Simon Furman has updated his blog with the following information on Beast Wars Ascending.

Next week (lots of advance stuff this week, as I'm travelling next) sees the release of issue #1 of (Transformers) Beast Wars The Ascending. If you've read The Gathering (and if not, why not?), then the cast of Razorbeast, Magmatron, Grimlock, Ravage and so on will be familiar to you, and need no introduction. But just in case you haven't, here's what's what (so far). Predacon general Magmatron travels back to Earth's past (circa 10,000 B.C.) to snag himself an army in the shape of the discarded protoforms left strewn around the prehistoric past in stasis pods by Optimus Primal and the crew of the Axalon (in the Beast Wars TV series).

With me so far? Good. His intention is to reformat the occupants of said stasis pods as Predacons and return to the future to take Cybertron by force. But among his chronally displaced crew is Razorbeast, a Maximal deep cover agent, who throws an epic spanner in the works by diluting the reactivation signal. The net result is an almost equal mix of Maximals and Predacons, who then begin their own series of timelost Beast Wars.

Ultimately, Razorbeast triumphs and condemns Magmatron to a temporal limbo (by sabotaging his in-progress Transwarp jump… stay with me here). The Predacons, now under the loose command of former Decepticon Ravage, are put to flight. So that's where we are.

What happens next (in The Ascending)? Well, for a start, Ravage has not abandoned his fervent wish to return to Cybertron (and the future), and to do so he has to interface directly with the other in-progress Beast Wars (Optimus Primal, Megatron et al from the TV show). Cue a major assault on the Maximal base, his ultimate goal the appropriation of the chronal phase armbands (from the The Gathering). Meanwhile, Magmatron (in temporal limbo) has seen the future of Cybertron, and, well, there isn't one. Unable to directly affect the coming Armageddon and the rise of an ancient evil, he turns to his once and former enemy Razorbeast! And that… is all I'm going to tell you here.

Beast Wars The Ascending #1 is on stores next week (Oct 3 in the US, the 4th in the UK). Keep an eye on the IDW website for news of all upcoming Transformers releases.