Now that the Internet Archive is again among the functional we can conclude our look at the Commandrons. For those of you who missed the first three, here’s a synopsis.
Commandrons were a Tomy line that in the US was only available through McDonald’s Happy Meals, each of the four robots coming with a minicomic produced by DC Comics. On the planet Haven, which was one McDonalds the Murphy Family couldn’t drive to, the Commandrons were part of a Thunderbirds style team of secret rescue workers, in that people knew they existed but not who they are. Given that the team consisted of four AI robots and four pre-teens that’s probably for the best. Meanwhile, the obligatory evil rich schmuck Sylvester Slag is jealous of four robots he doesn’t own running around saving people for free and keeps trying to take them over or take them down. His last plan involved fake Commandrons.
His plan this time? Toys. Evil toys, because this is a DC comic and Toyman was still a villain. Though in today’s anti-geek culture they’d probably make him some basement dwelling toy collector or some crap. Lucky I’m obscure enough that I didn’t just give them ideas. Also, let’s reflect on the possibility that the minicomics that came with toys are about to do a story about evil toys. Would a fifth Commandron story have involved the evils of fast food, despite the client being McDonalds’? We’ll never know, but we do have this.
“I hope you washed these hands, pal!”
Commandrons #4
DC Comics/McDonalds (1985)
I’m always disappointed when these comics don’t have the credits, like the creators were ashamed to be working on this. And yet they agreed to have their names on some of the worst stories in regular sized comics. Hey, a job is a job and your job is still to tell a great story, even if the idea wasn’t made for comics and is hoping to sell toys. As if merchandising isn’t all the current DC owners care about.
Our story begins at the city of Metroplex. No, this isn’t Cybertron, although DC did try to get the Transformers license at one point. I refuse to believe I never discuss that but WordPress doesn’t want to show it to me today. Anyway, this Metroplex is the largest city on planet Haven. Motron (the toy that came with this comic…or is it the other way around?) and Deb rescue someone from a burning building. Deb stays inside Motron, who is approached by a very aggressive reporter. Since the Commandrons are a private bunch, he turns them down but the reporter is insistent and starts chasing our hero. Lucky nobody told the reporter that Motron can transform, so he hides in car mode until the reporter leaves.
Back at base Deb and Motron learn that Slag is making little Commandron robots. Now available in stores, so I guess they’re space Canada. They got them in stores, as did the native Japan, but we had to buy a burger, fries, and small shake in a cheap paper box with games on it and hope the random pull was the last one we needed instead of another one we already had. Sure that Sylvester is up to something because he’s the villain of these comics, Dr. Wu wants to examine the toys. Instead of just going to the toy store so the baddie doesn’t know they’re investigating, the kids go right to Sylvester himself as if they expect him to fess up. Kids, am I right? Of course he denies everything and the kids kind of fall for it, and he even gives them a set of his “Micro-Drones” as proof of no hard feelings. Remember, this is the comic company behind Toyman, a villain who steals things using toys. We can already guess where this is going.
Sure enough, it’s a trick. The Micro-Drones are programmed to destroy our hero bots from the inside. I don’t know if all the toys do that or just the set he gave them, but that’s just more reason to buy them from the store and check them out rather than accept a gift right from the villains. The kids must have been gone all day because it’s night by the time they get back. They leave it in the lab for Dr Wu to examine in the morning, but Deb wakes up to collect her cat-thing and finds them moving. Motron scans them and realizes they’re programmed to attack brain circuits. So wait, if Motron or presumably any of the other Commandrons could have just scanned the things themselves and figured out what they were, why didn’t they? They could have been bringing explosives into the lab. Also, the Micro-Drones are little copies of the Commandrons. I guess Sylvester didn’t get enough of making knockoffs last story.
Since the minicomic doesn’t have time to show the Commandrons chasing a bunch of little doppelgangers around, Deb just grabs them without any trouble and she and Motron drop them in an air vent to Slag’s robot factory. They spend the night going crazy in there, so in the morning he doesn’t have a working factory, and it will take a long time to find and capture the toy troublemakers, forcing him to shut down for a while. Motron makes a pun, the end.
For this final outing of a minicomic meant not so much to sell to kids (since they have to buy the Happy Meal to get the toy and comic anyway) as give them something to play with the robots, it’s a pretty good story. Deb and Motron get to shine in this one, and this is the comic that came with it, so that makes sense. We could always assume Sylvester Slag is never coming back because this is as far as the Commandrons’ adventures go.
Our next minicomic adventure should take us back to Etheria to continue She-Ra’s kill count, but I’ll have to try to find a new source for it. We’ll see what happens next time.
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