Transformers: Beast Wars is an American comic book ongoing series by IDW Publishing that debuted in 2021, written by Erik Burnham and drawn by Josh Burcham, celebrating the twentieth-fifth anniversary of the Beast Wars brand of the Transformers franchise by Hasbro.
The series debuted on February 3, 2021, and concluded on June 22, 2022, following the announcement of the Transformers comic book license leaving IDW by the end of the year.
Premise Set in a distant future of Cybertron, when the Predacons led by Megatron steal a time machine, the Maximals led by Optimus Primal must stop them from changing history.
Publication history
Background After Beast Machines finished airing in 2000, the Beast Wars franchise was not revisited until Dreamwave Productions acquired the rights to the Transformers comic franchise from Hasbro. Dreamwave first touched on the Beast Wars series with a prequel in 2003's Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye. In 2004, the publisher's Transformers Summer Special featured Ain't No Rat, which was the first officially approved comic story to carry on directly from the events seen in the final Beast Wars cartoon. Dreamwave held a contest to select which Transformers continuity (Beast Wars or Robots in Disguise) would be the next to get its own book, and Beast Wars was the victor, with writers James McDonough and Adam Patyk and artist Don Figueroa as the initially planned creative team for the new series. However, despite several pieces of artwork being released (and according to those involved with the project some impressive pieces remaining unreleased), Dreamwave's bankruptcy caused the project to be canceled.
Development In May 2020, IDW's then President Chris Ryall, and editor-in-chief John Barber, announced a new Beast Wars comic book in development.
In October 2020, IDW officially announced a new comic book series titled Transformers: Beast Wars, which will be written by Erik Burnham and drawn by Josh Burcham.
The series debuted on February 3, 2021, and concluded on June 22, 2022, following the announcement of IDW passing the Transformers comic book license by the end of the year.
Issues