The Intergalactic Highway

So I have just come to the realization that no one ever dies (well, maximals anyway). I arrived at this conclusion after reading the Universe comics in which Optimus is Revived along with Depth Charge and Rhinox. Apparently, Sparks only extinguish in the episode "the spark". Other than that exception, they just return to the Matrix where some guy can pluck them back out at will and reincarnate them. xD

So seriously. Every Maximal in the BW show has been Resurrected at least once (that died, anyway). The only "exception" is Tigerhawk who was barely a character in the first place and never had an individual spark of his own.

So from what I understand, at this moment the only Maximals who are considered "dead" are Dinobot and possibly Airazor. I dunno why, but I kinda feel like this is sort of a buzzkill. Depth Charge for instance, had an extremely honorable death and he was completely at peace with himself. Than he got revived for whatever reason. Rhinox also, why would Optimus decide to revive him of all people after he betrayed them in BM? I can't seem to grasp the logic in that one.

Depth Charge agrees with you. He was infuriated with Optimus for resurrecting him because now he has nothing to live for. The stupid comic series wasn't even finished! It's hinted that Depth Charge lives and does help the good guys, but he had one major cliffhanger before the cancellation.

Razorbeast has never been revived. Ya know why? Cos there's no new toy of him! The primary reason why characters are either killed and revived or just upgraded in Beast Wars is when a new toy based on that character was released and Hasbro wanted that toy to appear on the show. For example in Season 1 we had Ultra gorilla Optimus Primal. Then they killed him off at the end of the season because the next season would introduce Transmetals and Fuzors - thus he was quickly restored as Transmetal Optimus Primal. Then Hasbro went and released Optimal Optimus, so Hasbro told writers to replace Transmetal Optimus Primal with this toy -- and so he got upgraded.

This is nothing terribly new to Transformers. If you ever watch 1986's "Transformers The Movie", they knocked off a lot of the 1984-85 toys to make way for the new 1986 characters. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Windcharger, Starscream, Wheeljack, Ironhide, Ratchet, Prowl, Brawn, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Shrapnel, Kickback, Bombshell etc etc. -- all removed from continuity. By the end of the movie we have a whole new cast -- Rodimus Prime, Galvatron, Ultra Magnus, Springer, Scourge, Kup, Cyclonus etc. And if you think that's bad, you should read the G1 Marvel Comics. The Underbase Saga saw wholesale slaughter of Transformers for which their toys were no longer in production and introducing a whole new range of characters. Remember that Transformers fiction - cartoon, comics etc. - are all ultimately a marketing device used by Hasbro to sell Transformers toys. Hasbro doesn't want writers giving limelight to toys that they aren't trying to sell anymore and would rather them focus on the toys they are trying to push on kids.

The characters who die and never come back are the ones who never get new toys made of them. Alas poor Razorbeast...

Hm, I don't think thats the case at all actually. As far as I know, Rhinox and Depth Charge never had a new body besides their original forms. Tigatron also didn't get his transmetal released until botcon as an exclusive. Yet they were revived at some point anyway.

I can't really remember why I made this thread though.

Depth charge had a color change (for worse) and his toy stats were changed (for worse).

The Universe fiction was worse than the most hardcore fanwank that existed solely to sell toys. Like Beast Machines, most people prefer just to sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. The only really good thing about Universe was the rereleases of some molds we hadn't seen in a while, albeit usually with horrific decos.

WorpeX wrote:Hm, I don't think thats the case at all actually. As far as I know, Rhinox and Depth Charge never had a new body besides their original forms. Tigatron also didn't get his transmetal released until botcon as an exclusive. Yet they were revived at some point anyway.

Rhinox did indeed have a Transmetal toy, but Hasbro decided not to have him upgraded as a Transmetal in the cartoon. The reason for this is because CG animation is very expensive. Hasbro would need to pay Mainframe to introduce a new character model (be it a new character or an upgrade, either way they have to create a new CGI model). This is why around the time that either new characters are introduced into the cartoon or when characters are upgraded, Hasbro would tell Mainframe which character models to dispose of. That way they're only ever paying Mainframe to maintain a limited cast of characters at any one time. And sometimes Hasbro only gave Mainframe short notice... for example, after Mainframe had finished making Season 1, Hasbro told Mainframe that in the first episode of Season 2 they had to introduce two new characters - the Fuzors Silverbolt and Quickstrike. So in order to "make room" for them, they had to get rid of two older characters; Terrorsaur and Scorponok. Now by time Mainframe received this instruction from Hasbro, they'd already started writing the script for "Coming of the Fuzors Part 1," so they had to quickly come up with a hasty way to get rid of Terrorsaur and Scorponok -- hence why they just bump into each other and fall into lava. It's a really LAME way to kill two regularly recurring characters, but it's understandable when you consider the circumstances under which Bob Forward had to write it. Transmetal Waspinator likewise never appeared in the show because of budget reasons. Depth Charge never had a new body in the cartoon because he NEVER had a new toy in the Beast Wars series. As others have mentioned, he only received a 'new' toy (re: f'ugly repaint) in Universe, and he did appear in Universe canon via the comics. Again - Tigatron was revived as a Transmetal only because 3H made the toy and the Wreckers/Universe comics featuring him were part of marketing the BotCon toys (they still are - look at last year's BotCon comic featuring all the G2 Redux characters).

We don't often see characters in Transformers being upgraded (at least not for a long time) unless there's a toy that Hasbro wants promoted. For example, G1 Optimus Prime was killed in 1986, but revived as Powermaster Optimus Prime in 1988 because there was a toy to promote.

Now that think about it, You are right; It feels like they all are stucked on this limbo of killing one guy and moments latter he will come back and with more Power than before; Waspinator, Tarantulas and Meatron are good examples of this.
BTW: Have you notice that whenever they shoot someone in the shoulder or the Toe they ran away?