Beast Wars Issue 3

 

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THIS ISSUE

After the first issue essentially retold events depicted in the TV series (i.e. the Maximals and Predacons crash landing on a mysterious planet), the second issue instantly began to take the story in a different direction - allowing this new comic to carve it's own identity and be enjoyable to those familiar with Beast Wars and those experiencing this iteration of Transformers for the first time through the pages of the comics. This third issue very much continues down the road set out by it's predecessor, and allows us time to begin fleshing out some of the characters we haven't spent as much time with yet.

The issue begins where the last issue left off with Nyx being captured by the Predacons. As their prisoner, she is being interrogated by the cruel and sadistic Tarantulas who takes great pleasure in watching the Maximal suffer. While the Maximals debate what their next cause of action should be, Dinobot's loyalty to the Predacons is tested as Nyx's interrogation gets more gruesome.

I've been really enjoying the way that this comic has begun to tell it's own story, and this is something which continues throughout this issue. The big character this issue is Dinobot, who finds himself more at odds with the Predacons than ever, something which has been hinted at in previous issues. 

In the first issue, he took issue with Terrorsaur's needless killing during the heist to obtain the Golden Disk, and last issue, he grew impatient with Tarantulas taking priority over mysterious readings than surveying the planet. This all comes to a head in this issue when he takes issue with Tarantulas's methods of torture and interrogation. These tie back to his sense of honour, and this leads to him stepping in and allowing Nyx a chance to escape, officially fleeing from the Predacons as he feels that they no longer align with him. Unlike in the TV series where Megatron simply just brushed off Dinobot's betrayal and made no attempts to go after him, at the end of this issue, he vows that he will hunt down the turncoat and execute him. 

Tarantulas seems to take immense pleasure in his interrogation techniques, describing it as if it's an art form that he's perfected over the years. He seems to have a reputation for this, as when Megatron tells Nyx that Tarantulas will be taking charge of the interrogation, she is terrified. This really plays into the horror of the situation, and builds up Tarantulas as more of a threat. 

New Predacon Skold has been more of a background presence so far, but she seems to take Dinobot's treachery harder in comparison to the other Predacons. We get a sense that loyalty is something that's important to her, which is shown as Dinobot tries to get her to flee the Predacons as well. She refuses as the Predacons didn't abandon her, and she refuses to abandon others. This hints at an interesting backstory to the character which I'm hoping will get played out more as the comic progresses.

Nyx is shown to be made of pretty hard stuff as, in spite of all of Tarantulas's cruel and callous interrogation techniques, she is able to hold out through all of it and not reveal any information that could put her crewmates and friends in danger. Instead, she merely taunts Megatron by saying that history will barely remember him, just like it barely remembers his namesake.

Cheetor hasn't really been given much to do so far in this comic, but in this issue, we can see he is somewhat hot headed and impulsive like his TV show counterpart. After Nyx doesn't report back, he is adamant that she's in danger and that they need to go out and look for her. This not only shows that he's impulsive and not thinking things through, but it also shows that he cares for his teammates.

Optimus decides to wait until morning to look for her, which he assumes is the right thing to do. However, soon after he has a conversation with Rhinox where he questions whether or not that was the right move for him to make. This reminds us that this version of Optimus is thrust into a combat situation that he isn't prepared for, and showing that he's pretty new to the role of commander. Because of this, he has doubts and second guesses his own decisions.

This series seems to be getting better every issue as more and more layers get added to the mix. Seeds are planted for potential future storylines, and we get some payoff from events from the first two issues. I'm incredibly excited and impatient to see where the story will go in Issue 4.