"The beast wars--the time-lost series of conflicts on Earth, where heroic miximals are pitted against evil Predacons. As one strand of the Beast wars rages on, another is just beginning. Predacon general Magmatron is on a mission to capture the renegade Megatron, but his true intentions are far more terrifying and revolutionary; his ultimaate aim--to bring Cybertron itself to its knees. All he needs ... is an army. And he knows exactly where to find one! ... This special collection includes 'The Gathering' issues #1-4, along with character profiles, art gallery, and glossary."--Page 4 of cover
Spiraling out of the events in Beast Wars: The Gathering... Magmatron -- now a disembodied entity, existing out of time and space -- is witness to Cybertron's unchecked descent into chaos and madness, all of which is a prelude to its complete and utter destruction! Powerless to directly affect this terrifying apocalypse, Magmatron's last desperate recourse is to try and bring his greatest enemy, Razorbeast, together with fellow Maximals Lio Convoy and The Pack!
For many years, the Transformers have been a staple of pop culture. As new and old collectors seek to enhance their knowledge of this toy line, this book provides a wide view of the Transformers action figures from their earliest incarnations, their journey through the 1980s, and culminating with the Beast Wars in the 1990s. Extremely well researched, this guide provides information on the development of the figures while explaining their key features, along with showcasing many figure variations. Featuring images of figures both in and out of package, yearly product listings for easy reference, and pricing examples for many key items, this book is a great tool for reintroducing yourself or getting familiar with these toys from the past.
The fourth book in Chris Scullion’s critically acclaimed series of video game encyclopedias, The N64 Encyclopedia is dedicated to the Nintendo 64, one of the most well-loved games consoles ever released. Although the Nintendo 64 didn’t sell as well as some of Nintendo’s other systems, and it struggled in the shadow of the bold newcomer that was the Sony PlayStation, nearly everyone who owned an N64 was in love with it and the four-player multiplayer it provided as standard. Despite its relatively small library, the Nintendo 64 had a healthy number of groundbreaking titles that would revolutionize the way we play video games. The likes of Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Mario Kart 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remain iconic in the eyes of video game fans over 25 years down the line. This book naturally contains those games, but it also contains every other game released for the system, no matter how obscure. It also covers every game released in Japan, including those for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD add-on which never left the country. With over 400 games covered, screenshots for every title and a light-hearted writing style designed to make reading it a fun experience, The N64 Encyclopedia is the definitive guide to a revolutionary gaming system.
Alien robots from the planet Cybertron, Transformers characters have a fascinating backstory. They also have the special ability to alter their form for battle, morphing into weapons and machines. Advancing readers will be intrigued to learn more about how the Transformers brand has changed over the years.
"Johnson astutely reveals that franchises are not Borg-like assimilation machines, but, rather, complicated ecosystems within which creative workers strive to create compelling 'shared worlds.' This finely researched, breakthrough book is a must-read for anyone seeking a sophisticated understanding of the contemporary media industry." —Heather Hendershot, author of What's Fair on the Air?: Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest While immediately recognizable throughout the U.S. and many other countries, media mainstays like X-Men, Star Trek, and Transformers achieved such familiarity through constant reincarnation. In each case, the initial success of a single product led to a long-term embrace of media franchising—a dynamic process in which media workers from different industrial positions shared in and reproduced familiar cultureacross television, film, comics, games, and merchandising. In Media Franchising, Derek Johnson examines the corporate culture behind these production practices, as well as the collaborative and creative efforts involved in conceiving, sustaining, and sharing intellectual properties in media work worlds. Challenging connotations of homogeneity, Johnson shows how the cultural and industrial logic of franchising has encouraged media industries to reimagine creativity as an opportunity for exchange among producers, licensees, and evenconsumers. Drawing on case studies and interviews with media producers, he reveals the meaningful identities, cultural hierarchies, and struggles for distinction that accompany collaboration within these production networks. Media Franchising provides a nuanced portrait of the collaborative cultural production embedded in both the media industries and our own daily lives.
Experience where it all began for Gabriel Redfeather and his quest to save the world from demons in Dark Beginnings! The Dark Storm Gabriel is a New York City college kid who loves to bury his nose in books, looking up stories of long-dead cultures, lost languages, and forgotten legends. He never imagined one of those legends would come looking for him—until a tough-talking girl named De Mona Sanchez thrusts an ancient weapon into his hands...and recruits Gabriel in a dark epic war he was born to fight. Banished centuries ago by warrior knights, a demonic army is storming through a dimensional rift into our world. Stalkers are prowling the streets. Corpses are rising up to fight. And Gabriel—a descendant of one of the original warriors—has no choice but to drop his textbooks and start kicking demon butt alongside his new friend De Mona...who has a few secrets of her own. If Gabriel fails, humanity loses. If war is hell, this is hell on earth... The Demon Hunt Soul-sucking demons. Half-human killers. Doomsday prophesies. No, this isn't a late-night movie on cable TV. This is Gabriel's life—or least, what's left of it—ever since he discovered his true destiny as a warrior knight in the battle against darkness. Once an ordinary college kid studying lost legends in books, Gabriel now finds himself face to face with actual demons. As a warrior, he has no choice but to fight them. And if he screws it up, the world is toast... A dimensional rift has opened between worlds. Which means more demons—and more death—than you could shake a proverbial stick at. Luckily, Gabriel has just the stick for the job, an ancient trident that gives him awesome demon-bashing powers. To watch his back he has the butt kicking half Demon De Mona and several unlikely heroes who he's picked up along the way. To make matters more complicated two of Gabriel's college buddies wind up dead and he finds that the demons aren't the only ones who want a piece of his hide. The cops want him too—for murder...
Today, war is considered a last resort for resolving disagreements. But a day of staged slaughter on the battlefield was once seen as a legitimate means of settling political disputes. James Whitman argues that pitched battle was essentially a trial with a lawful verdict. And when this contained form of battle ceased to exist, the law of victory gave way to the rule of unbridled force. The Verdict of Battle explains why the ritualized violence of the past was more effective than modern warfare in bringing carnage to an end, and why humanitarian laws that cling to a notion of war as evil have led to longer, more barbaric conflicts. Belief that sovereigns could, by rights, wage war for profit made the eighteenth century battle’s golden age. A pitched battle was understood as a kind of legal proceeding in which both sides agreed to be bound by the result. To the victor went the spoils, including the fate of kingdoms. But with the nineteenth-century decline of monarchical legitimacy and the rise of republican sentiment, the public no longer accepted the verdict of pitched battles. Ideology rather than politics became war’s just cause. And because modern humanitarian law provided no means for declaring a victor or dispensing spoils at the end of battle, the violence of war dragged on. The most dangerous wars, Whitman asserts in this iconoclastic tour de force, are the lawless wars we wage today to remake the world in the name of higher moral imperatives.
