It’s not easy being a GoBots fan, folks. As a Transformers fan I get to hear and read all the slams against the toys and the cartoon. GoBots, a toyline from Tonka based on Japan’s “Machine Robo” line, came out around the same time as Hasbro’s more popular line. There is some debate as to which series came first, but they’re so close together that outside of industrial spies it is doubtful that either knew the others plans.
(By the way, a pet peeve of mine: it’s spelled “GoBots”, much like mine is “ShadowWing”. Check the official spelling. Even with the book in front of him, the hoster got it wrong.)
However, there was an animated series, which also gets trashed by the Cybertronian faithful. To this day, Transformer comics use the characters as cannon fodder in place of the official characters. They claim that the cartoon was inferior to Sunbow’s take on the robots in disguise.
Judge for yourselves, thanks to fellow New Gobotron fourmite J.C., aka Leader-1 (he’s also the top moderator and created the new companion site). The pilot episode is here for one and all, and while Transformers remains my #1 favorite fiction, allow me to defend Challenge of the GoBots.
[UPDATE: The video was taken down, probably because there is finally an official release, with a series forthcoming. Instead, check out my BW Video Review of the pilot.]
Now let’s give this show a bit more credit than it has earned. That was pretty good. First of all, Cy-Kill one-upped Megatron in a few spots. In the episode “The Ultimate Doom” Megatron uses a device created by a human scientist to take over the minds of humans. However, Megatron’s required a chip be put behind the ears of captured humans. Cy-Kill’s, on the other hand, patched into satellites to broadcast the signal to the whole world, turning everyone into humans. In fact, the good guys were the ones who had to capture humans and put a device in their ears to restore them. Score one for Dr. Braxis over Dr. Archeville. (Score again considering Dr. Braxis was voiced by then Clayton Endicott, who would become Inspector Odo.
Cy-Kill’s forces also managed to take the enemy mobile base, capture the Guardian commander, and send his comrades running scarred. Sure the Renegades were eventually captured on Gobotron, but they held out for weeks, if not months if you follow how many in-story days the show took place over. They lost because of a last-minute lucky break on the heroes side, and not by being any more stupid than other kids show villains of the time period.
Speaking of which, in the original Transformers pilot, the leaders of the world agree to give the Autobots everything they need, although it wouldn’t be until the series proper that they would have seen the war. The Guardians had to prove themselves and in the ending cut off in the video, they weren’t immediately cheered as heroes. Isn’t that the conflict Transformers only experienced in the comics?
In later years we would learn more about Gobotronian society, the tragic origins of the GoBots themselves (they are really cyborgs that were forced to undergo the process to save themselves), the slum area of the planet (never saw that in the cartoons, only in the comics) and Cy-Kill’s days as a Guardian and his fall to the Renegade leader. The characters (except oddly the six main characters) were spot on to their toys and didn’t suffer for it, unlike the Transformers, many of whom looked nothing like the character models used to depict them for years.
So give this series credit. The Transformers may have been better received, but it was still a darn good show, and the toys were also very cool.
However, after years I finally saw GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords, and that doesn’t hold a candle to Transformers: The Movie.
BW Media Spotlight 