What should have happened in Hero Factory’s story

[Lenny7092]

Hi, guys. We have seen some inconsistent stuff in Hero Factory’s story. Well, here’s what I think:

1. The Alpha 1 Team should have fought Von Nebula and all six of his henchmen in HF’s 2010 story arc. His gang should have had an actual name. 
2. Lucas Valor should have actually appeared in the story itself, or he should not have his physical appearance shown (his appearance is a combiner model of Preston Stormer, William Furno, and Natalie Breez). Plus, if he should have his physical appearance, it would be cool if there is a Hero whose combiner model is made of Dunkan Bulk, Jimi Stringer, and Mark Surge. 
3. Stringer and Bulk should have helped the Alpha 1 Team fight the Fire Villains in the early 2011 story arc (Ordeal of Fire). Also, Surge should have become a 2.0 Hero before defeating the Fire Villains, not after. That non-canon comic has the right idea about Surge. 
4. Surge, Breez, and Nathan Evo should have helped the Alpha 1 Team fight the Witch Doctor on the planet Quatros in the late 2011 story arc (Savage Planet). 
5. Breez’s Breakout form, Bulk’s Breakout form, Julius Nex’s Breakout form, Thornraxx, Core Hunter, and XT4 should have appeared in the TV show somehow. Breez, Bulk, and Nex should have been with the other six Alpha 1 Team Heroes when the Breakout happened. Vapor should have physically appeared in the episodes, too.
6. That unnamed Hero, who is made of Evo, Surge, and Furno, and his villain, who is made of Toxic Reapa, Splitface, and Jawblade. They should have appeared in the TV episodes, or shouldn’t exist. If they should exist, then there should be a Hero who is made of either three of the other six Alpha 1 Team Heroes, Daniel Rocka, Breez Nex, Bulk, Stringer, and Stormer. Another Hero made of the other three Heroes. A villain made of either three of the other six Breakout villains, Black Phantom, Thornraxx, XT4, Core Hunter, Voltix, and Speeda Demon. Another villain made of the other three villains. 
7. Black Phantom should have reformed the Legion of Darkness, as in getting back together with seven of the other eight Breakout villains. He would recruit the last one, Core Hunter, into his team. Perhaps BP would also have the Legion team up with Von Nebula’s six henchman, the Fire Villains, and the Witch Doctor to get revenge on the Alpha 1 Team for defeating them. 
8. Stringer and Nex should have helped the Alpha 1 Team fight the Brains in Makuhero City and the Jumpers in Antropolis City. Also, Surge should have fought Dragon Bolt and his fellow Brain-possessed dragons, and as well as Stringer and Nex having their own Brain-possessed counterparts.
9. The Alpha 1 Team could have fought the prime reality’s own large Brains with wings. I would like to think that the small Brains’ creator had cloned the large ones to make the smaller ones. The Heroes also should have tracked down the Brain maker and stopped him. I am wondering why the Brains didn’t continue their attack when the events of the 2014 story arc (Invasion From Below) happened. The Brains didn’t fight the Alpha 1 Team when the invasion happened.
10. The Alpha 1 Team could have kept their peace with the Jumpers rather than having them killed. That unhatched Jumper shouldn’t have been in the Drop Ship in a cliffhanger. 
11. A story arc involving the Villain Factory should have happened. I mean, someone has the Hero Factory schematics in Episode 9: Breakout Part 2, and is going to use them make the Villain Factory, as foreshadowed by Black Phantom, Nathaniel Zib, and Akiyama Makuro. 
12. Hero Factory sharing the same universe as Bionicle G1 because of similarities. They’re too similar to be not do so. Christian Faber did say in his Instagram account that he planned to have them share the same universe. He also said that if you rotate Bionicle’s Three Virtues symbol 90 degrees, you could sort of see a Hero Factory symbol. That was how the HF symbol was created. 
13. The villains’ and Makuro’s origins should have been expanded on. Thresher’s first name should have been revealed. Also, that Drop Ship pilot in the Drop Ship set in 2010 either should have appeared in the TV episodes or shouldn’t have existed. If he should exist, he should have a name. Hero Factory FM’s host named Mak Megahertz should have appeared in the episodes. 
14. The comics in 2010-2011 has some stuff that the episodes don’t have, so these scenes have been in the episodes. Most specifically, the comic based on the Core Crisis episode in 2010 has two exclusive scenes. One is where the Alpha 1 Team is curious about the recent attacks. The other is where Corroder is talking to Von Nebula about his attack in an incomplete prison. Plus, the Hero Factory’s home planet should have gotten an official name. I think Planet Makuhero would fit since it is in a star system called Makuhero and near an asteroid belt called the Makuhero Belt. The animals in the planet, which the Brains mind-controlled, should have gotten their names as well (Scarox’s species is named Dune Crawlers, but the rest should have gotten their names). 
15. Perhaps the Brain Attack and Invasion From Below episodes shouldn’t have existed at all if there is the Villain Factory happening, but Brain Attack could be where the Brains were distracting the Heroes long enough for their masters to make the Villain Factory. 
16. Ordeal of Fire should have been in ITunes and Lego’s YouTube channel. Savage Planet Part 2 should have been in the YouTube channel. The Breakout episodes, Brain Attack episode, and Invasion From Below one should have gotten their own DVD releases and in ITunes. The IFB episode should also have been in the YouTube channel. Plus, Lego should do 4K versions for the episodes in the YouTube channel because they look blurry. 

Of course, these ideas could have been episodes. So, here are what I think the episodes should have happened: 

2010: 

1. An episode where Bulk, Stringer, and Furno fight Vapor in a city, but Vapor easily overpowered them and got away. Then, Stringer and Breez would go after Meltdown and Thunder (as in their own full appearances. Meltdown appeared shortly in The Enemy Within while Thunder was not in an episode alone, but he could use a partner due to his low intellect, similar to XPlode and Rotor. Meltdown and Thunder appeared in the Von Nebula episode, where the remaining members of Von Nebula’s gang except Vapor had a final showdown with the Alpha 1 Team), but Vapor gets the way. Bulk would use a copy of Stringer’s Sonic Boom Cannon and a jet-pack to fight Vapor. Bulk would fight Vapor while Stringer and Breez would fight Meltdown and Thunder. Furno would slightly rebuild himself to drive the Furno Bike to help Bulk with the fight. That Drop Ship pilot guy from the Drop Ship set would come and bring in Stormer and Surge to help the two Heroes fight Vapor. The Heroes would defeat and imprison Vapor, but Meltdown and Thunder would get away. This would have happened between The Enemy Within and Von Nebula. 
2. An episode where Valor, his team called the Delta 9 Team, and maybe a couple of more teams would fight Von Nebula and his six henchmen on the planet Earth. The villains would be defeated and retreat. That would happen before the Trails of Furno episode, and Von Nebula would train the villains on fighting the Heroes in that episode. 
3. An extended version of Core Crisis, which includes the exclusive scenes from its comic counterpart. Or, perhaps they would have been online shorts. 

2011: 

1. A version of Ordeal of Fire where Stringer and Bulk were helping the Alpha 1 Team fight the Fire Villains. It could be two-part episode or just one episode. An alternate version of the episode where Surge got the 2.0 upgrade before the Fire Villains’ defeat rather than after. Or, both of these episodes would go together, whether it be two episodes or one. 
2. An episode where Stringer and Bulk were doing things before, during, and after Ordeal of Fire, as they would use their 2.0 forms more. 
3. An alternate version of the two-part Savage Planet episode where Surge, Breez, and Evo would have helped the Alpha 1 Team fight the Witch Doctor in Quatros. They would have gotten 3.0 forms. 
4. An episode that takes place after the Savage Planet episodes, where the nine 3.0 Heroes would look around anything suspicious in Quatros, something that the Witch Doctor would have used to contact fellow villains. Then, they would go back to their 2.0 forms and do some minor adventures. This episode would reveal what Breez, Surge, and Evo were during Savage Planet. 
5. An episode involving the Hero Recon Team. 

2012: 
1. An episode with a flashback where Rocka is born. He and the other eight 2.0 Heroes would have a fight against Toxic Reapa, Jawblade, Splitface, Speeda Demon, Thornraxx, and XT4.
2. An alternate version of the two-part Breakout episode that could have included Breakout Breez, Breakout Bulk, Breakout Nex, Thornraxx, Core Hunter, and XT4. Or, an episode where it involves Breez’s, Bulk’s, and Nex’s hunts for these villains. That episode could refer to the first two Hero Factory chapter books, Secret Mission 1: The Doom Box and Secret Secret Mission 2. Plus, no reusing Waspix, Raw-Jaw, Fangz, and Scorpio’s animation models and replace them with more villains’ animation models. 
3. An episode were the whole Legion of Darkness, the Fire Villains, Von Nebula’s six henchmen, Witch Doctor, and Core Hunter working together to get revenge on the Alpha 1 Team for their imprisonment. After the Heroes would defeat and arrest the villains, Furno would be promoted as Commander of many Hero teams (that title was shown in the Brain Attack episode). That could have been a better finale for the 2012 story arc, despite Mission: Catch ‘Em and Cuff ‘Em still going on in Brain Attack.
4. An episode where it would star three new Alpha 1 Team rookies, who would be fighting their three villains (the unnamed Hero rookie who is a combiner model of Evo, Surge, and Furno, his villain, two more heroes, and their own villains). 

2013: 

1. An alternate version of the Brain Attack episode where Stringer and Nex could have helped the Alpha 1 Team fight the Brains in Makuhero City. It would also involve Surge fighting Dragon Bolt and other Brain-possessed dragons, and Stringer and Nex would have gotten their Brain Attack forms and fought their Brain-possessed animal counterparts, too. That silly cliffhanger shouldn’t have existed. The episode could be a two-part episode, too. Plus, Bulk and Breez should be in their Breakout forms rather than 2.0 forms. 
2. An episode where Stringer and Nex were doing things during the attack on Makuhero City. 
3. An episode where Valor’s team and Merrick Fortis, the leader of the Hero Recon Team, fighting the Brain-possessed dragons, and Stringer’s and Nex’s Brain counterparts. Perhaps they could save Daniela Capricorn and her camera bot from the Brains in the Brain Attack episode. 
4. An episode where all nine Alpha 1 Team Heroes fighting the Brains, where the small ones mind-control the Makuhero Planet animals again and there are the prime reality’s large Brains with wings. After defeating the small Brains, the large ones would retreat to the small ones’ maker, but the Alpha 1 Team would follow them to the maker. The Heroes would fight and defeat the maker and the large Brains, and destroy the Brain Factory, ending the Brain threat once and for all, but the Villain Factory would still be there. The Heroes would change back for their Breakout forms, and convince the Hero Factory to recruit the Quatros and Makuhero Planet animals as their animal helpers because of their worries about the Villain Factory. This episode would reference the other three chapter books, Secret Mission 3: Collision Course, Secret Mission 4: Robot Rampage, and Secret Mission 5: Mirror World (I’m iffy about number 5, but yes). Now that would have been a proper conclusion to the 2013 story arc (Brain Attack). 

2014: 

1. An alternate version of Invasion From Below where it would have been made by Tinseltown Toons, which the actors from there returning. Stringer and Nex would help the Alpha 1 Team fight the Jumpers in Antropolis City. The Alpha 1 Team could have kept their peace with the Jumpers rather than destroying them, and that silly cliffhanger with the unhatched Jumper in the Drop Ship shouldn’t have happened. 
2. An episode where Stringer and Nex were doing things during the events of Invasion From Below. They would get their Battle Machine pilot forms, Remote Builder, and their own Battle Machines. They would be fighting the Jumpers in the city where their seven friends were fighting Jumpers underground. 

Future (if the show had continued): 

1. An episode where the Hero Factory Heroes fight the Galactic Conspiracy from the fourth and fifth chapter books and arrest them once and for all. During the time, the Heroes would go back to their Breakout forms, and the Villain Factory would be watching them. The Villain Factory would probably be responsible for having Von Nebula place that unhatched Jumper in the Alpha 1 Team’s Drop Ship in the Invasion From Below to buy time for the Villain Factory to cause an invasion on the Hero Factory’s Heroes on their assign locations. Then, the Villain Factory would send some of their troops to do these attacks. They would let the Heroes know that they will make a huge invasion in Makuhero City. 
2. A two-part episode that would serve as a real series finale for the TV series. It would be where Villain Factory would attack the Hero Factory. Everyone from the past story arcs will get involved there. The Heroes would get a new upgrade that looks much like the Breakout forms, like having 1.0 helmets, but stronger and uses equipment that is a mix of of their Breakout and Brain Attack weapons. The Alpha 1 Team would go to the Villain Factory building and fight its leader or leaders and Von Nebula there. After that, the Heroes would discover Bionicle G1’s Spherus Magna in the end while an evil Great Being named Velika is causing problems, foreshadowing my sharing-universe idea, a crossover, and Makuro’s origins from Spherus Magna (that last part would be cool and should have happened). 

So, there. A lot of wasted potential. They were my expectations when the Hero Factory franchise was running. I bet that this may be due to budget issues and all. Lego could have put some thought and money into this stuff.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Lenny7092
Some mistakes.

[Master Inika]

I initially thought, based on the title, you were asking us what we think should have happened in HF, but I see that the actual post never asks that.

2 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

1. The Alpha 1 Team should have fought Von Nebula and all six of his henchmen in HF’s 2010 story arc. His gang should have had an actual name. 

No offense, but, like... why? Imo, Rise of the Rookies already suffered from having too many characters. The only villains who I think really had any personality at all were Von Nebula and Rotor, because of their relationships with Stormer and Furno, but everyone else seemed like a total blank slate to me. Trying to cram Rotor and Vapour into the final battle would have made this problem even worse. Plus, from Von Nebula's point of view, it's actually quite shrewd on his part to never have all of his underlings in one place. It makes sure, worst case scenario, at least one of them will still be active. (If you've seen the movie Baby Driver, the criminal mastermind uses the same strategy, never using the exact same crew for a heist twice.) As for Von Nebula's Gang lacking an actual name, that also arguably makes sense if you think about it. Irl, the mafia doesn't actually call itself "the mafia," they call themselves Cosa Nostra, "our thing."

2 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

2. Lucas Valor should have actually appeared in the story itself, or he should not have his physical appearance shown (his appearance is a combiner model of Preston Stormer, William Furno, and Natalie Breez). Plus, if he should have his physical appearance, it would be cool if there is a Hero whose combiner model is made of Dunkan Bulk, Jimi Stringer, and Mark Surge. 

I can understand wanting Valor to have an in-story appearance, but why would you actively prefer if you got rid of the model? LEGO Magazine has always included alternate builds and combiner models which, for story-driven themes, don't actually appear in the story. The needs of the story and the physical toys are never going to line up 100%. Otherwise, the story would be cluttered with random vehicles and locations that don't actually add to anything. This was actually a big problem with TV shows in the 1980s, they were essentially just 30-minute-long commercials, and actually having some restraint and not throwing in everything they can has been one of LEGO's strong points as an entertainment company. As for a hypothetical Bulk-Stringer-Surge combiner... yeah, I guess. But LEGO can't create every conceivable combiner model. (This is also my response to points 6 and 13, regarding the Drop Ship pilot and Mak Megahertz.)

2 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

3. Stringer and Bulk should have helped the Alpha 1 Team fight the Fire Villains in the early 2011 story arc (Ordeal of Fire). Also, Surge should have become a 2.0 Hero before defeating the Fire Villains, not after. That non-canon comic has the right idea about Surge. 

Your point about Surge is a hard disagree for me. Surge being in peril was what gave the TV episode real weight. Aside from nameless refueling station employees, Surge was the only character in danger. It created a sense that, if the heroes don't win, they lose a real friend. This weight was completely absent from the comic, which never got a follow-up anyway.

Your first point is that Bulk and Stringer should have helped in Ordeal of Fire. Points 4, 5 and 8 are similar: essentially, you want all the heroes to be present for all the missions. That's just not how producing these characters works. LEGO creates new characters as previous ones don't sell well. (Notice the first heroes dropped, Bulk and Stringer, had comparatively subdued colors and were replaced with Evo and Nex, notably more vibrant characters.) Had it been done better, it could have created excitement with each new wave: who's going on this mission, and who's sitting out? Perhaps one of the reasons BIONICLE was giving diminishing returns was because of its predictability: six mains, in six (mostly) constant colors. It was called "clone" syndrome for a reason.

Points 7, 9, 10, 11: Yeah, I agree for the most part. Some of them are good fanfic ideas that I can still why LEGO didn't actively pursue (the sets are only on shelves for about a year at a time, keep in mind), but I strongly agree that Villain Factory was one of the coolest concepts HF had and they dropped it completely, and the climax of Invasion From Below was one of the weirdest and most confusing narrative choices I've ever seen in a LEGO story, and I mean that as a strong criticism.

(Thresher's first name is another weird thing to linger on. In fandoms like BIONICLE, it's never going to be possible to get concrete answers for every conceivable question. Most BIONICLE fans, and fans of other properties, have headcanons, answers to these sorts of questions they personally hold to be true but are not officially canon. A common BIONICLE headcanon is that Lariska is a Vortixx, even though she has no official species. The real name of Makuhero Planet and other details like that are also ripe areas for headcanon.)

2 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

12. Hero Factory sharing the same universe as Bionicle G1 because of similarities. They’re too similar to be not do so. Christian Faber did say in his Instagram account that he planned to have them share the same universe. He also said that if you rotate Bionicle’s Three Virtues symbol 90 degrees, you could sort of see a Hero Factory symbol. That was how the HF symbol was created. 

Hard disagree. I've gone into why I think so elsewhere. You did teach me that UDD/HF symbol thing, and that's pretty cool. Still, it's really more just fun trivia than an active reason for them to share the same universe.

Point 14 talks about discrepancies between the TV show and the comics. Creating TV shows and creating comics are both fairly involved processes, and it would be prohibitively time-consuming to make sure they tell the exact same story. Plus, they are simply different mediums which have different strengths. In a comic book, the strength is still images. Translating Corroder and Von Nebula's conversation to screen would not work as well because, well... it's just two people talking. Animation's strong point is fast-paced action.

Admittedly, BIONICLE handled this a lot better by generally avoiding telling the same story in both print and screen, sidestepping these problems for the most part. But on the whole, Hero Factory seems to have struggled with figuring out exactly where and when they wanted to deliver their story beats.

2 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

15. Perhaps the Brain Attack and Invasion From Below episodes shouldn’t have existed at all if there is the Villain Factory happening, but Brain Attack could be where the Brains were distracting the Heroes long enough for their masters to make the Villain Factory. 

That's... actually a really good idea.

2 hours ago, Lenny7092 said:

16. Ordeal of Fire should have been in ITunes and Lego’s YouTube channel. Savage Planet Part 2 should have been in the YouTube channel. The Breakout episode, Brain Attack episode, and Invasion From Below episode should have gotten their own DVD releases and in ITunes. The IFB episode should also have been in the YouTube channel. Plus, Lego should do 4K versions for the episodes in the YouTube channel because they look blurry. 

No disagreements here. Tracking down anything post-Savage Planet in decent quality has been a nightmare.

I don't have as much to say about your episode ideas. They're definitely worth exploring in longer form. I know HF wanted a more "flexible" storyline, kind of like BIONICLE in the very early days: the Toa wake up, they find the masks, they team up to defeat Makuta. The implication for the child was to act out how they found the masks, fighting various Rahi along the way. BIONICLE at that time shied away from putting heavy emphasis on hard details, like which order they found the masks in or things like that. The only detail I can remember is that Kopaka discovered the first mask, and it was his Hau. By 2004, actually playing with my BIONICLE sets in a way that didn't explicitly contradict canon was pretty hard, since it felt like every second of the storyline was already featured in some book or comic. For that reason, it's probably more in-line with HF's storytelling style for you to choose to interpret these as having been the story. Actually animating them might be too ambitious for us, but they would make good fanfictions.

Dropping Tinseltown Toons was definitely a mistake. They weren't perfect, but they had a certain unified aesthetic for HF. Whoever made Invasion From Below just didn't get it at all. The animation, the pacing, the action, the story, it was all wrong. Imo, the worst and least watchable HF episode.

As I said before, I'm not a fan of your proposed shared-universe idea. Maybe you can prove me wrong, but I can't imagine it being done in a way that isn't rushed and awkward.

As much as I'd love a full Galactic Conspiracy storyline, it really seems like something only Greg specifically was passionate about. Everyone else working on HF seemed content to just pump out generic, cookie-cutter plotlines that barely had anything to do with each other.

All in all, quite a batch of takes. Some I agree with, some I don't. You've definitely given me a lot to think about.

[Sailor Wah!]

The original concepts and story by Christian Faber, in which the factory was supposed to have a dark secret.

[Lenny7092]

Well, it would have been nice to expand on the HF story and make things consistent. Seriously. Some things went to different directions here and there. If things were to be done properly, HF could have been better than what it had. Lego should have put some more effect into these things. I mean, if you have stuff in there, utilize them rather than not doing so. Wouldn’t be exciting if you don’t, would it?