Battle Beasts.
Now, you mask why this may be so. Others may ask why it even matters. I intend to answer both questions in the time honoured tradition of the internet: Complaining about things.
First, a little background. Back in the good old days when I was still allowed to play with figures without either attracting scorn or worrying about the collectors value I, quite obviously, had some Battle Beasts. And of all the various toy lines we had access to back then it was Battle Beasts that we kept coming back to time and again. The reasons for this are many and various. Firstly of course is the fact that they are balls out awesome figures. Power armoured elementally powered cyborg animal people, possessed of an inherently combative nature and uniquely impractical weapons.
Seriously, how the cock do you wield one of those?
Some had had awesome shoulder mounted cannons back before we even knew what a predator was. Others had limbs replaced with drills, claws or machine guns. But only a handful ever had a weapon that fell outside of Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Other).
There were all kinds of different figures, and it was always a thrill searching through the car boot sales and flea markets of the day and finding a new one. Whatever sort of animal you were fond of, there was an equivalent Battle Beast SOMEWHERE.
Love at first site, and under 50p. You just don't get that with ebay.
Of course being smaller than the average figure they were somewhat cheaper which is not an insignificant factor to pre pubescent finances. But more importantly they were just the right size to use with basically ANYTHING. My Battle Beasts had laired in Star Wars bases, M.A.S.K. vehicles and complicated setups of battered old Robotix kits. Their hands were quite capable of holding equipment from the Action Force vehicles they habitually drove around in, and often did. Which is just as well, as it was a LOT easier to find Action Force kit than actual Battle Beast weapons.
But possibly the greatest thing about the Battle Beasts line was how utterly context-less it was to us back then. We had no idea if there even WAS a back story. Everything we knew about them could be summed up in the simple chant of the commercial: "Battle Beasts, Battle Beasts, They battle for fun."
Really, that's all we had to go on, other than Fire burns Wood, Wood floats on Water, Water puts out Fire. And being an impoverished 10 year old scouring the charity shops it has to be said that even finding a figure with it's heat sensitive emblem still attached was something of a rarity. But that's the thing. Since we had basically nothing to go on, we just made it up ourselves. Whereas He-Man was always constrained into fighting Skeletor by the background narrative, the Battle Beasts came unburdened with any preconceptions. And thus we were free to do anything we liked. And thus we did.
This is why I say that they were the greatest toy line ever. Because in no other franchise did we ever have such total ownership of the worlds, characters and stories. I was playing post apocalyptic survival tales out before computers had even been invented, let alone anyone having the time to write Fallout. But then what else would you do with a large pile of mutant animal people and an excess of tanks?
Heady days. Obviously time moved on and we all grew older and eventually stopped playing with Battle Beasts.
Ha, only joking. Actually I wrote a Battle Beasts RPG one time. No idea how it was supposed to work now of course, but I still did it. I was that attached to the figures and the ideas they engendered.
But yeah, eventually we did grow up. And since I had a budget and ebay now existed I was able to expand my collection somewhat. Whilst back in the day the existence of Shadow Warriors was almost mythic and we were lucky to have 3 between everyone we knew I was now able to afford SEVERAL! Occasionally even with a weapon! The internet is a wonderful thing, and offered up a wealth of information on the franchise. Not in my wildest dreams could I have ever imagined they were apparently a Transformers spin off. I mean, that's probably the only line we never really used with them.
I discovered that in fact they kinda almost did have a background. Although not really. There was a comic and an annual and an audio tape. Although some bastard bid sniped the tape out from under me the one time it ever came up on ebay. But the other stories were pleasingly... non specific. There were Battle Beasts, and they Battled and such like, but other than that I don't remember there being any shocking revelations or anything. Actually they fit right in with exactly the sort of world you'd always envisioned. Probably because the writers had about as much to go on as we did.
But why bring this up now?
Because they're redoing them. That's why. This of course is normally the point where we decry the whole project without even looking at it, but let's try to give it due consideration.
Quite a while ago was the news that license had been picked up, and a special edition figure was released. This wasn't massively exciting to me partly because it was a convention exclusive type thing that I'd never get close to in a million years, but mostly because I wasn't really that impressed by the toy.
I'm not even entirely sure why. I mean, it certainly LOOKS like a Battle Beast. It has the armour and everything, although the weapon could be a little less practical.
For example, it could look like a christmas tree.
But somehow it just didn't seem to possess the charm of the originals. Maybe I'm just biased against these generically lego looking blocky collectors pieces that are so popular these days. But I guess my collection of Mad Capsule Markets Kubricks does rather argue against that to some degree. Point is that I saw it but didn't really feel it. I didn't object to it, it just wasn't for me. I preferred to stick with my old school designs.
And then this morning I discovered that they're now doing a full toy line AND a comic to go with it. And I was all like "ORLY?"
Yeah, Like that.
And then I read this in the synopsis:
It focuses on a group of renegade Beasts who return to Earth to protect the ultimate weapon (and the human who activated it) from an armada of their violent brethren.And I was all like:
Really? Has that particular device EVER been a good idea?
The short answer does not involve Cylons being killed by standing to close to a microwave.
So, yeah. Not the most auspicious start to proceedings. But the good news is that they've actually put a free preview comic up on the website. So, what's it like?
Well that's actually pretty hard to judge. I don't think it's bad, but then there's enough problems that I can't quite get as excited as I would perhaps like. The question is whether they're mine or the comics.
The story of course, I can't make much fuss over. As I've said, the thing I always liked about Battle Beasts was the utter lack of story, so you can't really complain about them changing it. The hints of all consuming war and the terrible brutal society it engenders are all actually really promising, and sound like an interesting take on the idea of the Battle Beasts. But like Master Of The Universe and Galactica 1980 we have the problem of taking an awesome franchise and sending it to modern day earth for no readily discernible reason. Instead of, for example, doing LITERATELY ANYTHING EXCEPT THAT. I can't see any call for it. You don't need to put in human characters to give the audience someone to relate to or cheer for. You just need to put in well written characters. I mean, this is BATTLE BEASTS, right? If I'm not prepared to cheer for a homicidal goat dude then I'm hardly going to be buying this am I?
And that's probably the real rub, because as short as that preview is it actually feels really well written. The characters are well presented and the dialogue is interesting. Despite everything else I'm intrigued to find out more about these guys and their situation.
And then we go to earth and all I can think about is Dolph Lungren.
Still, never mind eh?
The art is also of a high standard, and pretty cool. However I can't help but have an issue with the character designs. Whilst they're well drawn, and of themselves not bad designs, they just don't feel like actual Battle Beast designs to me. Put simply Battle Beasts wear this weird techno looking power armour type stuff, and these guys are just... Wearing normal armour. Well, one of them is anyway. What we have is a Walrus guy who's wearing something that's kinda reminiscent of actual Battle Beast armour, a Goat dude in plate mail and a Bird guy wearing a hood.
Close
Butt
No Cigar
Don't even get me started on the Vulture in the gimp mask. Basically where there is armour it's not really chunky or technological looking, and especially in the case of the enemy beasts shown here it's mostly non existent. Ultimately this means that the character designs feel a lot more like something out of Thundercats.
Just Sayin'.
This is shame, because as I said the art IS really good. It just doesn't capture the fundamentals of Battle Beastness in my opinion.
The final problem, aside from the lack of Pugnacious Penguin as a lead character, is the total lack of Fire, Wood, or Water. Now I freely admit that this was a goofy marketing thing back in the day, amounting to little more than a game of rock-paper-scissors that we all ignored anyway because we had sweet figures to play with. But just think about the elemental hierarchies you get in the average JRPG, or Pokemon and it's ilk. Just expand it out and rationalise it a bit more. I mean Fire Earth Wind Water Light Dark is a good start, right? AS dumb as the original scheme was it would be nice to see it acknowledged in this new iteration.
Now, of course it does have to be said that this is just a preview comic. It's entirely possible that they'll get some proper armour or elemental power ups later on. Although how they're supposed to achieve this on earth is anybodies guess.
SERIOUSLY? WHY WOULD YOU?!?!!?
Wait a second, published by IDW?
Now I see why. Goddamnit fanwank, get back on the internet where you belong. Still, I guess the inevitable Transformers crossover will be at least something of a giggle. Do they still have Headmasters?
No comments:
Post a Comment