For the record, I liked Figueroa's beast art as well. But I'm a total whore for that guy, so. Though, I wasn't too keen on his Ravage redesign.
One main problem I thought of today that I had with the premise of 'The Gathering' wasn't just that the show characters didn't get to *do* anything, it was that they *couldn't*. Everything in the show was already predetermined by this point, so nothing drastic could happen to any of the show characters. It's like when the anime of your favorite manga lapses into filler: You know they've got to be back to the status quo by the time the next real story arc kicks in, so it's a foregone conclusion that nothing of consequence can happen to anyone or anything in the story. And that sucks all of the drama and tension out of any parts that even try. Like the one time in 'The Gathering' where the comic characters actually interacted with the show's cast: when Magmatron captured Megatron. The entire time you're reading this, you already *know* that Megs is going to escape and get back without any memories or effects of the encounter, since that would totally screw with the show's continuity otherwise. There's no unease or tension whatsoever. And it's like that the entire time you're reading: not only are the show characters standing around doing nothing, but in the back of your head you *know* that they're never going to do anything, because the entire premise of the book locks them out of the action. So it's like, why am I even reading this if I already know that the characters who made me love this series in the first place aren't going to be doing anything? I might as well just set a Beast Wars cast picture as my desktop background, then play BWII episodes in a media player in front of that. It's basically the same experience.
I dunno, did anyone here see Inglourious Basterds? Well, this movie goes to painstaking lengths to be as culturally and historically accurate a WWII film as possible. The level of detail and research they put into it is insane. Now, the film's plot revolves around a plan to assassinate Hitler. And though the plan seems to be coming together quite well, during the whole film, the audience is just waiting to see what happens to screw it all up, since Hitler was never assassinated, of course. And then, you know what does happen at the end of the movie?
They kill Hitler.
It is by far the most wonderfully surprising, subversive moment in the whole movie, because it preys directly on the audiences preconceived notions that something this thorough and detailed absolutely *must* be accurate to the history it appears to be based on. And to me, that's how the BW comics should have rolled with the continuity. Start out seeming like you're dancing around the canon, making everything fit in nice and neat, and then BAM! Blow the whole thing wide open. Not only does it pretty much guarantee a more surprising, interesting story in the end, but when we look back at earlier issues, all the gratuitous continuity-following becomes interesting set-up to reread, rather than banal story regurgitation.
Anyway, I don't get why they decided that being slavishly accurate to the continuity that came before would be the best thing for a Beast Wars comic. It's not like Beast Wars did that with G1.
