Robotech has a complicated history in the world of anime, not only due to complaints about the liberties taken with the source material but also because the actual creation of the property itself is quite convoluted. The story begins in the early 1980s when American film and television company Harmony Gold saw potential in exporting anime (then called “Japanimation”) to the West.
The first “anime” for many viewers, Robotech is as iconic as it is controversial. Many have yearned for a Robotech reboot, regardless of what medium it shows up in. Ironically, such a reboot was previously attempted in comic books, with a publisher synonymous with the grim and gritty 1990s involved in the venture. While it’s largely forgotten nowadays, this brief revival attempted to capture the spark of what made the original series such a hit.
Updated by Timothy Blake Donohoo on September 25, 2024: Robotech is one of the most iconic and infamous anime franchises of all time, with plenty of detractors and fans. Thus, there was an attempted Robotech reboot by a once-popular comic book publisher. It’s now long forgotten and lost to print, but it represents an important part of the brand’s disparate story.
DC, Transformers, and So Many Legal Issues
As many fans are aware, the show that became known as Robotech in the West is actually an amalgam series of sorts. Screenwriter Carl Macek was hired to adapt the 1982 series Super Dimension Fortress Macross for daily American syndication. Still, the weekly series didn’t have the requisite 65 episodes required for a syndicated series. A decision was made to pair Macross with two shorter anime, 1984’s Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and 1983’s Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, to create an 85-episode series.
The disparate continuities would be explained as time jumps between episodes, but this didn’t make things easier regarding marketing and promotion. Complicating matters for the brand would be American model kit manufacturer Revell’s existing deal with the producers of Macross and a few other anime studios for a line of mecha scale-model kits imported from Japan. Revell called their two model lines Robotech Defenders and Robotech Changers. Revell even had a deal with DC Comics to promote Robotech Defenders as a limited series.
Revell’s existing contracts prevented Harmony Gold from producing merchandise for their animated adaptation of Macross, and much of the appeal of entering animation in the 1980s was indeed the merchandising profits. Harmony Gold entered a co-licensing agreement with Revell, one with their 85-episode series entitled Robotech. The co-licensing deal enabled Revell’s nascent Robotech to benefit from a daily animated series promoting the brand and Harmony Gold to pursue other merchandising opportunities, like an action figure line from Matchbox.
As for DC’s two-issue Robotech Defenders comic, which had nothing to do with Harmony Gold, the continuity established by writer Andy Helfer and artist Judith A. Hunt would be unceremoniously declared “non-canon” and forgotten. However, the comic used the same Robotech logo as the Harmony Gold production.
Considering that the toy was designed by mecha pioneer Shoji Kawamori — who also designed the characters Westerners now know as Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Prowl, and Ratchet for Japan’s preceding Diaclone line — Transformers fans could understandably feel as if Jetfire fit right in. Kawamori’s time freelancing for Diaclone predates his development of Macross, but the designs have noticeable consistency. The character of Jetfire was intended to maintain his Macross design in both robot and vehicle mode in animation. However, complications with the Japanese toy rights had the Autobot renamed Skyfire in the Transformers animated series (which also aired in Japan) and redesigned to remove obvious similarities to the Valkyrie.
Harmony Gold and Matchbox, meanwhile, couldn’t release a robot-to-vehicle Valkyrie toy, arguably the Robotech cartoon’s signature vehicle, thanks to Hasbro’s existing deal. Instead, Robotech fans had to be content with Matchbox’s non-transformable version with some “legally distinct” design changes. Later model kits for the Macross series have been released in various anime hobby shops, though any new Robotech toys have been non-existent for decades.
Likewise, later toys for Jetfire in the Transformers series have eschewed and evoked designs from the original toy line and cartoon. Examples include the designs seen in the Unicron Trilogy of anime, which share the original Jetfire’s classic white and red color scheme but have a much different aesthetic. On the other hand, his most recent action figures have combined these Generation 1 designs, even retaining the “gerwalk” transformation that’s essentially a halfway point between jet and robot.
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