How Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Could Adapt a Surprising Comic Story

Thelatest trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has revealed thefilm’s main villain: Unicron. The chaos bringer has been literally andfiguratively the biggest villain in the franchise since 1986’sTransformers: The Movie, and his arrival always spells bad things foranyone in his path. Rise of the Beasts also draws on the Beast Warscartoon, bringing in a cast of Maximals that includes Optimus Primal,Cheetor, Rhinox, and Airazor. While Unicron did not encounter theMaximals in the American Beast Wars cartoon, he did cause a lot ofproblems for some of those specific characters in the TransformersArmada and Energon comics from Dreamwave. While those comics might seeman unlikely inspiration, it’s possible they could provide ahint to the story in Rise of the Beasts. 

BeastWars toys first released in stores in 1996, reinvigorating theTransformers franchise at a point when it was nearly dead. The animal-based serieswas a big hit with fans young and old, and acted as a direct sequel tothe original “G1” continuity. After multiple Beast-themed cartoons andtoylines, however, a lot of fans began to miss the classic charactersand vehicles. As a result, Hasbro and Takara began to co-develop a newseries, which came to be known as Transformers Armada. Debuting in 2002,Armada served as a complete reboot of the Transformers storyline, whilebringing back long missing favorites, like Unicron and Jetfire. Theseries revolved around a series of smaller robots known as Minicons, andevery Autobot and Decepticon in the line came with a Minicon partner.

Armadaproved to be quite successful, but Hasbro found it did not have enoughproduct on shelves to meet demand. To satisfy hungry kids andcollectors, the company took multiple figures originally released in theBeast Wars line, giving them new paint jobs and new Minicon partners tomatch the rest of the Armada figures. These characters were mostly justmeant to fill out the toyline, and Rhinox was the only one to receive abrief cameo in the accompanying animated series. Despite this, thecharacters would actually play a significant role in the TransformersArmada comics published by Dreamwave. 

Inthe comics, Unicron did not just devour planets like he did in theanimated movie; instead, this version consumed entire realities. In thisquest, Unicron would send his heralds into realities to scout ahead,destroying any Autobot and Decepticon resistance (including their leaders) before they knew of hiscoming. In the “World’s Collide” storyline, Unicron’s initial heraldsincluded G1 favorites Galvatron, Scourge, Bludgeon, Thunderwing, andDirge. In the Armada continuity, the Beast Wars characters were notmeant to be Maximals and Predacons; instead, they were Autobots andDecepticons with alt-forms designed for Earth combat. As part of anAutobot team led by Jetfire, Rhinox helped to defeat several of Unicron’s heralds, before the chaos bringer arrived in their reality.

Uponhis arrival, Unicron was surprised to find his heralds defeated, andOptimus Prime and Megatron still alive. This gave Prime the upper handneeded to defeat Unicron in the final issue of the Armada comic.However, the battle was not without casualties; Autobots Rhinox,Cheetor, and Airazor, along with the Decepticon Terrorsaur, wereseemingly killed by Unicron. When the comic relaunched an issue later asTransformers Energon, it was revealed that the four Transformers wereactually captured, and were now under Unicron’s control as his newHorsemen. The four would remain recurring villains throughout theseries, as they attempted to restore Unicron to full power.

Unfortunately,real-world problems would prevent that story from ever getting aconclusion! Financial troubles led to Dreamwave’s closure, as well asthe abrupt end of the Energon comic series. Transformers fans hoped foryears that publisher IDW might give the story a conclusion, but legalred tape has left the story unfinished. Despitethe messy ending, it doesn’t seem too big of a stretch to imagine thatTransformers: Rise of the Beasts could use this story as inspiration. Ifthe film’s Maximals end up enslaved by Unicron, it could even set up aninteresting sequel, where the Autobots are forced to save theirnewfound Maximal allies. Two decades after their release, the Armada andEnergon comics remain some of the most underrated Transformers storiesever, and it would be pretty cool to see them loosely adapted for thebig screen!

Are you looking forward to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts? Do you think Cheetor, Rhinox, and Airazor will have better luck against Unicron this time? Letusknowin thecomments or share yourthoughts directlyon TwitterandonHive at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!