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It would go after Spotlight: Shockwave. Ask PrimusPrime22@gmail.com to share his continuity doc with you.

o.supreme wrote:In a way this kind of makes sense. Since IDW's inception 11 1/2 years ago, They have had the main "New" Transformers Universe. They have also had comics for the movie verse, and tie-in comics for TFA, and several series for the aligned continuity (FOC, TFP, BH etc...) Even a 2 issue GI Joe/TF crossover (Prior to the Hasbroverse). And a separate continuity for BW.

But Hearst of Steel was always an oddity. Unfortunately no other "alternate" universe stories were ever published, so I guess it makes sense to retcon it into the main continuity somehow.

I wonder though...because I collect the individual issues, and not the TPB's, I like to sort my comics by chronological reading order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers_(IDW_Publishing)#Chronological_Comic_Order

I wonder where Hearts of Steel will eventually officially be placed? I guess its not a big deal at the moment since all my comic books are in storage, but eventually I'll have to take that 4 issue series out of my "Miscellaneous" collection and file it in somewhere with the main IDW continuity.

This list, done by my buddy Primusprime22 places it somettime between Spotlight Wheelie and Spotlight Hot Rod. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Yeah, Hearts of Steel takes place in the year the original story says it was. So it's kind of fun that for once we have an IDW Transformers story that's not set in the modern day, the 1980s or millions and/or thousands of years ago.

Hearts of steel is now canon. I am very happy

Synopsis

Cobra Commander vs. Hearts of Steel! Thousands of years ago, a starship crashed on Earth—and the Hearts of Steel Transformers were born… but how can these steampunk Cybertronians be real?! And what does Cobra Commander want with them, when he hasn’t even got Cobra to back him up? The Revolutionaries have uncovered one of the darkest and most incredible secrets on Earth!



Story

Revolutionaries so far has proven to be a greater success in terms of an engaging story and crossing over various franchises than its predecessor and progenitor Revolution. We've gotten an intelligently-written story that uses elements from Transformers, GI Joe, ROM etc. with actual restraint and intent - and now we get Hearts of Steel thrown in the mix; an IDW Transformers mini that was previously its own little thing connected to no other continuity with the pure reason of having the G1 Transformers be steampunk. It was pretty great. So, how does this manage to fit in with the new IDW Hasbroverse?



Pretty cleverly, if a tad cold. As one can garner from the preview, writer John Barber smartly manages to connect the Hearts of Steel Autobots and Decepticons to the ongoing narrative of the original 13 Primes and the Colony Worlds. Bridging the gaps in time with a lovely re-appearance of Shockwave and tying things into the backstories of GI Joe characters, the story manages to seamlessly slot Hearts of Steel into the Hasbroverse with nary a continuity error - though unfortunately, it does rely on much of the emotional motivation and pathos of the Hearts of Steel characters being nullified. If you were emotionally invested in the characters of those stories, you might find yourself disliking how this all works - Primus knows I'd be the same if a story I cared a lot about was treated this way. However, as stated; it is clever and this is only a small knock against the contents of the issue.

Talking of the contents of the issue, how does it fare? Really bloody well. We have the story we've been following with Kup and company continue juxtaposed with the backstory of Hearts of Steel Bumblebee beautifully drawn by Guido Guidi (more on that later). I will admit to being a bit confused by the former - it seems to require a decent amount of knowledge about IDW's GI Joe stories, and as someone who has never read those, it's not entirely clear to me what's going on at the start of the issue with Cobra Commander and why he's being betrayed by his former comrades. Still, the narrative can quite easily be followed without context and what follows when the Revolutionaries arrive is a very lengthy but very fun action sequence, utilising the different abilities and weapons of each member all to take down the former Terrorist organisation leader. Which to some might sound a bit dull if this is mostly action and little story, but remember - Hearts of Steel. Switching back and forth between the past and the present help give this issue a very nice balance of action and story; as a reader I didn't feel starved for either by the last page and both gave me a much better understanding of the universe and characters. All good stuff. Unfortunately, while both the flashback and the ongoing story are good and complement each other so you don't get an over-saturation of either; that doesn't mean they work together terribly well.



As the issue progresses, Blackrock is shown to be conducting on investigation into the Hearts of Steel Transformers. And as his investigation comes to a head, we get panels of his shock and surprise; leading us to believe we're about to see a revelation -- only to realise that he is just discovering something we already knew pages ago. And this is the only real flaw with the flashback: entertaining, well-written and engaging as it may be, it suffers when framed as something Blackrock is finding out. When working with a narrative it is far more advantageous for the reader to discover something at the same time as the character - otherwise the conclusion to the character's investigation just falls flat. Fortunately this is just a minor knock against the story if anything, but it is still rather frustrating when it seems like it could so easily have been done better.

Art

As always, Fico Ossio and Sebastian Cheng handle the art duties for Revolutionaries on lineart and colours respectively. And if you've liked them on the previous Revolutionaries issues, you'll like them here too! They manage to utilise a colourful cast with a darker atmosphere without dimming said colours, their facial expressions are spot-on, and they just keep getting better at drawing the robotic characters. I have nothing but praise and repetition of phrases to give for these two; they're a great artistic duo.



But what is most likely to grab one's eye in this issue is, naturally, Guido Guidi's lineart and colours for the flashback pages. Waaaaaaay back in 2012's Robots in Disguise annual, we saw him employ a very 80s Marvel-esque art style used for flashback scenes involving the ancient past dealing with characters closely related to the 13 Primes. It worked incredibly well; giving off a mystery, fanciful and otherworldly vibe while paying wonderful homage to Transformers' roots when they started in Marvel back in 1984. The same style is applied for the same reasons here with all the same positives. To be maybe just a little bit unprofessional for a moment, seeing this sort of thing is really friggin' cool and I personally ADORE it! Seeing it return excited me on the previews and I can only hope this indicates it will be used more in the future. It's simply a beautiful homage by people who are clearly very big fans of the franchise.

Final Thoughts

I may have come across as a little bit negative in the review. I speak of how Blackrock's investigation doesn't gel well narratively, I speak of how Hearts of Steel fans may be a bit disheartened by the way the story is now retconned into the main continuity; and I do express confusion on what the deal with Paoli and his former allies is. But I do speak from a place of love, as these do not horribly interfere with the story and they do not prevent Revolutionaries #5 from continuing this series in an entertaining way and being a thrill-ride of continuity engineering and worldbuilding.



Action Man and Kup are enjoyable as always, Hearts of Steel's placement in the continuity is intelligent if not a bit cold, the gunfight between Mayday and Cobra Commander is choreographed very well - though I do question one G.I. Joe soldier being able to take down Cobra's former leader. Was he weak in the IDW G.I. Joe comics?) - and, of course, the art is bloody beautiful. The story moves on, the stakes are being raised; and the plans of Kreiger and Doctor X just keep getting more and more sinister even while each issue including this one manages to be its own individual self-contained story with characters from across all the franchises involved. Like the past four issues, Revolutionaries isn't actually anything revolutionary; but does prove that if you're willing to give the Hasbro Expanded Universe a shot, it can most assuredly deliver. It's just a damn good comic.

I haven't bothered picking revolutionaries since issue one. Not because I don't like what's happening I just figured I'd get the trades like GI Joe vs Transformers so I've just been reading the tfwiki pages but after this issue I'm gonna go back and pick up the past few issues and catch up. This series sound so amazing and actually making Hearts of Steel part of the G1 universe sold me.

Randomhero wrote:I haven't bothered picking revolutionaries since issue one. Not because I don't like what's happening I just figured I'd get the trades like GI Joe vs Transformers so I've just been reading the tfwiki pages but after this issue I'm gonna go back and pick up the past few issues and catch up. This series sound so amazing and actually making Hearts of Steel part of the G1 universe sold me.

Full credit to John Barber for injecting it with so much soul. It's like he had a high level outline of "things to do to get from Rev to First Strike" and got clearance to just make up the rest as he went. Not anyone could effectively pull that off, but I think it's getting done to tremendous effect.

Cobra Commander's line "...Krieger would." is one that I couldn't help but read in H. Jon Benjamin's voice. Was waiting for an Archer reference (at least implied, maybe?) with that character!

Y'know, if Hearts of Steel fans want to keep the heart of their story, they could rationalize that it is possible for those story to exist in another timeline. LL has shown that it has happened, so it is isn't beyond the realm of believe it to be possible for the Steel timeline. They can keep the story in IDWverse and as its own.

So I did go back and read all of revolutionaries and man that's a fun book. I had a great time catching up

It ain't over yet..! IDW Publishing's Revolutionaries is about to reach its conclusion, as we head into First Strike, but the Hasbro Universe multi-team has some more tricks up its sleeve - such as issue #6's GI Joe centric variant cover from Tone Rodriguez (plus colourist), as seen below courtesy of Previews World!

(W) John Barber (A) Fico Ossio (CA) Tone Rodriguez
M.A.S.K. vs. ATOMIC MAN! The Revolutionaries team with MATT TRAKKER and the M.A.S.K. team to find Mike Power-a.k.a. ATOMIC MAN-the long-lost member of the G.I. JOE ADVENTURE TEAM. The bizarre history of this tragic hero leads to the truth behind "Project Ice Man"-and the return of another classic G.I. JOE hero!
In Shops: Jul 26, 2017

We have the iTunes Preview for #6: M.A.S.K. Vs. the Atomic Man! https://twitter.com/hasbroupodcast/stat ... 3474660353

Courtesy of fellow Seibertronian Daniel Adkins, we've got a 3-page preview of Revolutionaries #6 for you straight from iTunes! Featuring Kup and the rest of the squad teaming up with a couple of M.A.S.K. characters, check out the blurb and preview below and join the discussion in the forums if you like!


M.A.S.K. vs. ATOMIC MAN! The Revolutionaries team with MATT TRAKKER and the M.A.S.K. team to find Mike Power—a.k.a. ATOMIC MAN—the long-lost member of the G.I. JOE ADVENTURE TEAM. The bizarre history of this tragic hero leads to the truth behind "Project Ice Man"—and the return of another classic G.I. JOE hero!

So this happens after the M.A.S.K. Annual, hmm.

Maybe. It's hard to know when the MASK Annual takes place considering the presence of Cliff Dagger. At first I was thinking the same thing and that Stalker called in Matt and Gloria, but then Stalker said Scarlett called them in, so who knows.

Directly from IDW Publishing, we have the full preview of this week's comics releases for the Hasbro Universe! First up is the Revolutionaries series, leading into First Strike in the coming months, and setting up a big stage of crossover material, with issue #6 - check it out below!

Revolutionaries #6
John Barber (w) • Fico Ossio (a) • Robert Atkins (c)
M.A.S.K. vs. ATOMIC MAN! The Revolutionaries team with MATT TRAKKER and the M.A.S.K. team to find Mike Power—a.k.a. ATOMIC MAN—the long-lost member of the G.I. JOE ADVENTURE TEAM. The bizarre history of this tragic hero leads to the truth behind "Project Ice Man"—and the return of another classic G.I. JOE hero!
Bullet points:
Variant cover by Pierre Droal!

With the yearly mega-event First Strike fast approaching, the book intended to bridge the gap between last year's Revolution and said event hits its sixth installment this week. Originally solicited for a May release, it looks like this series won't quite hit its ultimate eighth issue before First Strike, barring a rapid fire release schedule. After reading Revolutionaries 6, this is an acceptable scenario. Sure, it won't be fun to have plot details spoiled, or other things partially unexplained, but if the seventh and eighth issues of Revolutionaries are anywhere close to as good as this one is then no one's going to care about those other factors.


While this is an ensemble book, and the ensemble does play around in this issue and do their monthly actioning and adventuring, make no mistake that this issue could also easily be titled Spotlight: Atomic Man. This shouldn't make you turn away if you're a fan of Transformers that doesn't like fun peanut butter in your chocolate. On the contrary, if you fit those qualifications (and even if you don't), Officer Reeses yourself down to the comic shop or over to your digital platform of choice and read this now. The Saturday morning cartoon fun is interlaced by a gripping story of a boy that becomes a hero that becomes a man that becomes lost. In one issue, Atomic Man goes from "one of those Adventure Team guys in the flashbacks in that Revolushunries book" to a fully defined character, and it's hard to put this one down halfway.


Matt Trakker and Gloria Baker make the Hasbro Universe "Total Brand Awareness" roster for this one, and they serve their purpose well. Author John Barber shows his chops in making sure things fit together through them, at least in a small degree, by nailing the dynamic that's been built between the two characters in the actual M.A.S.K. series. Add in some interactions between them, Mayday, and Stalker, and you have a nice bit of crossover that helps smooth over the wider narrative of the universe while it's at it.


They really are just there for fun and to move things along, at least on a high level, because outside of Atomic Man another character absolutely shines in this one, and that's Action Man. Ian Noble continues to be treated more like 007 than A Real American Hero (Imported By Palitoy) and here, it really works. Through a clever twist in one of the Agnes Garbowska drawn "Mikey Powers" scenes, Action Man serves as a linchpin to the issue's plot that takes place through the non-flashback sequences featuring the art and colors of series regulars Fico Ossio and Sebastian Cheng, respectively.


The art throughout varies wildly, but this is for very, very good reasons. As mentioned, Ossio's work takes up the "Main" story and while there are a few of his panels that left things to be desired, with Agnes Garbowska (who many fans may know from IDW's My Little Pony series) lending back up pages in the first half of the issue, his style is balanced out into smaller chunks that I personally find more digestible. Eventually, Ron Joseph takes over for these back up pages and provides his style to these in two different but still effective ways, and it has the same net positive impact on the storytelling. One page even plays around with a real Adventure Team toy advertisement from Marvel Comics' Man Thing #20, published in August of 1975 (This information was retrieved from a blog post at www.ferretpress.com. This ad is ten years older than me, I wasn't going to recognize it on my own!)

There are four covers available for this one, including the primary cover by Robert Atkins with colors by Simon Gough that's shown in the thumbnail for this review. As always, you can find the full list of covers, credits, and characters that appear in this issue in our Vector Sigma Database Entry for Revolutionaries #6.


I kind of want to check in on John Barber and make sure he's ok, given the dark and almost brutally melancholic nature of this issue and Optimus Prime #9. However, I also kind of don't because he's on an absolute roll and there'd be fear of disrupting his mojo. Mr. Barber continues here with telling gripping, meaningful stories in this Hasbro Universe that take what could be meaningless monthly serial beats and elevate them through genuine emotion. If pressed, one could definitely find parallels between the "Life of Sideswipe" and the life of Atomic Man presented here which is just incredible.

Seibertron's staff of comic book reviewers has been giving out a great deal of very high scores lately, and I promise you we aren't turning into IGN - the output of the past several weeks has just been that darn good. Pick this one up even if you haven't given Revolutionaries a shot, but be prepared to feel feelings.

This might make for my favorite issue of Revolutionaries yet. I love the mixed media approach, I'm always a sucker for the Adventure Team, and Mike Power's story was very sad. Though, given certain solicitations, I have to wonder if there's more to his story than meets the atomic eye.

If I had one criticism, it's that MASK really did feel like they had no real reason to be here other than "we needed to put them in somewhere." Still, I much prefer Barber's writing on the MASK team compared to Easton.

And of course, I loved getting to see more of the Hearts of Steel/Eukarian Transformers doing stuff, even if they were only puppets. Perhaps there's a chance they could come back in the future?

I do kinda hope we get more HoS Transformers somewhere down the line. It'd be disappointing to bring it into the universe and only use one of them.

http://www.multiversitycomics.com/previ ... onaries-7/

Multiversity Comics has the full preview of Revolutionaries #7 up. This is the penultimate issue of the series, featuring Sgt. Savage (from G.I. Joe's Sgt. Savage and His Screaming Eagles line) as the guest star.

It also features more Centurion and the Adventure Team. Which means this issue is going to be awesome.

As first seen on Multiversity Comics and as pointed out by Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forum user Daniel Adkins, the five page preview for Revolutionaries #7 is now available. Kup, Centurion, Action Man, Blackrock, Mayday, and Sgt. Savage feature in this next chapter of the series keeping the Hasbro Universe glued together, and while delays have kept this from being released before First Strike as intended, the preview pages below may help you decide whether to give this a shot this upcoming Wednesday, August 16th when the issue hits the shelves.

Idk if I'll have time for this post in the morning, so typing it now. Super minor Revolutionaries 7 spoilers from here on!

There's a page with Sgt. Savage and a "Team Extreme" done up in a very 90s style. I dug around the internet and figured out who was on it. Other than Sgt. Savage himself it has:
1. "Action Man" who I take to not be Ian's predecessor, Agent Brogan, but instead, Alex Mann from the Action Man Xtreme cartoon. Could still be Brogan but I figured they'd have name dropped him if it were.
2. Natalie Poole, a Team Xtreme member from that same cartoon.
3. Zartan in his appearance from the GI Joe Ninja Froce toyline.
4. Toxo-Zombie from the GI Joe Eco Warriors toyline. Blast from Kaybee clearance aisles past!
5. Cesspool from the same toyline.

Hope this saves y'all some Google time

This issue was totally tubular! I mean, seriously dog, this was bodacious. 90s Action Man (who is totally Alex Mann) and Sgt. Savage drawn in such extreme art. It was totally dope. But man, I thought Centurion was my homeskillet, but him still working for the bad guy? That's whack! It's a major bummer that twist got jacked, cause the foreshadowing was slamming! But hey, I'm not tripping. Point is, this issue was totally dank!

Like the last issue, I feel this one was a bit of a mess and all-over-the-place hence making it weaker than the first 5 issues of Revolutionaries; but I still enjoyed it. Sgt. Slaughter in particular I really liked and would love to see join the Revolutionaries' main team.

Kurona wrote:Like the last issue, I feel this one was a bit of a mess and all-over-the-place hence making it weaker than the first 5 issues of Revolutionaries; but I still enjoyed it. Sgt. Slaughter in particular I really liked and would love to see join the Revolutionaries' main team.

*Sgt. Savage. (Slaughter was the pro wrestler-turned-Joe figure.)