Finally, after years of catering almost exclusively to children, Hasbro is teaming up with online video company Machinima to make a Transformers cartoon that is specifically targeted at the grown-up fans who can properly appreciate the depth and cleverness of its storyline. Some people think it’s all about the Autobots waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons—and on some level, it is—but there’s really so much more than that. Like, sometimes the robots used to be bad guys, and then they become good guys. And sometimes they go crazy and turn into bad guys, but then they become good guys again in the end. Oh, and sometimes there’s dinosaurs, and nobody knows if they’re good guys or bad guys, but then it turns out that they’re good guys. It’s practically Shakespeare!
Anyway, this new series will be based on the Combiner Wars line of Transformers toys and comic books, which all lean pretty heavily on the classic gimmick of having multiple normal-sized toys combine to form one toy that is impractically large. In other words, in order to make the most of one toy’s play potential (once again, this show is for adults), you have to buy a whole bunch of toys. It’s the Transformers equivalent of buying Barbie’s little sister or a Ken doll so they can combine with your Barbie to form a more powerful doll.
We don’t know much else about this new Transformers show, but Hasbro’s Tom Warner does confirm that it’s “specifically designed for the teen and adult fans who’ve grown up loving the Transformers brand.” Whether or not that means the characters will be able to say “shit,” though, remains to be seen.