The Energon Pub

Is there any plans to continue in place, because I love the story line. Ohh....Is there a comic series that is based off of the normal BW story-arc?

Yes, there is. The Gathering is planning to be continued in The Ascending, which partly takes place on Cybertron. This is also going to be followed by MTMTE Profile Comics for BW as there were for G1 & Armada.

When are they going to be out?

If all goes smoothly, August.

JazZeke wrote:If all goes smoothly, August.

Which means, going by what's happened before, we can expect them in December or January. Until they change again.

Is there any word on the plot?

I hope they use less characters than "The Gathering" and actually have some development, and I hope Furman decides not to use Grimlock.

Leonardo wrote:Is there any word on the plot?

I hope they use less characters than "The Gathering" and actually have some development, and I hope Furman decides not to use Grimlock.

*snort* HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, you poor, naive child.

Actually Furman said this story will be on an even bigger scale as the last one.

JazZeke wrote:Actually Furman said this story will be on an even bigger scale as the last one.

Is he trying to ensure poor sales?

Darth Bombshell wrote:

JazZeke wrote:Actually Furman said this story will be on an even bigger scale as the last one.

Is he trying to ensure poor sales?

If they are going to take it to Cybertron, then attempting to write a plot where theres only 3 on 3 battles, and only a few Transformers getting spotlight would be silly. The more the merrier I say.

I for one, rather enjoyed the large scale battles, and seeing so many unused toy designs. Great stuff.

I quite enjoyed Beast Wars, the scale was fine, Furman had his main core characters of about 6 a side, then had all the other characters as "name" characters. Pretty much someone says their name and they go away, only to be seen in the background later on, if ever, again.

Id like to see the Beast Era back on Cybertron, seeing as how small (in comparison) to the G1 bots they are, then It should be interesting to see how they scale with the G1 era bots cities on Cybertron.

And the Art in "The Gathering" was absolutely stunning. Hope it continues.

Definitely. I loved the artwork in it. Stunning. The color really sets it off.

O, yes, the artwork in "The Gathering" was beautiful, but I did feel that the writing was somewhat cluttered. I seem to remember the pacing being a bit off, as well; I recall not much happening in issue #3, leaving #4 to be crammed and rushed. Normally, I think Furman is one of the best TF writers out there. Grimlock's appearance felt forced, as well, and by now I would've thought everyone was bored of him. I'm hoping Furman leaves him out.

The Transformers: Beast Wars: The Ascending #1
Simon Furman (w); Don Figueroa (a); Figueroa, Nick Roche (c)

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! By The Gathering team of Simon Furman and Don Figueroa.

*2 regular covers will be shipped in a 1-to-1 ratio.
*Retailers: See your order form for special incentives
FC • $3.99 • 32 pages

http://comicnewsi.com/article.php?catid=208&itemid=9850

It definately felt like a real story, but with an attempt to force too much introductory stuff in without making it an intro story. I found i enjoyed it much more as a reread than an initial run. Also found that there was about 6 issues worth of stuff crammed in their. It seems like the arc was definately meant to satisfy hardcore BW fans.

Leonardo wrote:Normally, I think Furman is one of the best TF writers out there.

Yeah, but everything he's done since coming back has suffered from a variation of the same plot: a story promising a grand epic scale narrative that's let down by either:

1). Too many characters running around.
2). Too many characters running around doing a whole lot of nothing.
3). Too many characters running around doing a whole lot of nothing cheapened a lot by the fact that the ending fails to deliver on the promises hinted at the start.

And frankly, the less said about his use of Grimlock in The Gathering, the better off for all of us.

Darth Bombshell wrote:

Leonardo wrote:Normally, I think Furman is one of the best TF writers out there.

Yeah, but everything he's done since coming back has suffered from a variation of the same plot: a story promising a grand epic scale narrative that's let down by either:

1). Too many characters running around.
2). Too many characters running around doing a whole lot of nothing.
3). Too many characters running around doing a whole lot of nothing cheapened a lot by the fact that the ending fails to deliver on the promises hinted at the start.

And frankly, the less said about his use of Grimlock in The Gathering, the better off for all of us.

And I disagree with most of what you said. Don't you just love opinions?

Monochrome wrote:

Darth Bombshell wrote:

Leonardo wrote:Normally, I think Furman is one of the best TF writers out there.

Yeah, but everything he's done since coming back has suffered from a variation of the same plot: a story promising a grand epic scale narrative that's let down by either:

1). Too many characters running around.
2). Too many characters running around doing a whole lot of nothing.
3). Too many characters running around doing a whole lot of nothing cheapened a lot by the fact that the ending fails to deliver on the promises hinted at the start.

And frankly, the less said about his use of Grimlock in The Gathering, the better off for all of us.

And I disagree with most of what you said. Don't you just love opinions?

To be honest, those three complaints are essentially what I said I thought was wrong with "The Gathering". Too many characters, a bad ending and his use of Grimlock. I don't think "Infiltration" and beyond has suffered from too many characters doing nothing, though.

Besides, the key players have neen Budiansky, Furman, Sarracini and Mick (McDonough) & Patyk. Furman was/is certainly the best out of those, as far as I'm concerned. Full credit to Nick Roche, though, his effort was a brilliant debut.

Leonardo wrote:To be honest, those three complaints are essentially what I said I thought was wrong with "The Gathering". Too many characters, a bad ending and his use of Grimlock. I don't think "Infiltration" and beyond has suffered from too many characters doing nothing, though.

To be fair, though, "Infiltration", "Escalation", "Stormbringer" and the Spotlights gave him the opportunity to play in the sandbox on his own without having to be burdened by twenty years of backstory. It's kinda like the Marvel "Ultimate" series in taht respect. And even though I harped a lot about how Infiltration ended, Escalation, Stormbringer and the spotlights have done a lot to fill out the universe as it were.

As for Grimlock, apparently we have Ben Yee to blame for that. Apparently Furman was all prepared to treat Grimlock as a different character than the G1 version until Ben pointed out to him that, according to his tech spec, BW Grimlock was the G1 Grimlock, which no doubt made Furman happy at the expense of telling a good story, cause instead of providing a suitable conclusion, we got OMG!!1Grimlock!11 and a rather weak ass ending.

Ah, well. Maybe "The Ascending" will do to it what Escalation did to Infiltration.

We can only hope.

Darth Bombshell wrote:As for Grimlock, apparently we have Ben Yee to blame for that. Apparently Furman was all prepared to treat Grimlock as a different character than the G1 version until Ben pointed out to him that, according to his tech spec, BW Grimlock was the G1 Grimlock, which no doubt made Furman happy at the expense of telling a good story, cause instead of providing a suitable conclusion, we got OMG!!1Grimlock!11 and a rather weak ass ending.

I didn't know that! Ah well, here's hoping Furman doesn't give Grimlock a BW-style Lightning Strike Coalition or anything. He's one over-exposed character.

I actually liked old Grimy in there. I just wished he transformed and fought. That would have NEAT!! Oh well. But I thought everything played out quite well. The ending did kind of suck though.