Transformers: Beast Wars: The Gathering

by Simon Furman, Don Figueroa

The fan-favorite pairing of writer Simon Furman and artist extraordinaire Don Figueroa on a complete Beast Wars saga is here. In this special collection of the wildly popular miniseries, 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 ultimate aim -- to bring Cybertron itself to its knees. All he needs... is an army. And he knows exactly where to find one!

Genres: Comics, Science Fiction, Manga, Graphic Novels Comics, Graphic Novels, Comic Book

104 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2006

About the author

Simon Christopher Francis Furman is a British comic book writer who is best known for his work on Hasbro/Tomy's Transformers franchise, starting with writing Marvel's initial comic book to promote the toyline worldwide, as well as foundations for both Dreamwave Production's and IDW Publishing's takes on the Generation 1 minifranchise.

Reviews

[Dominic Dobrzensky · Rating 2 out of 5]

The villain is boring. The art is decent. Really annoying that the cover featured our favorite Maximals from the show dashing into a new adventure but the actual story barely shows them for a couple of pages. It's funny to see all the lesser-known 90s toys and repaints shoe-horned into a story set (kind of) in the OG Beast Wars timeline. No interesting characters to get behind in this except Razorbeast, though I did like the idea of Ravage's return. Overall disappointing. Would've benefitted to introduce few folks gradually, build them up, rather than quickly, briefly shove dozens of bots in with no time to develop any of them.

[Whitney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Admittedly, this is not my usual consumption when it comes to reading. But I found this in a thrift store and I like the Transformer movies so I thought I would give this a chance. The art was cool but confusing. I could never tell who the good guys were. And if it was that hard for me to follow along, I imagine my ten year old son will have an even harder time.. and I purchased this thinking he would like it once I read it. But meh... it will probably be in a yard sale very soon.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

A side story meant to justify the toys of non-show characters. It's all continuous action with little room for character to actually shine. I read the "manga" version, meaning smaller and in grey scale, and this is probably not the best reading experience, as the art is already difficult to decipher even with color.

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice pocket sized little story FULL of information and detail - I was honestly surprised at the writing at times, some big words for a story about animals that become robots and fight other animal robots. Lots of fun and showed some of my favorite transformer designs. Really fun story and a quick read.

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

For what it is - a side-story to the Beast Wars animated series that almost-but-not-quite coincides with it and almost-but-not-quite connects with the Japanese Beast Wars II series that most of the characters and designs are borrowed from - I quite enjoyed this. Great art, simple story, good fun.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

"beast wars in back!"

any fan of the original beast wars cg cartoon will love this revisit of the pre earth world of transformers mythos and will definitely want more by the end (coming soon, btw). the new characters are cool to see and really make me wish for the cartoon to comeback (and totally ignore the ridiculous beast machines "sequel"). great intro to a transformers property that ended all too quickly (ie the cg cartoon)

also, the art is utterly stunning and complements the beast wars universe perfectly.

[Timothy Carter · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only Simon Furman-written Transformers story I did not like. Too much going on for just 4 issues, Magmatron wasn't a very interesting villain, Grimlock was introduced but very little done with him, and what was that whole out-of-phase time technology? I just didn't buy it.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good set up for a story (multiple double crosses) leads to directly into a series of fight scenes. Ultimately it seems like the comic background for the larger toy line rather than a stand alone story. Still a well illustrated story and a quick read, just nothing special.