IDW - Beast Wars #12

Title: Maximals Strike Back, Part 3

Written by: Erik Burnham

Art by: Josh Burcham

Letters by: Jake M. Wood

Assistant Editor: Riley Farmer

Editor: Jazmine Joyner

Supervising Editor: David Mariotte

Plot

The Maximals and Predacons continue their fights inside and out of the Darksyde.

Nyx manages to disable the Transwarp engine, and also knock out Tarantulas. Rattrap calls her for help when Megatron's room locks itself up, with him on the inside, having stolen the Golden Disk.

Outside, Cheetor manages to knock out Scorponok and handles Blackarachnia.

Skold, angry that the Maximals brought Razorbeast here, leading to his death, fights with Rhinox, who refuses to fight back, seeing that she is upset.

Dinobot gets attacked by Waspinator, wanting revenge for Terrorsaur's death, but Dinobot blasts him away.

Optimus and Megatron continue their battle, but when Nyx requests assistance in freeing Rattrap, he gives up on the rise, and finishes off Megatron, leaving him beaten down on the ground in shock.

Blackarachnia abandons the battle seeing her leader was defeated, and Skold gives up on her one sided fight with Rhinox...

Inside the ship, Optimus manages to free Rattrap, and they, aloh with Nyx, try leavib this ship, only to encounter a forcefield.

Megatron gloats that he'll keep them there until he can be repaired in a CR Chamber, so he can kill them all.

Unfortunately for him though, Optimus threatens to destroy the disk if he doesn't let them go, and without their Transwarp drive they can't even leave the planet. 

Megatron is forced to let them go, but swears to not rest now until Optimus is dead...

The Maximals head into the shuttle, where Rattrap reveals he made a copy of the contents of the disk, so they can study it too.

Later, Tarantulas has collected Terrorsaur's corpse, and starts experimenting on it...

Characters

Maximal

Optimus Primal - Gorilla

Rhinox - Rhino

Dinobot - Velociraptor

Cheetor - Cheetah

Rattrap - Rat

Nyx - Bat

Razorbeast - Wild Boar (Mentioned) Dead

Maximal Command (Mentioned)

Predacon

Megatron - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Tarantulas - Tarantula

Blackarachnia - Black Widow Spider

Scorponok - Scorpion

Waspinator - Wasp

Skold - Alligator Snapping Turtle

Terrorsaur - Pteranodon Dead, Corpse being Experimented on

Rhinox's Old Friends (Mentioned) Some Dead

Other

"The Ones Before" (Mentioned)

Muhammad Ali (Mentioned)

Notes

• The roll call page this issue has been updated with crosses over the Terrorsaur and Razorbeast, due to their deaths last issue.
• Megatron's beast mode head gets stripped of its artificial skin, revealing a head based on Animated Grimlock's
• Blackarachnia  comments that she may have to switch allegiances after Megatron lost to Optimus. Her switching sides was one of her major plot lines in the original Beast Wars cartoon.
• Rhinox references that he had friends amongst the Predacons back on Cybertron, including some he even loved. We previously have heard from him that not all Predacons are evil, and that the two factions have had working relationships for centuries. It's even possible that he was the one to have that Predacon transmission that was briefly mentioned early in the series.
• Megatron had a forcefield generator set up inside the Darksyde, inspired by the Maximals using theirs to keep them at bay earlier.
• Rattrap is shown to have made a copy of the Golden Disk for them to analyse. This must have happened when he lingered in Megatron's room after retrieving it.
• Tarantulas previously told Terrorsaur that he wanted him to stay in one piece, so he had more parts for his experiments. My guess would be that we'll see something like his Transmetal form come from these experiments.
• Terrorsaur's spark isn't seen with his body during the end scene, implying it either was taken (possibly by the Vok) or just simply extinguished without a body to house it.