I didn’t get to do the Finally Watched…again…because I was finishing the BW Panelling. I did however watch a biography on Andre The Giant I picked up from HBO during a recent preview weekend. It was quite fascinating but not really worth of a Finally Watched article. So…next week? Hopefully?
During the height of popularity of Transformers and GoBots in the 1980s other companies have sought to cash in. And fast food restaurants are no exception if they offered any kind of kids meal. For example Wendy’s offered their own GoBots, which were later also available by mailaway offer if you collected enough Kool-Aid points. Kool-Aid doesn’t do that anymore. Kids are getting ripped off because parents think their kids are dumb. McDonald’s is no stranger to this either. During the Beast Wars line they partnered with Hasbro to release a set of figures from the regular and Transmetal periods of the Beast Wars toyline as well as Beast Machines and a few other lines since.
Before then, however, McDonald’s released their own transforming toys for their Happy Meals. The more famous one is the robots that turned into the various Happy Meal offerings–shakes, fries, and hamburger transforming robots were actually made. Not as well-known according to what I’ve seen on the internet were the Commandrons, a line of toys with an interesting backstory. They were created by Tomy but only his stores in Canada as far as North America is concerned, under the name Super Alternators. They also got the Happy Meal release but the US got something Canada didn’t: minicomics!
“No, guys, you can’t keep it as a pet!”
Commandrons #1?
DC Comics/McDonalds (1985)
“Airborne!”
Oddly there are no credits for the creative team. I guess this is one they didn’t want to be known for. And I couldn’t find any information on the sites I thought to look on. Minicomics aren’t as well documented unless they’re part of a big fanbase like Masters Of The Universe so if anyone knows who worked on these, please let us know. I also don’t know for sure that this is the first issue but I’ll just pretend it is.
Four in all were produced but thus far the only one I’ve found a scan of online is the article I found out about it from, Battlegrip.com. Oddly the comic also included an ad and mailaway offer for another Tomy line, Robo Strux, which was a rebrand of the Zoids. The minicomics were made by DC Comics, who are showing off more often in this series than I expected. Super Powers Collection, MASK, Masters Of The Universe, Atari Force, Commandrons–what mini-comic will the DC logo appear on next? So click that first link in this paragraph and read along as we follow the adventure of four heroic robots and their pre-teen human pilots. Wait, what?
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