YMMV / Transformers: Generation 2

• Audience-Alienating Era: With the bright neon colors, Totally Radical commercials, and the lack of a proper cartoon for it (the "cartoon" was just repackaged G1 episodes with a new intro, intrusive computer graphics, and questionable edits), G2 is seen as this by many within the fandom.
• Complete Monster:
  • Jhiaxus is the ruler of the Cybertronian Empire, but was once just another Decepticon warlord on Cybertron. Believing the war between the Autobots and Decepticons was hindering the progress of their species, Jhiaxus abandoned his sadistic ways and left Cybertron with a legion of Decepticons. He led his empire on a campaign of conquest and genocide, terraforming new worlds and wiping out any "inferior beings" that happened to get in their way. When the Autobots began attacking his outposts, Jhiaxus focused his efforts on eliminating this new threat to his empire. Declaring war on both the Autobots and Decepticons, Jhiaxus's cruel nature began resurfacing as he ordered the slaughter of numerous species to lure the Autobots out of hiding. He managed to track down the base of the Autobots and Decepticons, and sent wave after wave of his men to wipe them all out. When Optimus Prime warned him about the arriving threat of the Swarm, Jhiaxus ordered the destruction of San Francisco simply out of spite. Jhiaxus ordered a second strike that would kill his own men, and crushed the head of a soldier who suggested they retreat. Jhiaxus blamed Optimus for his empire falling apart and refused to believe he was still just as much of a petty tyrant as he was back on Cybertron.
  • Alignment, by Simon Furman himself (link): The Liege Maximo finally takes center stage as the final threat that the Autobots and Decepticons had to face. One of the original Transformers created by Primus, the Liege Maximo coveted its divine power and wished to become a god equal to its creator. After creating the Decepticons, the Liege Maximo left Cybertron and formed the Cybertronian empire, who were responsible for wiping out countless species during their conquests. The worlds they conquered were added to the Hub, which would open a portal that would ascend the Liege Maximo to godhood while destroying the universe in the process. After being discovered by an Autobot scout ship, the Liege Maximo ordered its fleet to destroy the Autobots and Decepticons before they could intervene with its plans. It harvested the sparks of its own followers to open the portal, and killed several more Transformers who stood in its way. Utterly indifferent to lives that suffered at its hands, the Liege Maximo embraced its dark nature on its path to godhood.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Not a character per se, but a toy: Laser Optimus Prime wasn't just the most popular toy in the line, but one of the most popular Transformers toys ever at the time for its articulation and action features. Such is the popularity of this Prime that it has been remade several times.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The series was cancelled due to "low sales." Those sales would amount to a blockbuster hit by today's standards.
  • Jurassic Park was apparently in theaters when Bludgeon and his Decepticons attacked the city in the Fleetway comics. Guess what's crossing over with Transformers in 2021.
• Never Live It Down: Ask a fan about the Generation 2 line and the only thing you'll hear about (after maybe the hilariously bad rapping in some of the commercials, the hilariously dated CGI used for both the commercials and the "show", and the fact Electro is one of the single-most notorius sufferers of Gold Plastic Syndrome) is how awful the color schemes were. Despite this, the only really garish designs in G2 were the repaints of G1 figures (and even then, characters like Starscream, Optimus, Jazz, Inferno, the Constructicons and Sideswipe weren't especially garish outside of some funny decals), a couple Go-Bots, and various figures that weren't actually from ''G2'', but instead from the tail-end of ''G1'' (Action Master Thundercracker, Omega Spreem). You probably won't hear about how G2 was the line to introduce fully-articulated figures or now-ubiquitous gimmicks like light piping.
• So Bad, It's Good: The 1994 toy commercials with their rap songs and early CGI. Especially the Aerialbots and Combaticons one. A-hem: The Aerialbots are taking their shots!/ Silverbolt's blasting COMBATICONS!/ They can all ch-ch-change/ To be re-arranged/ To form a super robot, SUPERION!/ The Combaticons are WARRING!/ Onslaught is ROARING!/ He is one metamorphing DUDICUS!/ They all combine/ And kick Superion's behind/ As the big, bad, battling BRUTICUS!
• Special Effect Failure: In the original trailer for the G2 line released in 1992, you can see a layering issue when Optimus drives over the bridge where his trailer phases underneath. This error was fixed by the time the animation was reused for the Marvel Comics teaser and the cartoon's intro.
• Tough Act to Follow: G2's Laser Optimus Prime is one of the most unanimously popular Transformers toys since its release, and while it sees little use in fiction, every few years Hasbro/Takara tries to release a new version of this incarnation of Optimus and three decades after the original's release, they've yet to release a figure that's widely considered an improvement to the design, with most updates being seen as lateral or even genuinely inferior to the original.

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