You don’t have to imagine!! X) it’s time for the Disparation Hanukkah Special!!!
Now, given that I made this up as a first appearance for my character, you’d think MagLev would be front and center, and that’s where you’d be wrong. The main story of the Special is an alternate version of the Voss invasion where he starts by taking over The Citadel of the Sun, and Citizens Dawn, Dusk, Pain, Hammer, and Anvil replay the story of the Maccabees as they take it back. (Judah Macabee was known as The Hammer, and he was a priest or Kohen, which is what Dawn’s last name connects to. Also, it’s the Festival of Lights. So many reasons to bring Dawn into this). Then the backup story in the last few pages of the book are a story of Hanukkah in the Locomotiverse featuring MagLev saving Hanukkah from Fright Train. The writers didn’t really put more thought into it than that. They didn’t establish or even decide internally who was in the MagLev suit. They just made it Jewish by writing מגלב (maglev transliterated into Hebrew) on the chest and shoulders of the suit stacked in a 2x2 square of letters. They just needed a couple more pages to fill out the floppy and the Locomotiverse was born.
Idk if the Locomotiverse really comes up at all over the next decade or not, but the next important moment in the character’s publication history comes in 2008-2009 when a young writer gets a shot at a 12 issue limited Disparation story. (I know the 12 issue limited isn’t really a format we see from Sentinel Comics, but this is my thing I’m adding to my own version of the canon, and it’s my personal favorite format, so I do what i want 
). This writer is a late 20s Jewish lesbian who grew up going to a Progressive Zionist Reform temple, but she’s also very into Leslie Feinberg, a notable antizionist, so this comic writer is sitting with a variety of influences and has a complicated relationship with Zionism, so where does she look for her Disparation pitch but the character introduced in a lazy story at the tail end of a year with several Zionist propaganda oneshots? And so Heartshield is born, adding a single line to the old logo on the suit, and this is where the Locomotiverse really gets filled in. I think this is where I’ll move to a chronological look at the lore.
Daniel Montgomery was a Jewish scientist living in modern day Mordengrad conscripted by Fyodor Ramonat and forced to help with his projects. When he was able to sneak the time though, he worked on an escape hatch of sorts, an armored suit that would work with electromagnetism to propel the wearer at high speeds. When America’s Greatest Legacy is sent in to deal with Ramonat, Daniel sees his chance, puts on the suit and turns it on. He hasn’t yet had the chance to test it though, and he immediately passes out from the G force. The suit only stays active briefly, but it moves quickly enough that he wakes up in Megalopolis. He goes on to apply the technology of the suit to trains, inventing the maglev train decades early compared to our reality, and establishes Montgomery Industries on that basis. Growing up hearing this story and seeing superheroes in action, his daughter Maia decides that she wants to become a superhero. One day, she finds where her father stored the suit and takes it to renowned scientist Meredith Stinson for help resolving the G-force issue. While working on the suit together, the two fall in love and eventually get married. (This is Disparation I do what I want). With the improved suit, Maia Montgomery becomes the superhero Heartshield.
Now, this is a Maia Montgomery who does age together with Paul VIII and is very much of his generation as the story of the Locomotiverse progresses, and to reflect this, the Freedom Line is based more on the original less popular version of the Freedom Five. Legacy and Haka are largely the same, they’re just far more enthusiastic about trains. The other two members of the team here are known as Cryoline and Steam Whistle. You are welcome.
One of the major villains in Heartshield’s story in these 12 issues is of course the Locomotiverse version of Heartbreaker, because who else do you send after a hero with Heart in the name? Here however he’s known as Trainwreck because this is the Locomotiverse we’re talking about.
Sort of the big theme of this book is memory and exploring what you do with what your parents give you. One of the notable quotes that leads into the flashback to Daniel’s story is “every time I put on the suit, I can’t help but think of that inscription on Paul’s ring.” The importance of memory as a theme will come up again when I get to explaining Disparation Squad era Heartshield and the flashbacks to the OblivAeon fight that we get there, but this is all I have time for tonight.