The Energon Pub

[o.supreme]

Greetings All,

Admittedly this anniversary would have totaly passed me by if not for the Golden Lagoon releases a couple of days ago. So anyway, today was the day, 35 years ago that my personal favorite episode of the original series first aired.

"The Secret of Omega Supreme" written by David Wise (R.I.P.)

I wont bore you with a synopsis, but here is a link if you are unfamiliar


https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Secret_of_Omega_Supreme_(episode)

Admittedly I may or may not have seen it on it's first TV debut. I do recall being in the 4th grade, and after school competing with my female cousin who was 2 years younger than me for TV time after school (She-Ra aired at the same time on a different channel).

But I loved seeing this episode, and like to think (although completely untrue), that somehow I willed it into existence, or maybe I was just savvy to Hasbro's marketing strategy. .

Anyway, i was a couple months late to Transformers. I read the first comic (and didn't pic it up again until issue #25), but I was all in on the toys and cartoon from late in season 1 (Ultimate Doom 3 parter was the first episodes I saw). I quickly got caught up in reruns though.

When my friends and I saw the 1985 toy catalogue in the spring, I was instantly drawn to Omega, and that giant sparkler Fireball he was blasting at the Decepticons was awesome!

My first favorites were the Dinobots, but since they had been beaten by Devastator in Heavy Metal War, 9 year old me was livid that there was no Giant Autobot to challenge him. Now I seemingly got my wish. Seeing Omega Supreme in the opening of Season 2 gave me greater hope as he seemed awesome and powerful stomping Blitzwing flat.

I did catch his first few appearances (Blaster Blues & The God Gambit), and I was impressed. Golden Lagoon however kind of got me down, although the Decepticons "cheated" to beat him . I doubted that an Omega vs Devastator battle would ever happen, but "The Secret" gave me everything I wanted, all wrapped around an intriguing origin story (which admittedly had to retcon some ideas about the constructicons).

Omega had the exact Power, and personality I pretty much envisioned, and I'm glad this has pretty much carried through to today with an appearance in Siege on Netflix earlier this.
year.

This episode also had a Giant Monster, which got the Godzilla fan in me excited, and one of the settings was in San Francisco, a city I grew up just across the Bay From and visited many times. So needless to say, I felt this episode was written JUST for me, and am glad it exists.

It's not perfect, every time Megatron says "Energy Juice" I die a little bit on the inside, but overall I find the episode to be amazingly fun even 35 years later. If you all have 22 minutes to spare sometime this afternoon/evening go give it a watch.

[Rodimus Prime]

I also remember my first episode I ever saw: Starscream's Brigade. The 1st appearance of the Combaticons. I've been kinda obsessed with them ever since. But I remember this episode well, as it was 1 of the 1st episodes with some real emotion behind it, instead of just action, wisecracks, and toy-selling. I'll be honest, I never cared for Omega Supreme much in any continuity, except maybe the Dreamwave story where he goes 1-on-1 with Sunstorm. But this episode kinda made me think of the characters as more than just giant robots. And at the heart of this story was literally a giant robot. With feelings. So even if it didn't leave an impression on me like it did on you, I do remember this episode as 1 of the more serious or deep episodes. And despite other giants in the cartoon, I thought Omega was unique among them and should have had more story dedicated to him. He wasn't even in TF:TM I don't think.

[o.supreme]

Thanks for your response. Funny enough, as the original series almost ended it's reruns, I got the idea to start recording them on VHS. I only got a handful of episodes, and one of them was Starscream's Brigade, so I have that episode memorized (I don't know why I didn't record the puppet prime episodes, as I had the ability to), But I did record them all when they aired on Sci-Fi channel some time in 1993, and those edited versions would be my go-to until Rhino started releasing them on VHS in the late 90's, and DVD in 2001.

I've enjoyed all of Omega's portrayals to varying degrees across all media. Funny enough, as short lived as DW was, I still prefer that continuity for comics to any other. The Sunstorm story was pretty great, as was Omega's part in it.

Omega Supreme sadly did not appear in TF:TM. As many season 2 characters did not make it in because the movie had started production basically at the same time as the TV season 1, so only some early planned characters such as Blaster, Preceptor, The Decepticon Triple-Changers and Coneheads made it in (Grapple cameo in the background). There are some story boards of some of the season 2 Autobobt cars like Tracks & red Alert, but they were never animated.

In the early 2000's I took inspiration from the Star Wars special editions and wrote a fan-fic of "TF:TM: Special edition", basically adding in scenes of all the missing season 2 characters, and instead of a 2 pronged middle act, it would have been a 3 pronged one with Omega and the Autobot Combiners pursuing the Stunticons and Combaticons in a separate Decepticon ship and ending up on Char before reuniting on Cybertron for the final battle with Unicron.

A few years later in IDW's 4-part adaptation for the 20th anniversary, they added a splash-page with Omega Supreme, Superion, and Defensor defending Autobot HQ from Menasor and Bruticus. This was eerily similar to the start of my fan-fiction edition (though I think I had Skyfire also with the Autobots, and a few more random Decepticons that did not appear in TF:TM) .

Omega did make one appearance in season 3, the lackluster episode Big Broadcast of 2006. Though by then he was obviously replaced by his spiritual successor Skylynx. He also got a name drop in Grimlock's New Brain as apparently Omega and Lynx were the Autobots ONLY two modes of space travel (never mind the countless Autobot shuttles that must exist), and since they were both Unavailable, Grimlock had to build his own .

[Rodimus Prime]

Have you read the Marvel TF comics? I liked his origin and initial participation in the comics, unfortunately he was treated as the flavor of the month, and kinda faded from the spotlight. Just as with the cartoon, I thought they could have done so much more with him, considering his uniqueness. He was only slightly larger than a combiner, he was still the largest character in the comics, except maybe for the one-shot appearance of Trypticon and Unicron at the end.

[o.supreme]

Yes. Up until early this year I had pretty much every comic published by Marvel, DW, and IDW (sold them on eBay). I've always been more a fan of the animated series than the comics, though I did have them. I collected them as they originally came out from issue #25 on, and back issues were easy to get at that time, so yeah I read issue #19 many times. Unfortunately Hasbro's mandate to Budiansky was pretty much, to push a new toys every couple of issues, so very few characters were given much depth, even ones he really enjoyed writing, like Blaster. The same can be said for the original animated series, but for some reason, it just translated better in animation for me. You can just tell more story and get in more dialogue in 22 minutes of animation, than 20-or-so comic book pages. Plus in about 3 1/2 years you got 98 episodes and a movie, whereas in that same amount of time you only got about 45 or so comics (if you include the mini-series)

[sto_vo_kor_2000]

I also remember my first episode I ever saw: Starscream's Brigade. The 1st appearance of the Combaticons.

Interesting and funny note, that’s not quite accurate

The first episode to feature the Combaticons was Actually “Aerial assault” which aired anoint a month before “Starscreams Brigade”

(Yes they were ran out of sequence)

He wasn't even in TF:TM I don't think.

Nope Omega and none of the season 2 combiners got into the film

[Rodimus Prime]

I also remember my first episode I ever saw: Starscream's Brigade. The 1st appearance of the Combaticons.

Interesting and funny note, that’s not quite accurate

The first episode to feature the Combaticons was Actually “Aerial assault” which aired anoint a month before “Starscreams Brigade”

(Yes they were ran out of sequence)

Well I saw Starscream's Brigade before I saw Aerial Assault. I should have clarified, it was the first appearance of the Combaticons to me. And, as you know, it's the Combaticons' origin story, so it should have aired before Aerial Assault. Followed by Revenge of Bruticus.

[sto_vo_kor_2000]

I also remember my first episode I ever saw: Starscream's Brigade. The 1st appearance of the Combaticons.

Interesting and funny note, that’s not quite accurate

The first episode to feature the Combaticons was Actually “Aerial assault” which aired anoint a month before “Starscreams Brigade”

(Yes they were ran out of sequence)

Well I saw Starscream's Brigade before I saw Aerial Assault. I should have clarified, it was the first appearance of the Combaticons to me. And, as you know, it's the Combaticons' origin story, so it should have aired before Aerial Assault. Followed by Revenge of Bruticus.

Definitely I just thought it was a fun fact to point out that they were run out of order

[just_aCloud]

I'm glad this has pretty much carried through to today with an appearance in Siege on Netflix earlier this year.

First of all, what a great share regarding your favorite character. Great little insight into your life. Love it. And I thought Omega Supreme's scene in Siege was great.

Definitely I just thought it was a fun fact to point out that they were run out of order

I'm a 90s kid so I watched some G2 eps mornings before Kindergarten lol. It's so interesting to me learning about all the technical gaffes and other weirdness in that original cartoon all these years later.