Legends Comic: Bonus Edition Vol. 51

The return of the Beastformers!

Synopsis

The Legends World is visited by White Leo, leader of the Beastformers, exiled from his homeworld of Beast after being defeated by his enemies, the Laser Beasts. He uses six mystical jewels to transform Neo Akihabara City into a jungle and recruit the unwilling local beasts to fight alongside him, granting them Beastformer armor, though the local humans instead end up as naked as animals (and are offended when White Leo calls them "ape-type beasts"). Unfortunately, White Leo finds that he's been followed by his nemesis Tigerburn, Emperor of the Laser Beasts, who explains that the six jewels contain the crystallized power of the Three Wise Ones and that he wants his hands on them. Tigerburn is seated atop Doublecross, to the surprise of his old buddy Repugnus, and White Leo explains that the Monsterbot has been Tigerburn's puppet ever since the Laser Beasts cut his head off, removing his sense of self. Furthermore, Tigerburn reveals that he's modified his body to become completely robotic, used Legends technology to become a Headmaster in order to combine with Doublecross's body, and acquired the most powerful Laser Beast weapon, the Haywire Laser.

White Leo can do nothing but flee from the powered-up Tigerburn, but his younger sister, White Lune, appears before him with Doublecross's severed head and a plan: if the Three Wise Ones once used the jewels to create the Beastformers by giving machines to animals, they should be able to use them to evolve further alongside machines. The jewels emit a light that sucks in the Haywire Laser and merges it with White Lune, who transforms into a robot and knocks Tigerburn's block off. White Leo himself is merged with Doublecross's head, allowing him to transform into it and combine with Doublecross, whose mind(s) is restored in the process. Doublecross and White Lune blow Tigerburn back into his own dimension with a Spark Fire Attack, after which the siblings prepare to return and continue the war back home, but first they stop to apologize to the Legends locals for forcing them to become Beastformers. Upset, Rattrap and Tigatron tell them to consider how things would be if their roles were reverse: how would the Beastformers like it if they were forced to wear nothing but neckties and work as office workers? White Leo and Lune agree that it would be awful.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Waspinator's Beastformer armor is based on Action Master Starscream in reference to his main version's possession at Starscream's hands and his Legend's version's love for obscure Transformers stuff.
• Airazor's armor is based on Transmetal Airazor. Tigatron's, on the other hand, is based on Tigerhawk.
• Tigerburn's appearance is repurposed from the Titans Return Sawback toy, though for unexplained reasons this did not appear in later chapters.
• Doublecross was stationed on Beast following "Rebellion on Planet Beast", though the full story of his fate is told in the later published Vol. 47.
• Repugnus is wearing the armor suit Brawn promised to buy him in Bonus Edition Vol. 48, which is included with the Broadside toy.
• White Leo's troubles as described in this comic originate from the rather obscure Beastformers catalog stories, which established much of the backstory presented in this comic.
• As Beastformers, the Legends natives are given new names: Rattrap is "Enthu Warrior Otaku Rattle", Tigatron is "Lewd Emperor Etchina Tiger", Rhinox is "'80s King Punch Rhino", and Airazor is "Lucky Razor". The humans also get their own Beastformer names: Ai becomes "Aye-aye Ai", Minerva becomes "Monkey Minerva", and Papika becomes "Ape Papika".
• Haywire is referred to as the "strongest MVP Weapon": MVP (Miracle Victory Power) Weapons is what the weapons wielded by the Beastformers and Laser Beasts were called.