Time to go fishing.
Last time on Beast Wars,
Optimus got another new look. Optimus Primal elects to temporarily take Optimus
Prime’s spark and the Matrix of Leadership into his body so they can perform
emergency repairs on the damaged Autobot hero. Housing the second Spark and
Matrix mutates Optimus’ body into a sort of half-Autobot form that Megatron
dubs Optimal Optimus. Realizing Optimus’ new body and the Maximals quick
thinking had foiled his plan, Megatron retreats with the intention of
destroying the Axalon. On his way out he runs into Blackarachnia, who
kicked him out of the Ark on the cusp of his victory because she didn’t
want to be erased with the Maximals as she was also a Maximals Protoform. That
proved to be one betrayal too many, so Megatron shot her point blank with his
cannon. Optimus and Cheetor chase the fleeing Predacons down, but Megatron
orders Rampage to pull the ship off the cliff. Optimus rocks to the base and
almost stops the king crab, but chooses to protect Prime’s spark when Rampage
shoots him, unfortunately deflecting the missile into the Axalon. The
ship breaks into pieces and falls into the river below. Silverbolt begs an
injured Blackarachnia to stay with him, to join the Maximals. She agrees, but
says she’s working with them as a Predacon before passing out. Silverbolt howls
in pain before being reminded she’s just in Stasis Lock and can be repaired.
With their base gone and knowing that Megatron will try to attack the Ark again,
the Maximals salvage what they can from the Axalon and set up a
temporary basecamp in the cavern outside the Ark. Enough recapping.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
We begin with a tour of the
Maximals new base. They widened the entrance to the cavern and added a pair of
doors to hopefully fortify the location. It looks like they’re doing their best
to fill out the cavern outside the Ark rather than be in the ship
itself. Probably safer since ya don’t know if you’ll trip in here and, say,
kick the comatose Wheeljack’s head and break one of his head lights. As I said
yesterday, they salvaged most of their bridge from the wreckage and we join
Rhinox trying to connect their computer system to the Teletran-1. It’s slow
going, though, as Maximal and Autobot tech isn’t compatible with each other.
Like, imagine trying to use a gen-1 iPod now. You’d need like 15 connector
cables to get that to work and those are less than 30 years old. Imagine the
difference 300 years makes. Optimus asks for a status report, and Rhinox says
he’s making no promises. Optimus says they have to get things working soon, or
the Maximal Elders have to send help soon or they may have to change their strategy.
A clearly annoyed Rhinox says that they both know that IF the Elders were going
to send help it’d be there already. Optimus replies he doesn’t know what he
knows anymore and that none of them were exactly like they were when the war
started, nor is their universe.
We jump into deep space. A computer
abord a spaceship tells its pilot that this sector of space has been deemed
forbidden by the Maximal High Council. The figure says to slag the Council and to
do a quantum scan. The computer tells him this is also a no-no but he overrides
it. The computer detects the signature of… Protoform X. Oh, someone’s hunting
Rampage. A moment later he gets hit by the transwarp surge. He gets turned into
a transmetal while being pulled into a breach and disappears.
We return to Earth and find Inferno
and Rampage spying on the Maximals. Inferno radios Megatron, who gives the go
ahead for the two to test the Maximals’ defenses. Inferno tells Rampage that
he’ll attack Silverbolt and Blackarachnia, and when the others are drawn out,
he should reign heavy fire on them. Rampage shrugs and says that sounds easy,
which upsets Inferno. He tells Rampage to follow orders and flies off. Rampage
looks to the sky, and I guess senses that someone is coming, someone he
remembers. No, this clairvoyance of his is never explained. He transforms into
Crab-Tank mode and drives off.
The ship comes out of Transwarp
space, heavily damaged and with the pilot screaming. It hurtles towards Earth.
We shift to a patrolling Cheetor. He sees the ship entering the atmosphere and
radios into Optimus. He tells Cheetor to stay on it and that he’ll meet him
shortly. Both Optimus and Rhinox hope this is what they’ve been waiting for.
They open the blast doors and Optimus takes off in Jet mode. Outside, Inferno
orders Rampage to be prepared for fire, not knowing that Rampage left. He
orders the attack and charges alone. Blackarachnia and Silverbolt are confused
why he’s here by himself but just shrug. Optimus rockets past him, and
Blackarachnia drops a boulder onto Inferno. He just kind of groans as he sees
it dropping, knowing he can’t dodge, and is crushed.
The ship crashes into the ocean.
Cheetor recognizes it has a small star hopper before it hits the water. He
circles around it when Rampage pulls up. He mutters that this game isn’t for
him, and shoots Cheetor down. He shifts to full crab mode, saying that this
game is just for the two of them and crawls into the water. The ship activates
its emergency scanner and hits on a Beast mode, a manta ray. The pilot is
warned that Protoform X is incoming, and he transforms to meet the crab. We
learn this fella is named Depth Charge. He launches a drone to scan, which is
shaped like a remora which I thought was a nice design touch. The scanner
detects Cheetor, and Depth Charge swims over to grab him.
Back at the Darksyde,
Megatron learns that Inferno was defeated and that Rampage ran off. He orders
Waspinator to salvage Inferno, he flies off and whines about how he has to
salvage Inferno, but when Waspinator gets blown up, no one salvages HIM.
Megatron shakes his head at the departing bug and order Quickstrike to find
Rampage, he wants to know how the crab is avoiding scans.
Cheetor wakes up and meets Depth
Charge. Their meeting is cut short when Depth Charge’s scanner picks up
Rampage’s signal. He tells Cheetor that he doesn’t want to leave Protoform X
waiting. He transforms into his Transmetal vehicle mode, a jet, flies around
and shifts to normal manta ray to dive into the water. Cheetor tries to radio
Optimus but his com was damaged when he was hit. And his jets aren’t firing due
to his dunking. He moans he hates water as he’s forced to wait for rescue.
Depth Charge links up with his
drone that tells him Rampage is directly below him. Rampage leaps from his
seaweed cover and grabs onto Depth Charge, saying hi to his ‘old friend.’ When
Depth Charge calls him X, Rampage lets him know about the name change. He says
it’s a bit obvious, but gets the point across. He uses his claws to start crush
Depth Charge’s fins, saying that Depth Charge’s pain is lovely, but he wants
Depth Charge’s terror too. He says that’ll make this more amusing like their
‘party’ on Omicron. Depth Charge activates his jets and rockets them to the
surface. Once in the air, he shifts into jet mode. Rampage transforms into
robot mode, complimenting Depth Charge on being ‘trickier’ than before and then
shooting him in the head. Depth Charge crashes into a cliff and knocks Rampage
off, impaling him on a spike. Depth Charge crashes, though, and passes out.
Optimus arrives and Cheetor quickly
informs him of what happened. Optimus recognizes the name Depth Charge.
Rampage pulls himself from the
spike and regenerates from the damage. As he approaches, Depth Charge’s body
activates emergency defense systems. Rampage says that he should ignore the
pain as it’ll only get worse. He compliments Depth Charge on chasing him for so
long, saying that he shouldn’t be so surprised since Depth Charge was the one
that caged him last time. Depth Charge activates his jets at the last moment to
dodge Rampage’s spike, blasting him back and then shoots Rampage with energy
disks from his chest. He roars that this time he won’t bother with a cage,
creep. They trade shots, Rampage shifting to Tank mode after Depth Charge
blocks his rockets. Depth Charge’s wings shield him from a lot of it, but some
hits get in. Depth Charge takes his Tail Spear, roars “This is for Colony
Omicron!” and hurls it at Rampage. He spikes one of Rampage’s cannon’s turret
and causes it to blow. Depth Charge’s system warns him to activate his repair
system immediately, but he ignores the warning to try to finish off Rampage.
Quickstrike arrives and blasts him, saying that Rampage is ugly, but he’s a
Predacon. Depth Charge is knocked out, but before Quickstrike can do anything
more, Optimus flies in and blasts him. He lands and confirms he knows Depth
Charge. He tells Cheetor to grab him and get him back to base. Cheetor asks
what they should do about Rampage, but the crab slipped away in the confusion.
Optimus says that he guesses Rampage has had enough… for now.
They get Depth Charge into the CR
Chamber and Rattrap asks who the “herring” is. Optimus and Rhinox explain that
Depth Charge oversaw security at Colony Omicron. The place that Rampage escaped
from when he was first brought online and that he leveled. Depth Charge was the
only survivor. He spent four years (stellar cycles) hunting Rampage before
capturing him and bringing him back to Cybertron. He demanded that the Maximal
High Council find a way to extinguish Rampage’s immortal spark, but instead he
was turned over to Optimus and the Axalon for their ‘find an uninhabited
rock and bury it there,” plan. Depth Charge was obviously upset with that
decision. Rattrap shrugs at DC’s angst and asks the big question, how’d he get
here? The repair cycle ends and they let him out. Depth Charge asks who the pit
Optimus is but recognizes him once Optimus speaks. Cheetor tries to introduce
himself to Depth Charge, but the big bot brushes him aside and tells him to
chase a mouse. Optimus calls Depth Charge back and the fishman asks what he’s
doing there. Optimus says he was about to ask the same. Depth Charge tells them
about being caught in the Transwarp wave while hunting for Rampage. Optimus
tells him they’ve got bigger issues to deal with right now. Depth Charge says that’s
good, since that means X is all his again. Optimus tries to reason with him,
but Depth Charge is single minded on his hunt for Rampage. Depth Charge is
stunned when he sees the Ark, and they explain the whole situation with
Megatron and trying to defend the Ark. Depth Charge says that he’s too
with handling Optimus’ last mistake and demands to know where the exit is.
Optimus tries to reason with him, saying that what happened on Omicron wasn’t
either of their faults, and to stop seeking revenge. Depth Charge says that
he’s seeking justice… which, ya know, is what everyone seeking revenge says.
Optimus orders the doors opened for him.
Optimus tries one more time to get
Depth Charge to help, saying that Rampage is with the Predicons now and that
there’s six of them that Depth Charge will have to deal with if he wants the
king crab. He says that when Optimus screws up, he screws up big, but thanks
him for the tip. He transforms into jet mode and flies off. Cheetor followed
Optimus and asks if he thinks Depth Charge will be back. Optimus says that
there was a time when he won’t have left, but Rampage stole that from him. We
cut back to Depth Charge’s ship, Rampage saying that it was so nice of him to
come, and how glad he is that DC will be staying, before he blows the ship to
pieces. Guess Depth Charge is stranded too.
And there we have our third to last
cast addition, Depth Charge the Manta Ray. Don’t get used to his fish mode, he almost
exclusively uses his jet alt mode since most missions are out of the water. If
you can’t tell, he’s kind of going to fill Dinobot’s old role on the team as
the resident asshole, with a bit of loose cannon sprinkled in for fun. He’s
rude, angry, and laser focused on hunting down and killing the unkillable
Rampage. Their dynamic is pretty good, with Rampage forever needling Depth
Charge about all the people that died on Omicron and Depth Charge always taking
the bait. He’s like the big dog that picks on the cat to get it to react. Depth
Charge design wise is pretty neat, I enjoy his mouthless face and huge wings in
robot mode. His typical fighting strategy is to tank hits with those wings
before returning fire when the Predacons stop to reload. My only real complaint
about the guy is that he shows up so late to the game. I really wish he’d been
introduced in season 2 so we could have gotten more of him and Rampage. He adds
a lot of character to Rampage too, as Depth Charge is the only character that
Rampage seems to delight in tormenting. This reminds me of a bigger weakness of
this show overall, to me, and that that’s I wish we knew more of the pre-Beast
Wars lore. We get hints about Optimus, Rattrap, Rhinox and Megatron having
history, and now we also see at the very least Optimus knew Depth Charge as
well. We don’t get much more of their past, though, just lots of jabs from
Depth Charge about Optimus screwing up with Protoform X and how he wants
payback for Omicron. His line about how the old Depth Charge wouldn’t have left
gives me a vision of a character that probably took his job seriously but
believed in working with others and community far more than the angry fishman
we’ll see going forward. He does loosen up a little bit as the show goes on, but
Rampage is his fixation throughout. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Have a good night and stay safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-beast-149551036
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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