Jack of Harts

Fortress Maximus has always been my favorite Transformers character. He was one of the most powerful machines of war ever built, and yet he yearned for peace. And like many aspiring writers, I wrote stories about him. Fan fiction is the appropriate label. A Fan Magazine called Teletran printed Transformers fan fiction back in the day, over twenty years ago, and The Rebirth was the first one of my stories ever published by anyone. It was my magnum opus. The best writing I’d ever done. I was so proud of it.

I never finished the story. I went and did other things. And Teletran went away as well. And time passed. I started writing my own things. I published myself. And in time other publishers picked my stories for them to publish. And then the guy that headed Teletran back in the day resurfaced on the Internet and started contacting all the old people he used to talk with back in the day. I sent him some of my hard copy issues of Teletran, because he didn’t have them anymore, and he said he wanted to start up Teletran again.

And you know? There was this story that I’d always wanted to spiff up a bit and finish. I hate an unfinished story, and The Rebirth had been sitting in the back of my mind for literal decades, wanting to come out. Wanting to be finished. And so I told him I’d spiff it up and finish the story for him if he was willing to publish it again. He was. So I opened up the old story, and started to do some minor edits with the stuff I’ve learned over the last two decades. Then they became major edits. And then I shook my head and scrapped it all. The story was good, but I sucked at writing back then.

So I rewrote it, from scratch. And I sent it to Transformers fans I know in real life for feedback. The biggest response I got was confusion. You see, The Rebirth is a continuation of the Marvel Transformers Comic, not the cartoon, and the comic is niche even within the Transformers fandom. So I rewrote Part I as a kind of primer on the history of Transformers, telling people how we came to be here. And then showing what Fortress Maximus did next.

Part I was published in the last issue of Teletran. Part II I just finished and it will be in the next issue of Teletran if you want to go find it and read it. Follow the link to The Rebirth, Part I, free to read for anyone since it is fan fiction. I hope you enjoy it.

https://jackofharts.substack.com/p/the-rebirth