Talk:Hearts of Steel

Optimus Prime's "Ice Age" Altmode?

In the first chapter of this series, we get two brief glimpses of Optimus Prime's robot mode, from the "Ice Age Wars" era that preceded the Transformers' big sleep until the 19th century. He has two curved protusions over his shoulders that look a bit like an elephant or mammoth's trunk, split in half lengthwise. He looks a smidge like Big Convoy, except that Big Convoy's trunk didn't split, it just came off entire. And yet, I could swear I've seen a toy whose robot mode had a split trunk like that. Can anyone else recall one? JW 17:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

BW Ironhide's (the elephant Magnaboss component) entire head split in half, including the trunk. - RolonBolon 21:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

New Continuity, or G1, or . . . ?

So, there are three ways we can handle articles related to Hearts of Steel:

• The current way seems to be to add on to G1 articles, since HoS is kinda similar to G1. So, we have an "IDW 'Hearts of Steel' continuity" section in the Bumblebee (G1) article.
• Or, since anything under the Evolutions banner is explicitly a new continuity, we could create new pages, with titles like "Bumblebee (HoS)" (or possibly "Bumblebee (E:HoS)" so all Evolutions are grouped together).
• Or, third, since presumably there will be more Evolutions titles, and (also presumably) they will be all relatively small continuities, with short articles, we could create pages with titles like "Bumblebee (Evolutions)", with a "Hearts of Steel continuity" subheader, and put everything about every Evolutions variation of Bumblebee on that page.

The problem with the first option is that HoS is only kinda like G1. Future Evolutions series might be unlike anything we've seen, and unsuitable for categorizing as a sub-continuity of something else, requiring their own continuity. (For example, a future Evolutions might be a fantasy setting, where the Transformers are golems, and the lead characters are Optimus Primal, Hot Rod, and Hot Shot (Armada).) Plus, the G1 articles are long enough already.

The problem with the third option is that not every character or subject will appear in every Evolutions series, so the Bumblebee (Evolutions) page and a hypothetical Optimus Primal (Evolutions) page might have nothing in common except for both being "Evolutions".

So, I really prefer the second option, with the continuity marker being "(E:HoS)". The downside is a proliferation of new (and relatively short) pages, but, y'know, that's not a problem unless we decide it is. Opinions? JW 15:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer to wait until there's at least a second Evolutions miniseries to allow a basis for comparison. Once that happens, the choice should be clear.--Rosicrucian 15:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That's absolutely fair and reasonable. But the eager fanboy in me wants to start doing HoS writeups now, and I would rather do them in the right place to begin with . . . but I can wait, if necessary. JW 15:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Eh, I'll let someone who's logged in more time on this wiki than me weigh in then. Has the next Evolutions series been announced so far?--Rosicrucian 15:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Not every new continuity gets a character page spin-off. We don't have Bumblebee (Marvel Comics) or Bumblebee (G1 cartoon) or Bumblebee (Find Your Fate). Hearts of Steel is just another G1 continuity, among several. --ItsWalky 15:44, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I point out that the G1 cartoon, Marvel comics, and Find Your Fate continuities have a lot more in common with each other than they do with HoS. I think the idea that HoS is a "G1 continuity" is at least slightly suspect, and contributes to the continuing bloat of the G1 pages.

Or, to put it another way, why shouldn't new continuities get new character pages? What's the benefit of cramming everything that looks vaguely like G1 onto a G1 page? JW 15:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

To my eyes, the only difference between HoS and the most vanilla G1 continuities is that the TFs fell asleep after crashing instead of during the crash, and then woke up again a little earlier. There is nothing else depicted to give us any reason to think things are different.

We shouldn't put every new continuity on a new page for two reasons. First, we would have a million zillion pages then and it would be unmanageable. Second, it is actually informative and useful to put similar incarnations of a single character on a single page. Your understanding of Bumblebee as a mythical/achetypal entity is greatly enhanced by seeing multiple portrayals all treated together in a single article.

That said, it is true that the fiction sections for some G1 characters are becoming a bit unwieldy due to the continual reboots and new additions to the G1 continuity family. We may at some point feel the need to split them up, if not systematically, then at least for the largest articles, sort of the way we have done with some characters' toy sections. If it comes to that, I would still not want to push each portrayal into its own article. For a systematic change, I would want to "clump" the continuities in some sensible way. For individual splittings, it would be based on length of the sections. So, most likely, it would be the G1 cartoon, Marvel comic, and possibly the Dreamwave comic sections heading out. Something small like Hearts of Steel would probably stay in the main article.

Lastly: It is possible, though in my opinion unlikely, that some Evolutions story will end up being so different than other stuff that it is essentially a new continuity family. If that happens, then probably we will just make new articles for those characters. And yes, more Evolutions is on the way. IDW has stated that they have many ideas and lots of talent in the queue for them.

--Steve-o 16:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

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