Continuing The Basics first anniversary month
with another Patreon-sponsored episode,
supporter Locoman requested a look at a Transformers
comic book that unexpectedly returned
to prominence in the last year! This week,
it’s The Basics on Hearts of Steel!
“Hearts of Steel” was a four-issue comic
book mini-series released by IDW Publishing in 2006.
Only the third original Transformers story
the company ever published,
it was one of their earliest experiments at
telling stories outside their main ongoing continuity,
envisioned as being just the first in a line of mini-series collectively titled “Transformers: Evolutions,”
a Transformers answer to Marvel’s “What
If…?” or DC’s “Elseworlds,”
imagining alternate universes in which the
Transformers were active on Earth
in different time periods, like the Renaissance
or the Roman Empire.
“Hearts of Steel” was set in the mid-to-late 19th century, just after the end of the Industrial Revolution
and was scripted by Punisher and Batman writer
Chuck Dixon.
Ted McKeever was originally announced as artist,
but for unknown reasons,
was replaced by well-established Transformers
talent Guido Guidi.
“Hearts of Steel” presents the Transformers
as having arrived on Earth eons ago,
adopting the forms of prehistoric animals
and continuing their war
until the onset of the Ice Age forced them
to enter hibernation underground.
They awoke in the 19th century, in the midst
of the construction of the great American railroads.
Bumblebee and the Autobots befriended the
steel-driving American folk hero John Henry,
while Starscream and the Decepticons exploited
disgraced young inventor Tobias Muldoon
to help them master the new technologies of Earth.
Guidi designed brand-new period appropriate
alternate modes for the cast
the Autobots and the Insecticons all became
train engines and carriages,
while Starscream and the other Seekers became
steampunk flying machines,
Shockwave an ironclad battleship, and Scourge
a zeppelin, to name a few.
Designs were also created for Optimus Prime
and Megatron, but in the story,
the two leaders never emerge from hibernation.
Realizing too late the Decepticons’ evil
intentions, Muldoon abandoned them,
but corrupt industrialist Jacob Lee Bonaventure
took his place
to help the Decepticons complete construction
of their “Astrotrain,”
aboard which they began heading toward New
York City, there to seize control
of Thomas Edison’s new electrical power
plant.
Muldoon and his friend Mark Twain joined forces
with the Autobots and John Henry
and pursued the Decepticons along the rails.
Bumblebee and John Henry won the day when
they were able to switch tracks on the villains,
sending the Decepticons and Bonaventure plunging
off a cliff to their doom.
As it happened, “Hearts of Steel” wound
up being the only Evolutions mini-series published,
as the release of the live-action movie the following year led IDW to direct their efforts toward it instead.
Fans had every reason to assume that this would be the last they would ever see
of the “Hearts of Steel” universe…
…until six years later, when IDW released
the crossover event, “Infestation 2.”
A sequel to the previous year’s “Infestation”
event, which was about an army of zombies
invading different universes,
“Infestation 2” was about the Elder Gods,
ancient monsters from the stories
of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, doing the
same…
and the Transformers universe they invaded
was the world of “Hearts of Steel.”
Set a few years after the original “Hearts of Steel”
mini-series, the two-issue “Infestation 2” tie-in
reunited Dixon and Guidi for a story that drew heavily on Lovecraft’s tales of the monster Cthulhu;
fish-people from an ancient city beneath the
sea reanimated the Decepticons
and used them to take over a small Canadian
fishing town,
enslaving of the minds of its populace to
awaken the Elder God slumbering beneath the ocean.
Catching wind of this new threat, the Autobots
approached Tobias Muldoon once again,
this time for aid in reactivating Optimus Prime, who was the only one with the power to stop the Elder God.
With the help of Nikola Tesla, they succeeded
in bringing Prime back online,
and the Autobot leader sent the Elder God
back to the bottom of the sea.
Again, it seemed like that would be the end
for the “Hearts of Steel” world…
but it turned out IDW weren’t done with
quirky crossovers just yet!
Two years later, the 2014 crossover event “X-Files: Conspiracy,” followed the trio of conspiracy theorists
known as the Lone Gunmen as they attempted
to prevent the outbreak of an alien virus.
Their mission brought them into contact with
the Ghostbusters and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
but it was when they crossed paths Optimus
Prime and Bumblebee that the whole story
was unexpectedly revealed to be taking place
in the present day of the “Hearts of Steel” universe!
Working with the two Autobots, the Gunmen
rescued Ratchet from Skylogic Systems,
who had captured him and studied his Cybertronian
techno-biology to engineer the virus.
An X-Files crossover, of all things, seemed as strange as IDW’s use of “Hearts of Steel” could possibly get…
so what happened next, nobody could have predicted.
In the 2017 series “Revolutionaries,” writer John Barber decided to alter history, and revealed that,
in fact, “Hearts of Steel” had taken place
in the mainstream IDW universe!
Now, this was technically impossible, since
the Transformers featured in the series
weren’t on Earth at that point in IDW history,
but with Guido Guidi returning to help tell the story,
the “truth” was told: the characters we
had thought were Bumblebee, Optimus Prime,
and all the other famous faces of Generation
1 were, in fact,
merely similar-looking Transformers from the
Cybertronian colony planet Eukaris.
They had crashed on Earth thousands of years ago when their ship was shot down by the Decepticon Shockwave.
Their memories were damaged in the crash,
and they were reprogrammed by Shockwave
to think they were Optimus Prime, Bumblebee,
and the rest, so that the Decepticon scientist
could use them to play out the Cybertronian
war in miniature on Ice Age Earth,
as a kind of test model for him to study.
The “Heart of Steel” version of Optimus
Prime, for instance, was really “Domitius Major,”
while “Bumblebee” was actually “Centurion.”
When more important matters drew Shockwave’s
attention away,
the Eukarians were left unsupervised, and
the events of “Hearts of Steel” and “Infestation 2”
played out as seen in the original comics.
Now, the X-Files story was not part of mainstream
IDW continuity.
In this version of events, all the Eukarian
impostors died out over the following century,
leaving Centurion – his original memories
having resurfaced - as the last survivor of his crew.
During World War II, he was found and taken
in by the scientist Garrison Kreiger,
who spent the next seventy years studying
him, seeking to use him for his own evil ends.
No longer the optimistic, upbeat Bumblebee,
years of conflict had left Centurion embittered
and convinced that all Cybertronians deserved
destruction, so he swore loyalty to Kreiger,
even battling the old Autobot Kup and his
human allies when they interfered with Kreiger’s plans,
which included reanimating some of other
Eukarians as his mindless enforcers.
It was another victim of Kreiger’s experiments,
the cyborg superhero Mike Power, the Atomic Man,
who stopped Centurion, using the link Kreiger had created between them to take over Centurion’s body.
Power’s consciousness absorbed Centurion’s,
and they merged into a new entity
who allied with the Autobots against Kreiger.
Now a being who has lived three lives
under three identities from three worlds,
yet who truly belongs to none of them,
Centurion’s currently trying to find new
direction and purpose on Cybertron…
…but if we’ve learned anything from the
unexpected persistence of “Hearts of Steel,”
it’s that his is a story that doesn’t
quite feel like it’s done yet.
Does his history mean he has a role to play
in the impending return to life of the real Bumblebee?
Or does his connection to Shockwave mean he
will be involved in the Decepticon’s plans
for the coming of Unicron in this summer’s
finale storyline?
As the IDW universe draws to a close after
thirteen years, Centurion’s presence
provides an unusual link back to the diverse
beginnings of company’s Transformers comics.
“Hearts of Steel” really was the little
Cybertronian engine that could.
[TRAIN WHISTLE]
