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Toys / Hero Factory

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/250px-HF_Logo_4221.png

"We, the good, bold and virtuous, stand united against the malignant forces in the universe. Our sole and unwavering resolution: to root out and eliminate all things lowdown, vile and villainous. We go forth with conviction and courage, and strive wholeheartedly against the dark. Together, we build a safer universe. We build a better tomorrow. We build heroes."

LEGO's successor to BIONICLE, following the initial end of its toyline. However, this theme was discontinued in favour of a reboot of BIONICLE.

Hero Factory revolves around the construction of robotic heroes in order to protect the similarly robotic populace. Each Hero is unique, with their own distinct personalities and equipment. Our story takes place in Makuhero City, located on a terraformed asteroid. At the heart of Makuhero City is the towering Hero Factory, where new Heroes are constructed in the dozens and equipped with the tools they need for the latest job, whether it be fighting fires or bringing in villains.

Like BIONICLE, Hero Factory has a more detailed story told in various media. There are online comics, comics published in the LEGO Club Magazine and animated TV miniseries/Direct to Video projects.

There are six story arcs so far:

  • Rise of the Rookies (2010)
  • Ordeal of Fire (Winter 2011)
  • Savage Planet (Summer 2011)
  • Breakout (2012)
  • Brain Attack (2013)
  • Invasion from Below (2014).

Our heroes are the Factory's elite Alpha Team:

  • William Furno. The Hero originally, though has moved on to Older and Wiser. A Rookie with potential to be an incredibly powerful Hero. Pushes himself hard - probably too hard - to live up to Stormer's high standards as well as his own.
  • Preston Stormer. Alpha Team Leader. Level-headed and no-nonsense; he sets high standards for everyone under his command, including himself.
  • Mark Surge. A Rookie alongside Furno. A nice guy but tends to let his emotions get the better of him.
  • Natalie Breez. Another Rookie with Surge and Furno. Graceful and confident; her experimental systems give her the ability to communicate with animals.
  • Duncan Bulk. Your standard Dumb Muscle and Boisterous Bruiser.
  • Jimi Stringer. Laid-back and an amateur musician. Later would adopt a dose of "southern stereotype" mannerism.
  • Nathan Evo. One of the first 2.0-model heroes to be built. A calm and meditative weapons master.
  • Julius Nex. Another of the first 2.0 Heroes. An outgoing expert in communications (including social networking) with enhanced flexibility and senses.
  • Daniel Rocka. The newest Rookie and replacing Furno as The Hero, beginning with the crisis on Quatros. Modeled on Furno but is perhaps even more impulsive.
  • There's also the Recon Team: The information and intelligence division, led by Merrick Fortis. Out-of-universe, it was set up by Lego to give fans a place to incorporate their Sailor Earth characters and, during the 2.0 and 3.0 waves, allow them to actually design and purchase figures of their custom Heroes.

Together, they fight against the many evil villains of the universe:

  • Von Nebula: The head of a criminal organization with a grudge against the Factory. Originally Von Ness, a Hero himself and teammate of Stormer's. Ran from a battle while Stormer tried to catch him, and he blames Stormer for his disgrace.
  • The Fire Lord: Once a mining bot, he was modified to absorb energy from fuel cells as an alternative to needing a refueling station. But he and the other modified bots became addicted to energy and started attacking power stations.
  • Witch Doctor: Envious of the Heroes' Power Cores, Professor Aldous Witch went to the jungle planet of Quatros to illegally mine some of the raw material, Quaza. There he found a stone skull, which when empowered with Quaza turned him into the tyrannical Witch Doctor.
  • Black Phantom: Devious criminal mastermind who has orchestrated two attempts to sabotage Hero Factory, including a massive jailbreak which forced the Factory to stretch their forces thin while he attacked their assembly line.
  • Core Hunter: Former Hero-turned-criminal whose signature style involves removing the power cores of other Heroes. When we see him, he's attempting to rebuild an ancient Weapon called the Doom Box.
  • Brains: Mysterious swarm creatures capable of possessing bodies they come into contact with. Their origin is not completely known, but their mission is clear: Destroy Hero Factory at all costs.
  • Beasts: 2014's main enemies. Giant monsters that attack Antropolis City, aided by the Hero-sized spider like Jumpers. To battle them, the Heroes have built the Machines.

Hero Factory provides examples of:

  • Adaptational Badass: Pretty much everyone in the tie-in novels when compared to their TV representations, but the most obvious would have to be Black Phantom.
  • Advertising by Association: The packaging of the first wave had a label boasting "From the makers of BIONICLE!"
  • All There in the Manual:
    • Several things are in the Brickmaster Hero Factory Booklet that you can't find in other places, like why Von Nebula wants to destroy Hero Factory.
    • The website also explains a lot.
  • Arrow Cam: Used in the online Breakout game when you fire the last shot at a henchman
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Hero Factory FM Podcast 4, there is a look at Gargantuan Smash's "villainous past". There is a recording of a typical "terrorizing streets" rant, followed by what sounds like he's opening fire on a restaurant over an ended promotion.
  • Animal Motifs: The 3.0 Heroes are all based off of certain animals. For example, Rocka is made to look like a lion.
  • Big "NO!": Furno in the Ordeal of Fire series.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Averted during the climax of Rise of the Rookies; Breez, Surge, Stringer, and Bulk are able to defeat Thunder, Meltdown, Corroder, and XPlode by evading them until they run out of ammo.
  • Brought to You by the Letter "S": Heroes' Power Cores are on their chest, in the shape of the factory's H logo. During the Breakout, the Heroes' chests are further decorated with designs which somehow represent their element (Furno's flames) or their personality (tech-expert Nex's circuit-like patterns).
  • Character Blog:
    • Sort of; there's the Hero Factory FM Radio.
    • There's also an in-universe version mentioned in the online bio for Nex.
      (He) is also the head of Hero Outreach. Follow him on HeroFeed, or friend him on HeroBook!"
  • Chained Heat: Furno and Breez wind up with their weapons stuck together at one point in Ordeal of Fire. Like a Chinese finger trap, the break free by moving closer together as per Nex's suggestion.
  • Chromatic Arrangement: (Former) Rookie group Furno, Surge, and Breez.
  • Company Cross References: One of the online games has "S-L-I-Z-E-R-S" as an access code, with Slizer being the name of a previous LEGO toyline.
  • Compilation Movie: Rise of the Rookies is basically the four episodes of the TV miniseries put together.
  • Cool Helmet
  • Darker and Edgier: The tie-in novels.
    • "Invasion From Below"
  • Description Cut: From Ordeal of Fire
    Akiyama Makuro: [Until the upgrades are safe to roll out] the current crop of Heroes are keeping the galaxy safe just fine.
    (Cut to Alpha Team barely holding out at a mining shaft)
  • Dug Too Deep: What kicks off the plot of Invasion from Below.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The first wave of sets were the only Hero Factory sets not to use the Character and Creature Building System introduced in the 2.0 line, instead using the Technic building system with sets that wouldn't look out of place in BIONICLE. The 2.0 and 3.0 sets are also different from the other upgrades in the sense that the Heroes were given entirely new helmet designs compared to how all later upgrades made it a point to keep their heads recognizable.
    • The first commercials suggested Hero Factory was a part of the modern-day real world, with regular human children calling the Heroes to fight Villains in real-life locations. All later media portrayed the cast in a futuristic setting populated entirely by robots.
  • Elemental Powers: Well, Elemental Motifs, anyway, used in versions 1.0 and "4.0":
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's a factory that builds heroes.
  • Fantasy Gun Control: Sort of. Most of the characters use non-standard weaponry, but Duncan Bulk has his 'metal sphere shooter'.
  • Fashionable Asymmetry: Several Heroes have rather asymmetrical armor. Splitface too.
  • Fictional Social Network: The series' equivalents to Facebook and Twitter are called Herobook and Herofeed, respectively.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: The initial 1.0 line had this due to the use of the hand piece from Bionicle. Averted with the 2.0 series onwards. The sets, that is. Strangely, the TV series still portrayed characters with Four-Fingered Hands until the Breakout arc.
  • Funny Background Event: In one scene of Ordeal of Fire when Akiyama Makuro is describing the Upgrade, you can see Julius Nex flirting with reporter Daniella Capricorn in the background. It's all done very subtly with hand gestures, so it's easy to miss. But it's all worth it for his mopey look when she rejects his flirtations and returns her attention to Makuro's press conference.
  • G-Rated Drug: Mere energy for the Fire Lord and his gang. He even has a speech about how strongly they're all addicted to it and can't stop getting more.
  • Government Conspiracy: In the novels, an alliance of planetary Governments is behind several attempts to destroy Hero Factory.
  • Heart Light: the Hero Cores
  • Heroes "R" Us: It's called Hero Factory; what do you expect?
  • Heroic RRoD: Furno Undergoes one in "The Trials of Furno", where he tries to perfect his fighting capabilities to defeat Rotor, and ends up draining his core from training so much.
  • Hope Spot: A hilarious one in the Brain Attack series. The Heroes have discovered the Brains weakness, and freed all the creatures from its influence...and then the Brain-possessed Dragon Bolt arrives and curbstomps them with a single lightning blast. Cue a priceless reaction from Furno.
    Furno: (deadpan) A dragon. Seriously?
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: In the animated series, and it applies to everybody.
  • I Will Tear Your Arms Off: Stormer threatens to do this to the DJ Mak Megahertz in one of the Hero Factory podcasts. It's implied that he carried out the threat, too, but Mak's a robot, so he got better.
  • Killed Off for Real:
    • From the books, possibly Core Hunter and his henchman Geb, definitely Arctur, Kirch, and the latter's Brain squad. In "Mirror World," Karter and Alternate versions of Splitface, Toxic Reapa, Thornraxx, and Von Nebula also bite it (Expendable Alternate Universe is in full effect here).
    • Surprisingly, the "Invasion From Below" episode kills off almost every single Jumper. With acid.
  • Lampshade Hanging: In the description of Von Nebula's staff◊ on the website:
    The function of the surrounding blades has not yet been determined, but one senior analyst suggests they are there to make the entire staff "look scary."
  • Let's Split Up, Gang!:
  • Leitmotif: The Fire Lord and his group have a rather distinct musical piece that comes up whenever the Villains themselves do.
  • Lighter and Softer: When compared to its predecessor...which was Darker and Edgier in turn, so Hero Factory's tone is more or less in line with the other Lego Themes.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Multi-tool Ice Shields in 2.0, as well as circular shields most Heroes used in Brain Attack.
  • Meaningful Name: Like, everyone, save a handful of characters.
  • Merchandise-Driven: Made by a toy company. So... yeah.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: Happens with every new wave of toys.
  • The Musical: One of the Hero Factory FM podcasts has Tibor Terrell presenting a clip of Hero Factory The Musical. Megahertz wastes no effort in secretly complaining about how bad it is.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Several of the villains have these. Meltdown and Corroder come to mind.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Averted; the Fire Lord has taken weaponry used in the previous arc and upgraded it.
    • In the Breakout arc, Jawblade has done the same.
  • Out of Focus: Heroes are often rotated out at new story arcs. The exception is the Breakout arc, which is double-length compared to the previous ones and can therefore include all nine Heroes to date.
  • Planetary Core Manipulation: The planet Quatros' core was once a mine site for the rare mineral Quaza, but mining was banned there once it was discovered that this affected the planet's plants and animals. As a result, the planet became a nature preserve. Of course the Witch Doctor, Big Bad of the Savage Planet arc, doesn't care about that. He begins illegally mining on Quatros, and the Heroes have to stop him before the planet dies from having its core depleted.
  • Plasma Cannon: Introduced in the Breakout wave.
  • Power Incontinence: The main issue with upgrading existing Heroes to 2.0 was difficulty adapting to the new bodies. This causes things such as weapons being fired at the worst times and not-so-graceful movement. Furno and Breez also get their weapons locked together at one point
  • Power Trio: Furno, Surge, and Breez; who were all manufactured in the same batch and went through training together.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Rocka delivers one in Savage Planet. The cheesiness of it is lampshaded, as Rocka complains that he "can't say it", only for Furno and Nex to tell him it's mandatory.
    Rocka: Okay, Witch Doctor. The only medical care you'll be seeing to is your own!
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: At least BIONICLE justified their characters having emotions/personalities with the bio-mechanical nature of Matoran Universe beings, and the organic-at-birth nature of Bara Magna residents. The Heroes (all the residents of Makuhero City, actually) are outright stated to be purely mechanical robots, with the Heroes literally built in an assembly line, so this trope is in full effect.
    • In the "Bulk and Vapour" set, Bulk's helmet is outfitted with breathing tubes. ROBOTS DON'T BREATHE.
      • Possibly justified, as they might have been for cooling his circuitry, which would be rather hazardous to do without some sort of filter when fighting a villain who uses water as it's main weapon.
  • Robotic Assembly Lines: Vertical assembly lines.
  • Running Gag:
    • The soft drink Power Core has been referenced three times: once in the Hero Factory FM podcast, once in the TV episode The Enemy Within, and most recently in the online game Breakout. Preston Stormer is always their celebrity endorsement, and he doesn't hesitate to show his reluctance.
    • The laughably bad promos in Hero Factory FM are also one of these.
  • Sailor Earth: Lego always encourages kids to create their own stuff, but the Recon Team takes it a bit further than before by setting aside a special place for these characters in canon and letting fans buy their own custom Heroes.
  • Second-Person Attack: The Trials of Furno has a shot showing Rotor's point of view as Furno lays a few punches on him.
  • Shaped Like Itself: The slogan: Hero Factory. We build Heroes.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy:invoked It's pretty high for the most part, but the sets do receive some changes in their transition to animated form. Namely, sets without back armour get one (even in the legs and arms- something no set features), everyone has two hands (many sets feature only one hand piece, the other one being replaced by a socket joint upon which is built a weapon), the armour arrangement is sometimely changed, many glowing details are added (glowing eyes, glowing cores, glowing armour and weapon decorations), characters' eye colour are changed. Special mention, however, goes to Stormer's 4.0 form. The set is much taller than the other heroes, and is fittingly called "Stormer XL". In the show, Stormer is visibly downsized, being only slightly taller than the other characters, and fights villain Speeda Demon on a bike that isn't even included in the Stormer XL set, let alone exists in toy form (the bike is basically a recolour of the Furno Bike from the 1.0 wave). Many of the characters also wear belts or rectangular containers, akin to a tool box. Affixed to their butts.
  • So Much for Stealth: After the Alpha Team gets the upgrade, they plan to sneak into the fuel mine. This is botched when Furno accidentally sets off his weapon, blowing their cover.
  • Spiritual Successor: to BIONICLE (at least in toy form if not story)
  • Stopped Numbering Sequels: The second and third releases noted the Heroes' upgrades by labeling them version 2.0 or 3.0. The fourth release isn't bothering.
  • Teleporter Accident: In Savage Planet, Rocka's team takes a shortcut to one of the Quaza mines via a teleporter, and they wind up shrunken down.
  • Toyless Toyline Character:
    • Mr. Makuhero, oldest robot on record and founder of the Hero Factory. Also Prof. Nathaniel Zib, his helper Quadal, Lucy the operator, and Hero Factory FM DJ Mak Megahertz.
    • As well as another side character, Big Joe, who is only mentioned by name in the tie-in online games but appears as a supporting character alongside the previous three. His render is used in the Hero Factory TV series and in various promotions for generic male robots working at the factory.
    • Wildly subverted, however, by the Recon Team during the 2.0 and 3.0 waves, as your homemade Hero can get its own toy.
  • A Very Special Episode: The Ordeal of Fire episode's Phlebotinum Muncher plot is so strong and Anvilicious on this they might as well give up the pretense.
  • Villain Team-Up: This is the main story of the chapter book Legion of Darkness.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Xera believes that the Brains represent a perfect social hierarchy devoid of evil, and allies with them to achieve this end.
  • Whole Episode Flashback: The chapter book Legion of Darkness covers the early days of Hero Factory, including the formation of the first Hero team, Alpha 1, under team leader Thresher. It also tells how many of the villains from Breakout arc were originally arrested.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Karter.

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