Inhumanoids

This article is about the franchise. For the titular species, see Inhumanoid.

Inhumanoids was a short-lived toyline released by Hasbro in 1986. Unusual in that it was named for the villains of the piece, Inhumanoids centred 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 Jem; Inhumanoids replaced Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines in the lineup), 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 Transformers cartoon

In Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac II, Vector Prime states that the events of Inhumanoids are canon for Primax 984.17 Alpha.

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

• Shattered Glass is a universe where, for the most part, the usual heroes are villains and vice versa: the Inhumanoids being a menace there too is an oddity.
• Hasbro planned a relaunch of Inhumanoids in the early 2010s, now called Primordia. That's normal. What isn't is that it would be part of a Unit:E crossover from Transformers: Prime, including Inhumanoids guys alongside Stretch Armstrong and Candyland.

External links

• Inhumanoids at Wikipedia