The Secret of Omega Supreme
Title card via TFWiki, fan-archive fair use
Omega Supreme's grudge against the Constructicons is revealed through the tragic story of the city they once destroyed.
A rocket ship bursts out of the ocean and travels into space, landing on an asteroid and then directing the hunk of rock into Earth orbit. A door on the rocket opens, revealing the Constructicons, who step out and signal Megatron of their success. The Decepticon leader intends to mine the asteroid for the energy-rich ore inside.
During his own orbit of the Earth, Cosmos catches sight of the operation and reports in to Autobot headquarters. Optimus Prime contacts Omega Supreme for help. During a one-on-one chat, Optimus senses that Omega is holding a grudge against the Constructicons and demands an explanation. Omega complies in normal speech.
On Cybertron, Omega Supreme is a good-natured, friendly Guardian Robot. One of his assignments is guarding the Crystal City, the creation of his friends, the Constructicons. Unfortunately, they are altered by Megatron's Robosmasher and permanently changed into Decepticons. The Constructicons then trick Omega into leaving his post, and during his absence, they destroy the city. After losing his friends, his job and his city all in the same day, Omega swears he will first help his friends recover and then will get vengeance on Megatron.
For weeks, Omega tracks the Constructicons, until he captures them and tries to reprogram them. At first, it appears that they have been restored, but on their way home, the Robosmasher corners them. The Constructicons form Devastator and wrestle Omega into the Robosmasher's clutches. The machine goes to work at reprogramming Omega; he is able to pull away in the middle of the process, but the experience leaves him scarred and emotionally barren except for his desire for vengeance against his former friends. He chases after them for millions of years and finally finds them on Earth.
Knowing that Omega's judgement might be clouded fighting the Constructicons, Optimus orders him to remain on Earth unless Prime himself gives the order to head to the asteroid. Omega acknowledges Prime's order.
In space, Cosmos gets a sample of the ore from the asteroid and brings it back to headquarters. Teletraan I determines that the ore is organic in nature. Prime has just ordered Omega to destroy the asteroid, and now he regrets that decision. His further attempts to contact Omega fail because the huge Autobot is bent on revenge.
Once on the asteroid, the vengeful Omega immediately attacks his enemies, wildly smashing open a huge fissure. The entire asteroid breaks in two like an egg, hatching an alien creature, which flies toward Earth.
The creature heads straight toward Earth and begins to destroy San Francisco. Powerglide, Ironhide, Smokescreen, Tracks and Beachcomber move to stop it, but fail after several attempts.
—Optimus Prime and Omega Supreme
—Devastator parrots Omega's words back at him while holding him down for the Robosmasher to reprogram him.
—Omega Supreme reveals the results of his betrayal to Prime.
—Omega Supreme after being ordered to remove the Constructicons from the asteroid in orbit of the planet.
—Scrapper and Omega Supreme
- The uncharacteristic eloquence displayed by Omega Supreme in this episode was actually the result of writer David Wise being unaware of Omega's normal speech pattern and scripting the episode with normal dialogue. This was due to the speech pattern being created by freelance writer Larry Strauss in the "Blaster Blues" script, submitted on March 13th, 1985. By the time the show's story editors decided to approve Omega's speech pattern for all future dialogue, David Wise had likely either partly or fully completed his script for this episode, submitted April 4th. The editors were forced to insert Optimus Prime's request for Omega to "talk like a normal Autobot" to make the flashback work.
- This episode's animation plays out as though the budget ran out half-way through. While early on we get lovely shots like Omega looming over Prime and Astrotrain launching from Decepticon headquarters, later on, multiple shots are recycled, to increasingly nonsensical effect. Omega's capture of the Constructicons, for example, contains two different shots we saw just a couple of scenes back. The refinery establishing shot is reused 3 times, and Prime's attack on the refinery reuses the same explosion 3 times in a row.
- For reasons unknown, Hook appears to be leading the Constructicons in the present-day sequences. He reports to Megatron twice and directs his teammates throughout their work on the asteroid. In the flashback sequences, however, Scrapper leads, as usual.
- As with the other new characters introduced in Season 2 up to this point, Omega Supreme simply turned up with no explanation in his first appearance in "Blaster Blues". In this episode however, we actually get an account as to where he came from: he made his way to Earth once he discovered the Constructicons were there.
- We get a pretty consistent scale reference for Devastator and Omega Supreme; Devastator almost comes up to Omega's shoulders.
- Several ancient Transformers are shown, including Robodoctor and a mustachioed Robosmasher victim. The latter, originally an unnamed generic, was retroactively identified as a Gyronian Sentry when he (they, as it turns out) appeared in the Collectors' Club magazine comic "Battle Lines".
Screencaps via TFWiki (Teletraan I), used under fan-archive fair use.