Dave's Transformers - Comics: G1

Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering - If I recall correctly, this was going to be a Dreamwave series, but was still "on deck" when Dreamwave collapsed. IDW has picked up the completed issues and is putting it out as a four issue miniseries, with a possibility of more miniseries in the future. Initial writing by Simon Furman, art by Don Figueroa. It's set late in the Beast Wars timeline (it starts during the episode that introduced Depthcharge), and involves a lot of non-show toy characters. Essentially a secret war in the background of the Beast Wars.

Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #1: IDW - It was kinda odd reading this, because almost every single page has been shown in previews already, either online or offline. [Later note: Okay, only 11 of 22 were previewed, but the last 7 are kinda info-light and the other 4 unpreviewed pages were interstitial.] I got cover A, with Don Figueroa's lovely rendition of a pre-Beast reformatting Magmatron. I like his robots a bit better than his beasts, oddly because his beasts are a little too realistic. They kinda break the mood, given that I'm used to either the somewhat plasticky look of the Beast Wars cartoon, or the anime abstractions of Beast Wars II. The subtitle "The Gathering" is apt, since rather than introducing new characters in dribs and drabs as in the BW cartoon, the stasis pods are being gangfired. Not counting characters back on Cybertron who will only show in flashback, over two dozen characters are at least seen...which brings with it the unfortunate tang of the BotCon comics, which read more like rosters than stories. Hopefully the story will get down to being about the story (of a secret war fought behind the scenes of late Beast Wars, featuring more characters than in all of Beast Wars) instead of about the rosters. Mildly recommended unless you just like seeing lots of non-show characters, then recommended. $2.99
- "Leoblaze Convoy" Award to Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #1 (I was thinking of making a Fuzor/blowing a fuse joke, but decided against it.)
Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #2: IDW - Got Figueroa's cover A, preferred the clean lines to the somewhat murky colors of the other three covers. I think the opening caption lost a zero somewhere...if this is supposed to be set about the time of the Beast Wars cartoon with its fur-covered proto-hominids, it can't be merely 70,000 years BC. 700,000 years is more like it. The plot's pretty thin this issue, with everyone racing for a macguffin, but it's a decent read. The sunset (sunrise?) fight sequence is a successful experiment in color, conveying the blinding light of having the Sun right in your face without actually concealing the figures. The writing still suffers some from the "cast of thousands, characterization of a couple" problem. Two or three characters who were ciphers get fleshing out, but most are still generic, and there's an awful lot of them. That's one way in which the Beast Wars cartoon made a virtue of necessity...they couldn't simply drop dozens of "characters" onto the screen at once, so they had to actually spend some time developing the ones they had. Mildly recommended. $2.99
- "The Decloak Coulda Been Clearer" Award to TFBWtG #2
Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #3 (of 4): IDW - Forgot to even look at the variant covers this time, took the one they stuck in my pull (cover B, Nick Roche's Lioconvoy, who doesn't appear in this issue). Oh, and there's no actual indication in the comic that this is a 4 issue mini, which is a bit irksome. With only one issue left to go, the comic still spends a fair amount of time on bringing more characters onto stage, leaving the plot feeling kinda thin. Which, to be honest, it is. Strip out all the "here I am and a little bit about me" scenes, and you lose about half the pagecount so far. Basically, it's written with the assumption of stories beyond the initial miniseries, and trying to lay out all the characters now so that these potential stories could focus more on plot. But it doesn't make for a very satisfying first story. Also, the whole "we can see them, but they can't see us, so we don't have to worry about being spotted" plot device rips a lot of the drama out of the plot scenes we DO get. Mildly recommended. $2.99
- "A Veritable Menagerie" Award to Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #3 (of 4)
Transformers Beast Wars: The Gathering #4 (of 4): IDW - A lot of fight scenes and plot device use, but the ending works reasonably well. It's not a magical "all the loose ends come together in the last reel" thing, but it doesn't just leave all the loose ends flopping about either. The art is a bit muddled at time, equal parts Figueroa's layouts and Burcham's colors. All in all, it's mainly another game of "spot the character" with a little bit of story tacked on to justify things. I got the A cover by Figueroa. Mildly recommended. $2.99
- "Me, Grimlock, Have Strangest Dream," Award to TFBW: The Gathering #4 (of 4)

Transformers Beast Wars: The Ascending: Furman and Figueroa do a little retconning and time-tripping to set up a more continuing story (apparently Furman wasn't happy with how The Gathering had wrapped up, or had to change his plans to fit the IDW continuity, or something).

Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #1 (of 4): IDW - And things go all the way cosmic, as Furman takes BWII and BWNeo stuff, mixes in his own Shokaract stuff from the BotCon stories, and then puts time in the blender. Like the first series, this one is shaping up to be mainly a minimal excuse to show as many characters as possible in the shortest feasible time. This issue not only reviews all the characters from Gathering, but also tosses in a dozen or so more. But it still has time to let Grimlock have a scene. At least Retrax gets to be part of it. Mildly recommended. $3.99 (I got Cover A, the Maximal side.)
- "Here At The Asc-ending Of Time" Award to Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #1 (of 4)
Transformers Beast Wars: the Ascending #2 (of 4): IDW - Well, still a lot of character parading, but there's a bit more solid of a plot than "there's a vague menace out to kill everyone". It's still a bit hard to follow if you don't have a really good knowledge of Beast Wars (and BW Neo, and BW II), but at least Furman's giving us something TO follow rather than playing around with splicing continuities together. Figueroa could stand to make some of the "same mold, different name" characters look a little more distinct in places, but otherwise good. Recommended. $3.99
- "What's Up, Docbot?" Award to Transformers Beast Wars: the Ascending #2 (of 4)
Transformers Beast Wars: The Ascending #3 (of 4): IDW - More crowd scene interspersed with exposition, and some more Pointless Deaths (and a noble sacrifice or two), but it's a bit more coherent this time out. And it looks like we get Antagony next issue. Mildly recommended. $3.99 (I got cover A, with the Blentrons).
- "Which Quatrain Was This?" Award to Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #3 (of 4)
Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #4 (of 4): IDW - Well, the pile of cameos in search of a plot comes to an end. It may be the final issue, but apparently Furman sees that as no reason not to introduce another dozen or so characters. While it's not quite as anticlimactic as humanly possible, it's in the vicinity. And what's up with Hardhead being a Herald of Shockaract? Artistically...ehn. The credits only list a rotating coloring team, but the style shifts so radically that either some of the colorists were working from very rough pencils, or there's an uncredited penciler or two in the mix with Guidi. Oh, and while Furman wrote both this and the Beast Wars Sourcebook, he doesn't seem to have worried overmuch about keeping the two consistent. Neutral...and only that high because it has Bump. $3.99
- "No, The Sourcebook Doesn't List Hardhead As A Herald...Or Hellscream, For That Matter, But At Least That One Makes SENSE" Award to Transformers Beast Wars the Ascending #4 (of 4)

Transformers Comics

TF: Beast Wars comics reviews.