Even when I was a kid, something about Transformers: Beast Wars felt different. Maybe it was the early and ugly CGI, but I like to think that even back then, I noticed the writing. Now, I’m not going to get up here and make some claim about it being an underappreciated masterpiece, but as a vehicle for exposing my 8-year-old brain to serial story structure and basic character arcs, Beast Wars stood out as something unique. Every week, something changed, someone was different, there were stakes. Compared to something like Rugrats, it was a revelation.
Maybe that’s why I’m so bummed that IDW’s Transformers: Beast Wars #1 didn’t light that same spark.
As a stand-alone comic, writer Erik Burnham and artist Josh Burcham deliver something boilerplate. There are good robots, there are bad robots. They crashland on a planet and take the shape of animals. Hijinks promise to ensue next issue. What’s missing is a compelling plot hook or interesting characters to invest in. Without the nostalgia and corporate branding? We don’t have any reason to care about this comic. It’s a first issue that doesn’t even get as far as the elevator pitch. With an oversized first issue, you would hope the creative team would have enough space to give the story a hook.
When you take this as both a Transformers comic and an adaptation of a ’90s childrens show, it fares much worse. The plot covers less ground, less effectively, than the first five minutes of the show. Burnham’s dialogue is stiff and generic, it’s interchangeable from character to character. Burcham’s art and designs don’t do it any favors. Perhaps it’s the fact that the plot leaves the characters in nearly unrecognizable Cybertronian forms for most of the page time, but there’s not enough differentiation in this large cast to keep track of who is who. For characters defined by strong color profiles and recognizable animal elements, it’s a bit stunning how samey everything is.
Transformers: Beast Wars is left in a strange place. Over at BOOM Studios, there’s been a lot of success making Power Rangers comics that capture how the show felt to a kid on Saturday morning, not how the show actually was. Beast Wars tries to pull from that same nostalgia but ends up with a product that’s less than the sum of its parts. New readers won’t know why to care, nostalgic ’90s kids will pivot to watching old clips on YouTube and Transformers faithful will just sit around waiting for a better comic. It’s an overpriced product that doesn’t end up serving anyone.
There’s a strong pedigree here. Transformers has a long history in comics with the recent epics More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light being some of the best long-form storytelling in comics history. Combining that with an iteration of the series that was well known for its strong arcs and impactful story beats should have been a win. Maybe we are just expecting too much from a $5.99 issue #1 than recapping the opening theme song of a show we used to watch on Saturday mornings. Sadly, this is one best left in the memory banks.
Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
