#Hearts of iron 4 steam undeground series#

Piggybacking off the back of the Revolution maxi-series came Revolutionaries, which told a story involving, among other things, ancient Transformer activity on Earth - including cameos of the Hearts of Steel characters. In 2016, IDW announced the formation of the Hasbro Universe, which aimed to amalgamate several disparate Hasbro properties together into a single shared continuity. In 2015, ' Ask Vector Prime' feature gave the Hearts of Steel universe its customary universal stream designation, seemingly confirming it as an entirely separate world from any of IDW's other Transformers faire. As a result of this isolation, it hosted several crossover events-notably 2014's Infestation 's X-Files one-shot-that would have otherwise undermined the narrative direction of the main ongoing universe. For a variety of reasons, Evolutions fell through, leaving Hearts of Steel as a small, strange continuity separate from IDW's ongoing 'Generation 1' universe.

#Hearts of iron 4 steam undeground series#

Originally, Hearts of Steel was conceived as the first installment in Evolutions, an ongoing series of Elseworlds-style tales that would re-imagine the Transformers in different time periods and settings. Where necessary in this wiki, this prelude to Hearts of Steel is referred to using the (unofficial) term ' Ice Age Wars'. Many of the main characters wear these distinctive spiky bodies for the first half of the story, before taking on vehicle-based forms. The first few pages of this story show that the Transformers came to Earth immediately prior to an (unspecified) ice age, and fought a war there and then using dinosaurs, giant insects, and (possibly) other beast-forms as alternate modes, before going into hibernation until the 19th Century. Assuming that the present day refers to the year 2017, the book's date of publication, this would place the events of Hearts of Steel sometime around the year 1867 - while this estimate doesn't really line up with any of the aforementioned events, it was used on this very wiki as an arbitrary placeholder date for many years. The Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook (see 'Continuity', below) would go on to posit that the events of the miniseries took place 150 years before the present day. The sequel, Infestation 2, was explicitly set in 1888, and returning human characters did not appear to have aged as many as twenty years.

The finale of the story involves a race to New York, where it is noted Thomas Edison has completed his first electrical generating facility this must be Pearl Street Station, which was not operational in real life until 1882. However, he claims in issue #4, to have one daughter, which would place the story between 1872 (the birth of Susy Clemens) and 1874 (the birth of Clara Clemens). Mark Twain lived in San Francisco from 1864 to 1866, and he appears to live there in this story. The Civil War is not mentioned, so it is most likely after 1865. It is not possible to pin down exactly when this story takes place, due to some contradictory information that doesn't match up to real life. John Henry and Mark Twain, along with other historical figures, play prominent roles in the book. Soon both sides are making alliances with humans and utilizing the technology of the age to continue their war, with the Decepticons attempting to reach an electrical generating station in New York City to fuel their war machine. When the climate cools, both sides retreat underground and enter a period of stasis, not awakening until the 19th Century.

The story opens with the Transformers engaged in a battle on Ice Age Earth, and having adopted bizarre animal alternate forms as a result. The Transformers: Evolutions Hearts of Steel issues:

In 2017, a version of the story was folded into the 2005 IDW continuity via the Revolutionaries series. In 2014, the series was brought into the modern day as part of the X-Files: Conspiracy crossover. Ted McKeever was originally announced as artist (and produced the piece which eventually became the wraparound cover of issue 1), but for unknown reasons, Guido Guidi took over the job, designing the characters' new 19th century forms and drawing three of the four issues of the series (with #3 drawn by Antonio Vasquez and Luis Czerniawski).ДЇive years after the original mini-series, the creative team returned to the universe with a two-issue tie-in to IDW's Infestation 2 event. It is set in an alternate Generation 1 continuity in which the Transformers' first contact with humanity is in the late 19th century, rather than the 20th. It was the first and only story in IDW's The Transformers: Evolutions series. Hearts of Steel is a comic miniseries published by IDW Publishing in 2006.

Bumblebee attempts to be a Really Useful Engine.