THE TRANSFORMERS: COMICS, BOOKS AND MANGA

CLUB AND CONVENTION TRANSFORMERS COMICS

Transformers Beast Wars: Reaching the Omega Point
Reviewed by Blackjack

A mess. Not even the Geoff Senior art could save the rubbish plot. The whole 'dark essence' thing in the past and the future is a headache, and it seems to be a half-hearted attempt to shoehorn that year's convention exclusives into something 'epic'. However, the story is a headache to read, with characters being dropped in out of nowhere. There's nothing of note here; not even the characters are done well. The whole plot is what would happen if you plunk all of Furman’s old plots in a blender, throw the ‘new toys’ factor and the Beast Warriors. Sandstorm's betrayal doesn't come as a surprise if you've read the text prologues. Is it really necessary to revive Antagony and Catacysm only so they can die in two panels? What purpose is Transquito and all the other BW toy-only characters serve? Why bother with this comic at all? I really can't write more in the review section for fear of creating three paragraphs of bitchfest against the whole 'Reaching the Omega Point' arc. Pure dirge.


Prior to this issue, 3H released a four-part text story prologue (one about the Covenant, one about Windrazor, one about Antagony and one about the Maximals fighting the Predacons) as well as a live-action script reading that put Apelinq into the place. They are all still archived in the Botcon’s old site.

Windrazor, Apelinq, Shokaract, Antagony and Sandstorm are all, of course, Botcon exclusive toys.

The events of this toy happened after ‘Other Victories’, since Megatron is already in his Transmetal 2 body.

For those who don’t want to read the prologue, the Chronoarchitect is the god of time, like Primus is the god of light. He appeared to warn the Covenant about Shokaract’s coming before seemingly being killed. The Covenant’s names are based on the real-life zodiac, namely Leonicus (the leader of the group and the narrator of one of the text story), Scorpius (Sandstorm), Ariex, Taurnotron, Virgol, Geminator, Libras, Capricun, Sagittari, Cancis, Aquator and Piscor.

Antagony and Cataclysm are Shokaract’s heralds. Antagony is a female repaint of Inferno and had a toy, Cataclysm is a repaint of Transmetal Cheetor, a ‘red herring’ to fool fans about the repainted toy of the year (the real toy is Vice Grip).

Windrazor has the sparks of an ancient Autobot named the Veteran (hinted strongly to be Swoop) and the Cub, a former Shokaract herald.

Apelinq is the leader of the Wreckers, traveled back through time to obtain a device of sorts. Presumably this is how he evaded the transformation virus, since he appeared alive and well in the Wreckers miniseries.

‘Wreck and Rule’ is, of course, the classic battle cry of the Wreckers in G1.

J’nwan is a shout-out to the then-unofficial term Generation 1, used to describe the original franchise. In this episode, it’s the dimension where G1 characters go after they die. Some sort of Valhalla. We’ll… not talk about how absurd it is.

Unicron and Primus fighting in the astral plane is something that’s first mentioned by Furman in ‘the Legacy of Unicron’. The Covenant’s life forces form a ghostly image of Rodimus Prime, similar to Primus’ astral form in the aforementioned comic.

The whole concept of a space-time rift is similar to the G1 UK story ‘Time Wars’.

G2-style speech bubbles are used for the issue.


Despite being mentioned in the text prologue, Silverbolt does not appear at all in this story. Then again, Windrazor is a repaint of him so things could get confusing.

What the heck was Shokaract even trying to accomplish in the Beast era? Combine the ‘past dark essence’ and the ‘future dark essence’? If so, why not choose somewhere further in the past, so no one could oppose him?

Sandstorm’s colours change from gray to his proper sandy brown between pages.

Apelinq is constantly miscoloured.

Why did Leonicus act so surprised when Sandstorm defected? To make things more confusing, he even explains that Sandstorm is Scorpius two frames later.

G1 Soundwave’s head is completely blue.

Why did Optimus Primal, Megatron and the others forget all about this incident in the Wreckers mini, while Apelinq didn't?