IDW Publishing's Transformers: Beast Wars #6 – Savage Landing Part 06 – SPOILERS!

Hi, this is John Barber from IDW Publishing.

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So without further ado, it's time to talk about

the comics we're reading right now here inside

the pull bag. Hello and welcome to the pull bag.

This is episode 420 .5. I hope to God I get episode

420 recorded, because right now I don't have

it recorded. Anyway, I'm of course TF2 and Mike,

joining me as usual for Transformers and Beast

Wars from IDW Publishing, Steve Megatron. Hello.

Ah yes, welcome. Welcome to the only place that

you can hear the real Beast Wars Megatron. Besides

the actual David Kay Beast Wars Megatron, but

at least here at the Geekcast Radio Network We

actually have a resonant Megatron that actually

sounds like Megatron So so what you're saying

is you're not a groveling fool. Don't you see

how everything you do here is futile primal?

Exactly We are here to talk about the final issue

of the first arc of Transformers Beast Wars from

IDW, as I said. This is issue number six. It

is Savage Landing part six. Written by Eric Burnham,

art by Josh Burcham, letters by Jake M. Wood,

assistant editor is Riley Farmer, editor is David

Marriott, and supervising editor is Tom Walz.

We get the standard, you know, previously on

the story so far thing, and we get the cast,

and we open up with Tarantulas. He's aboard the

Axelon. And we're getting your favorite here,

right? Rat Trap always wins. Yeah, it's a given.

And I love because as of this recording I'm in

the middle of dealing with the top 100 Transformers

characters countdown here on the GeekCast radio

network as far as the editing and getting clips

and whatever else So I've seen enough tarantulas

episodes to remember this like why are cats so

stupid? Like one time that he was facing off

against Cheetor. Well, apparently he can win

against Cheetor. He can't win against Rattrap

So anyway, Tarantulas is here and he's trying

to sabotage the ship, but he sees the tech lab

and he just can't help himself because he's Tarantulas

and you know. He has to get involved. Absolutely.

We go outside to the battle that started in last

issue and Dinobot is basically destroying Waspinator.

Poor Waspinator. Yeah, he just rips his arm right

off. Yeah. And he basically beats him to death

with it. I know Waspinator is not this character,

and I don't know if you've ever seen this movie.

You might have. 1999, there was an MTV film called

Varsity Blues with James Van Der Beek and Ron

Lester, may the man rest in peace, and John Voight

was in it, and it's about this football team

and whatever else. And in it, Ron Lester plays

Billy Bob, and Billy Bob is a big hulking dude

and, you know, whatever. And in one of the scenes,

he says to the coach, That needle goes anywhere

near Wendel's legs. I'll rip your arms and legs

off and beat you to death with them." As soon

as I see Dinobot smack Waspinator with his own

arm, that's what I think of. And Cheetah's like,

what, he's on our side now? And Pterosaur's like,

it doesn't matter, he can't save you. Scorponok.

Yeah, Scorponok. Jeez. I love the art. I love

the writing. The shadows on this panel where

you see Megatron and Terrorsaur is talking and

everything else. And I'm like, oh, wow, that

is just so cool. Josh did an amazing job with

the shadows on the back of Terrorsaur. And I

know it's not this because it's... I'm pretty

sure they're out in the middle of the desert,

but it looks like they're in Mr. Wilson's backyard,

actually, because even though that's a cliff,

that's the scene that I'm talking about with

the shadows on the back of Pterosaur. Even though

it's a cliff, the brown part to me looks like

a brown picket fence. Of course, I'm blind, so

there is that. So we get back to tarantulas and

he's doing his normal schtick and rat traps in

the vents and rat traps like oh this is gonna

be good I Love rat trap versus tarantulas because

as we've already said rat trap always gets the

better of tarantulas Well, that's because rat

trap bides his time and sneaks whereas tarantulas

is just a cackling buffoon He's your typical

mad scientist, full of himself, not thinking

about repercussions of, you know, his grand designs.

And it bites him in the butt. A lot. Yes, and

then we get back to Megatron against Primal and

Megatron says... Don't you see how everything

you do here is futile, Optimus Primal? The history

of Cybertron is being written. Yes, here and

now. But if you surrender and die with dignity,

I shall allow a brief mention of your pointless

valor in our official record. I am no Garry Chuck,

folks, but Megatron, don't you... You talk too

much. And then Rhinox charges Skull, I believe.

Skull, yep. Yeah, that is Skull. And we get more

Megatron as always. Yes, more Megatron monologuing.

I suppose it's possible that I'll pay dearly

for one day for my generosity. Very well, Optimus

Primal. You will stand against me to your end.

But... I remain generous despite that. I shall

still allow your name to grace the historical

records of my new empire. Incoming! And then,

sadly, Megatron blasts Nyx, who gets hit, and

we cut back to Tarantulas. You wanna do those

ones too? Oh, tarantulas? This is inconceivable!

These systems are practically obsolete! By my

standards, they shouldn't be able to hold me

back! Maybe you're just too dumb to work it out.

Hey, it's me your pal the vermin. I'm sick of

hiding I'm sick of hearing you talk to yourself

and more than anything I'm sick of you messing

with my ship You're sick. Are you? Then I'll

just have to put you out of your misery Oh, I

thought that was anyway. Yes. I love this I I'm

not too thrilled with Rat Trap having this contraption,

but I understand why. It's not hilarious. It's

hilarious, it is. I just, I was, I don't know,

I was expecting him to do something else, but

this works. I mean, it's not the end of the world,

and he eventually does kick Tarantulas out of

the ship. Well, Tarantulas is an idiot. True.

And he deserves the butt -kicking that he gets.

And Rattrap gets the shields back up and the

force field. And he asks the computer, like,

what's the maximum range of our defensive force

fields? 25 meters. Put them on full strength

and patch me into all maximal comms. damn rat

trap is smart i always knew he was hey kids shields

are back up get yourself to cover we'll go from

there i love this i think this is great sadly

dinobot can't get through though because dinobot

is still a predacon and it's only the shields

i find this interesting the shields are only

tied to maximal coding Which makes sense. Yeah.

Because you don't want to predicate on being

able to get past the defenses. True. Yeah, it's

surprising he didn't change his activation code

yet. Yeah, I was like, wait a minute. Why hasn't

he changed the activation code yet? I was like,

wait a second. What's going on here? However,

I'm liking that he hasn't yet because of what

eventually happens later in this issue. Absolutely

and Dinobot goes on to say I fought them all

before I can do it again and Megatron says the

difference between then and now my dear Dinobot

is that last time you had the element of surprise

you attacked our you attacked while we tripped

over each other on the dark side but this time

you're well and truly surrounded There are only

five of you. I'll make this quick. Only five?

Perhaps you should count again. Count? That hurt.

I told you I'd get revenge for ruining my prototype.

And I told you you were surrounded. Predacons!

Terrorize! And then there's the battle and Wow

This they basically They basically gang up on

him it's basically a gang initiation Even though

he was already a Predacon. Holy crap that scene

The ultimate beatdown, huh? You want to talk

about color man? The fact that all the Predacons

are in shadowy purple colors the background is

nothing but red With a white streak. Oh my god.

This is I love Josh in his art The man needs

to win awards. He deserves it Well, especially

because he's showing brutality without having

to necessarily show all the detail Yeah, absolutely

And they figure out that they can fire through

the shields. And this leads to my favorite image

of this issue, which is the art for this episode

of the podcast where Optimus Primal says, he

goes and says, that'll do computer, engage plasma

cannons. What? That was a dual plasma pulse plasma

cannon what we like to call an offensive deterrent

Not much compared to what's on a warship, but

it'll still reduce you to sludge if I give the

order So leave now before the order is given.

Do you need a countdown? Megatron just has this

glare look on his I love that image. Oh Man,

well cuz you can imagine him going Yeah, absolutely.

And the Predacons retreat. But not before Megatron

says one final line. Maximals never did understand

the difference between winning a battle and winning

a war. You were a fool to not press your advantage,

Optimus Primal, and you will pay for it with

your own life one day. Mark my words, Megatron

will be victorious! Mm -hmm. We get an epilogue

in this issue two days later, or several days

later, and Optimus and Rhinox are doing training

as they've done in the past in the comic. And

they talk about, you know, Optimus' actions and

mistakes and that kind of stuff. I love it. Makes

you wonder a little bit about Rhinox's past and

why he's this kind of mentor role. Yeah. Well,

he always was that wise old Maximo. To some degree.

I mean, yeah. I mean, especially in this, he

seems obviously older and Optimus seems young.

Obviously, Optimus is the younger leader in this

one. Yeah, he's more green. Yeah. And they're

talking about Dinobot and Dinobot is like, yeah,

I'm going to leave and I'll save you the effort

for dismissing me. And this, I love that Eric

Burnham did this in the writing. Do you know

the significance of the designation dino bot

I don't and then we go into the explanation of

who the dino bots were and I Love that connection.

That is awesome. Mm -hmm So awesome And we get

you know, the final page is here and dino bot

DinoBot says, I'm not staying. I told you I can't

fight like I once did. And Optima says, I'd still

be honored if you'd stay. I accept. I'm glad.

Now take some time to rest and we'll talk more

later. I want to know all I can about Megatron.

And then next, Blackarachnia. Should be interesting.

Oh, I cannot wait. And the cool thing about that

one is is that I have sort of made a more more

of a pullback decision than an all things transformers

decision or beast on leash decision. I want to

do that arc in multiples. So we'll do set we'll

do two issues at a time. So seven and eight and

then nine and 10 kind of thing. Because what

I learned from us doing this first arc is that

one issue sometimes just wasn't like there wasn't

enough to discuss. Like, yes, we just basically

told everybody the issue. Yes, you did an awesome

job doing the lines. As I said in this so far,

I really enjoyed Josh's art, Eric's writing,

that whole Dinobots thing, the connection to

the Dinobots. I loved that. I thought that was

great writing. the characters and how they interact

with each other is great. That whole scene with

Optimus and Rhinox, so cool. Absolutely love

it. Yeah, anytime they can do a callback, it's

really cool because that usually doesn't happen.

No, no. What was your thought on the writing

overall for this one? Oh, I loved it. I love

all the the monologuing by Megatron. I love the

interactions between uh, rat trap and tarantulas.

I love the, uh, you know, tarantulas is secret

weapon from, you know, beast machines kind of

comes into play again, um, a little early, um,

with his little machine. Um, but yeah, I mean,

I, I was very, very happy to see what they did

and in this issue. Yeah, it was so good. So,

so good. absolutely love it again the art what's

so great about this art is that this is prehistoric

earth that like they haven't even cut in when

we're doing as you've said in other episodes

that we've done of this comic this is season

one Beast Wars this is not season two this is

not season three this is not them having to Make

up stories to continue the comic because again

like you've said in some of the other episodes

is That you know if they had a season four they

would have done this or that or whatever I don't

know how long this comic is gonna go on I hope

it gets as many issues as it can get I hope that

IDW continues to stay in business and continues

to have the license because there have been rumors

that IDW and I know that there has been actual

factual information that they've been struggling

lately and it sucks that they've been struggling

as a comic book company, as all comic book companies

struggled to find various ways to do things in

the last year and a half or whatever it is. And

I just hope that this story gets, that this series

gets the stories and whatever that it deserves

because this is a franchise that deserves to

have Eric Burnham writing on it and telling the

story like literally to me this is Seeing Beast

Wars in a whole new light 25 years later. Oh,

yeah, totally. I I honestly Love the the job

that they're doing with the Beast Wars comic

Especially when you know, the visual media isn't

as appealing You don't have to worry about voice

actors or voice directors. You don't have to

worry about any of that because it's all in your

mind Yep, and it all comes out of your mouth

Yes Absolutely love it I Again five out of five

for me. What about you? I'm gonna give it a five

out of five. Yeah There wasn't even any nitpicks.

There wasn't the I mean, if I really want to

nitpick something, I didn't see Skold enough

or Nyx enough because they are new characters

and we need to know more about them. However,

I know at some point we will learn more about

them as the series goes along. Coming up next

in August is something that was supposed to happen

back in March of this year, but it didn't. But

it's happening now. We have a TMNT month here

inside the pull bag. My buddy Joe Reed and I

have already recorded episodes 421 to 425. And

holy schnikes, folks, you are in for a surprise.

If you guys like reading the IDW comics or if

you haven't read the IDW comics, we've been covering

those here inside the pull bag since 2014. And

coming up in August, we finish out for the 100

issues that IDW, TMNT got. We get Bebop and Rex

that he hit the road in episode 421, in 422 and

423 at City at War parts 1 and 2. Hello, folks.

So I am interrupting where I'm talking about

what's coming up next here inside the pull bag

because I realized after Steve and I recorded

this episode 424, of the pull bag, which is our

TMNT Shredder in Hell recording. I didn't split

up the episodes. We took a break in one episode.

So episode 424, one episode for the Shredder

in Hell IDW TMNT mini series. Now, here's what

else I had to say. 425 will be issue 100 of TMNT

and then in September we get Scooby -Doo team

up volumes three and four. We'll have a couple

origins. We'll have more Radiant Black stuff.

Sorry about the Radiant Black delay, but we will

also have Transformers Beast Wars seven and eight

with the new arc with Winston Chan on art for

that the next arc and After that, I don't know

what's going on here inside the pull bag. Although

On all things Transformers, we've got the top

100 Transformers characters countdown going on.

So that's what's going on here inside all things

Transformers. Anything else you want to say before

we get the heck out of here? No, I think I'm

good. Awesome. Where can the people find you

online, sir? They can find me on the Twitters

at SCP -21. I am at TF2 on mic you can hear all

the other information in the outro as I'm still

using the outro Steve recorded from 2019 but

that's okay because it has all the information

that I want in there so there you go make your

greatest game into comics and we will catch you

next time folks here inside the pull bag This

is the party I expected! Send us an email, feedback

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