Transformers News on Seibertron.com
Date: Sunday, July 8th 2001 10:56pm CDT
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Date: Saturday, July 7th 2001 10:54pm CDT
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Date: Thursday, July 1st 1999 10:50am CDT
Category: Site Articles
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The fans of the Beast Wars saw very little production make way for the Beast Wars comic books. The rumor mill had many various tales of comic books to be released by Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and the latest with Bench Press Comics (as reported in TRANS-FORUM #8).
A few comic books did fortunately see print. One such comic book was published by 3H Enterprises, the creators of the BOTCON conventions. The comic book was written by the legendary Simon Furman and drawn by the fantastic Andy Wildman, both who worked on the long running Marvel Comic book Generation One series in the US and the UK.
It was the first comic book which fit into the world of the Transformers as told by the cartoon series from Mainframe, Claster, and Alliance.
However, it was not the first Beast Wars Transformers comic book. The first was a mini-comic book printed by Hasbro. It was released with the basic Megatron versus Optimus Primal set which came out in January of 1996. It told the basic Beast Wars tale that Hasbro had devised introducing the Maximals and Predacons led by Optimus Primal and Megatron respectively. It was unique merely for the fact that many of the concepts of the original Transformers were maintained in the stories of the Beast Wars. However, an almost empty feeling was left thinking that the Autobots and Decepticons were no more and their stories were to be ignored, not to mention that the initial Beast Wars figures were released under the Kenner banner instead of Hasbro.
Once the television show was released, this feeling was no more as it was explained that the Maximals and Predacons were the descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons.
Several rumors were discussed through many informative sources (and reliable) that Dark Horse was to obtain the rights to publish a Beast Wars comic book. Rumors ended after the GIJoe Extreme comic book was cancelled by Dark Horse.
Recent rumors, as continually reported by 4-Color Review, state that Bench Press Comics has been working with Hasbro to produce both a Beast Wars comic book and a Generation One comic book. Apparently, the deal has been stalled because Bench Press Comics reported this before they were suppose to. Marvel seemed to express interest in the comic book also, but that was quieted quickly also.
Hasbro's stalling seemed very appropriate with the announcement that the FOX television network purchased the rights to the Beast Wars show. The show will now be called Transformers Beast Machines. Perhaps the comic book will be published now that a new name for the toy series has been established.
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #11 (July 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Thursday, July 1st 1999 10:13am CDT
Category: Site Articles
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Views: 341,010
Much thought and care was put into this issue of TRANS-FORUM to bring what I would consider a "dedication" of sorts to the Beast Wars mythos. As many of you are well aware, the stories of the Beast Wars Transformers comes to an abrupt end after it's successful third season. Sometime in January, the FOX network giant purchased the rights to the Beast Wars syndicated television show. In order to have a title that could be used worldwide, it was decided to eliminate the Beast Wars title and use the newest title called the Beast Machines.
the people creating the newest saga of the Transformers are claiming that the Beast Wars saga will be the "canon," or the launching point, for the Beast Machines show.
I created this newsletter shortly after discovering the Beast Wars in early 1996. Like the Beast Wars, TRANS-FORUM has grown since its original inception over three years ago. This is not a three year anniversary special, but rather a dedication to some of the greatest stories ever created about the Transformers as told through the Beast Wars.
Some of the greatest fan favorites saw life during this exciting time for the Transformers. Such favorite characters as Optimus Primal, Megatron, Cheetor, and Rattrap have been rumored to be carry overs to the Beast Machines stories.
But for now, let all of the Transformers fans remember the fascinating stories of Transformers who have come and gone, of mythos already told. Remember the glory of what has already happened and embrace for the future of the Transformers. By changing, or transforming, the concept yet again, the Transformers will see life for many years to come through fresh, invigorating ideas. May everyone remember the Beast Wars fondly for it breathed fresh life into the Transformers. Enjoy this dedication issue to the Beast Wars and remember - "Until all are one!!!"
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #11 (July 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Thursday, July 1st 1999 12:03am CDT
Category: Site Articles
Posted by: Seibertron Permanent Link
Views: 348,473
And from headquarters ...
"This is Optimus Primal signing off -- the BEAST WARS are over!!!"
Almost four years ago, an adventure in the history of the Transformers began called the Beast Wars. It was a whole new dimension in the fascinating world of the Transformers. The Autobots and Decepticons were but memories in the hearts of fans across the world. Behold the newest phase of the Transformers as the Maximals and Predacons battle on prehistoric Earth in the Beast Wars.
At first, the Maximals and Predacons seemed to take on their own adventures and stories. Hasbro had not yet explained the relation the Beast Wars Transformers had in relation to the original Transformers. Many fans were unhappy that twelve years of the Transformers had seemingly been tossed out the window and totally ignored.
Mainframe Entertainment was given the license to produce the computer animated Beast Wars syndicated show. As the story developed, the ties from the original Transformers and the Beast Wars grew stronger. It was soon discovered within the first few episodes of the Beast Wars that the Maximals and Predacons were the desscendants of the incredible Autobots and Decepticons (respectively). After the first season, the ties had been confirmed by the appearances of the Decepticon Aerospace Commander Starscream's ghost and the alien menace taking on the form of the Dark God UNICRON from Transformers: The Movie.
Man fans began to truly accept the mythos of the Beast Wars as part of the never ending saga of the Transformers. The many upset fans quieted as the Beast Wars nestled itself firmly within the rich Transformers history.
The second season of the Beast Wars continued to develop such popular characters as Optimus Primal, Megatron, Cheetor, and Blackarchnia while introducing new favorites such as Rampage and Silverbolt. Several of the characters parted to another place such as Dinobot who died valiantly in a battle to the end against the Predacons in an effort to save the first prehistoric human establishment. The legions of fans grew even more attached to the story of the Beast Wars.
It would only be a short amount of time until the Beast Wars Transformers, on prehistoric Earth, discovered the legendary, stasis-locked Autobots and Decepticons in the Autobot ship known as the Ark before the volcano erupted in 1984. During this story arc, the Decepticon Ravage, who was granted amnesty into the Predacon ranks after the Great War, paid a visit to the Beast Wars Transformers. The story of the Beast Wars took a new turn as it became the Maximals duty to protect the Autobots from being destoryed by the evil Megatron and his Predacons.
The story of the Beast Wars continued for one additional season. The popularity of both the Beast Wars toy line and television show did not go unnoticed. The toy line maintained its' position as a top five action figure toy line for quite some time, actually giving rivalry to the mega money maker Star Wars toy line also produced by Hasbro. The television show maintained a number one position among syndicated shows for quite some time also. Shortly after the third season began, it was announced by the current staff of the Beast Wars at Mainframe that this would be their last season working on the Beast Wars show. The network mega giant, FOX, purchased the rights from Hasbro to air the show on their stations and also purchased the syndicated show from Alliance who apparently is getting out of syndication.
FOX now owns the rights to air all 52 episodes of the Beast Wars and will be airing the new Transformers computer generated show this fall. The new show ill be titled "Transformers Beast Machines", previously called "Beast Hunters."
Again, many fans have raised their eyebrows at the latest developments of the Transformers. Let it be known that the writers from FOX are paying great attention to the stories that have been written before Beast Machines. They are paying great detail to maintaining the continuity that has already been created.
Will the stories of the Autobots, Decepticons, Maximals, and Predacons continue into the stories about the Beast Machines? Or will something new arise from the ashes of the Beast Wars? Find out through the questions and answers revealed by Bob Skir, Beast Machines writer, elsewhere in this issue of Trans-Forum.
This article originally published in TRANS-FORUM #11 (July 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Monday, May 10th 1999 12:01am CDT
Category: Site Articles
Posted by: Seibertron Permanent Link
Views: 353,306
Various sources have relayed information about a Transformers 15th Anniversary toy line to be released later this year. Hasbro has not yet been able to confirm or deny this information as of this printing. Apparently, this rumor began after representatives from Hasbro were promoting the idea at the New Jersey Toy Expo earlier this year.
Hasbro's possible plans will be to produce several popular characters as 7 inch, non-transforming figures. The chosen characters of the Autobots and Decepticons will be styled in manga fashion, similar to the McFarlane Toys Manga Spawn series. Sources gathered that possible target characters might include Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Prowl (or Bluestreak), Bumblebee and Soundwave.
Longstanding Transformers fans will recall a similar concept called Action Masters which Hasbro produced back in 1990. Is this a possible nod back toward this? The staff of Trans-Forum thinks not since this will be a specialty item produced simply for the celebration of the Transformers 15th Anniversary.
As more information becomes available, it will of course be printed in future issues of Trans-Forum. If you have any additional information, please contact Trans-Forum at their mailing address.
Editor's Note: This was a REAL rumor on the 'net back in 1999. Actual prototype designs were floating around the internet. I may have a few of these images saved on CD somewhere. I'll keep looking.
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #10 (May 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Saturday, May 1st 1999 11:08am CDT
Category: Site Articles
Posted by: Seibertron Permanent Link
Views: 349,384
As much as the fans of Transformers would like everything to be black and white, Autobot and Decepticon, we all know and must accept the fact that the Transformers will and are going to take turns here and there.
The toy giant Hasbro, makers of the ever popular Transformers toy line, released its newest addition to the Transformers in March called the Animorphs. Many people may know the Animorphs from the popular series of books published by Scholastic, Inc aimed at roughly the Junior High School reading level, and has since branched out into television and a toy line.
The Animorphs are a young band of teenagers who were given the power to change into any animal they touch. Together they battle against the Yeerks whose ultimate goal is to enslave the human race.
While the Animorphs concept has nothing to do with the Transformers mythologies, it certainly has a similar concept to the current Transformers toy line. Each character in the Animorphs toy line "morphs" or transforms into a beast mode such as Jake who turns into a tiger.
Most fans will remember other turning points in Transformers history such as the Pretenders, Action Masters, and even the whole Beast Wars series. For fans who are not thrilled that the Animorphs are being marketed as Transformers, at least be happy that Hasbro didn't try pawning off the Animorphs concepts as part of the actual Transformers mythos such as the Autobots and Decepticons or Maximals and Predacons.
Future plans for the Animorphs toy line will include a combined Tyrannasaurus Rex figure, consisting of three of the Animorph human characters. Episodes of Animorphs air on Nickelodeon and books are available at most book stores.
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #10 (May 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Monday, March 1st 1999 12:23pm CST
Category: Site Articles
Posted by: Seibertron Permanent Link
Views: 358,283
Almost two years ago, Trans-Forum International announced its plans to launch its own comic book series. The official release will be before the year 2000 as Trans-Forum will unveil its newest project. The comic book will be titled "SEIBERTRON." The first story arc will be called The Nucleon War. It takes place twelve years after the end of the American cartoon series in the year 2019.
The heroic Autobots are lead by their legendary commander Optimus Prime. The major Autobots in this story arc will be Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Springer, Perceptor, and Blaster. Their goal is to obtain the Nucleon to save one of the Autobots whose Spark has almost gone offline and to prevent the Decepticons from getting the Nucleon and becoming even a more dangerous threat.
The evil Decepticons are lead by the maniacal Galvatron in a quest to overthrow the Transformers home world Cybertron and to enslave all of the Autobots.
The art, drawn by Ryan Yzquierdo is a cross between the American and Japanese cartoons with a very distinct look. Sketches will be available here in the pages of Trans-Forum and Trans-Forum Online in the upcoming months as images become available.
It is uncertain how long each installment of SEIBERTRON will be or even if there will be a set number of pages. It is also unknown how the installment volumes will be priced.
SEIBERTRON will be published by Trans-Forum International.
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #9 (March 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Monday, March 1st 1999 11:55am CST
Category: Site Articles
Posted by: Seibertron Permanent Link
Views: 364,649
During the last decade or so, the Super Lifeform Transformers, as the Transformers are known in Japan, have taken many various twists and turns.
The Japanese culture has dictated several unproduced in America Transformers toy figures/ characters and lines.
The first case example, would be the variant Transformers line titled "Victory" series in which very few Transformers from the American series (and modified at that such as Dinoking / Monstructor) saw production in Japan and vice versa. The Autobots and Decepticons (known as Cybertrons and Destrons in Japan) were lead by Victory Saber and Deszaurus (Deathsaurus) respectively. Later the exclusive Japanese Transformers would be followed by these series: "Transformers: Zone," "Transformers: Return of Convoy," "Transformers: Scramble City", and "Transformers Mission: Combination."
After the initial success of the Beast Wars Transformers line in Japan, Takara was anxious to continue production on their new hot selling item. The interest in the Transformers toy line had been renewed. Takara frantically began search for ideas to expand the toy line.
Soon, Takara (the creator of the first Transformers toys under the names Diaclone and Microman) retooled and repainted several of the American Beast Wars Transformers under one group titled the Cybertrons (Maximals). The second retooling and repainting came under a group of Decepticons toys mainly produced under the "Generation 2" banner in America between 1993 - 1994 and the "Machine Wars" banner during 1997. All of these machine-like Transformers fell under the group titled Destrons.
Thus, a new story line developed called "Beast Wars Second," pitting the heroic beast-like Cybertrons against the evil machine-like Destrons on the artificial planet known as Gaea.
AFter roughly forty cel-animated cartoons were released, the Beast Wars Second series came to an end.
Now, looms the next phase of the Beast Wars in Japan. The new series, "Beast Wars NEO," hopes to bring as much success as have the other Beast Wars Transformers releases in Japan. This time, the heroic Cybertrons take on the forms of animals while the evil Destrons take on the forms of dinosaurs.
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #9 (March 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
Date: Monday, March 1st 1999 11:19am CST
Category: Site Articles
Posted by: Seibertron Permanent Link
Views: 361,319
The future of the Transformers now rests in the hands of FOX KIDS. In addition to picking up the 52 episodes of Beats Wars, Fox Kids is launching a new series called Beast Hunters for the 1999-2000 television season.
"Beast Hunters, the next evolution of the popular Beast Wars franchise, continue their fight against the evil dragon Megatron and his hordes of Predacons in 13 all-new episodes with cutting-edge computer animation, action and humor, produced by Mainframe Entertainment." states a FOX representative.
Story editors for the series are Bob Skir and Marty Isenberg, who have worked on numerous genre series and also wrote the story bible for the new Avengers series on FOX.
"My reaction is YEEEEE-HA!" said Skir of Fox picking up the Beast Hunters. "I absolutely love that network, and have enjoyed great success with them. Do the names X-Men, Batman, Beetlejuice, and Godzilla ring a bell?"
"They do great shows there and the longer I'm with them, the happier I am." Skir provided some early details about the show. "We're doing 13 episodes for our first season, hopefully with more to follow; especially since we're thinking of this as an ongoing story with more than 13 chapters to it so far," Skir said. "The show's hook? It's the characters you loved from Beast Wars ... fighting a very different was on a very different world."
Sounds interesting, hopefully more info will be available in the coming days.
This article was originally published in TRANS-FORUM #9 (March 1999) by the owner of SEIBERTRON.com
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