Strange Visitors

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"Do this...prove yourselves to me, be loyal to me, and I will never betray you!"
"Strange Visitors"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	June 14,2017
Cover date	April 2017
Written by	John Barber
Art by	Fico Ossio(pg 3-4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18-20) Guido Guidi(pg 1-2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17)
Colors by	Sebastian Cheng(Ossio pages), Guido Guidi (own pages)
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	David Hedgecock
Assistant editor	David Mariotte
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

The secret of the steampunk Transformers and their connection to the Talisman is revealed as our revolutionaries go up against the new Cobra Commander!

Synopsis

Thousands of years ago, the spacecraftAxalonfilled withCybertronianbeastformers draws close to prehistoricEarth,still in the throes of its ice age. The vessel, captained byDomitius Major,has been sent on a mission across the stars byOnyx Prime,but has diverted to Earth upon detecting theenergonon the planet that they need to replace their dwindling supplies. As they draw near to the planet, however, the crew of theAxalonreceive a peculiar transmission, sent byOptimus PrimeandBumblebee,meant foranother vessel—which the beastformers quickly realize has been bounced to them by another Cybertronian craft that now streaks towards them on an attack vector. This mystery ship shoots theAxalondown, then follows it down to Earth's surface, where its sole occupant is revealed:Shockwave,come to Earth to check on the progress of theRegenesisorewith which he has seeded the planet.

Under Shockwave's watchful eye, the first of theAxaloncrew to recover from the crash is a little 'bot namedCenturion,but his memories are jumbled, and the first thing he sees as he awakes is the still-looping transmission from Optimus and Bumblebee. The passing resemblance between Centurion and Bumblebee confuses the beastformer, and he thinks heisBumblebee—a misconception that gives Shockwave an idea for another of his terrible experiments. The Decepticon scientist replaces the lost memories of the entireAxaloncrew with data on the Autobots and Decepticons of Cybertron so that he can pit them against one another, playing out the Autobot/Decepticon warin miniatureto study. As Centurion had become "Bumblebee," Domitius Major becomes "Optimus Prime," and so on, with Shockwave even patterning one of the beastformers after himself. He spends a century observing their conflict, and further, watches as, under its own power, a mysterious device from theAxalon—the object key to the beasts' mission, that which would become known to humans as theTalisman—creates an army of robotic drones out of the wreckage of the ship. But, eventually, Shockwave has to leave his experiment to tend to the Ore-13, only to wind up entombed in lava by theDynobots.His "creations" fight on until their energon runs low, whereupon they enter hibernation beneath the Earth.

The beastformers, still believing their false memories, awake in the mid-to-late 19th century to find Earth populated withhumans.The "Autobots" defeat most of the "Decepticons" with the aid of the humanJohn Henry,and soon after, combat the rise of anElder God.But time marches on, and as war grips the planet, one by one the beasts perish, including "Optimus Prime" himself, their implanted memories of endless war doing little to prepare them for the real thing. Eventually, duringWorld War II,only Centurion and "Shockwave" remain, and their final clash is observed on the battlefields ofFrancebySgt. Savageand hisScreaming Eagles.Centurion destroys "Shockwave," and, left as the last of his kind, he requests the help of Savage and his men in finding the wreckage of theAxalonso that he can return to his ship to die in peace.

Savage andGarrison Kreigerhelp Centurion locate theAxaloninBrasnya,but as they approach its remains, theTalisman-created dronesgather to stand in their way. The team plough through the robots and enter theAxalon,where they discover that the Talisman has been removed from its housing and is nowhere to be seen. Before Centurion can tell them any more about the device and his original mission, the drones resume their attack, this time linked together and wearing the corpse of Domitius Major like a suit of armor. Kreiger—fascinated by the machines since the Screaming Eagles' first encounter with them inKalistan—steps out of theAxalonto get a better view of Centurion's battle with this effigy of his former leader, but as he looks on, both the drones and the ship begin to glow with the power of the Talisman. Suddenly, unexpectedly, theAxalonvanishes—taking Sgt. Savage with it. Centurion proceeds to triumph over the Domitius effigy, but is distraught at having lost what was to be his final resting place. Kreiger offers to help him, intending to locate and take the Talisman and its power for his own...

And then he started calling everyone 'Bub'.

In the present day,Tomax Paolireturns to his office in theI.R.O.N.building inSan Francisco,leaving Centurion outside in vehicle mode. His secretaryVioletinforms him that Garrison Kreiger is in his office; Paoli fires her for not leaving per previous instructions, feigning anger when, really, he is just trying to get her out of the inevitable line of fire. Kreiger—in fact, a holographic projection beamed in fromIron Klaw's headquarters in Kalistan—warns Tomax of the recent attack on theIron CastlebyKup,Action Man,Mayday,andGarrison Blackrock,and that they will be coming for Tomax next. Left with little choice, Tomax begrudgingly dons the "Cobra Commander"uniform given to him byBaron Ironbloodto get ready for a fight—and immediately, the helmet's scanners detect Action Man lurking in a nearby corridor. Tomax quickly sends the British super-agent flying out a window, but he is safely caught by Kup, who is waiting outside. In revealing himself, however, Kup prompts Centurion to transform to robot mode and initiate his own attack on his fellow Transformer, considering himself and all of his kind abominations who need to die. Kup "Fastball Special"s Action Man back into the building, right at Tomax; Action Man's forcefield protects him, and hurls Tomax into a stairwell, down which Ian and Mayday then pursue him.

With the fighting serving as a cover, Blackrock accesses the I.R.O.N. database and learns the truth about Centurion's past from it. Realizing that they are both agents and pawns of Onyx Prime, Blackrock is able to calm Centurion down, and explain to him that, in fact, he is not the last of his kind: there are many planets' worth of Transformers still alive out there. Knowing he is not longer alone in the universe, Centurion stands down, and asks that he be taken to meet the real Optimus Prime. Concurrently, Action Man and Mayday manage to take down Tomax, with a precision shot from Mayday striking the only non-bulletproof spot between his suit and helmet and nicking his throat. The wounded Tomax surrenders, but has no useful information to give the team on the other villains' plans. Fortunately, Blackrock has discerned their next destination from the I.R.O.N. database: Brasnya.

For it is in Brasnya that the villains' "Project: Ice Man" facility, containing the body of Domitius Major, is located, and whereDoctor Xnow readies a teleporter to transport Kreiger and Ironblood in to finish their scheme. The good doctor herself does not plan to be there when they do, though; she wants to be long gone by the time Mayday and co. arrive and see what the villains have done to their other prisoner: formerAdventure Teammember, the long-thought-dead Mike Power, theAtomic Man!

Featured characters

Characters initalic textappear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Anybody ever tell you amirror maskand afascist overcoatmakes you look like abad guy?The powder blue doesn't reallymitigateanything. "

—Action Mancritiques Tomax's Cobra Commander outfit

"The only thing we bring iswaranddestruction!"
"Those aretwo things—but aside from that, you're makin' aphilosophically soundargument. "

—CenturionandKup

"Bulletproof suit and helmet means you're still risking yourneck,Paoli. Hands in the air, or Ireallygo for thejugular."

—Mayday's not above wordplay

"Mytrousersaren't bulletproof—you could have shot me in theleg.And won't you take thishelmetoff? It keeps trying to see through walls. "
"I heardCobra Commander's helmetis explosive. "
"I assure you, I wouldn't...oh.Kreigerwould."

—TomaxandMayday

Notes

Continuity notes

• So, our big takeaway from this issue is that the events ofHearts of SteelandInfestation 2did, in fact, happen in mainstream2005 IDW continuity—because the characters in it, who appeared to be Optimus Prime and all our other favorite recognizable Generation 1 'bots, were actually explorerswith beast modeswhose memories had been tampered with by Shockwave for shits 'n' giggles.John Barberhas noted that the other story that was set in what we perceived as the "Hearts of Steel continuity,"The X-Files: Conspiracy,didnothappen in IDW continuity—the story was a self-cancelling time-loop so to be fair, it had already "unhappened" as soon as it was over, but it wouldn't have been possible for it to fit even if that hadn't happened. Or... hadn't...nothappened. Or didn't... not unhapp—look, just don't worry about it, okay?
• Shockwave is on Earth to observe the progress of theOre-13he implanted there, as seen inSpotlight: Shockwave.Accordingly, Guidi's rendition of Shockwave in this issue tends toward the thinner, pointier, more stylized appearance artistNick Rochedrew him with in that issue.
• The rank "Major"being held by the pre-modern era Transformer Domitius is fitting, as the only previous use of this rank system in IDW continuity was byNova Majorin the final stages of theFirst Cybertronian Civil War,as depicted inRobots in Disguise#34.
• The message from Optimus Prime and Bumblebee that Shockwave bounces to the Axalon has Optimus attempting to contactProwlon theArk-19.This vessel, under Prowl's command, was the base of operations for the Autobot infiltration team onEarthin the original IDW mini-seriesInfiltrationand its sequels, but this story is setlongbefore it would ever arrive on Earth.
• Savage and Kreiger recall their earlier encounter with IRON Troopers in Kalistan, as seen inissue #3.
• Tomax sarcastically inquires afterFlintandChameleon;he spent some time working with them while he was on the outs withCobra,inCobravol. 2,before inevitably betraying them inThe Cobra Files.
• TheAxaloncrashes in what becomes modern-day Brasnya, the breakaway Russian state that was the setting forEscalation.
• "Ironhide" remains green after Shockwave's conditioning, the only one of theAxaloncrew seen to retain their original colors. This is no mistake: Ironhide was one of several characters given arbitrary new colors for the opening Ice Age scenes ofHearts of Steel#1.
• Per issue #3, Atomic Man is presently believed to have died at Kreiger's hands under unspecified circumstances. The final page of this issue reveals otherwise!

Transformers references

• Hearts of Steelbegan by showing the "Autobots" and "Decepticons" engaged in aBeast Wars-likeconflictset on prehistoric Earth, and this issue plays up the similarities. The crew of theAxalonarrive searching for energon, as the Beast Warriors did, and their ship is theAxalonfrom theBeast Warscartoon, while Shockwave's ship—unnamed—is thePredacon spaceshipfrom the same series.

Hasbro franchise references

• Tomax's "Cobra Commander" outfit is the classic Commander uniform, based on the original action figure, which hasn't been worn by anyone in IDW continuity before.
• The idea of Sgt. Savage "disappearing" with theAxalonis IDW's slant on the originalSgt. Savage and his Screaming Eaglesbackstory, in which the Sarge, like a certain otherSentinel of Liberty,disappeared during the war, only for it to be discovered in modern times that he had been cryogenically preserved.
• Mayday refuses to remove Tomax's helmet for him, having heard it is "explosive". This idea goes back to issue #24 of theoriginal MarvelG.I. Joecomic book,in which it is noted to be lined with plastic explosive as an anti-tamper mechanism; it's previously been used inTransformersmedia inTransformers vs. G.I. Joe,where itended up killing its wearer.

Real-life references

• The title of this issue comes from one ofSuperman's famous taglines: "strange visitor from another planet". This probably stems from the fact that the character that became Centurion was initially conceived as a Superman pastiche who "grew up" on Earth!^[1]
• As Kup carries Action Man up the side of the I.R.O.N. Building, Ian notes the Autobot is "doing aKing Kong",but qualifies that he is referring tothe original movie,not the "Vietnam metaphor" of 2017'sKong: Skull Island.

Errors

• During the flashback sequences, Kreiger is missing his facial scar and eye injury, acquired in issue #3 during the Screaming Eagles' first encounter with the IRON Troopers.
• Centurion/ "Bumblebee" is drawn in his mid-19th century automobile body during the flashback to the originalHearts of Steelminiseries.
• Spotlight: Shockwaveestablished that Shockwave came to Earth 10,000 years before the present, but a caption on page 13 says that Centurion is stepping into theAxalonfor the first time in20,000years. This is probably down to the last Ice Age taking place longer ago than that.

Other trivia

• WhenceHearts of Steel?Early on, John Barber unsuccessfully pitched a story about a Transformer "ghost" left behind from an earlier era. A later pitch involved a Cybertronian who was raised in isolation from their species. While this latter pitch certainly inspired the character ofStardriveinShining Armor,Michael Kellysuggested that Barber do something with the largely-forgottenHearts of Steelcontinuity. Barber initially balked at the idea, realizing that it was fundamentally irreconcilable with the modern IDW universe, but slowly warmed to the idea after realizing the story potential and possible connection to then-current big bad Onyx Prime, crafting the alternate backstory for the universe we see presented here. Both of Barber's earlier pitches found their way into the character of Centurion: a remnant from the ancient past unaware of other Transformers.^[2]
• Originally solicited for release in April, this issue arrives significantly late, two months after the fact, halfway through June. The solicitation for the issue erroneously described issue #6's story, as a result of Barber briefly intending to adjust the order of events,^[3]but some of this issue's covers also seem to have been intended for next issue too. Both issue #5 and #6 were intended for release beforeissue #1of theHasbro Heroes Sourcebook,but because of these delays, they were not, and the details of Centurion's backstory were consequently spoiled by theSourcebooka week in advance of this issue's release.
• OriginalHearts of Steelartist Guido Guidi returns to the characters with this issue, drawing all the flashback pages that chart their history. All of his pages are done in the retro-style previously seen in the 2012More than Meets the EyeandRobots in Disguiseannuals, emulating the coloring and printing of theoriginal MarvelTransformerscomic.
• TheHearts of Steelstories included versions ofthe three "main" Insecticons(with a memorable "Insectrain"combined mode), but as perAll Hail Megatron,those three Insecticons shouldn't exist at this point for Shockwave to base the beastformers on.Robots in Disguise#21confirmed there to be an earlier, separateBombshell,so we suppose there were also earlier versions of the other Insecticons (such as theKickbackwho showed up inMegatron Origin#4) for these ones to be based on?Issue #1of theHasbro Heroes Sourcebooknotes that the Insecticons were a pre-existing Cybertronian sub-race that were experimented on inAll Hail Megatron,which goes some way to backing that notion up.
• In a similar vein,Scourge,sporting a fanciful zeppelin alternate mode, was one of the "Decepticons" involved in the conflict on 19th century Earth. Hisreal counterparthad vanished from public knowledge long before the outbreak of the Great War and the formation of the Decepticon faction.
• Pierre Droal's retailer incentive cover shows a unique design for Cobra Commander with aRed Hood-esque helmet, one that goes unused in the story proper.

Covers (4)

• Regular cover:Cobra Commander calls in a squadron ofRattlerson "Optimus Prime" and "Bumblebee", byRobert AtkinsandSimon Gough;Cobra Commander is here drawn in the uniform worn by deposed commanderKrake.
• Subscription cover A:Kup,M.A.S.K.,and theAdventure Team's "Big Trapper" in a wacky race, byJed DoughertyandSebastian Cheng
• Subscription cover B:The forces of M.A.S.K. reflected in Cobra Commander's helmet, byTone RodriguezandThomas Deer;the Commander's mask is here drawn as the one worn bythe original modern-day Commander,who died at the end of IDW's firstG.I. Joeseries.
• Retailer incentive cover:Cobra Commander looms as Centurion takes out another 'bot, byPierre Droal

• 

  Bumblebee is amazed at how lame Cobra Commander's phone is.

• 

  Dirk Dastardly in last place.

• 

  Hi Baldy!

• 

  Cobra Commander makes a poor Overlord.

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• Revolutionaries#6
• "The Hasbro Tribune" editorial page promoting April'sHasbro Universetitles, including this issue,G.I. Joe#5,Micronauts: Wrath of Karza#1,Optimus Prime#6,Lost Light#5,andTill All Are One#9
• Micronauts: Wrath of Karza#1
• Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook
• "FIND YOUR HERO" IDW house ad featuring Optimus Prime; art byCasey Coller
• Free Comic Book Day2017 (which had already taken place over a month prior to the late shipping of this issue...)
• IDWYokai Watchcomic

Reprints

Other thanfull or partial collections ofRevolutionaries.

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References

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