COUNTDOWN: 5 more unusual Beast Wars animal modes

Despite being initially met with outcry amongst old-school fans during its mid-90s debut, Beast Wars has stood the test of time to become one of the most beloved and enduring parts of Transformers history.

Given that the central conceit of the series is robots with animal alternate forms, it’s no surprise the toys at the time featured all manner of weird and wonderful beast disguises to stir our imaginations. However, some noticeable overriding themes were at play, too, as the good guy Maximal crew was primarily made up of mammals and birds, whilst the evil Predacons consisted of dinosaurs and bugs, broadly speaking.

Although today’s examples don’t necessarily buck that trend, they remain some of the more distinctive choices for beast modes found during the series’ heyday, with each example occurring only once in toy form. After our initial list, here are five more unusual Beast Wars animal modes! And yes, there’s a bit of a Beast Wars Neo flavour to this one…

#5: Powerpinch (1997) / Beast Wars II Scissor Boy (1998)

Whilst plenty of creepy crawlies exist across all the various Beast Wars lines from the time, something about Powerpinch stands apart somehow. As an earwig, this small but distinctive six-legged lad is one of the more eery examples found in the Predacon ranks, or even the Maximal-aligned Insectrons as part of this toy’s Japanese outing a year later. In truth, earwigs aren’t actually known for burrowing inside your ear canal. Yet, something about that old wive’s tale still manages to make this particular choice of alternate form a little sinister all the same, and no amount of orange and translucent green will change that! It’s just one of the reasons that Powerpinch is one of the more memorable bug-themed Basics of the early Beast era.

#4: Beast Wars Neo Dead End (1999)

Ask a Transformers fan what the robot named Dead End turns into, and they may say a Porsche 928 or perhaps recall the planet-themed Minicon partnered with Unicron during Armada. Failing that, they could cite this 1999 effort, which, if you have yet to guess it, becomes an ammonite, an extinct molluscan cephalopod dating back to prehistoric times! Here, the beast mode is lovingly decked out in the kind of eye-catching colour scheme which is hard to forget, even if you’re not quite up on your primaeval planispiral creatures. That it is also the very definition of a shellformer in both genus and transformation is worth a giggle, but either way, this remains one of the more creative creature choices of the era.

#3: Beast Wars Neo Bazooka (1999)

Again, dinosaur alternate forms are hardly all that revelatory during any part of Beast Wars. Yet the memorably-named Bazooka goes at least a little leftfield by representing the Euoplocephalus, a sizeable herbivorous ankylosaurid from the Late Cretaceous. With their distinctive spikey back and club-like tail, this beast form still stands out amongst the ranks of Tyrannosaurs, Velociraptors and Triceratops, which dominated the proceedings. No doubt this toy also feels a smidgen more unusual for having never been featured in the original Western series (although a 2003 repaint would follow), which is a shame because it’s a genuinely gorgeous specimen up close! Sadly, it’s also one of the most frustrating Transformers toys of its size to convert, but hey, big points for the unique alt-mode choice!

#2: Beast Wars Neo Stampy (1999)

I mentioned last time how a few Beast Wars alternate modes are not necessarily unusual in that they’re particularly rare or unheard-of animals, but more because they only crop up once in the entire era of toys. Stampy is another excellent example, standing as a lone rabbit amongst a sea of big cats and bugs. Hailing from Beast Wars Neo, it makes for a highly idiosyncratic design besides, with a prominent pair of bunny ears adorning each arm and claw-like hands made from the beast jaws. Someone will inevitably express a worry over gold plastic syndrome, but rest assured, there’s none of that here, leaving this as one white rabbit you’ll surely want to follow.

#1: Beast Wars Neo Break (1999)

It’s impossible to have a conversation about Beast Wars Neo without bringing up Break. The lad is the absolute poster boy of everything good and ever-so-notably odd about the line, from the atypical choice of alternate form through to what is the very definition of a shellformer-like transformation. Seriously, if you’ve ever wanted to see a penguin split into bits and reveal a hidden robot man folded up inside of it, this is absolutely the toy for you. Yet despite all the obvious oddities of the design, there’s a lot to enjoy here, not least of which is that we finally saw such a majestic animal represented in the Maximal ranks. No doubt you’ll want to pick up this penguin.

So that’s our list! What are some of your favourite beast modes?

TTFN