Remembering Transformers Energon

A while back, I wrote an article about Transformers: Armada. That is to say my memories of the toys, its reception at the time, and its legacy. I like Armada a lot. It followed that I had to write about its sequel series, Energon. As you can see from the date tags, this took a while. Part of that is is the thing that biases me, I sell toys professionally these days, part of its the nature of Energon itself. Transformers Energon, known as Superlink in Japan, was following a legitimate success, granting it a big budget and a host of new fans awaiting for new toys. As it was also the 20^th Anniversary series, long term fans also saw tributes and homages. It was a fine position to start. Energon would however suffer from two problems, one stemming from the other. The first was that its play pattern wasn't as financially successful as Armada's, while the supporting media was notably bad. Or to paraphrase a mate of mine: the cartoon was pants, and half the Autobots turned into pants. Did the series deserve such a burn? Read on to find out.

The Energon Cartoon

Putting aside that Japanese exclusive series that cannot be mentioned in polite conversation, few things united the fandom in hatred like the English language version of the Energon cartoon. Every conceivable flaw was present that could be in a show broadcast on Cartoon Network. Make no mistake, the Japanese original was not good, with some major conceptual problems and wasted opportunities, but the localisation pushed it over the edge. Characters were computer animated, but had only 2 frames of facial animation. Character development was ignored. The interesting set-up Armada had provided, such as it was, was quickly dumped. Spelling errors in the titles cards, it goes on, I do recommend you watch it while drunk. The comic? Well, Dreamwave went bankrupt. The net result of this all was that the G1 collector crowd got G1 tributes, but handled badly so they weren't happy, while actual new ideas it did have suffered too.

Sourced from the wiki, the many moods of Ironhide 

Now, I'm not gonna bang on about production values, as that is self-evident. Nor will I mock Kicker Jones, his name does that for me. I will however summarise the good start Energon wasted. Armada, not a good series to be fair, ended with an Autobot/Decepticon alliance. Megatron was dead, but had left orders affirming that alliance, and none of the surviving named Decepticons were of the power hungry type, so it stuck. If you are wondering why Starscream wasn't all over that, well he'd died in a heroic manner, forcing that very alliance. The reason for this union was Unicron, whom was defeated at great cost, but a decade of peace followed. Then one of Unicron's minions, Alpha Quintesson, started taking actions to repair his master and generally started shit-stirring. He resurrected Starscream with amnesia, while Megatron basically rebuilt himself through sheer will. This resulted in conflicted loyalties all round, with some Autobot infighting too, and the potential for interesting character development.

None of this goes anywhere after the first 20 episodes. The series just devolves into repeated ploys to resurrect Unicron or find new Energon supplies. Star Trek: Voyager made a better use of its set up.

The Toyline in General

When writing about Energon toys, I realise that A) they are a minority in my collection, B) I tend towards the negative, and C) those might be connected. A big part of that's the fiction, but its also a matter of the design philosophy, and the first toys we saw. Energon shifted more towards actual articulation and the aforementioned fan-pleasing homage, which was good. It also had a lot in the way of Visible Head Syndrome, bulky electronics, and articulation was inconsistent, which was bad. It did have new ideas, which is good. Executing them? Eeeh, I don't want to say it was bad, but here's some pics of Optimus Prime.

Yeah.....So his altmode doesn't convince, he had no faceplate in early runs, and he's fatter than me on boxing day. These flaws largely arise from his pay pattern, and this sort of set the tone for early releases. Energon had a lot of scifi vehicles with exposed robot heads or other problems arising from gimmickry.

What gimmick was this? Well, it was not just one. Getting right down it, Armada had only really one gimmick, the Mini-Con. How each toy used that play pattern of course varied, and some toys suffered, but it was straightforward, and worked. Energon retained some of the Mini-Con functions, but added 5 gimmicks more, depending on how ya count, split between factions and size classes. This did mean play value was high, if a messy affair. A smaller, but perhaps more successful part of the line were the Energon Chips and Weapons, as carried by the scout-sized Omnibot and Terrorcon subgroups. These were modular translucent parts, usually offering a mix of choppy and shooty weapons which bigger toys could borrow. Said bigger toys had their own versions of this, but did something rather different as their selling point. Most Autobots got the Powerlinx gimmick where they combined as pairs, something to this day I'm not overly fond of. Combination of various forms was the biggest thing in Energon, but as Combiner Wars was a decade in the future, the execution here wasn't brilliant. The binary style was limited to the Autobots, with the combinations being under-articulated and not attractive, while leaving the Decepticons with faintly unconvincing “Hyper Modes”. This brings us back to the failings of the cartoon; it never made the 2 robot combinations look good, and it certainly didn't sell the Decepticon thing or anything else. And when you can't sell the toys, you've missed the point of the exercise.

Sourced from TFU.info, Energon Ironhide and Clifjumper combined.

Sorry, got on the cartoon again.

Meanwhile, there was a bit of a repaint thing going on. Yes kiddies, repaints in Transformers is not a new phenomenon, although with one very notable exception, Energon did simple reskins. Following a trend set by Armada, Energon was in the habit of redoing toys in different colour schemes, often intended to be new characters by Hasbro, but largely treated by Takara as upgrades. This fictional disagreement would come to a head later on, but this didn't do the perception of the line much good either, if only for the fact Armada toys were thrown in, and the showstopping Supreme class was 2/3s repaint. This probably played a big part in Energon's other big problem, shelfwarming. Stores just brought too many after Armada, so unpopular toys tended to stick around Eventually, the five bot “Maximus” combiner teams appeared, thus answering many fanboy prayers, but they suffered from the repaint thing too. Coming out at the tail end of the line, there were 3 teams, but only 9 distinct moulds, and no real hands/feet for the combined mode. These toys were sufficiently well-received that they were getting re-releases circa 2009, but some of the first unofficial add-on kits I ever saw were for these toys, addressing these issues. And yes, the cartoon was so incompetent as to ignore that these were combined teams.

The Highlights

So what did Energon do well? Actually quite a lot, its just Middle Child Syndrome given what Armada and Cybertron managed to do. The style of binary combination basically makes the Autobots exponentially fun if you can get over the look. Dozens of combinations were possible. Maybe hundreds, I can't be arsed to do the sums. Optimus even got Wingsaber to balance him out, in a notable example of 2 wrongs making a right. Deceptions were varied, and still hold up for the most part. The smaller toys of both factions featured some great pocket money transformers. So, lets pick out some interesting ones.

Energon Startscream

For the Combat class, what we would recognise as today as deluxes, an early front runner was Starscream, and probably my favourite iteration of the character. In terms of engineering, he bears a striking resemblance to G2 Smokescreen, so much so people cried retool. No, its a new mould, and while it copies a lot, its copying from a damn good source. He's also got this lovely undead/wraith/ghost/ethereal motif going on, and the option to combine his weapons into a sword as big as he. On the Autobot side there is Tow-Line, a mishmash of Autobot vanformers, whom does something unusual with the binary combination thing. He can, in a gift to adolescent sniggering, powerlinx with himself, or two other Autobots at the same time. A pretty solid toy overall, good for customising. Other noteworthy Combats include: Snowcat, a tubby robot with skis whom copied his altmode from G.I. Joe, and Roadblock, a fairly involved retool of Inferno.

 Tow-Line

The tiny wee toys of the Energon probably are the ones that hold up to the test of time. There's some duffers of course, but the partnership of balljoints and good accessories ages well, many ended up being reissued/repainted at length. The first ACTUAL GODDAMN ARCEE figure came from this price bracket, as did most of the combiner teams, and provided you don't pick one with compromised articulation like Insecticon, you are probably in for a good time. Battle Ravage and Strongarm are two of my favourites here, good allrounders.

 Battle Ravage

On the larger side of things, there's Landmine, one of the rare completely new characters. Transforming into an armoured snowplough, he is notable for his "brute mode", which, well, LOOK AT IT!

An awesome toy I which I regret not having any more. On the decepticon side, well, we got a second boatformer, Mirage. And Megatron carries a weapon seemingly made from his own corpse, which is almost as awesome as Landmine.

 Mega-Dinobot

Because Hasbro was flush with money, we got some unusual side merch. Alpha Quintession got a toy, Kicker got 2 toys, couple of roleplay toys, and we got a Dinobot combiner featuring Grimlock and Swoop. Not hugely good by reputation, that set is notable for being designed by Takara employees, which might explain things.

And finally, the toy that prompted this article, Omega Supreme. The big dude suffered in that he was following Unicron, and is quite uncomplicated,  while giving prioity to an unconvincing optimus combination. That however is not the same as saying he is boring, not by a long, long way. Omega Supreme is assemetrical, splitting into an alledged train and an awesome battleship.  Omega was also a titanmaster before it was cool, and features a tiny reserve head as an adorible back up. He is a bit more Armada than Energon, and has an immense presence. 

Wrapping Things Up

In many respects, Energon can be viewed as a reaction to criticism of Armada from the collectors side of the fanbase. This is evident from the generally improved articulation of these toys, although not quite pre-armada levels, and the sheer number of G1 homages evident. As it was the 20^th Anniversary series, some pandering was inevitable, but legitimately new characters are in the minority, and the vast majority of the returning ones were retrofitted into tributes. It wasn't entirely that way of course; the new form of combination had promise, and perhaps should have found more success with kids. The reason it didn't? I dunno, the cartoon was bad, but there's been plenty of successful Transformers toylines with objectively terrible media, i.e. most of them. But, the cartoon never really made the gimmick look cool, I suppose. And, lets be honest here, if you do a direct sequel to something and largely dump everything that made the original special, it doesn't end well. Just ask Beast Wars fans.

The toys though? Those were good, and that's what matters.

Images are largely sourced from the wiki, and remain the property of their respective holders. Let me know if you want them removed.