YMMV / Transformers: Cyberverse

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Were Jetfire and Skybyte really mortal enemies or were they making up their feud just to mess with everyone?
• Ass Pull: Megatron coming back from his voyage to alternate universes and gaining the power to defeat the Quintessons, including gaining his own Matrix of Leadership.
• Broken Base: For the first time since Beast Machines, humans are completely absent. (While Humans were absent from a couple of the Japanese exclusive series, they are fairly obscure to Western fans). Fans who loathe human characters as a Spotlight-Stealing Squad are happy to just focus solely on the Cybertronians. However, others question the point of setting the series on Earth at all if they weren't going to involve humans, noting that Human-Cybertronian interactions have been a core part of the franchise since G1 and that cutting that out means the Autobots have no real personal stake in protecting Earth from the Decepticons.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Crosses the Line Twice: After Starscream makes his usual grab for power, Megatron returns to subject him to a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown right out of a horror movie, before leaving his battered corpse to rot on the moon. What does Megatron do the next time we see him? Hold a seemingly heartfelt funeral for Starscream and livestream it to everyone on Earth.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Optimus’s stilted way of speaking, intense social anxiety when he’s not on duty, and delivery of his points via heroic speeches can be read as him being autistic.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: See here.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Cyberverse has begun to garner significant interest from viewers and fans alike after Megatron is My Hero which showcases a dark storyline including a scene where Megatron rips off Bumblebee's voice box and makes more creative use of the Framing Device of Bumblebee's flashbacks.
  • Seasons 2 and 3 have also won over fans skeptical after Season 1, with the Quintesson arc in S3 being seen as a particular high point.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Soundwave's Ho Yay relationship with Hot Rod becomes this after his voice actor came out as bi.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After Optimus Primal became the guardian of the Matrix of Leadership, it's now Cheetor's turn to become a legendary guardian, too.
  • Popular Transformers YouTuber Keyan Carlile predicted Starscream's descent to Big Bad through a fan animatic released before "I Am The Allspark."
  • The Age of Extinction incarnation of Swoop was named Strafe due to trademarks making his name unavailable, but said incarnation's two-headed beast mode inspired a new Strafe character, a female two-headed Dinobot introduced in the original IDW continuity. Come Cyberverse, now there is a female Swoop.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The news that each episode only have an 11-minute runtime instead of the traditional 22 has not gone down well with the fanbase. Particularly since Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy also has the same runtime, which means there will be no full length Transformers show on the air for at least a few years. Others feel that the shorter runtime will allow for more tightly-paced stories. Of course, this being a new Transformers series, this is to be expected. Ultimately averted when the pace and writing proved to be well received.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: As nostalgic as it is for older fans, the "Soundwave Superior" quotes quickly lose their charm when heard in succession.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Shadow Striker. She may be a total Jerkass Decepticon, but it’s hard to say that she deserved being turned into a patchwork abomination by Shockwave.
  • To an extent, Starscream. Season 2 is essentially him suffering a mental breakdown after his brutal beatdown at Megatron's hands in "Bad Moon Rising." Although, that ends when he sells out his entire planet to the Quintessons and tried to destroy the universe out of spite, shattering any unintentional sympathy.
• LGBT Fanbase: Due to the heavy amounts of Ho Yay (and Foe Yay Shipping) between the Autobots and Decepticons and the themes of love, friendship, found family, and imperfections, this show gained one of the largest LGBTQ+ fanbases in the franchise.
  • Acid Storm gained a huge fanbase for being the first genderfluid character in a major Transformers show.
• Magnificent Bastard: Shockwave, while more prideful than most incarnations, remains the Decepticons' resident Mad Scientist motivated solely by logic. First introduced while trying to trick an amnesiac Bumblebee into believing he was a Decepticon by planting false memories through his cortical psychic patch, Shockwave later instructs the Seekers in rebuilding the Space Bridge, allowing him to arrive on Earth long before the rest of the Decepticon armada even enters the solar system. Putting into motion various schemes that come close to utterly annihilating the Autobot forces, Shockwave eventually returns to his role as Megatron's Hypercompetent Sidekick and designs countless backup plans for their plots to claim the Allspark, notably faking the destruction of the Space Bridge so the Decepticons can quickly return to Cybertron before the duped Autobots. Largely responsible for most of the Decepticons' victories and expressing a willingness to overthrow Megatron himself should he become too much of a liability, Shockwave's loyalty to his cause nevertheless stands true, as he ultimately sacrifices himself to corrupt the Allspark in the wake of the Decepticons' defeat.
• Memetic Badass:
  • The Titans will do anything for their citizens.
  • Maccadam. THERE WILL BE NO FIGHTING IN HERE!
  • Soundwave superior, everyone else inferior.
  • Grimlock will seize the means of production in order to bring energon for everyone. Afterward, he will hold a celebratory soiree.
  • Perceptor survived the fall down an elevator shaft and kicks Quintesson ass, all while being blind.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Shockwave's new design gave him a perpetually angry eyelid, which quickly became the subject of jokes.
  • Wheeljack became a huge Fountain of Memes due to his Cloudcuckoolander characterization, the amount of "He fucked my mom" jokes from the fans, and his Southern accent.
  • CUBE ^Explanation This one is self explanatory, as it’s a popular sport on Cybertron.
  • Due to similar designs, Maccadam has been called, "buff Rung."
  • Soundwave dancing in "Maccadam's" became a popular subject of edits such as this one and this one. Optimus dancing in "Party Down" also became a subject of edits such as this one.
    • In a similar vein, Starscream screaming in "Matrix of Leadership" bring to mind Vine memes such as "PATRICIA!" and "I have the power of God and Anime on my side!".
  • Calling Megatron Irish due to What the Hell Is That Accent?
  • The appearance of the Scraplets triggered many flashbacks for fans of Transformers: Prime.
  • Megatron and Optimus participating in Cheetor's Secret Test of Character in "Trials" is essentially couples therapy due to their relationship as former "friends".
  • Shockwave’s vibes are so rancid it almost killed Cybertron. ^spoiler Shockwave decided to use a spark extractor on the Allspark as a last resort to Decepticon victory. Because of his corrupt spark nearly destroying the Allspark if it wasn’t for Cheetor’s Heroic Sacrifice, fans have a field day with this.
    • Cheetor's Allspark backpack in the "Battle For Cybertron" episodes
  • The Quintessons arc spawned many memes from Perceptor to Hot Rod's goth repaint to it being considered the highlight in the show.
    • The Scientist collecting Soundwaves from multiple universes struck a cord with toy collectors in the fandom.
  • Meteorfire has been jokingly called "Robot Steve Irwin" due to being the Crazy Is Cool host of a Show Within a Show.
  • Comrade Grimlock ^Explanation After learning about the Energon masters hoarding energon from Repugnus and his tribe, Grimlock resolves to get energon for everyone. Cue many fans jokingly calling him this nickname.
    • A companion meme is his ultimate enemy in "The Immobilizers": a capitalist kaiju.
  • Soundblaster's reasoning behind destroying multiple planets? He lost a beatboxing match to Soundwave.
  • Tarn. Just Tarn in general due to being an Unexpected Character.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Astrotrain for his eternal hatred of Dead End.
  • Bludgeon for killing Slipstream, thus crushing Windblade/Slipstream.
  • Megatron X for his Moral Event Horizon below, thus crushing Optimus/Megatron.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• Older Than They Think: It's not the first time a Transformers series runs 11 minutes per episode; that honor goes to The Transformers: Titans Return and The Transformers: Power of the Primes.
• One True Pairing:
  • As usual, Optimus/Megatron as their dynamic is similar to that of a divorced couple.
    • For similar reasons, Wheeljack/Shockwave.
  • Windblade/Slipstream due to their Foe Yay Shipping and Windblade seeking to avenge Slipstream by killing Bludgeon after "Parley".
  • How do we even explain what's going on between Jetfire and Skybyte?
  • Dead End/Perceptor became a really popular ship after Season 3 aired.
  • However, nothing will beat the ultimate ship that is Soundwave/Hot Rod due to their Fire-Forged Friends relationship during the Quintessons arc. Adding more fuel to the fire is that Soundwave's Heroic Sacrifice started after Tarn viciously beats up Hot Rod in "The Perfect Decepticon."
  • Smaller ships include Crack Ship Optimus/Tarn, Clobber/Hot Rod, Arcee/Grimlock, and Meteorfire/Cosmos.
• Questionable Casting: The New York-based non-union voice cast didn't sit well for some, while for others the performances are mixed at best. In particular, the decision to cast Jake Tillman, a former Vine star known for his impressions of Optimus Prime, as the aforementioned character was ment with split opinions, with most critics citing that he was trying way to hard to impersonate Peter Cullen, the main voice actor for Optimus, for consistency sake. This is aggravated by the fact that Tillman would return for the Netflix series. While the general consensus is that the performances as a whole improved notably with time and some experience (Grimlock, Soundwave, and Megatron being prominent examples of very well-received performances), the stigma of non-union talent hovered over the production and can still be frequently trotted out by the show's detractors. That being said, the show's Canon Foreigners did help to slightly levy the situation.
• Signature Scene:
  • Megatron brutally ripping out Bumblebee's voice box.
  • This iteration of Transformers stands out with the brutal (and lethal) No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that Megatron delivers to Starscream after his betrayal.
  • Optimus cheering up everyone...by dancing.
  • The Autobots and Decepticons learning to work together in "The Alliance"
  • The parade. Just...the parade, due to being an utterly creepy instance of Mundane Made Awesome.
  • The Reveal that Starscream is the new Quintesson Judge.
  • Soundwave's Heroic Sacrifice in the series finale. Never had a character death emotionally destroy an entire fanbase.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Lockdown being a low-ranking Decepticon instead of an unaligned, cool bounty hunter has irked many fans, many of whom were used to his edginess as the latter role.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The complete absence of human characters from the narrative, makes one wonder why they bothered to set it on Earth instead of some uninhabited alien world.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Windblade has been given markings near her mouth, like in the IDW G1 comics. Unlike the IDW comics, they were placed near the corners of her mouth, which makes her look like a creepy marionette.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Shadow Striker was originally introduced in the 2003 version of the Universe line as a redeco of Robots in Disguise 2001 Side Burn, and was also in the Dark of the Moon line as a redeco of Universe 2008 Wheelie. Now she's finally getting a major appearance in a cartoon, though time will tell if her Autobot sister Roulette (also a redeco of Side Burn) will appear, too.
  • Acid Storm, an uncommon Generation 1 character who made one voiceless cameo in the episode "Divide and Conquer", and was nameless until 2008.
  • Slipstream, the otherwise minor but popular Seeker from Transformers: Animated finally makes her first appearance in an animated series again since 2009.
  • Nova Storm, another obscure Seeker, appears as well. Nova Storm appeared in "Divide and Conquer" alongside Acid Storm, and wasn't named until 2015. Along with a third seeker named Ion Storm, they form a group known as the "Rainmakers", named for their creation of acid rain in the aforementioned "Divide and Conquer".
  • While Drift's appearance isn't too surprising (having been utilized in the movies and Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)), him showing up as Deadlock (complete with a version of his IDW pre-Heel–Face Turn design) was.
  • Maccadam's Old Oil House in television appeared only on the episode of Transformers: Animated "This Is Why I Hate Machines", and this is the first appearance of Maccadam himself in this medium.
  • Lockdown and Cheetor appearing in the second season was a pleasant surprise for everyone.
  • After many years of absence from television, fan favorite Sky-Byte finally returns, to the joy of the fans.
  • Bludgeon appearing in Season 2 is another surprise, as he is a cult favorite whose only made appearances in comics, toys, and some supplementary media.
  • Rack'n'Ruin are obscure characters unique to comic and novel adaptations with no toys to their name. Many took their first appearance in Shockwave's false memory as proof that they did not exist and were not expecting them to become recurring characters.
  • A tweet from fan news source The Allspark confirming that Season 3 would be the series' last also provided a screenshot revealing a very unexpected character. Tarn. Turns out that it’s just a Red Shirt Army that resembles him. He later appears for real in "The Perfect Decepticons".
  • While the toyline's rebrand spoiled the appearance of the Dinobots, fans were not expecting the newly-introduced Mercenary faction to make an appearance; amongst the familiar faces of Soundblaster, Nightbird, and Bugbite, who were already surprising, the biggest biscuit-takers were Doublecrosser, originally a Decepticon from Earthrise; Afterburner, who is based on the G2 Decepticon instead of the G1 Technobot; and most certainly TRYPTICON, who needs no explanation of his history.
• The Woobie:
  • Bumblebee, who watched entire worlds die over the course of the war and ended up a Cloudcuckoolander amnesiac stuck on Earth alone before Windblade found him.
  • Optimus Prime after he inadvertently dooms Cybertron by throwing the Allspark into a space bridge.

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