We have a new IDW Publishing comic cover for you straight from Previewsworld, this time for Optimus Prime #20’s Cover A, and it certainly is a treat for Beast Wars fans! Kei Zama’s pencils for this cover had previously been seen on the issue’s RI cover, but the big difference here is that cover A has that same art colored by Josh Burcham. Optimus Primal and Beast Wars Megatron are both featured prominently on the cover, but it is unknown how large of a role they’ll play in the issue itself, as they have thus far just been two of many troops in Onyx Prime’s army. Regardless, you can enjoy a bigger look at the art after the jump, and then sound off on TFW2005’s discussion boards!
Fenrys
its galvatrons artificial planet nemesis from bw2
Probe
Or it was one mini to test the waters, didn't sell great and they moved on.
UltraPrimal
In reference to my previous comment, after watching Chris McFeely's latest video, turns out IDW did have their own "What If"(or DC's "Elseworlds") style series titled "Evolutions". But they only released 1 mini-series under that banner: Hearts of Steel. Which apparently everyone who's read it loves. Even some of the very first 3rd party figures were Hearts of Steel inspired and they're still making them today. So I'm surprised IDW hasn't revisited the Evolutions series with more one-off story ideas.
The only reason I can think of is maybe they were ordered by Hasbro not to do any more Evolutions stories because they're just feeding 3rd party companies ideas for figures that Hasbro wasn't going to make themselves. We see how Hasbro's Generations lines influence IDW's story telling and character appearance and selection. They basically see the comics as little more than advertisements for their toys. I'm guessing Hasbro wouldn't be too happy if IDW started doing more original designs and stories and then 3rd parties created toys of them. I mean, we already have plenty of that in IDW's main series already. Any character that isn't based on an existing Hasbro toy seems to get a 3rd party figure made of them. Usually through MMC, who BTW, did the original 3rd party HoS figures back in the day.
Chopperface
Oh, it’s beautiful.
Joey Slick
I wonder why people feel this way about BW. What were they supposed to do differently with the CGI? They won an Emmy for it. I think it still looks pretty good. It looks like a cartoon, not real life.
Thundermania
Remember when they advertised Quickswitch's "introduction" I'm still pissed.
Probe
It's a Beast Wars reference
To show that the beast army attacks.
This, basically. We KNOW they're Shockwave's mooks and have been seeing them in his army for over a year now.
And yeah, there's a very good chance that Arcee is going to slice them both in half.
CryptiniteDemon
Midtown comics ships internationally. They usually have alt covers
Danny-Boy
There's a lot of comic stores that have the option for online purchases, though I don't know about their international shipping. Comic Books: Buy, Sell, Trade, Consign, Collect | mycomicshop.com is one.
Darkstone
That's nice but I want a physical copy of this particular cover.
Bass X0
Before I discovered Comixology, I used to buy all my comics on ebay. But I didn't like how I'd have to wait a week or two, then when I discovered Comixology and could read the comic on release day, I completely stopped buying physical comics.
Darkstone
As someone who isn't in the loops when it comes to purchasing comics with specific covers: Where can I buy this?
"Comic shops" is the easy answer of course but I doubt any German ones carry this; I'll have to import it myself. IDW seems to have a web shop of their own where I could get this, would they offer this cover?
It seems like all the comics on their site (at least the ones in this series?) are always "Cover A", so is "A" the regular one and thus the one they sell? That would make thing simple and easy in this case.
Bass X0
What about Transformers Generation 3, which would have the Beast Wars characters in the present day as per the 1996 toys packaging profiles?
PrimalFury
It's possible, from what I've been reading whatever happens, it'll be the complete end of the current universe. With WFC being the theme and story of the next Generation Trilogy toyline, it would make perfect sense to line up the comics with that having them both be a WFC story which is a great place to start off a new universe.
Autoboty
Calling it now: the IDW G1 universe will end with a segue into the Beast Era, mimicking the original series and leaving the door open for future revisitation.
PrimalFury
I hope they are treated with respect and given a significant role in the story, otherwise why put them on the cover? Comic book equivalent of click bait? I sure hope not, IDW please don't fail us.
Coffee
Aw man, they look awesome. It\'s a shame they are pretty much just going to be Shockwave\'s mooks and will probably be unceremoniously killed off this very issue.
Thumbaticon
Beautiful. After this universe ends I hope the Zama/Burcham duo continues to do at least variant covers.
What are the pointy streaks behind them? Missiles? Spears?
optimusmegas
that is such a good cover
CryptiniteDemon
If they were doing what if style stuff, then I'd want something like what if in the episode, "The Probe" the maximals managed to make contact with the probe.