Steelbane

Steelbane is an Autobot-allied Knight from The Last Knight portion of the live-action film series continuity family.

"Growls" BANEEEEEE!!!

Steelbane is one of the mythic Guardian Knights and a sworn defender of the Staff of Merlin.

Steelbane forms part of Dragonstorm, the Knights' powerful combined form.

Fiction

The Last Knight film

At least two separate Guardian Knights use the Steelbane design; with none of them named on-screen, it is impossible to know which, if any, is the Steelbane.

If I pull that off, will you die?

After betraying their supposed creator, Quintessa, Steelbane and the Guardian Knights fled with her staff to Earth, in truth the dormant form of legendary Transformer Unicron. Sometime in the late 5th century, the human "wizard" Merlin stumbled upon the knights' spaceship, buried beneath the hills of England. He met the Knights and learned of their homeworld of Cybertron, but promised to keep their existence a secret from his peers. In 484 AD, Merlin returned to the ship and made a heartfelt plea to their leader Stormreign, seeking aid for King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in a dire battle against the Saxons.

As Stormreign bestowed upon Merlin the very staff they stole from Quintessa, Steelbane joined the other knights in forming Dragonstorm to fight alongside Arthur's men, winning them the day. In the battle's aftermath, the Knights of the Round Table forged an alliance with the Guardian Knights, beginning a heraldic order which would become known as the Order of the Witwiccans. On at least one occasion, Steelbane charged into battle alongside Arthur's men. Sir Edmund Burton's collection included an excerpt of the Bayeux Tapestry which appeared to show Steelbane and the other knights fighting in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD. Eventually, the Guardian Knights moved their ship underwater and entered a centuries-long slumber, guarding Merlin's remains and the staff Stormreign had granted to him.

A lot of loyalty for a hired sword!

In the modern day, the spaceship was located by Merlin's last descendant, and the knights awoke, Steelbane among them. After Quintessa successfully reclaimed her staff, intending to use it to transfer energy from Earth/Unicron into the desolate Cybertron, Steelbane and the Knights joined the Autobot mission to stop her, combining into Dragonstorm from atop the deck of the Autobot ship. As part of Dragonstorm, Steelbane helped the Knights' Autobot and human allies by taking out enemy fighters and dropping Optimus Prime into the battlefield to vanquish Infernocus. After Quintessa and Megatron were defeated and their plan was foiled, Steelbane and the Knights merged into Dragonstorm and departed Earth for Cybertron alongside the Autobots. The Last Knight

Toys

The Last Knight

Oy! Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck!

• Optimus Prime / Steelbane / Bumblebee (Tiny Turbo Changer 3-Pack, 2017)
  • Accessories: "Autobot" weapons sprue (2 swords, flail-axe, left shield-half), "Decepticon" weapons sprue (2 cutlasses, knife, right shield-half)

The Tiny Turbo Changers Steelbane is included in a Target-exclusive three-pack with redecoes of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, part of Target's Reveal the Shield subline. Molded in soft vinyl (and in two different colors, the only Tiny Turbo Changer to have more than one plastic color), Steelbane transforms from a super-deformed robot into a super-deformed mechanical dragon in just a few steps. As part of the subline gimmick, Steelbane's wings feature a red-and-blue pattern with a hidden faction insignia, revealed by using the included transparent red weapon accessories as a filter. For some reason, Steelbane has Decepticon symbols despite his instructions labeling him an Autobot.

Caution needs to be taken when he is first removed from the package, as there have been multiple reports of his tail being pretty firmly stuck in robot-mode position, as well as the dragon head. They will eventually come loose, but it can feel like the peg will snap before it does. In addition, although both the official photography and in-package arrangement miss it, his dragon head can slide fully into his abdomen, giving him a cleaner robot mode and fixing the "looking vaguely up" problem (seen in the picture at right).

Despite being a store-exclusive, the 3-pack containing this figure absolutely choked store shelves and was still available in large numbers two years after the film's release.

Premier Edition

"Titanium Megatron hast loose joints? Yond's cute."

• Steelbane (Deluxe Class, 2017)
  • Japanese Release Date: 2017-07-15
  • Japanese ID Number: TLK-11
  • Accessories: Sword

Released as part of the second wave of The Last Knight Deluxe Class figures, Steelbane transforms from a robot clad in medieval armor into a dragon, seemingly based on the underwater ship dragon concept art. He is armed with a sword, which can be stored on the figure's back in dragon mode, or on either thigh in robot mode. Due to his transformation scheme, Steelbane's robot mode feet end up sticking out of his tail and his dragon mode neck.

Unfortunately, Steelbane suffers from loose ball joints, which prevent his dragon mode from staying together. Additionally, the figure's larger wings are molded in a softer plastic, and are prone to being warped straight out of the package. Reruns seem to have tighter joints.

He was also retooled into Skullitron.

In Asia, Steelbane and the rest of the Wave 2 Deluxes (though limited in numbers) were later dumped at Popular Book stores in Malaysia, sold ar a discounted price of RM89.90 ($21), though the price was later cut down to RM69.90 ($16) as part of the "Must Buy!" offers.

Movie Edition

• Iron Forge Steelbane (Tiny Turbo Changer, 2019)
  • Series: 5
  • Bag code: J

Released in Series 5 of Tiny Turbo Changers, Iron Forge Steelbane is a blue redeco of the above Tiny Turbo Changers figure from The Last Knight.

Notes

• For reasons unclear, Steelbane's on-screen model does not use the head from his original concept design (as seen on his toys), instead substituting it for Stormreign's.
• Hasbro referred to Steelbane as "the first knight" at Toy Fair 2017, but this did not show up in his/their fictional depiction.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Steelbane (スティールベイン Sutīrubein)
• Mandarin: Gāngwǔtiěqí (Taiwan, 鋼武鐵騎, "Valiant Steel Cavalry")