IDW - Transformers: Beast Wars #17

Title: The End

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

Rhinox wakes up outside the Darksyde, where he finds the Maximals and Predacons fighting the Children of the Vok, with the latter clearly having the advantage due to their sheer numbers.

Through the battle, many personal battles and moments happen, until the Vok interrupt, and decide to kill all the Cybertronians due to their violent nature's (despite this battle being agreed to by them previously) and start disabling the Cybertronians, whilst preparing their reversion device to wipe out the planet's inhabitants, and start over again.

Meanwhile, Rattrap and Waspinator have been getting the Axalon's engines working, to enable it to fly at low heights, and Rattrap decides to weaponise the Transwarp engine since the Vok clearly seem to hate it.

Soon, the duo fly the Axalon to the battlefield and use their weaponised Transwarp engines to destabilise the Vok, seemingly destroying them.

In the aftermath, the Children of the Vok give up, seeing their gods as the monsters they truly were, and return to the wid, asking Optimus and the others to leave them alone.

Megatron takes the opportunity to attack Optimus from behind, but he gets blasted by Rattrap's Transwarp weapon. Since the Predacon isn't an energy monster though, he simply gets blasted a "few" cycles into the future, for them to deal with later.

Following the battle, Optimus offers the other Predacons amnesty and suggests they work together to get the Axalon working and return home to Cybertron, but they decline the offer, since without Megatron they would be used as scapegoats for his actions, since their crime was very public.

The Maximals leave to commence their repairs and to try and find Megatron, and the Predacons, now led by Blackarachnia, and joined by Inferno of the Children of the Vok, begin work on repairing the Darksyde, planning on using the Vok's weapon for spare parts...

114 cycles later, Megatron rematerialises in a cave, and begins plotting his revenge on the Maximals, and his plans to rule this world, now that the Vok are gone, and declares that the Beast Wars will not end until he wins, not noticing a large Protoform with an X on it in the cave too...

Characters

Maximal

Optimus Primal - Gorilla

Rhinox - Rhino 

Dinobot - Velociraptor

Cheetor - Cheetah

Nyx - Bat

Rattrap - Rat

Predacon

Megatron - Tyrannosaurus Rex Exiled into near future by Rattrap

Blackarachnia - Black Widow Spider

Waspinator - Wasp

Skold - Alligator Snapping Turtle

Tarantulas - Tarantula On the Run from the Predacons

Zombie Terrorsaur - Pteranodon Destroyed by Rhinox 

Children of the Vok

Tigatron - White Tiger

Airazor - Falcon

Inferno - Fire Ant (Joins Predacons)

Polar Claw - Polar Bear

Saberback - Stegosaurus

Wolfang - Wolf

Cybershark - Hammerhead Shark

Armordillo - Armadillo

Snarl - Tasmanian Devil

Claw Jaw - Squid

Razorclaw - Fiddler Crab

Snapper - Snapping Turtle

Spittor - Frog

Transquito - Mosquito

Jetstorm - Dragonfly

Buzzsaw - Yellow Jacket 

Insecticon - Stag Beetle

Powerpinch - Earwig

Retrax - Pill Bug 

Vok

Pakak Destroyed by Transwarp Weapon

Tonrar Destroyed by Transwarp Weapon 

Tikaani Destroyed by Transwarp Weapon 

Other Cybertronian

Protoform X In statis Pod

Department of Justice (Mentioned)

Fallen Protoform Pods (Mentioned)

Notes

• This issue marks the end of the IDW Beast Wars series. However the ending caption implies that the story may continue in the future, and even ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger...so...maybe the new publisher will be good to us?
• Dinobot mentions that the army gathered by the Vok are made from every other Protoform, but there doesn't seem to be enough for that to be the case, plus we clarly see the Protoform X pod in the cliffhanger.
• The new Children of the Vok we see this issue are made from the early figures of the original Beast Wars toyline.
• Polar Claw and Saberback are seen during the wide shots of the battle, but both of them died in issue 15...maybe they're just repaints?
• Something to note, the Children's eyes change from the green of the Vok to their normal colours after the Vok die, implying they may have been being mind controlled.
• We never learn who Tarantulas contacted on Cybertron...maybe it'll be picked up in a sequel series?
• Armordillo finally makes.his appearance, after being shown in the Beast Wars Annual...but he is just a one panel cameo, and possibly does offpanel from Megatron's blast.
• The floating islands around the planet are revealed to be weapons of the Vok's, the one shown here being a "reversion device", intended to wipe out all life from the planet, much like the Planet Buster from the cartoon. 
• This issue features a couple instances of fourth wall breaking, with the Vok wondering if another universe put their planet wiping devices on a moon and Waspinator commenting on how they can clearly hear the Vok, from outside the ship.
• Snapper appears in this issue, who was the basis for the new character for this series, Skold.
• Inferno joins the Predacons in the closing pages of this issue after losing his previous "queen's" (The Vok), much like he did in the cartoon, where he joined after his Pod was destroyed (he considered it his colony)
• Megatron got very lucky he wasn't transported a couple of cycles later, he may have rematerialized inside the wall of the cave he landed in. That would have been painful.
• The end of this issue includes letters from the main artist and writer for the series, which includes some hints at what plans for the series would have entailed, should it have had a longer life. (Though most of them honestly could still fit in a sequel series)