A few days ago we were hit by the news of the passing of Roger Corman, this was why the review about the crab monsters ( Attack of the Crab Monsters #RogerCorman) was presented again in social media. I had wanted to review another film by him, but sadly I lacked access to any I was in the mood to review, and a little explanation of why his work was so important, especially these days. Failing that I will instead do something to cheer myself up and review a classic Transformers episode.

I always find it a sign of a good Transformers series in how it handles the Decepticons. Namely if they can hold the majority of the plot of an episode, it means they are usually more fleshed out than just throw away cannon fodder, a reason I’m not too fond of the live action movies. This episode, as well as being mainly a showcase to sell the Combaticons, (happened a lot with toy selling shows, but then this is season 2 of Transformers, many characters would just show up with no origin or explanation.) Also doesn’t have any Autobots show up till around the 7 minute mark of a 23 minute cartoon.

For anyone who has ever wondered why Megatron never kicked out Starscream for being Starscream, well this episode starts with that and boots him to an island, well technically it shows some WW2 scenes in black and white except coloured blasts, but that’s because that’s the island that Starscream is booted too.

Soon Starscream leaves the island… because he can fly of course, after finding some old vehicles and getting an idea. He uses the Decepticon space bridge to pop to Cybertron, breaks into a holding area that housed personality chips (this was before sparks were invented by Beast Wars) and, after committing mass murder by blowing up the rest (show glosses over that part) he puts them into the vehicles turning them into the Combaticons.

These were a team of 5 Decepticons with military vehicles (and a space shuttle) as alt modes. These are another of what are called Scramble Cities Combiners but we will get to that later.

As said this is an episode mainly to show off these new toys. This leads to what you eventually want to see with something like this, Combiners vs Combiners, which Starscream reveals for the final battle that they can do that taking down Devastator but losing to Menosaur of the Stunticons before blasting Starscream and Bruticus, the Combaticons combined form.

This is majorly a Decepticon episode. The Autobots only play a minor role with Starscream capturing a few to give energy components to the Combaticons, the threat he uses to keep them loyal to him.

So if you are a Starscream fan, or a fan of the Combaticons (lets face it they are the best Decepticon Combiner team, everyone who has played Fall of Cybertron will tell you that)  this is obviously a must watch. We see Starscream trying to be a leader, for both his cunning as a strength but also his incompetency in other elements. While yeah all the action scenes are to show off the new Decepticon toys in action and get their origin.

Rating: 👍👍👍