The Transformers – Season Two, Volume Two [25th Anniversary Edition]
(2009, Shout! Factory) Originally Aired: November 6, 1985 – January 9, 1986
Special Features:
“The Combiner: Forming The Transformers Animated Series”
Rare PSAs
Archival Hasbro Toy Commericals
Concept Art
Ah… So HERE we have the special features. Looks like Shout Factory was saving them for the second volume of Season 2. Which I think is weird. Not that I’m a special features guy anyway but if it was up to me, I would’ve split whatever features they had between the two volumes.
So I’m starting to like the TF cartoon a lot more than I did when I was a kid. I still prefer G.I. Joe but it’s pretty hard to deny how cool it is to see giant robots knocking each other on their butts!
The second half of Season 2 is very strong. We get a lot more Transformers introduced, more sub-teams: Stunticons, Aerialbots, Combaticons and Protectobots. I really love these episodes, it’s always fun seeing a bunch of new Transformers join the team and it’s also fun to see what they can combine into.
On the Decepticon side, the Stunticons combine to form Menasor. Not really a fun of these guys. The Stunticons are stunt cars that Megatron used Vector Sigma (the computer that created Cyberton) to give life to. Tough cars, they love to speed around and crash into stuff but individually and combined as Menasor, they look generic. The other new Decepticon combiner is Bruticus who is composed of the Combaticons. The Combaticons and Bruticus all look pretty cool. Combaticons are earthly military vehicles that were given life by Starscream through the use of 5 Decepticon personality components that had been imprisoned on Cybertron.
For the Autobots, there is Superion, which is the combined form of the Aerialbots. The Aerialbots were originally used as transport shuttles on Cybertron and were also given life by Vector Sigma, with the help of Alpha Trion, in order to combat the Stunticons. Finally, there is the Protectobots and their gestalt known as Defensor. No origin story here, they just showed up in one of the last episodes and the seasons and seem to primarily spend their time in the city protecting humans rather than hanging out at Autobot HQ waiting for the Decepticons to strike.
There’s some good character/origin episodes in this set. We learn about more Omega Supreme and his relationship with the Constructicons, how Optimus Prime became Optimus Prime and as mentioned above we get to see more hows and whys of the combiners joining the ranks.
Granted, there are some pretty stupid episodes but that’s the be expected. “The Girl Who Loved Powerglide” is awful and shows Powerglide and some human girl falling in love (!!!). “Hoist Goes Hollywood” is another bad one and it features the Autobots becoming actors and they end up battling the Decepticons on set. I didn’t really care much for “Prime Target” either which has a human game-hunter going after Optimus Prime in order to mount his head on his wall.
Out of all 21 episodes included in this set, there’s only one I vaguely remembered from my childhood — “Auto-Bop” and that’s just for the dance club scenes alone. Ah, nostalgia!
Very good set that concludes a very good season. Looking forward to picking up that Season 3 & 4 DVD collection but there’s a movie I have to talk about first…
Highlights: ”The Secret of Omega Supreme”, “The Search for Alpha Trion”, “Triple Takeover”, “The Key to Vector Sigma” Parts 1 & 2, “Cosmic Rust”, “Starscream’s Brigade”, “The Revenge of Bruticus”
Buy ‘Transformers: Season Two, Vol. 2 (25th Anniversary Edition)’ at Amazon.com
