Comics Bon-Bon Manga Summary for July, 1999 - Beast Wars Neo Capsule Summary: While Stampy deals with one of his many fears during a mission, Magmatron enters the conflict for the first time since his origin story. Archadis debuts. p 1: Title page. p 2: We open with a symbolic image of a planet with a mighty tree growing from it, a tree larger than the planet. Definitely meant to be an Yggdrasil analogue, strengthened by the three women pictured below it. There's a scroll with what looks like someone's idea of cursive writing on it, seems to say "Greimin Gutualoed". Cut to the mess hall, where Break is upset about something, possibly the idea that they've come to the wrong world. Longrack assures him that it's the right world, but Break mouths off about it to Big Convoy anyway. [According to Hydra D304, the planet name they were shooting for was "Gringald." Ooookay. The letterer is high.] p 3: We see why. It's an icy wasteland punctuated by spires of ice. Not exactly the forest world they were expecting. Break demands to know where in Primus's name the tree is. Big calmly has his comic relief robot explain. Apparently the ice was caused by the Angolmois capsule, and the trees are under the ice. So they'll just climb to the top of the right spire and get the capsule. p 4: Stampy is SO not in love with this plan. He makes up some excuse for the reason, and Break and Longrack seem to agree with him. Then Big stamps his foot and all three go running for Gung Ho's hangar bay. Corahda, bringing up the rear, seems to sense that Stampy's concerns go deeper than what he admitted to, and lends some moral support. They all fly their jet scooters down into the blizzard. [Hydra D304 tells me that Stampy's also been appointed leader of the mission, something no one's really happy with, Stampy included.] p 5: Break takes some readings and finds there's no way to safely approach the spires by air, due to the winds. They'll have to land in a valley and climb. Meanwhile, Big heads out to the top of Gung Ho's conning tower to look out for hostiles. He's immediately rewarded by the formation of a hyperspace warp gate right in front of the Gung Ho. p 6: In hyperspace, the navicomp counts down the time until they arrive, as everyone watches the swirls of the gate on the main monitor. They enter realspace...only to see Big staring them down. Magmatron orders them to just ram the Gung Ho, and the much larger Dynasoar seems quite capable of the job. p 7: Big reveals his third mode, popping out his main cannon and jumping up to fire it. Backblast comes out of his behind. The shot misses the Dynasoar...but hits a nearby ice spire. Sling is overjoyed that the shot missed. Magmatron snarls at him and calls him an idiot, because... p 8: ...the really big spire is now falling on the Dynasoar. Everyone is tossed about as the ship is buried, but Magmatron calmly draws the blade of his sword. p 9: Big muses on how that should keep the Destrons for a while. Then a huge energy blast tears out of the snow and nearly hits the Gung Ho. Magmatron leaps to the attack! p 10: Lashing out with his sword, Magmatron slices the conning tower (which is at least 30m high if Big is normal mammoth sized) cleanly off the ship! Big leaps off the doomed part of the ship. p 11: Transforming in mid-leap, Big Convoy lands on the main part of the ship and faces down Magmatron, who turns out to be at least twice as tall as Big Convoy. And thus, BWNeo continues BWII's tradition of really huge Destron leaders. p 12: Meanwhile, on the ice spire, everyone's roped together and climing in beast mode. If you though Longrack looked silly trying to get under a barbed wire fence, he's even worse at climbing. Then Break makes the mistake of looking down.... p 13: Longrack catches Break before the line can go taut and pull down Stampy. Heinrad advises Break not to look down, he might fall. Loads of help, that Heinrad. Break calls up to Stampy, whose sensors show the Angolmois capsule to be at the top of the spire. Corahda adds some words of encouragement, and Stampy pauses to steel himself. p 14: Stampy pulls out a locket and opens it. It's a picture of his mother, who was also a rabbit. He thinks back to how safe he always felt with her, and tries to summon a memory of her soft, loving touch. Then he feels a soft touch...but it's a feather. Huh? The hideous shriek that follows completely breaks Stampy out of his reverie. p 15: It's Archadis, who seems to have the advantage of being much larger than the real thing, and has the drop on Stampy. Stampy dodges the vicious claws, but falls off the spire. He's so stunned by this all that he does nothing to stop his fall, and just bounces off the ice. Then Archadis turns his attention to Break. p 16: Break winces as the wing just misses him...on purpose, apparently. Laughing, Archadis transforms and lands on a ledge above them all. He removes his visor and cleans its lenses, then introduces himself and mocks the Cybertrons. Note: while it has been established in the anime that Archadis is male, I got a very "fae" reading off him in this story. Very much the dandy, this one. Probably quite proud of his plumage. Anyway, Break challenges him to come down there and repeat what he just said, and Archadis tosses a few feather-darts into the ice over Break's head in reply. Stampy, for his part, starts to notice just how very high up they are.... [The mask/visor is also an homage to a ninja character of a flamboyant and elegant nature, the name of which escapes Hydra at the moment.] p 17: The faceoff breaks as Magmatron and Big Convoy enter combat. Magmatron gets the first strike, knocking Big Convoy over onto his back. Continuing the manga's tradition of finding weird uses for beast kibble in robot mode, Big Convoy scuttles away on his back, using his beast legs for locomotion. But then he gets his kibble trapped under a bit of conduit. Magmatron sees an opportunity. [Misread the art here. Hydra says Magmatron refers to the Big Cannon, and it's the handle of the cannon that Big Convoy is trying to reach.] p 18: Spreading his legs farther apart than any Kirby character ever did, Magmatron stomps on the conduit so that Big Convoy is truly pinned. Big Convoy replies by launching one of his leg missiles at Magmatron... who catches it in his mouth, takes a big bite out of it, and then tosses it aside. Ut oh. [Similarly, Magmatron stomps on the grip of the Big Cannon.] p 19: Magmatron raises his sword for the killing blow, but at the last second Big Convoy retracts his head ("I love being a turtle!") and then kicks a surprised Magmatron away. Big Convoy then frees himself and leaps to the attack, but is forced to stop to avoid being hit by the launched blade of Magmatron's sword. [For the reference-impaired, "I love being a turtle" is a line from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, not a line said by Big Convoy.] p 20: Magmatron launches his elasomsaur head in a whipping attack which Big Convoy dodges. Then we finally pull back enough to see that they fight is taking place on one of Gung Ho's stabilizer fins. The elasmosaur head picks up the launched blade and starts slashing at Big Convoy with it. BC jumps off the fin to avoid the attack, then rebounds off another part of the ship and pulls out another leg missile to use as an axe, aimed right at Magmatron's neck. p 21: Surprise! Magmatron's head can come off and fly on its own, like those really gross vampire-like critters (Penangglan). This then pecks at BC, who drop-kicks it into next week. Big Convoy pauses, thinking that Magmatron is helpless without his head. But Magmatron has two more spare heads, and the headless body attacks with the reunited sword! p 22: Big Convoy catches the blade between his palms just in time, and now it looks like Magmatron is three or four times larger than Big Convoy is. The head flies back in and gloats about the situation. Three heads are better than one, after all. p 23: Back at the spire, everyone else transforms in order to defend themselves. But Stampy's fear of heights is in full force now, and he refuses to let go of his perch. Worse, he's in the way, so Longrack can't use his missile launchers! p 24: Stampy admits he's afraid of heights, he can't help it. Break snarls, but then is too busy to do anything else as Archadis decides to attack again. He drops past the Cybertrons and then transforms to attack Break in beast mode. Break boots the archeopteryx in the head. p 25: Archadis laughs as he transforms, then dances on Break's head before switching back to beast mode. He seems to be enjoying just harassing the Cybertrons, as he pecks at Break's hand. Longrack thinks he has the drop on the irksome Destron and fires his claw cannon. Archadis flaps out of the way, leaving Break to be hit. As Break curses out Longrack, Archadis looks for someone new to play with. p 26: He spots Stampy. Ah, fresh meat. Transforming to robot mode, Archadis draws his dagger from the mouth of his beast head (I'm told the toy has this feature too) and moves in to skewer Stampy. It's wabbit season. p 27: Stampy braces for death to come, and once again thinks of his mother. He remembers a time when she told him to trust in himself, to push aside doubt and do what he had to do. And so he leaps off the spire, leaving a confused Archadis with no target. Which way did he go? p 28: In a rather cool splash page, Stampy transforms in mid air against the full moon (yeah, it's snowing still, but ya gotta have that Japanese moon/rabbit symbolism going on) and slashes Archadis in the face. The Destron's visor falls away into the howling wind. Unable to see without the visor, Archadis flees while Stampy wonders how much landing is going to hurt. [As he attacks, Stampy yells out "Stampy Moonsault!"] p 29: Cut ahead to the team reaching the frozen Angolmois capsule atop the spire. They cut and blast and hammer away at the ice, to no avail. Suddenly, on its own, the capsule releases enough energy to shatter its icy coating...and the whole spire along with it. Ut oh.... p 30: The headless body of Magmatron starts to break apart as Big Convoy fights it...or is it reforming? p 30-31: Splash page across the middle, the "Blendtron Mode" of Magmatron is formed, and it's something like five or six times larger than Big Convoy. It quickly pins him under massive claws. p 31: Big Convoy points out that his beast kibble affords him certain advantages while in robot mode as well. Like, not needing his hands free to fire his gun. Magmatron realizes what's up, but not in time to keep Big's trunk from reaching around and firing the Big Cannon. p 32-33: Page and a half splash of Big Convoy firing the Big Cannon from its stowed position. p 33: Magmatron is blasted off the wing of Gung Ho and falls into the snowy depths. p 34: There's a tremendous release of energy. Big now stands in mammoth form on Gung Ho, lamenting the death of his comrades. Then the comic relief machine tells him to look over there. The Cybertrons live! Standing atop an unfrozen Angolmois capsule and none the worse for wear, with Stampy standing at the forefront. p 35: The World Tree is now unfrozen and alive once more, and the capsule is resting it its crown branches. Big concedes that maybe the kids can do something on their own after all...especially Stampy. Dave Van Domelen, not much to scan this issue....