Exo-Squad was an American animated series that aired from 1993 to 1994. It, like the previously discussed Captain Power, was a show directed at children but did not pull any punches about the horrors of war.

I’ll let the opening monologue speak for itself as to the plot of the show:

J.T. Marsh (VO): It was a golden age for all mankind. Using the incredible exoskeletons called E-frames, we had successfully terraformed Venus and Mars, and were now poised to move on to the Outer Planets. Suddenly, it all ended. We were pressed into a nightmarish war on a scale previously unimagined. We were attacked by our own creations, the Neosapiens, a race of artificially created humans. Led by Phaeton, they had seized control of Venus, Earth, and Mars. This is Lt. J.T. Marsh, member of the Exofleet, leader of a small band of E-frame pilots dedicated to freeing humanity from Neosapien rule. We are… the Exosquad.

That’s right, this show not only delved into the subject of war, but also slavery and genetic engineering.  The Neosapiens were genetically engineered to be slave labor on Mars and to survive under conditions human workers couldn’t. Fifty years prior to when the show takes place, the Neosapiens revolted. Humans were able to quell this slave uprising with the use of a new military weapon, the Exo-Frame, robotic mech suits that not only increased the wearer’s strength, but also allowed for the use of heavy artillery by individual soldiers. The two leaders of the slave revolt, Phaeton and Marsala, negotiated a surrender. Over the next 50 years, after public backlash from the terrors of that war, Neosapiens were freed from bondage, given citizenship and came to govern Mars for themselves.

And of course, even though these 50 years were years of peace, the military kept expanding to the point where at the beginning of the show the Exo-Frames are much improved and integrated into an entire space fleet. Which now is looking for an enemy to fight, so they mobilize against the Space Pirates (One of the weakest things in the show, I mean Space Pirates? That’s pretty lame.) who are clans descended from convicts sentenced to manual labor on the outer worlds (Pluto and I think they have another one they’ve discovered). It is at this time that Phaeton chooses to seek his revenge (Neosapiens being a heartier breed live longer, dumb scientists) and bring about a new order controlled by his genetically superior elite.

Now, this is just the prologue, the show’s plot proper hasn’t even begun at this point, but you can already see this wasn’t a ‘bad guy attacks, doesn’t land one shot then retreats to fight again’ type of cartoon show. And, this audience being who you are, I’m sure the heavy handed allusions of the story haven’t been lost on you.  Yes, this was a show for children. Yes, it was made to sell toys. But it was also a story where main characters died in battle, families were sent to concentration camps, a complicit media helped a dictator hide the atrocities and in the end the actions taken by the good guys weren’t always in the right and neither were the villains always in the wrong.

Because of the shows willingness to take on heavy issues, it’s serialized story and the art style, Exo-Squad has been dubbed “The American Anime” by those who remember it.  But why do so few remember it? It was a fun show with badass toys, why was it not a global success? Well, Exo-Squad was a syndicated TV show, meaning any TV station that payed could show it. This was a big money maker in the 80s with successes such as GI Joe, He-Man and Transformers. But the landscape was changing just as Exo-Squad was debuting.  Networks were focusing on producing their own cartoon shows to get a greater profit share. This was the time-frame that brought us Fox Kids where the likes of X-Men and Spider-Man were featured, ABC and CBS as well had their own in house offerings.  Local markets were running out of places to put syndicated programming, which led to the show airing early in the morning. I remember when my local network moved it to 5:30 am! Now you know I don’t sleep, but that was early to wake up just catch a cartoon (but I usually did anyway). And it wouldn’t even stay in that time-slot, it would move around. It’s hard to build an audience when they don’t know where to find the show.

So, alas Exo-Squad only ran for two seasons. It is fondly remembered by those who did catch it, and thankfully they were able complete this story arc. Season one was released on DVD in 2009 after a bunch of nerds (raises hand) signed an online petition. But apparently not enough people bought it as season 2 has never seen a release, but it has shown up on Netflix and Hulu, and some great people criminals were nice evil enough to record it from there, so digital copies are floating around if you’re interested a Space Pirate. If you want to know more about the history of the show, Toy Galaxy made a good episode on it.

The show had a big impact on me. When I saw Avitar the only thing I liked about it was that it showed that technology had advanced enough in CGI that they could make a live action Exo-Squad movie. (And me being photoshop literate here is how I imagine it. I can see it all in my head, someone just give me the money! Can we KickStart this?! C’mon man! I’m really jonesin’ here! Just a taste, just a little taste! That’s all I want! I’ll suck yer dick for a movie, C’mon!!)