Hearts of Steel issue 1
From Transformers Wiki
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 When John Henry was a little baby... Sittin' on his Bumblebee... | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | July 5, 2006 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | June 2006 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Chuck Dixon | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Guido Guidi | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Jay Fotos | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Robbie Robbins | ||||||||||||
| Edits by | Chris Ryall & Dan Taylor (& Justin Eisinger for the collection) | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Hearts of Steel | ||||||||||||
A group of sentient warring robots land on Earth. When they reawake, their battle begins anew... 117 years too early!
Contents |
Synopsis
The Autobots and Decepticons fight their war on prehistoric Earth, in the opening years of an ice age, using dinosaur and insect alternate modes (most of them distinctively spiky). These "Ice Age Wars" draw to a close as the cold gets worse. Some of the Autobots retreat into a cave, and place themselves in stasis lock, to wait for external conditions to improve.
Millions of years pass. The glaciers that forced the Transformers into stasis lock recede, and humans gradually take over the Earth's surface...
Bumblebee is woken by the sound of hammering. He investigates, and spies on a crew of humans, including John Henry, laying track. It is the mid-to-late 1800s; the Autobots have slept for a long time.
Meanwhile, aboard the paddle-wheeled steamship Enterprise in San Francisco Bay, Mark Twain and Jules Verne prepare to witness a "marvelous exhibition". The S.S. Vicuna, a primitive submarine, rises from the waters, crewed by its inventor, Tobias Muldoon. He stands atop it, extolling its virtues, until it suddenly sinks under him. It falls to the bottom of the bay, where Skywarp, apparently just emerging from stasis lock inside a glass-domed underwater base, is. Muldoon is financially ruined; Verne is inspired.
That night, as Henry and his crew eat dinner, he states his dislike of job-stealing machines, and swears to go to his grave a'hammering. Bumblebee, Ratchet, and Prowl observe this. Ratchet and Prowl believe they should go back to sleep, and wait a century before making contact with humans, but Bumblebee instead approaches the camp, to inspect one of the locomotives. Henry and his crewmate Cletus investigate, and find a mysterious little yellow locomotive on a siding. It has no driver's cab, and they conclude it's some new job from back East. Henry takes an immediate dislike to it.
That same night, Muldoon is forced to report his failure to one of his investors, Stanford Merriweather. Merriweather is upset, and puts Muldoon to work in the kitchen of one of his hotels. Muldoon has a (reciprocated) romantic interest in Stanford's daughter, Kitty Merriweather. Later, he wanders the docks, musing out loud about how his prospects (both romantic and financial) look bleak. A bellowing voice asks him if he would truly give up so easily. Suddenly, the ironclad ship next to him transforms, and Shockwave tells Muldoon that he will assist him in reshaping the future of the Earth.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
|
Quotes
"Stand aside, y'all. My hammer's fixin' to fall, and all God's Earth is my anvil."
- —John Henry
"[Machines] driven by the contained pressure of heated water. Simple but effective."
- —Prowl
"I am the end result of a science beyond your understanding. I am here to serve you in the exploration of all that is possible on your world. I am a living machine. I am an automated lifeform. I am called Shockwave."
- —Shockwave
Notes
Continuity notes
- In the 2005 IDW continuity, the characters in the Hearts of Steel stories are presented as Maximals brainwashed by Shockwave into believing they are Cybertronians in the Great War. This particular plotline includes Infestation 2, but skips the X-Files crossover and was established in Revolutionaries #5.
Transformers references
- Optimus Prime's Ice Age body is based on Beast Wars Neo Big Convoy.
Errors
- Merriweather tells Muldoon to do $40 worth of work in the kitchen. Adjusting for inflation, this is about $530 in 2007 money. It's unclear if Merriweather is expecting him to work off the debt for the meal he just ate, or for the investment in the submarine, but $530 is either far too much or far too little, respectively.
Other trivia
- The initial credits didn't list the inker, additional artists or additional colorists.
- The first few pages of this story were reprinted as part of a Free Comic Book Day issue by IDW Publishing on May 6th, 2006.
- This issue begins the series' strange trend of giving characters new, monotone color schemes. In the issue's opening battle, most characters are simply coloured grey, but we do see Ironhide in green, a red Seeker which later issues will suggest is Skywarp, Bombshell in red, and Soundwave in black. Things calm down once the Autobots enter the caves, with recognisable characters mostly sporting their traditional colours. Later in the issue, Starscream sports a grey-with-purple color scheme.
Covers (3)
— all by Guido Guidi
- Cover A: Montage of John Henry and Bumblebee
- Cover B: Bumblebee wraparound sketch
- Retailer Incentive: Shockwave wraparound sketch
Man and Machine with hearts of steel.
Take the B-Train
Is this Shockwave or Tidal Wave?
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