Unicron Attacks 2: Earth’s Last Stand

The astronomers have been watching the skies for days in a panic. Something is moving out there, approaching Earth, bigger than a comet or an asteroid and on a path that matches up with no orbit. The chief astronomer stands at the monitors of the observatory’s lab, watching the signals: radio, seismometers, everything at the disposal. They all confirm that there is something out there, some cosmic body, but nowhere from Earth or space can they actually see it. Every satellite in the sky is trained on the origin of the signals, every camera searching for a glimpse of it, but there’s nothing.

That is until the moon itself shatters. Two massive horns emerge from the darkness of space, plunging into the moon’s surface. A ring of massive metal teeth opens around the moon like a hungry eclipse. As the entirety of Earth watches, Luna is devoured by a monster planet.

We’ve seen it before, of course, in Transformers: The Movie. Unicron appears from nowhere, speeding through space until he chomps down on Lithone, destroying an entire world and its population. Cybertron almost succumbs to the same fate until Rodimus Prime opens the Matrix and destroys the Eater of Worlds.

I’ve written before about what other worlds of animation could survive an attack by Unicron, and you can read that article here. He-Man could potentially push Unicron away from Eternia, and Bravestarr might be able to blow up a bomb inside the Monster Planet. But what about Earth? Could the heroes on our own planet defeat Unicron? Or are we all doomed?

To figure this out, I looked at the cartoons that had the most likely chances to damage Unicron. Many of the cartoons from the 80s never reached space. COPS, MASK, Jem? They could never went to the stars. But others left orbit and touched the sky, so I’m going to focus on those that have a reliable, frequent way to go into space.

GI Joe

While many of the Joes’ adventures take place on the ground with normal tanks and jets, they do make it into space on more than a few occasions. In the Pyramid of Darkness, Cobra took over Space Station Delta which was equipped with a laser that destroyed Joe headquarters in just a few blasts. Unfortunately, the station has to be replenished often with ammunition, energy, and personnel, making it impossible for it to do enough damage to Unicron in a short amount of time.

In Red Rocket’s Glare, Cobra has a supply of 125-150 rockets equipped with Photon Disintegrators, but the damage show is only on buildings, reverting a city to nature, not leaving it as a smoking crater, so there’s no saying if it would affect Unicron at all. The Real American Hero frequently rides rockets into space to save spy satellites, but they’re only used for transport. Even if they could land their vehicles on Unicron’s surface in those rockets, I doubt normal tanks and missile launchers are enough to damage Unicron more than Galvatron’s cannon or Grimlock’s fire breath.

Starcom

The most dedicated space cartoon in the 80s, Starcom had a somewhat more grounded approach to traversing the stars. Yes, they had dogfights in space with the Shadow Force, but the show treated the characters as if they were real military organizations, broken up into different squadrons and branches. The vehicles weren’t too ridiculous, equipped with her standard sci-fi fair of warp drives and laser cannons. There’s no definitive indication of how big Starcom’s fleet is, though, so I have a hard time saying they have a chance against Unicron. Their weapons look to be no more effective than GI Joes, even if they could have an easier time delivering blows to Unicron.

One weapon in the cartoon looks capable of damaging Unicron, though there’s a catch. The Shadow Force’s main ship, yes the one with the ridiculous-looking face on it, houses a massive blaster. In the opening of the show, Emperor Dark commands to fire and a gigantic beam of energy shoots out, creating a giant explosion on an unseen target. The big problem here is that it’s only ever seen in the intro. That mouth cannon doesn’t make a proper appearance in a single episode, so there’s no way to determine how powerful it is, how easy it is to aim, or how frequently it can fire. It might as well not even exist since show intros often have things that aren’t realistic to the contents of the show (Case in point – Inspector Gadget catching Dr Claw).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

No, there is not a chance that 4 young reptilian martial artists could damage Unicron with wooden weapons and a blimp. Technically, they could make it to Unicron’s surface by teleporting to Dimension X first, and then teleporting back into our dimension onto Unicron. Donatello’s portal uses the same technology as the Technodrome, which we’ve seen teleport all over Earth as long as it uses Dimension X as a starting point. But could the Turtles do anything once they’re there? We don’t even know if there’s an atmosphere on or in Unicron – the only two humans that went there had exosuits.

I do, however, think Krang has a decent chance. As I said, the Technodrome could get to Unicron’s surface. Once there, it could tunnel into the planet using drills and saw blades on the bottom. We’ve seen the Technodrome drill completely to the Earth’s core, which it also survived with no damage. While the Technodrome has a bunch of giant guns mounted everywhere, unfortunately, there are not a lot of demonstrations of their power, so we can’t say what Krang could do once it’s inside Unicron. But that’s not the best bit – in the episode The Big Blowout, after rising to the surface and taking hold of the city’s power grid, the Technodrome creates a portal to Dimension X big enough to suck the entire planet through. What’s to stop Krang from doing the same to Unicron? Even if the portal couldn’t reach that far out into space, if the Technodrome was on Unicron’s surface, I would imagine it could siphon power from Unicron to create a portal right in front of the Monster Planet and suck it through.

Centurions

This one’s a long shot, but I believe they have a chance. Even though Ace’s weapon system is the only one capable of reaching space on its own, Skyvault has shown no problems teleporting the Centurions into space, as Operation Starfall showed them getting teleported to the moon. Their suits are self-contained, which means they could survive on Unicron’s surface or interior even if it didn’t have an atmosphere. With all five of the Centurions, they could possibly infiltrate Unicron and find vital systems to destroy or incapacitate. Ammunition isn’t a problem either, as Skyvault can replenish weapons through teleportation as well.

Granted, five humans would have a hell of a time making their way through an entire planet, even if it isn’t nearly the size of Earth. While I don’t think they could possibly kill Unicron, I do think they could potentially disable him, considering the pain he seemed to experience while the Transformers were running amok in his guts. Not to mention Unicron’s internal defense systems would be a piece of cake for the Centurions to take out. They just gotta find that brain, or whatever that room is with a bunch of monitors in it.

After careful research, I’ve determined only four shows have the technology and experience to take the fight to Unicron. Do you think any of them are capable of saving Earth from the threat of Unicron’s hunger? Are there any other teams you think that are capable of defeating the Monster Planet? And if you want more ultimate animated evil, check out my books Old School Evil and Old School Evil: The Rejects on Amazon.