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The Beast Within

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The Beast Within 1.jpg
Grimlock has a Chest Burster.
"The Beast Within"
Publisher Metrodome
First published May 2004 (included with Season 2, Part 2 DVD set)
Script Darren Jamieson
Art Dylan Gibson
Special Thanks To Jane Lawson and Simon Furman

A profound and moving narrative that forces the audience to re-evaluate all conceptions of their identity. Both thrilling and immersive, "The Beast Within" redefines the era as it forces a new standard of storytelling. It opens on an epic battle comparable to The Lord of the Rings or Akira, but this conflict pales in comparison to the internal emotional struggle of Grimlock as he is forced to restrain his own emotions for the sake of his tactical ideology. Pushed to both physical and psychological limits, he and his compatriots do the unthinkable and fuse, physically and conceptually, into a unified truth that mirrors us all. But with the revelation of this most sacred ability comes a new threat to the Autobots… a threat that is somehow familiar.

Contents

Synopsis

(thumbnail)
Yes, this thing is canon. I hate you all.

In the war-torn battlefields of an Autobot-Decepticon battle, Grimlock mediates on releasing his full power onto the ruthless Decepticons. But, alas, he cannot! For if he let go of any restraint, he would let loose the Beast! The casualties mount; despite losses on their side, the Decepticons are gaining victory! Optimus Prime is battered and surrounded by Megatron and his troops.

Truly, Grimlock has no choice; he must release the Beast within! With Grimlock calling out, "Dinobots! UNITE!!!", a large number of wires sprout out from everywhere. The end result is an awesome titan of power! Stricken with fear, Megatron orders the Decepticons to destroy the massive creature! Predaking forms! The opposing titans battle, but it is already lost for Predaking, for a slash of the Beast's sword takes care of the Predacon combiner. The Seekers and Laserbeak try to attack the Beast, but their attacks are pitiful! The Beast destroys them in one fell swoop! Devastator and Bruticus are next, but the Beast simply tears them apart, and does the same for Menasor, even though the Stunticon combiner pleads for his life. The Decepticons then retreat.

With no Decepticons left to destroy, the Beast turns to the Autobots! Prime calls to Grimlock to regain mental control, but the Beast utters one thing… "K …I …L …L".

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons

Notes

Continuity notes

  • At the time of its release, practically all post-G1 Transformers media was designed to fit into an existing continuity—namely, either the Sunbow cartoon or the Marvel comics—with the big exception being Dreamwave's reboot. As he knew this was going to be a short, one-off project, never to be followed up on, writer Darren Jamieson thought nothing of taking a What If...?-style approach, with wanton character deaths.[1]
  • Grimlock's line "I cannot let him out…not again" hints at a prior appearance of the Beast that the world was fortunate enough to avoid witnessing. The second part to this story would confirm this, specifying that the Beast was let loose 4 million years ago in its prologue.
  • Although the specifics of the events leading to this battle are left to the imagination, Jamieson has clarified that the Autobots were ambushed—hence the combiners Superion and Defensor being absent, and the fact that they're being slaughtered.[2]

Transformers references

  • The idea of a Dinobot combiner dates back to the Marvel UK letters page—in particular Grimlock's column "Grim Grams", where the topic came up frequently.[3]
    • In issue #134, the idea first cropped up when a reader suggested asking Ratchet, First Aid, Hoist, and Wheeljack to modify the Dinobots so they could combine, with Slag as a flamethrowing arm and Sludge as an earth-shaking foot. Grimlock expressed horror at the thought, disliking the idea of letting the Autobots work on him, or of sharing a body with his teammates!
    • In issue #143, another reader followed up by suggesting the name "Dinotron" for the combined form, leading Grimlock to gloat that they didn't need to combine to beat the Predacons.
    • In issue #144, Grimlock threatened to step on a reader with the same idea.
  • The Beast was also inspired by a common idea surrounding combiners—that as a rule, the combination was mentally less than the sum of its parts. The idea first cropped up in Devastator's Tech Specs: "His mind is a melding together of his 6 parts, but limited by their competing thoughts." As the Dinobots aren't exactly smart to begin with, Jamieson naturally decided the Beast would be a creature of pure animalistic rage.[3]
  • As the comic draws inspiration both from the cartoon (which the comic would be packaged with) and the comics (which had been a staple of Jamieson's childhood, with Furman's epic battle scenes in particular leaving a big impression),[3] it similarly features a mix of influences for its character designs.
  • The comic's huge cast is drawn entirely from the first three years of the franchise. In particular, it features almost every single Decepticon from this time period; some notable absences include Shockwave, Buzzsaw, Spyglass, and Shrapnel (who appears in the second part).
    • Motormaster, Wildrider, Breakdown, Blast Off, and Hook never appear as individuals, only as the component parts of their respective combined forms. Swindle appears to be barely visible in just a single panel, obscured by Dead End's arm, though his exact details are a little different to usual.
    • In an unusual choice, the Reflector robots are drawn according to their rarely-seen toy designs, rather than the near-identical designs based on Viewfinder's toy they shared in the cartoon.
    • One odd inclusion is Twin Twist, who never appeared in the '80s cartoon. He was apparently added under Gibson's own initiative.
  • Optimus Prime swears by Primus.
  • Starscream narrowly escapes the Beast, playing into the fact that Starscream would always "get out of it" in classic stories.[1]
  • The title of the comic uses the Beast Wars font.

Real-life references

  • The composition of the very first panel of the comic, with Jazz flying away from the camera having been shot in the chest, was based on the opening shot for an action film Jamieson had created at university. Really.[4]

Errors

  • This comic features digitally-applied lettering, using the much-derided Comic Sans font, that is rarely aligned correctly and features virtually no periods or commas. Jamieson regrets not insisting that Dylan Gibson handle the lettering; under a tight deadline and with no prior lettering experience, Jamieson wound up doing it himself, leading to perhaps the comic's most iconic characteristic.[5]

Other trivia

  • The Beast Within came about as a result of Darren Jamieson's involvement with two DVD companies to hold the Transformers license in the UK around the time. Working as a webmaster for retailer GAME, he first became involved with Maverick Entertainment after cold-calling them to ask for details on their upcoming release of The Transformers: The Movie. As it turned out, they had no plans for special features, and they invited Jamieson (who obviously had a much deeper knowledge of the franchise) to help on the project.[6] When the license passed to Metrodome, Jamieson quickly introduced himself to them, and was able to continue compiling special features for their releases.[7][8] At one point, Metrodome staffer Jane Lawson asked him if he had any ideas for a truly unique extra; around the same time, fanartist Dylan Gibson (a user of Jamieson's fansite TheTransformers.net) had asked if Jamieson could help him create a Transformers comic.[9] The rest is history.
  • Veteran writer Simon Furman receives a thank-you alongside Lawson. Having never written a comic before, Jamieson had reached out to Furman asking for some advice—and although he doesn't remember what was said, he remembers finding it helpful. He's sure Simon wants none of the blame for how the comic actually turned out.[10]
  • In the foreword, artist Dylan Gibson stated that he wanted the comic to "combine the brash, bright eighties colours of the old style comics with the strong character design associated with the contemporary issues". Jamieson takes the blame for the Dreamwave-like art, stating that he specifically asked Gibson to draw it in a Pat Lee style, which was enormously popular at the time.[5]
  • While Gibson mostly had free reign while designing the Beast, Jamieson was adamant that Swoop's wings should go on the combiner's back, to create a demonic silhouette.[3]

Legacy

  • In the aftermath of the comic's release, fans widely lambasted the story over its melodramatic tone, amateur lettering, disregard for any and all existing Transformers "canon", and for the very idea of the Dinobots combining. In response, Jamieson waded into conversations to defend his writing, usually by mocking all users involved.[11] Over the years, these arguments have contributed to the comic's outsized reputation.
  • Understandably, Gibson was apparently very disheartened by the hatred the comic received online.[12] As for Jamieson, while he acknowledges flaws with the comic's art and lettering, he attributed the vitriol towards the comic primarily to jealousy.[13]
  • The year after this comic's release, an unrelated Grimlock/Swoop combiner toy was released in the form of Energon Mega-Dinobot. Perhaps fittingly, it's terrible.
  • As far as Hasbro in 2009 was concerned, "There never was a Dinobot combiner".[14] While the most likely explanation for this comment is that this particular Hasbro representative was unaware of an obscure UK only DVD pack-in comic, and was simply remarking on the lack of such a combiner in the original '80s series, it's also possible Hasbro has tried to erase "The Beast Within" from canon entirely using special canon cannons. However, with the introduction of Power Core Combiners Grimstone and Power of the Primes Volcanicus years later—the latter of whom has had several significant appearances in media and multiple toys—it seems that the idea of a Dinobot combiner is here to stay. Jamieson considers Volcanicus to be "a cheap Hasbro knockoff"... but he does own one![13]
  • In the Transformers: Earth Wars mobile game, Simon Furman would slyly nod to the Beast, with Swoop expressing trepidation over the thought of merging to form Volcanicus: "I dunno, Grimlock. What if once we're combined we lose all sense of individuality, and become some monosyllabic, blundering oaf with less sense than a lug nut." Fittingly enough, Volcanicus faced off against Predaking.

Covers

  • Grimlock goes all tentacley while Optimus watches, surrounded by Megatron, Soundwave, and Starscream, by Dylan Gibson.
  • (thumbnail)

    We made our love on wasteland...

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "It was almost like it- well it was like a What If...? If you take it that way. [...] But that's what it was, it was a What If...?, I knew it was gonna be a one-off comic, so I knew it didn't matter what I did. And I could effectively kill characters if I wanted to. You mention Jetfire- Jetfire was in there purely because Dylan wanted to draw Jetfire. So Jetfire's not in the first comic, he's in the second comic, solely because Dylan came to me and said, "Look, I want Jetfire in this second one, because I love Jetifre, and I wanna draw him in a comic." "Okay, I'll see if I can get Jetfire into the storyline for you." So that's why Jetfire was in there. Twin Twist... is Twin Twist in-? I didn't write Twin Twist in there. Dylan would've drawn him in, then. [...] I was specific about some Transformers. I was specific about Starscream, for example, being the one that gets away. When the jets are attacking the Beast, they get swiped out, but Starscream aaalways manages to get out of it."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 32:07
  2. ↑ "I've had people commenting about it, it's like, "Well, why were the Autobots there and the Decepticons had their combiners, but the Autobots didn't have their combiners? Where was Superion? Y'know, where was Defensor?" It's like... they were ambushed! Isn't that f***ing clear, by the fact they're outnumbered and they're getting slaughtered! It was an ambush! It's not like, right, let's bring our whole army around here, because we wanna be able to fight this thing..."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 51:01
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Well, the out-of-the-universe perspective is the fact that I'm a big fan of the original Transformers comics, and I read the G1 comics every day since the first issue I picked up, which was like #72 or #73 I think I started. I've got all the back stories since then as well. And Grimlock was, for a long period, the author of the letters' page, Grim Grams. Which I know was written by Simon Furman, I don't really believe Grimlock wrote it—but I can suspend disbelief. But quite a few people did ask Grimlock in this letters' page about whether the Dinobots combined. Because all the other Special Teams combined, why didn't the Dinobots? And Grimlock—or Simon Furman, when responding on behalf of Grimlock—was always very disparaging about what a stupid idea it was, it's never gonna happen, it's ridiculous. And I thought, d'you know what... it bloody should. It really should. And there was this fantastic two-part comic in the G1 comics where the Dinobots fought the Predacons. And the first issue was Swoop and Divebomb fighting, and Divebomb was kicking Swoop's arse. And he was gonna defeat Swoop, but then at the end of it the Predacons came in and started bullying Swoop, and Divebomb was looking all upset about this because he didn't want Swoop to be beaten by the Predacons, he wanted to beat Swoop by himself. But then what happened, obviously at the end, the Dinobots turned up, and it's like, "Ooooh, this next issue of the comics is going to be amazing. We're going to get the Dinobots versus the Predacons." And it was even better than I'd hoped it would be—fantastic battle where Grimlock and Razorclaw were so mismatched that Grimlock wasn't even fighting Razorclaw, he just stood on him, and narrated! Narrated the battle between the other Dinobots and Predacons. He so couldn't give a toss that Razorclaw was there, that's how tough Grimlock was. I thought, "This is amazing! But what would've happened if he'd turned into Predaking? How would the Dinobots have coped with that?" And I thought, "D'you know... I think they do, I think they should, I think there's no reason why they don't... and the concept was that they can, and they always have been able to, but because they're so old- 'cause obviously they arrived on Earth at prehistoric times- because they're so old, they haven't done it for such a long time that it's fused, it doesn't work... and there's the, what's... one of the combiners, I forget which one it is, but on the back of his tech specs, it says something about "the minds being fused together, and the outcome being less intelligent than the sum of its parts". Is it Devastator? And I thought, what would happen if the Dinobots did that? Because they're so dumb anyway, if you combined them together, what's going to leave there is going to be pure instinct, and unable to even differentiate between friend or foe, and unable to differentiate between, y'know, living organism and plant, basically. It's just going to be swiping and crushing everything. So that was the idea, something that shouldn't do it, because it cannot function as a robot. It cannot function without just killing everything. So they don't do it, they know they can't do it, and because they haven't done it for so long, it's so fused, it's so broken, that to actually do it would be devastatingly painful, and would just twist and break and mangle... the way it did. So I always wanted him to look like he shouldn't exist, I wanted him to look like he was... no thought whatsoever in there. And the one thing I was adamant about [...] and that's Swoop's wings on the back of the combined form, which I always wanted that, because it's like, um... it's like it's a demon character. Rather like in Fantasia, the Night on Bald Mountain, the demon on top of the mountain with the wings just spanning out. That's how I wanted him to look. I wanted him to look like something had just come up from the Earth, prehistoric, ancient, and evil."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 26:56
  4. ↑ "Well... I'm a film student, so I've got a degree in film, and I'd written quite a few films in university. And we filmed a feature film in university that I co-wrote. And I had also written or co-written a script for a film that we were trying to get made before this, we went to the Cannes film festival before I got the job at GAME. So I had written quite a lot. And in fact, the opening panel from The Beast Within was the opening shot of the film script that I'd co-written as well. [...] This was a gritty action movie, so that gritty action movie started in a shootout. It- sort of a big gun battle, and the first shot was somebody getting shot and coming away from the camera. So the camera would start black, and then it would transpire that it was black because you were close-up to someone's chest, and then they were flying away having been shot. And that's what happened to Jazz in the opening shot of the panel."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 24:46
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Both [the artstyle and the lettering in Part 1] are my fault. I can't blame Dylan for that one at all. The first one, I specifically asked Dylan to do it in a Pat Lee style. I wanted Optimus Prime and Megatron to be as big and chunky as possible, I wanted them to tower over the other Transformers to show their power. I really liked Pat Lee's style, at the time—let me stress that, at the time!—because it was different to what I'd seen before. I don't like it now, but at the time- it was a fad, what can I say, I was young, I was impressionable, so what? I asked Dylan to do it in that style. In the second one he did it in his own style, so that's why the second one looks very different to the first one. Dylan went, did his own thing in the second one, and I think it looks much better, what Dylan did, to what I told him to do. The lettering in the first one, again, that's my fault. I thought Dylan was gonna do the lettering, 'cause he's the artist. Dylan sent me all the panels across, but without lettering, and said, "I don't know how to do the lettering, and I don't wanna do it." And I was left with, I don't know, a couple of days to go, "How the hell am I gonna fix this?" I've been to art college, but I'm not an artist. So I did what I could with a PC and Dylan's artwork—layered artwork—and yes... that was a mistake. I probably should've put it back to Dylan and gone, "No, mate, look, you're the artist, you do the lettering. Please. You do the lettering, you do NOT want me doing the lettering." But that is what happened. It would be nice, maybe, to re-do it maybe with the lettering done properly. In the second one, I believe Dylan did his own lettering in the second comic. Which is why the second one, again, the second one looks different, looks a lot better visually than the first one."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 43:03
  6. ↑ "But the really exciting thing, and this bit got me- you can imagine this got me shivering, when I saw on the reschedule for about 4 or 5 months later... Transformers: The Movie. And there was no details, there was no price, there was no pack shot, it just said Transformers: The Movie, Maverick Entertainment. And I was like, this is the big one. I'm gonna get this film before anybody else, 'cause I want this. It's not been on DVD before. So I got hold of Maverick Entertainment and I phoned up, it was a guy named Mike Diprose, he was in charge of Maverick Entertainment, and I said, "Look, I can see, I'm calling from GAME [...] and I see you've got Transformers: The Movie coming out on DVD. Can you tell me anything about it, what special features have you got?" And he was like, "I don't know really, we haven't really thought about it yet." "Oh... well, can you tell me what version of the film it's going to be? Is it going to be the one with the scrol, or is it gonna be the one where Spike says 'shit'?" "I don't really know." "Oh. Well... what about the cover art?" And then he said, "Look, you seem to know a lot about this..." "Uh, yeah, I do a little bit, yeah yeah..." He said, "Do you reckon you could help with it?""—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 14:00
  7. ↑ "Darren has been an invaluable to Metrodome. He has advised us and been a constant source of information and help - there is nothing he doesn't know! Darren's name was first mentioned to me by Maverick when I spoke to them during the hand over but from memory I think he contacted me directly also! I cannot thank Darren enough for his advice and help that he has given Metrodome. Within Metrodome there are no official "transfans" although I must confess I have become admirer myself since working on it and have the honour of being Metrodome's and TVL's resident authority on all things autobot - although I do not deserve the accolade! [...] When we began work on TF we discovered we had very little decent artwork. Darren Jamieson put me in touch with Lee as we were looking to package the DVD programming in radically different way to anyone before us. At this time we took the decision to commission Lee to draw some new artwork which is exclusive to our DVD's. I think we made the right decision and I was delighted with the artwork Lee produced - it looks great and I hope the fans like it. Lee was really great to work with. I am also in contact with another TF legendary artist Andrew Wildman so watch this space..."—Jane Lawson, Transformers At The Moon, "Interview with Jane Lawson at Metrodome", 2003/12/09
  8. ↑ "But then... they lost the license. I think it was only valid for about two years, or so. And Metrodome picked up. And it's like... I've gotta start again. Well, I got on the phone to Metrodome immediately, didn't I? Spoke to a lovely lady called Jane Lawson at Metrodome, who I'm still in touch with now, she's lovely. [...] Jane was working on producing the DVDs, and she knew nothing about Transformers, but she just wanted to know lots about everything, so she, she, really loved it all and got involved with it. But I realised then that it was starting again, so it was going to be The Movie, and it was going to be Season 1 boxset, yet again. And it's, you kind of feel like it's going back to square one again, because obviously we just had that, really, it's like getting reissues of Optimus Prime all the time. We want Season 2, and we want Season 3. But I helped them then with the cover art and all the special features again for the coming-up season boxsets. So I introduced them to Lee Sullivan [...] so that he could do some artwork for the DVDs. I also got in touch with Andy Wildman, so he did the postcard set."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 17:41
  9. ↑ "But what happened then, you see, Jane wanted something special. She wanted something that hadn't been done before, that is- "Can you have any ideas for a special feature that nobody's used?" I said, "Well, I'll have a think about it." And at the same time, a guy named Dylan Gibson, who was one of the Transformers art contributors to the fanart gallery, which again is a special feature on some of the DVDs, that all came from TheTransformers.net... Dylan Gibson got in touch with me and said, "I would really love to draw a comic—a Transformers comic—it's been my dream. Do you know anyone that could help with that?" And I thought, "Jane wants something special for the Metrodome DVDs. Dylan wants to draw a comic. Hello... I think I've got an idea here." So I said to Dylan, "Yeah, I think I could not only help you with your comic, I think I could get it published, and get it officially released. How does that sound?" Well, obviously, yeah, that's pretty cool. And I said to Jane, "I've got this artist, wants to draw a comic for you. And he doesn't want paying for it, he just wants to do it for the experience. How does that sound?" Brilliant. Y'know, it's a win-win for everybody. So that was the concept then, "I'll write the comic for you, Dylan, all you've got to do it draw it. Jane will get it published, and then everybody's a winner...""—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 20:25
  10. ↑ "Well, I was a bit nervous about writing a comic... and for some reason I had contact details for Simon Furman as well, I don't know why, uhh... I don't recall ever doing anything with him, but I do recall messaging him and asking him for some help and advice. And he did help, he did offer some advice. I don't have the email that he sent, 'cause this is many computers ago, and it's been wiped. But I do recall Simon giving me some advice on how to do it, and how to lay out the comic. Whatever he said... I probably think, whatever he said, he didn't mean it! And he doesn't want to take any guilt whatsoever for what actually transpired. But I do remember him being really helpful, so much so that I wanted to put him on the credit. But unfortunately I can't rememeber what he said! Sure it was great, Simon, I'm sure it was brilliant!"—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 22:05
  11. ↑ "Was All Hail Megatron limited to the pages we had? I think... not. [...] As I thought. You want to be spoon fed the story. You're right, no stories start half way in... Star Wars, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction... oh hang on, they do. [...] People don't like the story, I know. What you fail to understand is that an info dump is a moronic method of storytelling. For example, you have two characters heading somewhere. They both know where they're going, and why, but because the writer has no clever way of explaining it one of the characters will say "tell me why we're going here again" so that the other can explain it for the audience, the stupid audience. That's you. You prefer Bladerunner with the voiceover, you are in the minority."—Darren Jamieson, TFW2005, "Anyone afraid of the Dinobot combiner?", 2009/09/24
  12. ↑ "I don't think he was happy with the negativity he got from it. And I can understand that, it's like people are dissing his work. But the first one was the Pat Lee style because I asked him to do it that way, the second one he did it his own way and it looks much better. I genuinely think, in that second one, I think the art looks great. I think Dylan did a fantastic job, I think he's got nothing to be worried about, and it's not fair that he gets criticism when he really shouldn't, because he's a superb artist and he's done a brilliant piece of work. It's just a shame that... it's got that reputation. But then, it does make it the most talked-about Transformers comic in history!"—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 48:31
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "I think there's many reasons people don't like it. Firstly, it's an officially published comic that was done by effectively a fan! There's a lot of jealousy about that, that I actually got it published and made, and got it distributed. And, face it bitches... it's canon! It's canon, say what you want! The Beast Within is canon, you can debate it all you want online, but it- is- canon. Even Hasbro had to comment on it, but there we go. So yeah, they hate it for that reason, they hate it for the fact that the Dinobots combine, and "The Dinobots don't combine!" Yes, they do. They do now, officially, thanks to me doing this. Now Hasbro's cottoned onto it and they've started doing it as well, and they've released a knockoff Beast and they've called it Volcanicus. [...] I do own a Volcanicus, actually. I've just bought an upgrade kit for it as well."—Darren Jamieson, Our Worlds are in Danger, "I'm Big Enough, and Ugly Enough", 2023/10/31 - 45:01
  14. ↑ "There never was a Dinobot combiner, so we didn't think of re-inventing it."—Hasbro, "Hasbro Transformers Q&A", 2008/10/13th (archive link)
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