character.

(On the other side of the same coin, Shadow Panther not being Ravage is so pointless I'm not even acknowledging it. The Shadow Panther bio is about a cover identity Ravage sometimes uses, and that's that)

Anyway. I hate the new functions, because so often it seems like they're dumbing things down. We can't have physicists or geochemists, because that might require someone to look something up; they're just generic scientists now. It's the same thinking that makes Airazor "swoop" to conquer, because apparently the literacy of the book's readers can't be trusted.

I do like Scarem? So that's... something?

I'm surprised no one has voiced my complaint yet.

I don't have the third issue but the first two issues my main two complaints were:

Decisions on who would get the two page spreads. I mean, Big Convoy, with how he was so important and larger with life? He gets shrunk down and I can see that there was supposed to be a lot of detail in there. But, it was all lost. Archadis gets two pages but not Big Convoy? Cohrada, Big Mos, Ikard, but not Galvtraon, Lio Convoy, God Neptune, or Magnaboss? Well, I guess Magnaboss got 2 pages, but its almost identical artwork. Then, there's Megatron. Wow, what the heck is up with that robot mode of his T-Rex form? Its awful. But worse? His CROCODILE mode gets a full page. Yes, the crocodile mode that was never really shown on the cartoon, not in their own comic book line, and is barely a blurb. His Transmetal form isn't show which I can get over. But, not his TM2 form? I was so waiting for that TM2 form. It is one of the, no, the best Dragon mode design ever in Transformer history. Instead, we get the crocodile that, even in the source book, is just a blurb? Who the hell decided that? ARGH!

My other complaints were how they tried to fit in the Japanese special weapons names. It just doesn't work. Maybe if they did it another way but it just doesn't work.

I am disappointed by not having any transmetal or transmetal 2 forms. I don't understand it. Megatron should've been 3 pages, but instead of the pointless giant crocodile, at least have the Dragon, TM, and Crocodile forms all on one page so we could've seen them.

And, do the colors for issue 3 get any worse than the colors chosen for Black Arachnia not to mention her complete lack of arms?

I'm a completist, and boy would I hate to stop getting them, especially how much I loved the G1 source books, and the Armada was still pretty good, but man, I am completely disappointed.

Issue 3 fixes all the layout, coloring, and art omission problems, as far as I can see. Of course, that just allows us to focus on the more fundamental issues.

I don't know about that. They forgot to omit Frank Milkovich's artwork this time around. It's a pretty grating flaw that hurts the book.

And here I was thinking they were taking the extra time to tighten the whole thing up a bit. Guess not then.

I begin to think that the BW license (if it could be split off) needs to be given to another comic publisher. Don't get me wrong, IDW is doing great with G1, but Beast Wars is just suffering with them. There is some truily great art, and some bios are inspired, but.... this series is not professional quality. I really think that someone could do an "unofficial" Beast Wars source book, and do better. The current BW comic isn't really holding my interest either. It might if it had a BW Spotlight series like G1 has. IDW's Beast Wars is lacluster compared to IDW G1, and it is quite obvious that Beast Wars is not being given the same resources, and distinction as G1. The glaring lack of editorial discipline is insulting. Dream Wave could have done the Source Books better (many publishers would have done the source book better).

haven't gotten to see it yet.... UPS lost part of the comic shop's haul for the week. I'll have to wait til monday.

Well, Primal gets all the neccessary art for his ape, bat and Optimal forms, but nothing for his Transmetal form. Dunno if you can count that as "omitted" or not. (I really disliked them leaving out Megatron's TM form, as it's his iconic look to me).

The art of Prime's organic ape mode is hilarious. And not in a good way. I think he's a Yeti.

I just noticed that not only are Powerpinch and Scissor Boy's robot modes mirror images (but completely redrawn details) of each other, but the beast modes are too. Milkovich is the new Floro Dery.

Apparently Millkovich drew those, so...

I was flipping through my Armada MTMTE books last night...and it amazed me how much better they were than the Sourcebook in pretty much every single way.

Well I'm guessing any non character items are pry out of the question. It would be nice if they gave us some entries maybe on the Axalon and Darksyde, The Vok, Angolmois energy, Stasis Pods, Sentinel, the Transmetal 2 Driver, but this is more than I hoped for really. I mean when I see entries about a happy meal toy or two it's still pretty cool.

Yup...