Toonami Article | Analyzing The Anniversary Teaser

Frame 137:
Something's kind of strange about this angle. On one side, it looks like it could be the back end of one of the current Clydes. On the other hand, it looks like . . . you know something, I'm stumped. It has the same color scheme of TOM, and yet, it's something different. Maybe it's connected to the wheel on the other page. What's that in the background? Is that a hill or a junkpile?

Boy, was I off the mark with this guess. This was another closeup of TOM, but it was his head, and nobody knew it at the time. And why would we? In his previous three incarnations, TOM had a helmet and a visor. The first TOM had a gray helmet and a blue visor. The second had a blue helmet and a dark visor. The third's was a modified version of the second head, more rounded than oval. In the Endgame comic, the visor was colored green while on-air, it was darker. The final TOM had a face very similar to Thomas the Tank Engine, which was often used as a pejorative nickname for the fourth incarnation of TOM.

Frame 175:
Something familiar popped up in the teaser. It appears to be a Clyde 50, last seen on the block in 2004 before Endgame. These little guys were very pivotal to the events of The Intruder as they served as mindless drones who sent back information to TOM and Sara as well as served as disposable decoys. After Lockdown, there was more or less one Clyde 50 remaining, who served as a pet of sorts for TOM. If this is a Clyde 50, it could be a remnant from space after the first Absolution exploded. If it isn't, than someone's a huge fan and has the ability to create his or her own version of the little droid. And again, what's the deal with the junkyard? All sorts of things are back there.

This was probably one of my better guesses. This little guy was indeed a Clyde, the final Clyde as a matter of fact. He wasn't as talkative as the other new characters, since he only spoke in bloops and bleeps. Clyde, for those that are new to Toonami, has been a name used since day one of Toonami. The first Clyde, Clyde 49, was an insect-like satellite who transmitted signals back to Moltar's control room at Ghost Planet Industries, Toonami's original base of operations. The second Clyde, Clyde 50, was a model type for a group of security drones introduced in The Intruder. They were round yet sentinent. One even stayed as a pet for TOM afterwards appearing prominently on Kids' WB's incarnation of Toonami. The third incarnation of Clyde wasn't known as Clyde but rather known as DOKs, manually-controlled drones used in the Lockdown event. The fourth version of the Clydes were these drones with LED faces that looked like emoticons. The fifth version of the Clydes, the Clyde 53s, were insectlike drones, not unlike Clyde 49, gathering data on an alien planet. This Clyde is the one that came after all of those to bear the name.

Frame 207:
Here, we have the right arm of a robot. It could be of the big bruising robot seen earlier or it could be another robot. Also, looking at this angle, doesn't that 2 look like the letters C and N? What's the significance of the number two? The second coming of Toonami? No, that happened in 1999. It's clearly not TOM 2, we've seen him beginning in 2000. Is it the second time we're seeing something that we've seen before? Or is this just the second robot built at this continuity by an unseen creator?

This is our first look at D, the big green guy. According to Jason DeMarco, the inspiration behind this character comes from two different sources. The first source was the duo of Timma and Dimma, two characters from a show he helped develop and produced, IGPX. The banter between the quick-witted Timma and the bulky, powerful Dimma inspired the creation of the quick-witted Flash and the bulky D. The second source of inspiration came from Williams Street's other afternoon action block, Miguzi. Jason and Sean Akins wanted to create more of a team/buddy element that Miguzi had for the Toonami block. Despite a little reluctance on the fans' part, they warmed up to the new guys. And their appearances in the final frames of Toonami were just as vital as TOM's. Oh, and the 2 represented nothing really, though D displayed mannerisms to another Toonami host that was at the controls of the block, Moltar.

See the high-flying conclusion of the examination of the teaser here as well as my final theories.