Inhumanoids

Inhumanoids was a short-lived toyline released by Hasbro in 1986. Initially conceived under the name The Force Of Light, with a Marvel Comics development treatment written by Tom DeFalco. Inhumanoids was unusual in that it was named for the villains of the piece, centering on the scientist-cum-superhero team, Earth Corps, as they protected the world from the threat of the titular subterranean monsters with the aid of the elemental beings known as the Mutores. The series was, alas, not particularly successful, coming to an end after only one year.

As a contemporary of Transformers, Inhumanoids received a similar dual-pronged advertising push, consisting of an animated series produced by Marvel Productions and Sunbow, featuring many voice actors who also worked on Transformers and primarily scripted by Flint Dille, and a comic book series released by Marvel Comics under their "Star Comics" imprint which directly adapted the cartoon. The cartoon began as a seven-minute segment on the Super Sunday anthology series (alongside Robotix and Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines; Inhumanoids replaced Jem in the lineup as that show began its own dedicated series), running to fifteen installments that were later combined into a movie, which was then in turn split back into five half-hours and coupled with eight brand-new shows to form a complete season of thirteen half-hour episodes. The series was distinguished by an unusual art style that involved heavy use of shadow, often gory content, and a narrative structure highly unlike any other American cartoon at the time that saw the end of each episode lead directly into the next.

The Inhumanoids cartoon forged a connection with the larger "Sunbow universe" of Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Jem and the Holograms by featuring the omnipresent Hector Ramirez in his largest role, and indicating that one of the heroes was G.I. Joe's Ace. Even the gargantuan zombie-dinosaur D'Compose managed a cameo in the Jem episode "Broadway Magic" because cartoons are weird like that.

The comic book, meanwhile, was cancelled after only four issues, ending on a cliffhanger, but was nonetheless reprinted as a back-up strip in Marvel UK's Transformers title, running from #103-118.

Fiction

The AllSpark Almanac

Via Ask Vector Prime, Vector Prime stated that the events of Inhumanoids were canon for Primax 984.17 Alpha. The AllSpark Almanac II

Unit:E comic

Upon approaching the planet Earth, the artificial intelligence Synergy presented footage of beasts from the world of "Primordia" so that her crew-mate, the young Acroyear, could learn about his potential allies and enemies on the alien world. Unit:E

Notes

• Hasbro planned a relaunch of Inhumanoids in the early 2010s called Primordia. It would have been part of a Unit:E crossover from Prime, including Inhumanoids guys alongside Stretch Armstrong and Candyland.^[1]
• Fans started to spot Inhumanoids nods in G.I. Joe in 2017 (and so did industry sites looking at the solicitations^[2]), which ended up not going anywhere. Aubrey Sitterson revealed on his Patreon that the plan had indeed been to bring the Inhumanoids in, but at the eleventh hour Hasbro learned they didn't have the rights to the characters anymore either, not just the name! The comic swiftly changed them into the Fatal Fluffies, beasties from a Joe episode.
• The Armorizers released in the Legacy: United toyline hail from the "Infernac Universe", named for a location in Inhumanoids, and are depicted as dangerous rock-like warriors, though they are mechanical beings without any connection to the Inhumanoids cast. It might be a loose reference, but it's probably the closest an Inhumanoids presence in Transformers is going to be at this point!

References

External links

• Inhumanoids at Wikipedia
• Inhumanoids scripts, storyboards and other material at the Sunbow Marvel Archive