Who needs the Wild Wild West when David Gallagherr’s Mech West can reimagine steam-powered machines properly? I’m not talking about the celebrated television show which delivered cowboy diplomacy in the best way possible. Instead, the film, despite its flaws, had a cool moment with that huge mecha spider as the ultimate threat which had to be brought down. Although the series rarely featured steampunk at that extreme level, I don’t think many other takes featured robots powered by coal.
In this YouTube animated series, smaller sized machines need to be fed to keep on going. They’re like little bitumen powered bunnies, and I suspect most of these machines are pack mules or utilitarian for a lot of settlers. When they can’t provide milk, some bots have autonomy and others not. Some are mules and others replace the pony express. It’s a different world other weird west tales have not always explored.