1997 arrived and the Beast Wars entered their second year. The toys developed and became more complex, dropping some elements such as battlemasks and flip-changers, but also bringing back limited triple changing and combiners. Transformers returned to Japan once again with “Beast Wars: Super Robot Lifeform Transformer”, both as a toyline and also for the first time in seven years, a cartoon (albeit a dub of Mainframe’s work heavy on adlibbing). Amid all of this, the first Botcon Japan was held, and Kenner experimented with bringing back vehicle Transformers with the Machine Wars… Season 1 of the Beast Wars reached fever pitch in 1997, with several important and interesting episodes. One of these was Possession, which brought back Generation 1 Starscream – still a ghost after he died in Transformers the Movie – and firmly established that Beast Wars was in continuity with the Generation 1 Transformers series. The Spark was another important episode, as it introduced into the series the concept of sparks, the pulsing energy that made up the life force and the personalities of Transformers – a concept which has appeared in every iteration of Transformers fiction since its introduction in this episode.
While Beast Wars was mostly an episodic series throughout its first year, there were hints toward an overarching story. Some of those hints were dropped in episodes like Chain of Command and The Trigger, which had established that there was an alien intelligence with interests in the world where the Beast Wars were taking place. This thread was picked up again in the first episode airing in 1997, Spider’s Game. As well as introducing the popular Predacon fire ant Inferno, the episode established the aliens were on their way to intervene in the Beast Wars. And intervene they did in the explosive season finale, Other Voices, which is remembered and celebrated as one of the greatest episodes of the first season of the show. The aliens revealed they had seeded the world with Energon and other artifacts, and they were unhappy with the Maximals and Predacons interfering with their experiment – and so decided to purge the world with a huge moon-sized weapon. Optimus Primal flew a modified stasis pod into the heart of the weapon to destroy it, but died in the process. Season 1 of the Beast Wars ended with the laughter of Megatron and wreckage of Optimus Primal floating in space.
Beast Wars Season 2 opening credits. Uploaded to Youtube by ThotThor[/size]
Season 2 of Beast Wars kicked off in late 1997 with Aftermath and the two part Coming of the Fuzors – essentially a three part story arc which resolved the cliffhanger from the end of Other Voices Part 2. The three part episode served to introduce the Transmetals and the Fuzors – the new product line for 1998 – as well as resurrect Optimus Primal in a new body. The year closed with Maximal No More, an episode focusing on Dinobot questioning his loyalties as he tried to come to terms with, as he saw it, his fate being sealed. Maximal No More marked a trend for season 2 of Beast Wars to be a darker and more introspective show, although the series never became so relentlessly dark that it lost its sense of humor, helped largely by new characters Silverbolt and Quickstrike.
The first half of Season 2 of Beast Wars introduced another important concept to the Transformers mythos, when Rhinox journeyed into the Transformers afterlife to retrieve the spark of Optimus Primal. At this time, this spiritual realm from which all Transformers’ sparks originate from and return to upon their death was referred to as “the Matrix”; however it would come to be known by a different name in Beast Machines – the Allspark.
Beast Wars toys from the 1997 assortments. 1997 added some interesting new beast modes included Retrax the pillbug, Manterror the praying mantis, Cybershark the hammerhead shark and Spittor the poisonous toad. It also added new Predacon villain Inferno and Maximal heroine Airazor, as well as some awesome new combiners.
The Beast Wars toyline continued onward through 1997, with the Deluxe size class getting some truly unique animals into the mix including a pillbug (Retrax) a buffalo (Bonecrusher) and even a hammerhead shark (Cybershark). The basic size class dropped the flip-changer auto transformation in favor of more involved transformations, and instead went with battle action weapons as a gimmick, such as spinning drills and slashing claws. The Mega size class dropped the deployable drone characters and went with triple changing instead – all three of the new releases had third modes (though Inferno’s was a bit questionable). The mandrill, B’Boom transformed into a gun platform, while Transquito changed into two different kinds of bugs. Infamously, both Transquito and Inferno were slow sellers, and Transquito particularly was a notorious “shelf-warmer” who was still being found on shelves more than five years later.
A small but nonetheless noteworthy addition to the 1997 Beast Wars releases were rubsigns, called “Energon Chips” on the packaging. Like the rubsigns featured on the original 1985 – 87 Transformers, these rubsigns were heat-activated and revealed the faction of the character. The Beast Wars toys kept their rubsigns for the 1998 Transmetal series, but dropped them in 1999 with the introduction of spark crystals.
The 1997 toyline assortment also brought back combiners. Magnaboss and Tripredacus were sold at the Ultra price point, and were boxed sets of three toys of roughly Basic to Deluxe size. The three individual toys were solid and poseable on their own, but together could merge into a single robot that was also very poseable – the first time a combiner had pulled off poseability in addition to combination.
While Beast Wars and animal Transformers were what the line was all about at this time, classic style vehicular Transformers, the Autobots and the Decepticons were not forgotten. Kenner tested the waters with a short-lived, Kay Bee exclusive series called Machine Wars, to see if there was a market for vehicle type Transformers. The line included four new Basic class molds – each repainted twice to bulk up the ranks of the Autobots and Decepticons. Four of the late international Generation 1 releases – Predators Stalker and Skyquake, and Turbomasters Rotorstorm and Thunder Clash – were also given new decos and incorporated into the line. The series did not perform strongly, but it shows that classic style Transformers were never completely forgotten.
In 1997, Kenner was also releasing some of its licensed franchises under a series called “Microverse”, to catch on the trend of pocket sized toys. A pair of Beast Wars sets, Orcanoch and Arachnid, were produced. Each one featured an organic “beast mode” when folded up, and unfolded into a base with multiple gunnery stations, minivehicles and other fun features. Each came with a miniature, non-transforming Maximal and Predacon. They were inoffensive little sets, though the Microverse concept as a whole never really caught on.
The Beast Wars videogame, for Playstation and PC, was released in 1997-98[/size]
Transformers returned to videogames in 1997, with a new game based on Beast Wars. The game let players choose from either Maximal or Predacon – the first time a Transformers game actually let you play as the bad guys – and gave you a choice of four characters from each faction. The idea of the game was simple – roam various 3D environments blasting through waves of enemies while evading hazards. Like in the show, you would periodically need to transform to your character’s beast mode to reduce your Energon buildup, and like the show, a new character for each faction could be recovered from a stasis pod part way through the game. If a character was defeated, they could be rescued in a bonus stage, where you got to play as one of two different Maximals or Predacons – one for each faction was only available in these stages.
The game, however, was not fantastic. It had poor controls and primitive graphics, even by contemporary standards. When in beast mode, your characters had no way of defending themselves from enemies – an oversight, considering the need to swap modes on the fly to counter the Energon radiation buildup. The voice acting was also weak, notably none of the TV show voice cast reprized their roles.
The Beast Wars spread to Japan in 1997. Many of the 1996 releases and the 1997 releases who were featured in the show were released in Japan, both individually packed and in VS packs where a Maximal (or “Cybertron” in Japan) was pitted against a Predacon (or “Destron”, Japan retained the original faction names). A handful of the releases including Terrorsaur and Blackarachnia were redecoed to look more like their on-screen appearances. A VS playset was also released, featuring the Japanese release of Snapper and Armadillo, who were bundled with a volcano playset which was a Japan exclusive.
Beast Wars also aired in Japan at this time. The Japanese dub was overseen by Yoshikazu Iwanami, who would go on to oversee all future dubs of western produced Transformers cartoons for Japan, such as Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime. The dub added a lot of adlibbed sequences and gave many characters vocal tics. Megatron went from a suave supervillain into an uncharismatic, mood-swinging character who would shriek effeminately and make up lame excuses when running from battle. Most notably, Airazor was changed from a female character to a male character.
BotCon continued to expand, and 1997 notably was the year that “3H Enterprises” (later 3H Productions, commonly shortened to 3H) was formed and took the reins of organizing the convention. 3H at its inception consisted of the Hartmans and Glen Hallitt. 3H would continue to run the convention until 2004; during their run they would release a series of Beast Wars themed exclusives as a part of a storyline called “Reaching the Omega Point”, which introduced the villainous Shokaract. In 1997 the first international BotCon – BotCon Japan – was also held.
Beast Wars in 1997 really began to show audiences what it was made of, both as an engaging series with well-rounded and interesting characters, and as a toyline with all kinds of interesting beasts and robots. As 1997 ended and 1998 began, the future of Beast Wars began to emerge in all its Transmetalized glory.
Superquad7
Agreed! Maybe @Sol Fury can give another one soon!
Back in
Need a update but that ok
Phantformer5533
Thank you for all these links! I definitely needed this in order to make my own list. Glory to transformers!
Vik
Awesome, such a dense history!
Metro Prime
Thanks. I have been doing that since that post. TF Wiki has been answering a lot of questions.
batfan007
You can always read some pages over at TFWIKI to catch up on those years, covers pretty much everthing.
John Does
Awsome looking forward,…
Metro Prime
It took me days to read all of this!
Excellent and informative write up. I'm impressed and it filled in a few blanks for me. I've been collecting since G1 with a few years of breaks until I started a major effort into collecting through the Energon era, the beginning of the Classics line, and intermittently through the years til I saw Titans Return and have been heavily collecting since. This write up has shown me where some of my more eclectic figures have originated.
Is there an update from 2015 to current in the works? I'd love to see what else I've missed.
Excaliberprime
good info here
Abishai100
Gen 1 – Gen 2
I think a good way to think about the immense shift in style and content between TG1 (Transformers Generation 1) and TG2 is to think about how the toys, cartoons, and comics focused more on variability of character significance for various storylines. TG1 offered stories relevant to particular characters, but TG2 offered a more liberal attitude towards who could be a randomized figurehead in a given storyline!
That's why TG2 was the 'gateway' to the modern Transformers era which focuses much more on general concepts and character randomization than did TG1.
That's also why TG1 is the ideal intro for anyone looking to become a Transformers fan. Hey, isn't that why we all love Transformers: The Movie (1986), the real art-piece that began showing us conceptual bridges between TG1 and TG2?
ChromedomeMaster
35 years of transformers, and i have only been apart of it for 10 years
3 Wheeler
I like the Long Haul Pic!!!
Djin
Great read
Blam320
That's really too bad. You're missing out on a lot, and I mean a lot of really good Transformers stuff by only caring about G1.
Rodimus Prime BetterPrime
For years I've wanted the G1 series in a blu-ray release. With this year marking its 35th anniversary, hopefully we'll finally get it. I don't care about anything but G1.