There are a lot of similarities between the 80s’ biggest bot changers. Both are alien species from metallic worlds, they convert their robotic bodies into vehicles (among other things), and they’re split into two factions of good and evil characters. The Autobots and Guardians have even made contact with humans who have helped in their assimilation to Earth. But one of the oddest coincidences in the earliest episodes of both shows is an evil human intent on mind-controlling all of Earth.
In the Season 1 multi-part series The Ultimate Doom, Megatron worked with a human named Dr Arkeville in an attempt to enslave the human race with his hypno-chips – small circuits implanted behind the ear which make people obedient servants to the Decepticon cause. In return for his work, Arkeville was promised to rule Earth once the Decepticons obtained enough energy to return to Cybertron.
Arkeville was your typical mad scientist with bushy white hair and a white lab coat. He wore a metal plate on his head, adorned with little pylons on each side, and had a metal hand. There was never any mention of what caused him to replace his dome and slap on a robot arm – in fact the bad doctor never even got a first name. But he did get a voice from the late great Casey Casem.
After agreeing to help Megatron with his plan in return for ruling Earth, Dr Arkeville learns there might not be an Earth to rule. Cybertron’s appearance in our orbit creates natural disasters that allow the Decepticons to harness the resulting energy, but they’re so strong, they might rip apart the entire planet. After turning on Megatron, he’s whisked away by Starscream, thinking the second-in-command might be the better partner.
In the following episode, Countdown to Extinction, Starscream has rigged a machine in Arkeville’s lab to blow, which again would destroy the Earth so Starscream could harness the energy. Arkeville is taken to Cybertron where he attempts to sabotage Starscream’s plan and, in return, is cybernetically modified against his will by Starscream. Robotics replaced almost all of his body except for one shoulder, one thigh, and half his face. Unfortunately for Arkeville, that’s the last we see of him, as he makes no further appearances in the series, which is a particularly dreadful end for one of the show’s more interesting characters.
Arkeville’s counterpart in the Challenge of the GoBots is Dr. Braxis, a gray-haired gaunt man in a green suit, voiced by a whiny Rene Auberjonois. Tired of not receiving enough credit for his work from NASA, Braxis makes a deal with Renegade leader Cy-Kill. In exchange for helping him build an army of Zods to take over GoBotron, Braxis would be left in control of Earth. To keep the Guardians and their new human allies from stopping them, Braxis activates the Pulsar Generator, a device he made that will control the minds of everyone not wearing a frequency neutralizer. Connecting the device to NORAD satellites allowed the Generator to take over the entire human population.
Braxis decried Cy-Kill for not handing over control of the humans until after the construction of the Zod army, and Cy-Kill threatened to remove his frequency neutralizer in return. Once the Guardians freed themselves from control of the Pulsar Generator, Cy-Kill set the device to self-destruct, which would have also destroyed the Earth, but Leader-1 saved the day and Braxis was left behind to be taken into custody, pleading temporary insanity.
Unlike Arkeville, who only appeared in a string of four episodes and was never seen or heard from again, Braxis made multiple appearances, even getting an episode named after him in his final showing (and also getting a first name, Zebediah). Heck, he even shows up in the series intro! Outside of the premier mini-series, Braxis appeared in five more episodes, sometimes starting in prison from previous episodes, sometimes just hanging out with Cy-Kill from the beginning.
His final appearance, “Braxis Gone Bonkers,” almost acts as a redemption story for Braxis where he starts in a mental hospital. Needing assistance getting around the Renegades’ stealth device, the Guardians go to Braxis for help. Braxis, wanting to prove himself to his previous employers, immediately agrees, but his crazy antics start causing problems right away. Kidnapped again by Cy-Kill after Braxis’s new device starts to dissolve the Renegade ship, he fixes the problem and escapes on a shuttle, never to be seen again. Maybe he ended up back in maximum security, but it’s still much better than being stuck in a cybernetic body, strapped to a chair on a whole other planet.
It’s really interesting to me that both shows have such early stories featuring:
1. A genius human
2. Turning against humans
3. Teaming up with the bad guys
4. Using mind-control
5. Promised control of Earth
6. Betrayed by the bad guys
7. Device threatens to blow up the Earth
8. Goofy hair
Even if the two doctors had similar plans in their original appearances, it’s clear Braxis fared much better in GoBots. Besides getting more screen time after the miniseries, we learn more about Braxis before his betrayal. And, you know, he could be living on Earth somewhere, free from the Guardians. One has to wonder what would have happened to Arkeville if he had shown up again in Transformers, and I think the show missed a great opportunity to bring back an interesting character.
If you want more cartoon bad guys running around with each other, check out my books Old School Evil and Old School Evil: The Rejects on Amazon, or go to my site www.oldschoolevil.com.
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