The most mysterious teaser to come along since 1999 (you know, the one that said Change is Coming to Toonami that relaunched the block?) premiered on January 27. In it, several closeups were seen but it remained ambiguous. Is that TOM, a Clyde, or is the block retooling from scratch?
I'm not really certain, but here's my theory of what each closeup means:
Frame 10:
The top of a tail end of a machine. It could be a Clyde or it could be a vehicle of sorts. The color scheme of the design is similar to the current Clydes as well as former Toonami series, Megas XLR (you can still catch the classic series on Toonami Jetstream). If memory serves correctly, Coop was a customizer of many things, and when he customized that robot of the future, this is the kind of paint job he put on the mech. It can't be a Clyde because they, like TOM, are nuclear powered, so what could it possibly be?
Frame 44:
This is a confusing, but interesting shot of a huge robot lumbering about with a head similar to TOM's. I'm not saying this is TOM because his paint job is rather faded and handmade, so this could be an older robot of sorts. I doubt that it's TOM which leads me to this question. Are they scraping the whole Absolution universe at Toonami for the 10th anniversary? It wouldn't be the first time they scrapped one continuity for another without explaining anything. Remember the segueway between Moltar and TOM? Of course not, it didn't happen. So, is this new robot the new host of Toonami or a robot controlled by the true power of the block?
Frames 76 (left) and 107 (right):
Again, we have something we've never seen on any mech or droid in any incarnation of Toonami. There's a wheel connected to something rolling along and another closeup of an engine. Here's another interesting theory. Perhaps this new Toonami takes place on the junk planet world last seen in the Endgame comic.
To backtrack for those just joining the program, Toonami.com presented a comic to explain the changeover from TOM's second shell as well as the new Absolution. Sara got kidnapped by this despotic bounty hunter who trapped TOM (who barely escaped the Absolution, which blew up) and tore him limb by limb. The denizens of the underground world rebuilt TOM using his head as a template and rebuilt him to be bigger than ever before. In the end, the robot citizens built TOM and Sara a brand new Absolution, and the rest you've seen. I'm not saying this new world may be the underground world seen in Endgame, but it could be a similar robot society.
Continue the examination of the teaser here.
