It’s time to look at the final installment in the online Transformers trilogy! The trilogy has definitely showed a lot of promise at times but has been limited by how short each episode was. It’s a shame because a full length season of Transformers hype with this backdrop could have been really cool. No sense in thinking about the what ifs though. While this season was not quite as good as the last one, it’s still a pretty fun adventure.
Last time Megatronus arrived and showed Megatron’s crew a glimpse of his power. He’s on a level that none of the other bots could really comprehend. Megatron decides that the team needs to grab the legendary blaster along with whatever other ancient weapons can be found. Optimus Primal agrees to help them but makes it clear that if the situation gets dangerous he will ditch them. The heroes accept these terms and prepare for their final battle. Meanwhile Overlord and Rodimus Prime continue to destroy all robots in their path as they look for Megatron. Eventually all of the fighters find themselves in the big climax.
The show dug itself into a big hole with the final episode of the 2nd series. The issue is that they made Megatronus too powerful. Not only does he have greater physical power than the combiners, but he has the greatest speed stat out of all the robots as well. This makes it so that no fighter can reasonably hope to challenge him and win. What the show does is quickly get rid of his speed in this season and on the whole that works as a big nerf. Suddenly everyone can fight him and the heroes even pin the guy down for quite a while. It’s a bit of a shame, but completely expected since he was simply too powerful. Megatronus is still a great villain though and I like the design.
Overlord also finally gets to have his closure with his subplot about taking down Megatron. Naturally the Decepticon is a little preoccupied at the moment, but Overlord certainly doesn’t care about what is convenient for his arch nemesis. He’s definitely a strong fighter and the show does a good job of depicting that he is a heavy weight. I do think Megatron would defeat him in a fair fight, but it would be a close battle. Overlord certainly does tend to win any fight that he is involved in.
Then we’ve got Rodimus Prime who ends up being controlled by Unicron. It’s certainly a bit of a change in dynamic there as initially you just think of him as an evil version of himself. I wonder if the show always meant for him to be Unicron or if that was changed for some reason. Either way he does make for a good villain although I didn’t care much for his redesign at the end. I thought his normal design looked good as it was. I dare say that he could might have even been stronger than Overlord and Megatron by the end although it’s hard to say since he fought a souped up Primal and that guy didn’t fight anyone else so it’s hard to compare them all. It’s unfortunate for Rodimus though as his ending definitely isn’t very happy.
Meanwhile Megatron makes for a good leader. It was definitely fun seeing him take over for Prime for once. Of course it wouldn’t be so out of place in the comics, but as far as the shows go this was definitely a very new take. Considering who he was teaming with Megatron is definitely the perfect pick for the leader. He gets the job done and has the power needed to back up his command decisions. The rest of the team would have been completely lost without him.
The most annoying character in the series is definitely still Perceptor. He seems to only be around to get in the way. Even while the characters are fighting to the death he is worried about his tech and yells things like “Be careful guys!” This guy is completely unrealistic and doesn’t seem to care about the lives of his friends. That makes it impossible to root for him and at the end of the day you want him off the team. To date he has not had any moment that has made him even close to being a likable character.
Windblade is still solid although her role here is certainly smaller than in the last 2 seasons. While she initially seemed to be more of a leader figure or at least one of the most important characters, that role was given to Megatron so she isn’t left with a whole lot to do. She is still around for the whole season of course, but at this point none of her weapons can even singe the armor of the villains so she isn’t all that helpful.
One of the big guest stars here was Optimus Primal of course and he definitely comes out of nowhere. I’d say that he was a fun character, but he does come across as rather annoying the whole time. He is very quick to try and ditch everyone, but surely he must realize how futile that would be. The villains would inevitably go after him next and he isn’t strong enough to stop them. Helping the heroes is his best chance at ultimately keeping the blaster safe which is his purpose. Also, he definitely should have taken the shot against Megatronus considering that targets don’t get much easier than that. He ends up being really strong, but as a character it is hard to root for him.
We certainly do get a lot of action here which is nice. The climax has a lot of fun moments and the energy blasts always stand out. It is impressive to see Megatronus just rip his opponents apart. I do think the Autobots should look into making their heads a little more secure though given how easy they seem to be to pry apart. In particular this doesn’t end up boding very well for Victorion but I’m confident that the writers just don’t like her at this point. She looks so terrible across all of the seasons of the show that it can’t be accidental. They certainly succeeded since I’m not a fan of her either. The whining can be a little endearing in a comical sense at times, but that’s about it.
Ultimately you may wonder why the Dinobots were added. They were fun to have around of course, but aside from Grimlock the others were just around to get wrecked. Even Grimlock didn’t look all that good for the most part. I do appreciate the fact that the series brought so many people in but it did seem to be more out of obligation than anything else. Even Predaking showed up very briefly for some quick destruction scenes and a fight.
The writing is pretty solid throughout. The script takes itself seriously and works well in constantly showing that the heroes don’t really have a chance without overdoing it. The show isn’t very heavy handed in that respect. Even the characters I don’t like aren’t super annoying or anything aside from Perceptor who is fairly unbearable the whole time. I would be interested in this creative team tackling another show someday but with an actual budget and full length episodes. I think at the end of the day an important thing to note is that the episodes didn’t drag on. It would be hard for them to do so, but nonetheless it was a fun ride.
While the animation still looks like really old PS1 graphics, I still do like it. It’s pretty nostalgic and works well for the mecha. It would never beat any really solid traditional animation style, but it’s still not something that I’d consider as a weakness for the show. It’s clunky and it does make it difficult on the show with the fight scenes since nobody can be too agile but it’s still vibrant for the blasters. It also does get the dark color scheme across pretty well like in the image below.
Overall, The trilogy is now over. It’ll certainly be forgotten rather quickly and didn’t end up making much of a name for itself but it was a fun ride. At the very least it doesn’t take a whole lot of time since the episodes are so short and there are only 10 episodes. Even watching all 3 seasons back to back wouldn’t take very long either. It does end on a cliffhanger but it’s barely even worth noting since it won’t amount to very much. The odds of this getting a sequel are slim to none. I think the best way to look at this show is as if it’s just a promo trying to get you interested in the franchise. It’s a movie that was split into many different parts to pad it out a bit but if you merge it all then it makes for a fun film that will admittedly feel a little rushed since the plot will change many times during the adventure. If you’re a big Transformers fan then you should certainly check it out. Otherwise it’s probably best to start with a different one like Transformers Prime.
Overall 7/10
It’s time for a Transformers review! This comic takes place during the Beast Wars saga, which is pretty interesting. The one downside is that I don’t know most of the characters and one comic isn’t enough to really learn all of their names to a great extent. Luckily, the wiki for Transformers is one of the best in the biz so they have my back. It’s a pretty fun comic and there’s a lot of action. It’s basically a collection that is made for popcorn fun!
The plot involves a new threat to the global peace that has enveloped the universe. His name is Magmatron and his power levels are pretty high. The Autobots and Decepticons have finally made peace and they are now known as Maximals and Predacons. They have a treaty and things are actually looking up for the heroes. The Predacons are too worried to actually launch an attack on the moment. Still, the Maximal leader suspects that Magmatron is up to something so he sends Razorbeast to be his spy on the inside. Razorbeast prevents Magmatron from turning every robot in the past into Predacons, but now the two groups are stuck in the past. They can watch the events of Beast Wars transpire, but those inhabitants cannot see or feel them unless these fighters wish it. The Predacons want to bring Megatron in and the Maximal group needs to stop them. Does Razorbeast really have what it takes to lead a group of newly formed heroes?
The premise of the story is interesting, but I don’t see how it could last a very long time. The villains and heroes can still mess around with the current Maximals and Predacons so all it would take is a single energy blast to rewrite time. Magmatron actually fights Megatron, which should affect the timeline a bit, even if nothing really major happened. That’s why working with time travel can be very risky. There are a lot of ways that you can definitely mess it up, but it also pays off in a big way when it works.
Magmatron is the main villain and he’s a pretty fun addition to the cast. This guy definitely looks very powerful and you get the feeling that he has the physical strength to back up his looks. He doesn’t get a lot of fights here, but he looks impressive for the most part. He takes on one of the legendary heroes and also puts up a good fight against Megatron. He definitely didn’t have the upper hand in that fight, but maybe he could have pulled out some kind of win. It would have been a pretty good fight. I hope he returns someday and I like to think that I’ll remember his design for a while. Maybe Transformers 5 will add him in for fun.
Razorbeast is basically the main character since it’s all up to him now. He’s the robot who quickly sabotages Magmatron’s plan and then scampers off to find the new Maximals. He’s not the strongest fighter and he’s more of a hit and run kind of guy. That’s still pretty handy in itself and I’m sure that the heroes were glad to have him. He has a pretty climatic fight towards the end and he definitely doesn’t back down from a fight. He’s all right and Razorbeast definitely beats the average side character, but I wouldn’t be adding him to my top 10 anytime soon. It’s pretty tough to get up there I suppose.
Grimlock is one of the few G1 characters to appear and it’s great to have him back in the ranks. He talks as tough as you may have expected and he puts up a pretty good fight. It’s a little disappointing to see him on the losing side, but it makes sense thanks to Grimlock’s fighting strategy. He launches into the brawl and that’s not a good idea against Magmatron. Magmatron’s body comes equipped with a dinosaur and a snake so it’s like fighting three opponents at once. That definitely gives close combat fighters a disadvantage. His role here is small, but I’m confident that he would appear more in the sequel. I hope they are able to squeeze in more G1 fighters.
Ravage is another fighter from the original series who is ready for some action. He also appeared in the TV show, which was pretty cool. He’s definitely powerful and he is a lot more experienced than most of the other villains. He doesn’t really feel like the real Ravage, but it has been a long time since the original series. As long as he’s still able to take out dozens of opponents in a short period of time, Ravage is good enough for me!
Megatron (The one from the show of course) looks pretty good since he takes the situation in stride. When Magmatron attacks, Megatron doesn’t miss a beat as he counters. He actually does very well against Magmatron and he seems to have the overwhelming advantage until he gets ganged up on by the other Predacons. This Megatron is the robot responsible for keeping up the Megatron name so you almost can’t help but root for him. It’s better that Megatron wins instead of Magmatron right? It also works as a nice guest star appearance for him as a Beast Wars TV show character.
There are other characters, but most of them are still waiting for their character development arcs to start. The shows come in handy for Transformers because it’s really hard to get to know them through comics. There are simply too many of them and you just end up losing track. Especially since the names are usually two words squeezed together. The names may not even make any sense until you see the character appear some more.
Luckily, this comic basically had everything that I could have wanted from Transformers. It’s a simple action story that has a lot of heart and it makes for a good read. I can’t say that I really had any negatives for it. Naturally, the comic didn’t exactly get a 10, but that just speaks to how difficult it is to get such a high rating. I think a 7 is fair for the collection because it didn’t make any mistakes, but it didn’t do anything so spectacular that I could give it anything higher. It’s pretty standard. That being said, it is still fairly difficult to make a comic without any real mistakes.
Longtime Transformer fans can probably appreciate a nice twist in the story. The Maximals finally have the overwhelming advantage in the present since the Dece-Predacons have basically given up. Of course, that becomes moot since the Maximals are on the run in the past, but it’s still pretty fun to see. It’s always the reverse in the other shows and movies as the Decepticons always outnumber the heroes.
We can’t forget that one of the big positives for the collection is the great artwork. It really shines in just about every page and especially for the character designs. Everyone looks like they’re ready to fight. It makes it tougher to discern who is an expendable character and who isn’t. These guys really look like brawlers and the fight scenes are pretty great as well.
Overall, This was a pretty fun comic for Beast Wars. The Gathering is an intriguing title and you’ll certainly get why it’s called that once you read the comic. Any Transformer fan should get a kick out of this title and I’d say the same thing about any action fan. Even if you don’t know the characters, you should still enjoy the fight scenes and the art. It’s a fairly engaging piece from start to finish and maybe it will make you a fan of the franchise if you aren’t already one. It’s time to step into the Beast Wars!
Overall 7/10
