It's a race to the frozen north.
Last time on Beast Wars,
Terrorsaur went full Starscream. The flying Predacon found a flying mountain
that was filled with Energon. He accidentally gets exposed to a high dose of
the stuff, being super charged into a destructive form. He immediately flies
back to base, usurps Megatron and rallies his new minions to prepare to attack
the Maximals. His plan is delayed by his super charge running out and needing
to return to the mountain for another hit. Cheetor witnessed all of this from a
distance and ran back to base to warn the others. Optimus and Rattrap head out
to stop Terrorsaur, while Terrorsaur is trailed by Tarantulas, who wants to
steal the Energon. A big brawl breaks out between Optimus and Terrorsaur, while
Rattrap sets charges to destroy the Energon. He’s attacked by Tarantulas, but
he holds the spider off.
We open in orbit, amongst the
various bits of debris from the Maximal and Predacons first fire fight, a
stasis pod drops fully into the planet’s gravity well and is about to make a
big impact. Rhinox is the firsts to detect the dropping pod and lets the rest
of the team know. We’re shown the actual impact, the pod hits somewhere in the
frozen north, a white tiger seeing it happen from a mile or so off. The
Predacons also detect it. Megatron, being clever, knows that Optimus will go
out alone in his haste to get to the pod and says that they’ll make sure “he
encounters… turbulence” before they make for the pod themselves.
Optimus prepares to take off,
Cheetor and Dinobot both telling him this might be a bad idea. Optimus isn’t
willing to listen, though, and transforms. Dinobot, being weirdly insistent,
demands the right to exit the ship first, as he has… suspicious. He transforms
and exits. He uses his optics to make a thorough scan of the area. He detects nothing
but is still suspicious. He wants to lead a scouting patrol, but Optimus is
anxious and won’t listen. They exit together, Optimus taking off, he turns to
order Dinobot to lead a land team to follow him, just before he’s ambushed by
Waspinator and Terrorsaur. The two injure Optimus, knocking him into statis
lock. Dinobot, vindicated but annoyed, uses his laser eyes to cut a boulder
from the cliff and drop it onto Waspinator. Terrorsaur frees him and the two
fly back to their base, having completed their mission. Dinobot takes pot shots
at them but can’t hit them. Cheetor goes to check on Optimus, Dinobot assumes
the worst and says that he’ll ensure that Optimus gets a funeral proper for a
warrior that died in glorious battle. Optimus, very badly hurt but still very
much alive, says that he appreciates the thought, but he’ll have to miss it. They
drag Optimus back inside and into the CR chamber for repairs.
Back at the Predacon base, Megatron
is annoyed that Optimus is still functional, but is happy enough that Optimus has
been temporarily disabled. He orders Terrorsaur and Waspinator to the pod, and
that the land based Predacons will head to the Maximal base to attack it. He,
rightly, assumes that the Maximals will go in force to the pod, but leave someone
to watch over the recovering Optimus. As Cheetor, Rattrap and Rhinox race to the
pod, they discuss not feeling great about leaving Optimus alone with just
Dinobot for protection, but Rhinox reminds the other two that they had to as 1.
Dinobot’s weapons were damaged in the fight, so he needs recovery time too, and
2. If the pod was damaged, the proto-form inside could be killed by the planet’s
Energon field.
The Maximals approach an icy land
bridge as Waspinator and Terrorsaur reach them. The two Terrorize and carpet
bomb the Maximals. They transform and attempt to “Shred those lousy fliers!” as
Rattrap puts it. Unfortunately, air > land, and the Predacons out fly their
attacks and destroy the ice bridge. They fly off cackling. Rattrap radios back
to the base and let him know that they’ll have to take the long way to the pod
and that odds of them reaching it before the Predacons are basically zero.
Dinobot tells him, “No excuses, you pathetic rodent, keep moving!” and then
cuts the connection. He thinks for a few seconds before asking the computer to
access Optimus’ core consciousness from the CR chamber and to display Optimus’
digitized face on screen. Optimus guesses there are problems already, Dinobot
tells him the situation, and Optimus asks if there’s any way that they can reach
the pod first. They rattle off a few ideas, they can’t use standard
communications due to the Energon fields, and they need line of sight for a laser
pulse. Optimus asks if there isn’t anything they could bounce the pulse off, and
that gives Dinobot an idea.
Outside, the Predacons have arrived.
Megatron is excited at the idea of getting to kill both Optimus and Dinobot and
sends his arachnid minions to their positions. As Dinobot prepares the satellite
for the pulse, Megatron approaches Dinobot and tries to convince him to
surrender the base and Optimus to him. Dinobot, not being an idiot, tells
Megatron to “eat slag” and eye blasts him. He orders Scorponok and Tarantulas
to attack. He gets shot from the roof of the base, and down to the ground. He
dodges another attack, getting to the auto-lift to the base and orders their
autocannons to arm. The cannons are activated. There’s a funny bit where they
just aim at Tarantulas and Scorponok for a second, Tarantulas shifts his weight
to move and is shot off the ship. Scorponok lasts a minute longer, but starts
shaking so bad that the cannons fire on him. The cannons all turn on Megatron and
start unloading. Megatron orders them to fallback and get to the pod. Dinobot
tells Optimus that the laser pulse dish is ready. Optimus orders the computer
to upload instructions. The pulse bounces off the moon and down to the pod, the
white tiger from earlier watching. It triggers the pod’s DNA scanner. The
Maximals see the pulse and wonder what is going on, and lament that the Predacons
will reach it first. Waspinator and Terrorsaur race each other to reach it to
earn the credit, and Megatron is full on sprinting to reach the pod. Why? Because
he knows he can’t trust those morons.
Back at the Maximal base, Dinobot
is put into the CR Chamber and Optimus prepares to take off after the others. He
has the autocannons deactivate for 30 seconds so he can fly through them and
heads out.
At the pod, Waspinator and
Terrorsaur are trying to cut the pod open. The Maximals arrive and try to stop
them, but Megatron joins them. To ensure that they don’t interfere, Megatron melts
some ice and snow, trapping two white tigers in the canyon and pointing his
T-Rex cannon head at them. He tells the Maximals to back off or he’ll kill the
wildlife. The Maximals stand down and let the Predacons cut open the pod. Megatron
walks over to it to personally reprogram the proto-form, but they find the pod
empty. Megatron demands to know where the Maximal is. “Right here,” someone
says from off screen. Megatron turns to see one of the tigers, whom them
announces “Tigertron, MAXIMIZE!” and starts unloading on the Predacons. The
other Maximals, including the arriving Optimus, start firing on the Predacons.
They flee, Megatron being heard shouting “Blast it all!” after the final shot
hits him.
Tigertron returns to beast mode and
introduces himself to his comrades. Optimus tells him that he had the worried
for a while. Tigertron reveals that his identity circuits were damaged in the
crash, so he had been confused initially, not sure which side he was on. That
was until the Maximals were willing to sacrifice the pod to protect him and his
tiger friend. Optimus offers him a spot on the base, but Tigertron says that
with his damaged circuits he feels more tiger than Maximal, so he wants to stay
in the wilds. Optimus agrees, appointing Tigertron to be their long-range scout
here in the north for them while he recovers. The others head out, Tigertron
saying “Let the trails lead where they may, I will follow” before the credits
roll.
And so, ends the first pod episode.
Each one is a little different, but there’s almost always a race of some kind
to get to the pod first. And, unfortunately, the Maximals aren’t always this
lucky. I think the race against the clock aspect of the episode was well done.
It showcased Megatron’s cunning, sacrificing the chance at getting there first
for the chance to eliminate Optimus and guarantee they arrived first. Heck, without
the Hail Mary play that Optimus and Dinobot came up with, Tigertron would be
sporting a bee symbol instead of the Maximal… wolf? Their animal is harder to
figure out. You may notice that Tigertron is essentially just a recoloring of
Cheetor. That’s not completely true… Tigertron is also taller. I kid, yeah, the
character and toy are just recolored figurers. Which does make it fit in with
the OG Transformers as basically half of the initial troops were clones of each
other. Don’t give me that look, Thundercracker and Skywarp were literally just Starscream
in blue and black. Tigertron is also the transformer with the most sporadic appearance
in the first season. He sticks to his solo exploration of the wilds, only
popping in every other episode or two to report on something or get involved
with a large plot. The other pod introduced Transformers are much more common after
their initial episodes, I have no idea why. Tigertron and the other pod
transformers do add a little bit of confusion to the lore, though. See, Proto-forms
are essentially the babies of the Transformer lifecycle. While exact method
varies from series to series, typically, their bodies are forged in the
legendary Plasma Energy Chamber, and then they’re implanted with the Spark from
the Well of All Sparks that give them their personality and form. So… it just
seems weird that fresh out the pod Tigertron is clearly more mature than
Cheetor from the get-go. I’ve read that
some comics try to explain this away with a retcon that Tigertron and another
Transformer were active on Cybertron but were damaged in someway in the fire fight
between the Axalon and Darksyde before they went through the transwarp portal
and had their Sparks removed and placed in new Proto-forms… but that’s extremely
convoluted. I don’t have a good answer for ya, sorry. I liked how they telegraphed how Tigertron
would appear by showing us the solo tiger, later revealed to be named
Snowstalker by Tigertron, in multiple shots only for there to mysteriously be
two tigers when Megatron threatens them. The same goes with Tigertron revealing
that he realized which side he was on when the Maximals were willing to lose
the Proto-form to protect him and Snowstalker. Compassion wins friends, all I’m
saying. So that’s all I have to say about that. Next time, Rattrap turns
traitor. Or does he? See you there.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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