Beast Wars: The Gathering

Beast Wars: The Gathering
Issue #1 cover by Don Figueroa
Publication information
Publisher	IDW Publishing
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Limited series
Publication date(s)	February–May 2006
No. of issues	4
Main character(s)	Maximals, Predaconss
Creative team
Created by	Hasbro
Written by	Simon Furman
Artist(s)	Don Figueroa
Colorist(s)	Josh Burcham

Beast Wars: The Gathering is a four-issue comic book mini-series, published by IDW Publishing. The series was launched with #1 in February 2006 and ended with #4 in May. It has since been republished as a trade paperback.

The story is set in the continuity of the Beast Wars CG animated series. According to Transformers writer Simon Furman, the mini-series is set during the events of the season three episode, "Changing of the Guard". The four-issue series was written by Simon Furman with art by Don Figueroa.

The mini-series was followed by the Beast Wars: The Ascending mini-series in October 2007.

The IDW Beast Wars comic takes place in the continuity of the Beast Wars show. In the third issue, the Predacons are installing Sentinel, placing the events in the season 3 episode Changing of the Guard.

The plot begins with a brief recap of seasons 1-2 of Beast Wars, ending with Ravage's failure to contain Megatron. At this point the Predacon general Magmatron arrives with a crew of followers, having been dispatched by the Tripredacus Council to follow up on the former Decepticon. However, displaced from the timestream by a chronal armband, Magmatron has his own agenda: to use a Predacon shell program to turn the Axalon's cargo of Maximal protoforms in an army he can use to overthrow the existing status quo on Cybertron. However, he is betrayed by his technical expert Razorbeast, in reality a Maximal double agent sent by Lio Convoy to thwart Magmatron's plan, and many of the protoforms turn into Maximals. Razorbeast gathers a small band of Maximals, surviving an attack by Magmatron's three modes and gathering a transwarp receiver to get a signal back to Cybertron from Ravage's ship (destroyed in The Agenda pt 3), before heading for the Ark.