Review: Transformers: Combiner Wars: Season 1: Episode 1: The Fall

Is there more than meets the eyes with this series?

Similar to Harmonquest’s exclusivity on SeeSo, this Transformers series is a collaboration with Hasbro, the Youtube channel Machinima, a new-ish online streaming service from Verizon called go90. If you haven’t heard of go90 until now, welcome to the club, because Verizon has done little to help it stand out from services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or even the aforementioned SeeSo. Having a well-established franchise might be the way to fix that. Like I said in my look at the Preludes, I’m going to go into this series based only on what it presents. I understand the comics likely explain a lot of this far better, but I’m of the belief that this should stand on its own.

Hasbro has sold this show, Combiner Wars, as the first series made for adult Transformers fans, likely meaning those who read the comics, which cover a far wider array of darker, more intriguing themes and topics than any of the previous shows or movies have in the past. Plus, from what I’ve read through random posted scans, it also seems to be a lot better written. Aside from that, it turns out I was wrong about it all airing at once, as it seems only the first episode is currently out. So, I guess we’ll be following it one step at a time.

SPOILERS

From what I can tell, this takes place in the same, or at least similar, continuity to the original 80’s Transformers cartoon AKA what fans refer to as “G1”. Anyone who has even vaguely heard of Transformers could tell you the basic plot: Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. 40 years after the events of that show, the war has died down and the citizens of Cybertron are attempting to forge some sort of semblance of peace, forming a council representing the Autobots, Decepticons, and citizens of a sister planet called Caminus. Despite this, it seems the council has also obtained an object called the Enigma of Combination, a device that can merge several Transformers together into a gigantic being of one mind and amazing power. Some see this as a blessing through which their race can finally cement an era without war, while others fear that this will only give the Council unlimited and unstoppable authority over everyone.

We begin over the skies of Caminus, home of Windblade, one of the stars of the preludes. All seems quiet until two massive Combiners, Menosaur (who sounds he belongs in Beast Wars) and Computron (who sounds like he belongs in a Transformers parody), emerge from a space bridge (basically transporters) and fall towards the planet as they viciously tear each other limb from limb. Only, in this case, the limbs are whole Transformers. Where they came from or how they started fighting is unknown, but they seem to be demonstrating just how easily power like they have can get out of hand. They crash land onto the surface, and Menosaur makes his killing blow. He’s then met by Windblade and Maxima, the latter apparently being a new character (with the exact same model as Windblade) made for the show. Menosaur identifies Windblade as being the “city speaker”, but what exactly that means is unclear. What she DOES make clear (as she weirdly pops off her mouth coverings and flaps her lips out of synch with the audio) is that she doesn’t do that anymore, which Menosaur takes as an invitation to continue the fight.

As he plows through the abandoned streets and gets a leg sliced off for his trouble, he bellows at Windblade that her people are never coming back, and that more Combiners are on the way, which gives us some idea of the state of things on Caminus. Maxima charges forth, saying she’s doing “what needs to be done”. Apparently, what needs to be done is to blow jet engines in Menosaur’s face, which doesn’t seem to do more than annoy him enough to swat Maxima into a wall, killing her. So much for the new character. Enraged, Windblade further mutilates Menosaur in both Caminus and Maxima’s names. However, as Menosaur lays dying, he mocks her for justifying her actions, saying she’s just a killer like him, and that the Council is working on an army of Combiners with the Enigma of Combination. Windblade takes a moment to mourn her fallen comrade and the flies off, not noticing Computron is still alive.

This episode required a whole lot of guess work to fully comprehend, and without the preludes I might have been completely lost, but what I got from this was that this encounter was the last straw for Windblade, who will now begin her mission of vengeance against the Council and Combiners in general. While I understand that they only had a limited amount of time and money to get the point across, even a moment’s worth of exposition beyond this would have helped tons. I’m honestly unsure why they didn’t try to put this on TV, because there’s nothing I can tell from this episode or the preludes that really designates this series as any more “adult” than the other ones. It’s certainly got more action and is willing to kill a character off in the first episode, but so did Transformers Prime a few years ago, as I recall. I just hope the limited timeframe and budget doesn’t end up being a detriment to this show, but this episode did not help to assuage those worries.

The music and animation were definitely the highlights, establishing the tense, war-torn environment we are entering, as well as giving us what I assume we all came for: giant robots kicking the shit out of each other. The voice acting was fine, though the actual lines themselves are a bit melodramatic. I guess I shouldn’t be expecting much different from a Transformers cartoon, so I’ll probably get used to it as we continue. Overall, this first episode might be indicative of the problems we’ll see going into it, but at least we can look forward to more robot-combined-with-robot-on-robot-combined-with-robot action as we watch. And really, isn’t that all we want out of life?