Revisiting the H.A.T.E.R.V. 10+ Years Later....
Revisiting Lord Hater's vanity car and his hopes to win Lord Dominator's heart over a decade after "The New Toy"!
The first time I talked about this ep can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9RnQL4ffp0
Lord Dominator was deliberately designed in such a way that she's a deconstruction of earlier versions of love interest characters like Minnie Mouse or Daisy Duck. This archetype in general is: She's the gender-flipped version of [Insert Guy Character Here] with exaggerated feminine features, fashion, and mannerisms! She exists as a complement to the guy character with little to no life or interests of her own unless it's participating in a classically feminine hobby.
Lord Dominator is not only introduced as the 'greater' Hater, but her design reflects this: Her lava suit is tall and bulky with the rippling muscles Hater wishes he had. The lightning bolt horns on her helmet are bigger than his. The suit's voice has a deep, intimidating baritone. Hater sees her as the 'I'm you but better' rival until the twist that it's a svelte, attractive woman under the armor. Not only that, but Hater earmarks her as the classic Gamer Girl. Just because she has similar interests, goals, powers, and a similar look totally means she's his dream girl.
Hater's reaction may play some part in why Dominator built and utilizes the armor in the first place. Unfortunately, men are seen as bigger, stronger, and more threatening by default. While Hater and Wander are the most obvious examples of someone hyper-fixating on Dominator's gender, Emperor Awesome tried to make a move too. Everyone expects Dominator to submit, swoon, or be hiding some soft, gooey side. This is the core of her villain number "I'm the Bad Guy."
It doesn't matter that she's a galaxy destroying villain with lava-based super powers. It takes a direct show of just how powerful, destructive, and sadistic she is and even that isn't quite enough to dampen Hater's lovestruck fantasies. Sexism and patriarchal bullshit have instilled strong enough gender stereotypes and expectations that they can override and challenge every other part of someone's character. Hater's unshakeable crush and the smitten damsel in his fantasies is a visual for what happens when a man falls in love with the idea of a woman but not the woman herself. It's a reflection of what box or image a woman is implicitly expected to fill or mold herself into.
Lord Dominator is a feminist critique because she defies and smashes these expectations. It's fantastic when she flips between the armor and her base form. Mask fully off, both of these forms are part of her gender expression and a means to intimidate, show off, or add a theatrical flare. While Dominator is a ciswoman for all intents and purposes, she's gender nonconforming. Both her masculine title and her armor push back against the expectation that she can only have one look or aesthetic. It's just that much more impactful now since the armor is set as a deliberate choice rather than a deterrent. In short, she's her full horrible self no matter what.
So, getting back to Lord Hater's H.A.T.E.R.V....In yet another misguided vie for Dominator's affections, Hater builds the ultimate attack, recreational, and babe-magnet vehicle. The design is highly toyetic. The live action skit pulls from 1980's and 90's boy toy commercials, showing off the pizza launcher and helicopter blades. Toy commercials played up and emphasized a very specific early version of masculinity: musclebound action figures, huge tanks or vehicles outfitted with weapons, how destructive, aggressive, or gross everything is. Boys are supposed to be rough, dirty, and take charge. Boys will become the men that are supposed to build, protect, and defend society itself.
The H.A.T.E.R.V. commercial repurposes this framing for a manchild's fantasies about a damsel in distress. While Dominator is wearing the macho armor, the helmet is deliberately misplaced. Hater gives her a very high-pitched voice, poses and directs her action figure as far more helpless and docile. Hater play-acts his absurd fantasy in the same sandbox a young boy has a soldier ride dinosaurs. One version is a toy seller manipulating and playing into specific visions of what a manly man is to sell toys. Hater's version is an immature man making a commercial tailor made towards his interests and dreams. The problem isn't a grown man playing with toys. It's the fantasy he's projecting onto his play time and the problematic, loaded ideas attached.
The beauty of the H.A.T.E.R.V. comes in when someone thinks about what high-end luxury cars are for rich men. Cars can be the ultimate toys. The more flashy, expensive, and specific brand name it is, the more esteemed a status symbol. A luxury car reflects a wealthy, powerful, successful man. Hater's toyetic vehicle is commentary on just how comparable a grown man's luxury car is to a little boy's prized RC car. Both can be empty attempts at trying to impress others.
It's a way to compensate for low confidence and self-esteem. The boy or the man by themselves aren't enough. They need the materialistic splash to puff up as something greater than they see themselves as. Granted, the H.A.T.E.R.V. is a very specific ploy to impress Lord Dominator. Hater is taking notes from seedy pick-up artists and conmen that claim women flock to something like cool cars. That it's an effective form of peacocking as the image of a successful, in-demand, attractive man.
The H.A.T.E.R.V. is set as a misguided, lovestruck doofus trying to score brownie points with his crush and yet again missing how flat and pointless his overtures are. In 2016, it was biting commentary to say that women don't want unwanted advances or peacocking. If a woman isn't interested, her no should be respected. Leave her alone. There's a whole, dynamic being outside of a man's wants and romantic fantasies. The added commentary was that Hater should turn around and spend that time working on himself rather than desperately trying to find a girlfriend. He's not lonely because of a lack of a relationship. He feels incomplete until he learns to listen better, show interest in others period, and place stronger emphasis on other beings as full and three-dimensional with their own thoughts, wants, and needs. This lesson only goes so far but it's enough to strengthen Hater's rapport with Peepers and the Watchdogs, so that's something.
In regards to the commentary, there's plenty of men convinced that women only want rich, tall, handsome men. That might be true for a handful of women, but it's treated as some immutable, universal truth. Men justify misogynistic ideas and dehumanizing rhetoric by claiming that women judge men by the same metrics they judge each other by: Men must be stoic, men must be strong, men are providers.
A man's worth is weighted against how much money he makes and how high a position he holds at work. Very shallow, surface level, and materialistic qualities. There's men saying the quiet part out loud: They see women as inferior. It doesn't matter what a woman says or wants. A man's opinion of a woman is taken more seriously and carries more weight than anything the woman herself tries to say. Problems with men's mental health or concepts like the male loneliness epidemic are blamed on women.
All of these very gendered ideas and bigotry start with discussions surrounding something as inconsequential as what is a boy's toy vs a girl's toy. When Hater lets Dominator take the H.A.T.E.R.V. for a spin and she understands its' workings better than Hater himself, it's a showcase for how ridiculous gender divides on toys are period. Hater is competent enough to build the H.A.T.E.R.V. like someone following a blueprint for IKEA furniture, but he isn't as function-minded as Dominator. She's an engineer that designs, builds, and understands how to troubleshoot. Hater wants the spectacle and Dominator marries spectacle with a practical approach to create something that both works and looks cool.
Boys aren't automatically mechanically inclined and girls aren't naturally maternal or nurturing. When left to their own discretion, kids pick toys that reflect their interests. Said interests might fall in what's expected for a boy or girl and it might not. The minute their play is restricted or expected to conform to what's acceptable for how a boy or girl starts, it limits their imagination. It's where sexist and bigoted ideas take root. Concepts like only men can perform certain jobs or women are only capable of so much are taught. It starts with something as innocuous as what toys kids are pushed towards either by advertisers, friends, parents, and society itself.
As a transman, I've heard plenty of debates about gender trace back to claims that kids can play with whatever toys they want or express themselves in whatever manner they want. If that was true, society would be far less gendered. At the very least, certain ideas and concepts would be more unisex and open-ended. As in: No specific sections or design choices for mens' wear vs women's wear. No mens' shampoo, women-specific scents, razors, shoes. Pushing for specific definitions of gender and gender roles play a part in gender divides or ongoing disparity between men and women. Or conflict between everyone regardless of their relationship to gender.
Besides Hater and Dominator as commentary on gender, the H.A.T.E.R.V. had plenty to say about those toy commercials too. There's a biting blurb at the end that mentions this will never be a real toy and not to attempt to create the R.V. yourself. That section of the skit focused on how strongly the life or death of a franchise relied on toy sales. Cartoons used to be nothing but vehicles for toy sales. It's not that showrunners and teams didn't write or create meaningful characters and stories. It's more that they were hamstrung by merchandising. New characters in He-Man, Transformers, or My Little Pony were an attempt to convince kids to drag their parents to the toy store now. Right now. My wife told me that an entire generation of beloved Transformers characters were culled in the 1980s theatrical movie as an executive mandate. We need room for the fresh round of bots to fill the shelves!
The skit is lovingly complemented by Hater struggling to get certain finicky parts on the R.V. to work. The commercial promised this feature so it should work! I can imagine plenty of parents growling at cheap, cost-cutting measures that led to a crying child. It's sad that Hasbro's toy-first production plagued cartoons up until the 2010s, leading to rumors or cancellations like Young Justice's run on Cartoon Network or a contributing factor to the end of Sym-Bionic Titan.
While toy sales aren't the chief deciding factor anymore, many indie productions rely on merch sales as part of their income now. Rather than He-Man, the current landscape features low-effort anime pumped out in hopes an otaku with pockets full of disposable income likes the waifus enough to buy figures, plushes, and other merch. There's still a specter of character design choices or narrative turns made in hopes of pleasing fans and getting them to empty their wallet. The caveat is that at least with an indie production like Glitch and Digital Circus or their other productions, the lion's share of the merch follows or reflects in show visuals and story beats. It's not cart before the horse, but a supplement. It's still frustrating that there's need for a sales pitch in any shows. While some of these merch commercials are cute and clever, it's the modern problem of a show's livelihood still depends somewhat on merch that's appealing enough to convince fans to buy.
It's been over a decade since the H.A.T.E.R.V. As counterintuitive as it is, I'd still love to have this toy. But more importantly, I appreciate what the team was trying to convey and think it still strikes a resonant enough chord in 2026 with the right context and history in mind.
