IDW - Revolutionaries #5

Title: Strange Visitors

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Fico Ossio & Guido Guidi

Colours by: Sebastian Cheng & Guido Guidi

Letters by: Tom B Long

Assistant Edits by: David Mariotte

Edited by: David Hedgecock

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

During the last Ice Age on Earth a Eukarian shuttle, the Axalon, carrying the device that will one day be known as the Talisman, on orders from their master, when they detect a signal being sent to Prowl on an automated loop. The crew comment on how the figures in the footage look familiar, even looking like their commander, Domitius Major, but before anything else can really happen, another ship, piloted by Shockwave attacks the Axalon and causes it to crash on Earth, Shockwave follows to investigate the remains.

Shockwave finds the crew inside injured, but being quickly repaired by the Talisman. One of the Eukarians, Centurion, wakes up and sees the footage, and is confused when he sees Bumblebee, whom he has a striking resemblance to, and asks if he is Bumblebee...giving Shockwave a horrible idea....

Shockwave alters the minds of the Eukarians, along with their bodies to become analogues of several prominent Autobots and Decepticons, and watches how they interact and fight, so as to study how the war could progress. After a while, the Eukarians begin to run low on Energon and head into a cave to enter stasis lock. Shockwave leaves, noting the small drones being created by the Talisman from the Axalon, and plans to return once he tends to his Regenesis Ores on the planet...an errand he never returns from....

After a long time, the Eukarians wake up in the Steel Revolution and they take on the roles of their namesakes even without Shockwave's prompting, they help John Henry with his railroad work, fight off an Elder God, and eventually wind up in WW2...where their fake memories begin to unwind, resulting in many of them dying, including the robot who believes himself to be Optimus Prime.

Sgt Savage and his Screaming Eagles approach a fortress in France where they encounter more of the Iron Troopers they found in Kalistan, but more shockingly, they encounter Centurion and the Eukarian that was made to resemble Shockwave fighting, with Centurion destroying his enemy, leaving him the last known Eukarian on the planet...

Centurion/Bumblebee asks Savage and his team to return him to his ship so he can die there in peace, as he now remembers where it is...

Savage, Kreiger and Centurion arrive in Brasnya, which is where the Axalon crashed, and Centurion soon locates the downed ship, as well as taking down more of the Iron Troopers, seemingly guarding the ship. Unfortunately, the Iron Troopers have combined, and taken over the corpse of "Optimus Prime", angering Centurion who sees this as desecrating a war hero. Despite attacking them however, all "Optimus" does is activates a program within the Axalon which transports it, and Sgt Savage who was still inside away to an unknown location. Out of rage, Centurion tears apart the mockery of his friend, and begins to scream in anger. Kreiger sees this, and proposes to Centurion that they work together now, since both are alone in the world....

In the modern day, Tomax Paoli arrives at his office  where he encounters a hologram of Kreiger who warns him that a team involving Action Man and a GI Joe member are approaching him, and they need to be fended off. Tomax is unhappy as he doesn't want to resume the Cobra Commander guise, but he is forced into the role. Tomax gets kitted out, and soon encounters Action Man, who he quickly shoots out of a window, only for the young hero to be caught by Kup outside. Mayday attacks Tomax in retaliation, whilst Centurion transforms outside, and assumes that Kup is just another lost Eukarian and proceeds to attack him, and put him out of his misery.

Whilst the rest of the team are fighting Centurion and Tomax, Blackrock is interfacing with the Iron database in order to discover the hidden truths about the Talisman and the other secrets they've been uncovering lately. Unfortunately, it is what he was worried about, the Talisman came from Onyx Prime, the same being who planted Blackrock on Earth and manipulated his life. The small Autobot heads off to be a hero now....

Inside, Mayday manages to disable Tomax by shooting him in the neck and captures him Outside, Blackrock approaches the fighting robots, and he reveals that he and Centurion have a shared "parentage" of Onyx Prime, and that they can take him to meet the real Optimus so he can help him. Centurion agrees, having never learned about the "real" Cybertronians before now.

Soon, the Revolutionaries and Centurion head off, with Tomax as their prisoner, but he knows nothing about what Kreiger or Ironblood's plans are, they simply used him to distract the Revolutionaries. The team now plan to head towards Brasnya to locate the Axalon, and finally resolve all of this.

In Brasnya, Doctor X and her troops are preparing the final steps of their master-plan, but decide to leave their facility, since they doubt the Revolutionaries would be too happy with how they've been keeping the Atomic Man hidden there are experimented on!!

Characters

Autobot

Kup - Pick Up Truck

Garrison Blackrock/Sovereign - Head

Optimus Prime - Truck (Recording Only)

Bumblebee - Car (Recording Only)

Prowl - Police Vehicle (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Shockwave - Flying Artillery (Flashback Only)

Eukarian

Centurion/"Bumblebee" - Luxury Car, former Prehistoric Monster, Locomotive

Domitius Major/"Optimus Prime" - Locomotive, former Mammoth Died in WW2

"Shockwave" - Battleship, former Prehistoric Creature (Flashback Only) Killed by Centurion

"Prowl" - Prehistoric Creature (Flashback Only) Dead

"Ironhide" - Prehistoric Creature (Flashback Only) Dead

"Ratchet" - Prehistoric Creature (Flashback Only) Dead

"Soundwave" - Prehistoric Creature (Flashback Only) Dead

"Bombshell" - Prehistoric Insect (Flashback Only) Dead

"Starscream" - Bi-Plane, former Prehistoric Winged Creature (Flashback Only) Dead

"Trailblazer" - Locomotive (Flashback Only) Dead

"Wheeljack" - Locomotive (Flashback Only) Dead

"Hound" - Locomotive (Flashback Only) Dead

Other Eukarians - Prehistoric Creatures (Flashback Only) Dead

Other Cybertronian

Onyx Prime (Mentioned)

GI Joe/Action Man Program

Action Man

Mayday

Flint (Mentioned)

Chameleon (Mentioned)

Unnamed Villain Team

Tomax Paoli/Cobra Commander Captured by Revolutionaries

Garrison Kreiger

Doctor X

Baron Ironblood

Iron Klaw

Storm Shadow

Red Shadows (Mentioned)

Other Human

Atomic Man Imprisoned by Villains

Violet

Violet's Sister (Mentioned)

Sgt Savage (Flashback Only) Vanished with the Axalon

The Screaming Eagles (Flashback Only)

John Henry (Flashback Only)

Other

Elder God (Flashback Only)

Talisman's Offspring (Flashback Only)

Iron Troopers (Flashback Only)

Notes

• Okay...wow...this story actually blew my mind when I read it. No joke here. They actually implanted the old Hearts of Steel stories, including the Infestation 2 story into the main IDW continuity, and made it work...I swear John Barber is a witch...
• The flashback scenes in this comic are all done by Guido Guidi in his retro comic style, like he used in the old MTMTE and RID Annual issues.
• The Axalon was the name of the ship used by the Maximals in Beast Wars, and it also shared the same design as the Eukarian ship here. Shockwave's ship is based on the Darkseid, the ship used by the Predacons in the same series.
• So, yeah, the entirety of the Hearts of Steel story is revealed to have just been a cruel experiment by Shockwave to try and gauge how the war would progress....HOLY SHIT DUDE!!!
• Also, thanks to the Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook, we were spoiled about all of this a WEEK EARLY. bloody publication dates....
• The Talisman is confirmed to be a device created by Onyx Prime, and carried to Earth by the Eukarian crew of the Axalon, which was separated from the ship by Shockwave, waiting to be found centuries later by Kreiger and the Adventure Team.
• So, on top of Shockwave manipulating their memories (I assume he used some sort of Mnemosurgery) he also repainted the Eukarians to match the Cybertronians...he may have too much time on his hands...hand....
• When Shockwave leaves the Eukarians alone to go into stasis, he is going to meet his fate and the Dynobots as shown in his Spotlight issue.
• Included in the flashbacks of Centurion are recreations of scenes from Hearts of Steel and Infestation 2, and shows an otherwise undocumented set of scenes from WW2 where the Eukarians are drawn into the war, and their original memories are stirred. The only thing that was implied to be in the Hearts of Steel universe was the Conspiracy crossover comic, which was set in the X-Files IDW comic universe...so it's an aberration and should be ignored okay?
• So, the teaser of the villains having HOS Optimus Prime/Domitius Major was  pretty much a red herring, since he's already long dead, but they do shockingly have the thought-to-be dead Atomic Man in their warehouse...something that was ALSO spoiled by the Sourcebook! No wonder the remainder of the series has been held off to pretty much the end of the pre-First Strike stories!
• So...does anyone else want to see a scene where Centurion is taken to Cybertron just to troll Starscream with his "hallucination" getting a physical form now?