Collateral damage in battle comes once again.
Superman is coming, I promise, but
a little more Beast Wars since we’re coming up on the finale of season
1.
Last time on Beast Wars, we
ended on a Fart joke. The Predacons attack the Maximal base and infect Rhinox
with an Energon Discharge Virus. The virus causes Rhinox to use up his Energon
with powerful hiccups that release concentrated beams of Energon out of his
mouth. He’d either die from using up all his power and/or destroy the base with
the discharges. As their bickering is getting out of hand, Optimus sends Dinobot
and Rattrap to try to find Tarantulas and force him to give them the counter
virus. They do find and capture Tarantulas, beating him up several times
thought the rest of the episode as they drag his body through his tunnel
network back to his lab. Megatron and the Predacons anticipate this when
Tarantulas doesn’t turn up and prepare to ambush them. Dinobot tries to use the
spider as a hostage, but Megatron doesn’t care and shoots at them anyway. The
other Maximals arrive, doing a movie poster pose for some reason. Before a fight
can break out in earnest, though, Rhinox arrives. Now, to keep his power cells
charged, Rhinox had decided to eat a bunch of wild bean vines that had been
growing beneath the base. The beans had kept his power cells charged better
than even when he was plugged directly into the Axalon, but the wild
beans ended up giving him serious indigestion. Which is impressive given that I
don’t think he technically even has a stomach. He turns his back on Megatron
and unleashes a mega fart that blows the Predacons clear across the map. They get
Rhinox the counter virus, and Megatron claims this is the most humiliating
defeat of his career. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
After a quick visual on the food
chain (a bug is eaten by a frog, who is then eaten by a snake, who is then
grabbed by an eagle), we join Dinobot and Cheetor walking across a mountain. The
big lizard complains about having his talents wasted on a hunt. We learn from
Cheetor that they’re out looking for more of the Alien sites, places like the
flying island or standing stones, as Rhinox thinks they’re all extremely
dangerous and Optimus wants them to have as many of them mapped out as
possible. Their conversation is interrupted by Inferno, who flies in with a
missile that he hurls at them, announcing this is for the Royalty. The Maximals
are blown from the mountain side and land in a canyon, transforming and a firefight
begins. We cut over to Waspinator and Terrorsaur, Waspinator saying that Inferno
didn’t wait for the signal. Terrorsaur is annoyed by this but decides to go
forward with their plan, he tells Waspinator to target Cheetor while he backs
up Inferno. We see that they’ve got a large ammunition stockpile nearby as
Terrorsaur grabs another bomb to drop. Waspinator says that he’s going to wait
for the signal to attack.
Cheetor takes a bad hit and his
body starts shorting out. Dinobot and Inferno face off, Dinobot using his spinning
tail shield-thing to block Inferno’s blasts. Terrorsaur fires a missile at them
both, knocking them apart. He starts to gloat, but Cheetor fires on him and knocks
him into the mountainside. Waspinator flies over to him and Terrorsaur screams
at him to do something. Waspinator insists that he’s waiting for the signal,
and Terrorsaur shrieks “ATTACK YOU IMBECILE!” Waspinator then turns to us and
says that he’ll now engage the enemy.
Cheetor radios to the others that
he’s pinned down and Dinobot is out as well, calling it a code R. Optimus is
nearby working on a relay post and says he’s on the way. He transforms and
flies out.
Waspinator grabs a missile and
prepares to use it, but is distracted when he sees a tiger. He assumes it’s
Tigertron, but it’s actually Tigertron’s friend, Snowstalker, an actual tiger.
Tigertron then leaps at him and knocks him aside. Waspinator drops his missile,
and it causes a lot of collateral damage. Tigertron meets with Cheetor, who
reverts to beast mode. Tigertron and Inferno face off, Inferno saying he’ll
destroy the one that destroyed his colony. Tigertron shoots him down, saying he
can give his regards to the Pit. He shoots Inferno down, but one of his shots
goes wide, flying into the ammo stockpile. It destroys the mountain they were
stashed on and Snowstalker is killed in the avalanche.
Tigertron holds a burial for
Snowstalker, giving his friend a carne and saying goodbye. Cheetor joins him as
Tigertron reverts to beast mode. Tigertron tells the smaller cat that he can’t
do this again. Cheetor tries to console him by saying it’s never easy to bury a
friend, but it’s bigger for Tigertron this time. He gestures at the ruined
landscape of their last battle and says it’s too easy to do this kind of wanton
destruction. Cheetor tries to say that they had to fight back, but Tigertron refuses
to take that as an answer, saying that regardless of who pulls the trigger,
innocents die. Dinobot scoffs at that, saying there are no innocents in a war.
Tigertron roars at him that they’re the ones turning this planet into a
battlefield. He says he won’t be a part of this anymore; he renounces the Beast
Wars. Dinobot accuses him of desertion, and Cheetor says that he can’t. Tigertron
says that his decision is made and runs off. Inferno was watching the exchange
and radios to the other fliers to regroup on his position. Dinobot says that the
Predacons know how to handle deserters. He tells Cheetor to return to base for
repairs while he ‘handles’ this. Cheetor isn’t stoked about leaving this to
Dinobot, but then sees Optimus fly in, which makes him more confident in this
plan.
The Predacons meet up. Terrorsaur
tries to insist that they return to base, but Inferno is weirdly insistent that
they have to kill the Maximals to fulfill Megatron’s command. The others agree,
but Terrorsaur insists that they actually wait for his signal this time. The
trio flyoff.
Optimus takes Cheetor partway back
to the base before dropping him off. He orders Cheetor back to base and tell
Rhinox to send backup ASAP. Cheetor asks what’s going to happen, but Optimus
doesn’t know for certain.
We cut to the evening. Tigertron sees
Dinobot searching for him and sneaks up on the raptor, demanding to know what
he wants. Dinobot insists he’s just here to talk. He preaches a survival of the
fittest mentality, using an actual tiger hunting deer nearby as an example.
Tigertron says that animals hunt to survive. Dinobot says that this war is ABOUT
survival. He states that while Maximals believe in peace, the Predacons are a
war machine waiting to be roused once again. We get a visual of a rebuilt Darksyde
attacking a floating city of Cybertron before raining hell down on the planet
surface. He insists that if Megatron gets the Energon of his planet off world,
he’ll begin a war that will burn GALAXIES. This being the cycle that’s existed
since the Autobots and Decepticons began the Great War millennia ago. Tigerton insists
that the war will never end until someone decides not to fight. Dinobot says
that isn’t an option, the Predacons will either destroy him or reprogram him.
Tigertron says they won’t find him, Dinobot counters by saying he found him.
Dinobot snaps at him, saying that if he’s not with the Maximals, then he’s
against them. He tries to goad Tigertron into fighting, but Tigertron refuses.
Dinobot goes so far as to shoot near Tigerton with his laser eyes, but
Tigertron won’t budge. Before he can attack in earnest Optimus arrives and
tells him to back off. When Optimus offers Tigertron his condolences for
Snowstalker’s death, Dinobot snarls with frustration, saying that he can’t
believe the Maximals have survived this long with their level of sentimentality.
He walks off, reverting to Beast Mode. Optimus does as well. Optimus tries to
convince Tigertron to not give up, saying that as Maximals they need to explore
and defend the planet. Tigertron doesn’t believe that any more.
As Dinobot walks off, the Predacon
fliers spot him and decide he’ll be a bigger prize than Tigertron. Three on one
they quickly overwhelm Dinobot. Optimus hears the explosions in the distance
and tells Tigertron they need to help him. Tigertron looks away, and Optimus
says that he guesses that he’s made his choice. He returns to robot mode and flies
off. Optimus quickly takes out both Terrorsaur and Waspinator in one shot, but
he’s shot down by Inferno. Both he and Dinobot are at their limit and revert to
beast mode. Inferno prepares to incinerate them, but Tigertron pounces on him.
Inferno laughs maniacally and causes a small brushfire. Infuriated, Tigertron
shoots at Inferno, shouting with each shot that Inferno WILL Leave the Wild ALONE!
He blasts Inferno into the sky and out of the episode. He put out the fire and still
looks depressed. Optimus congratulates him and welcomes him back to the fold.
Dinobot also thanks him for his timely arrival. Tigerton is clearly still
unhappy, saying that he’s still going to grieve Snowstalker… but he now accepts
that the Maximals are needed to keep the Predacons from spreading more wanton destruction.
I like that this episode is a call
back to, and in some ways a follow up to the Sky Island two parter. Tigertron
has always been a nature lover, holding the wild sacred like no other Maximal,
so their war’s continued damage to the planet hurting him on a spiritual level
is incredibly understandable. This coupled with the fact that Snowstalker was
killed by a careless blast of Tigertron makes his decision to try to walk away
from the war understandable. I like that the episode seems to acknowledge that
Tigerton’s sentiment is noble even if it’s not practical for their situation.
Yes, in most other situations choosing not to fight is a noble decision, but
when one side won’t stop until everyone on the other side is dead… like bro,
you don’t get to opt out of that. I also appreciate Dinobot reminding us of what’s
at stake here. The series has gone on for nearly twenty-five episodes at this
point, almost all of them being episodic stories about surviving while marooned
on a hostile world, so it’s understandable that folks might have forgotten WHY
the Transformers ended up here. Megatron is after Energon, and if he can get
even a fraction of this planet’s supply back to Cybertron, the age-old war will
begin anew. As slapstick as the Predacons have gotten, they’re also part of a
much larger army that will mess things up if they get up and running. I think
it’s important to remember this as we approach the final three episodes of this
season. Next time an unexpected twist… or three. See you then.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/137355060
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
No comments:
Post a Comment