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We're now into the top twenty...

As a side note about this list, if a particular figure doesn't make it in, that's not necessarily because the figure is bad or not noteworthy, it's just because I don't have anything to say about that figure or that I genuinely forgot to include them. I'm not trying to skip anyone's favourites!

Anyway, on with the show:

#20: Here There Be Dragons

WARNING: This entry will use a fairly broad and vague definition of "dragon" to encompass general reptilian otherworldly beasts. To see if the potential inaccuracy of this definition is likely to upset you, please see how enraged the following test claims make you:

A) Beast Machines was superior to Beast Wars.
B) Every figure produced since G1 is crap.
C) Every figure produced before Armada is crap.
D) Size does matter.
E) "I remember Masterpiece Optimus Prime! I had him when I was a kid back in the eighties!"
F) The 2007 movie should have concentrated more on the human characters.

If any of the above claims caused you to turn green, rip your shirt, and start eating your keyboard, you may wish to listen to some relaxing music and take a warm bath before continuing with this entry.

This was a test of the Diem Offence Causing System. If this were a real situation, you would be offended and possibly flabbergasted. Knowing is half the battle.

For the first year of Transformers, that whole Robots In Disguise subtitle was pretty solid. Everyone turned into some kind of automobile, jet or device, and only the minibots looked unrealistic. Year 2 brought robot dinosaurs and insects, a giant raygun, and a futuristic jet, but was otherwise pretty realistic still.

Then it all went a bit weird. Hasbro let their licenses slide and jumped the franchise into the farflung future world of 2005.


Pictured: The farflung future world of 2005.

Suddenly, the Porsches and F-15s were being replaced with future cars and spaceships. The idea of the Alt Modes being realistic had pretty much gone out of the window.

Unless you count Sky Lynx, the first dragons in the line came in 1987:


No witty caption can do this guy justice.

Snapdragon was part of the elite Horrorcon unit of the Decepticons, a unit consisting only of two members (that's still two more members than the Wheelie fan club). The Horrorcons were both triple-changers and Headmasters. They're like the lovechildren of Chromedome and Astrotrain (and if that concept doesn't weird you out, you've been reading too much fan-fiction.)

I hate to gush, but this figure was and is a minor masterpiece. The robot mode is tremendously articulated for the time with hips, shoulders, elbows and knees, the jet mode is unbelievably sexy, and his...other mode is cool too. I say "other" because despite his name he looked far less like a dragon and more like an iguanadon. Even his tech specs describe him as a reptile.

That said, he combines the fearsome beast mode of a Decepticon Headmaster, the super-cool jet mode of a Decepticon Targetmaster, the cool twin guns of an Autobot Headmaster, the triple-changing of a...Triple-changer, and the refreshing wit of Stephen Fry.


"Back off, Snapdragon!"
"NO!"
- actual dialogue from the show.

Last entry, I gushed about the Technobot Afterburner. Well, I'm sure you're sick of my gushing. And I'm sure you're sick of me using the word "gushing" while you're trying to eat. But anyway, the Technobots cemented the age of regular Earth modes becoming a thing of the past, along with their rivals, the Terrorcons.

Yep, Horrorcons and Terrorcons. Man, the eighties were classy.

Anyway, I plan to consider two of the Terrorcons "dragons" for the purposes of this entry: Hun-Grrr and Sinnertwin.

Sadly there are no images of these guys in the Seibertron Galleries, so I'm forced to substitute my own:


"BAD MOJO! BAD DOG!"

Yep, Hun-Grrr (or however the kids are spelling it nowadays) and Sinnertwin both fit in the category of two-headed dragon beast things (although Hun looks more like some kind of stegosaurus and Sinner looks more like a dog). Also, they both have awesome names. Haters might point out that none of the Terrorcons except maybe Cutthroat have alt modes that look like anything in human history, real, mythological, or otherwise. Which is a good point until you realise that at this stage in the mythos the Transformers were battling on many a wacky planet with freaky inhabitants, so maybe the Terrorcons had incredibly convincing alien modes. On the planet of the two-headed beasties, Hun-Grrr is king.


"Get up on the Hydra's back!"

Doublecross was the best of the Monsterbots (an accolade akin to being the least douchey cast member of Jersey Shore) with fire-breathing action (wonder why they didn't reissue this guy) and again, two heads. In true comedy fashion, his two heads would argue with one another. He was also one of the progenitors of Beast Wars' seriously over-used beast-mode-head-as-robot-mode-hand habit.


I have a soft spot the size of yo' momma when it comes to the Firecons. Sure their robot modes are weak and their transformations are crappy but their beast modes were so cuuuute. Plus if you wanted them to breathe sparks you had to make them roll along on their bellies. Hilarious. Also, Cindersaur looks a bit like Baragon or Anguiras, so that's a plus.


Fingerchompin' good.

Speaking of Kaiju, I was going to discount him on the grounds of clearly being a giant chicken but according to his Japanese tech specs he's a dragon. Fair enough.

It was Beast Wars where the toy designers really fell off the dragon...er, wagon. There were a whole bunch of sinister reptiles, but the first true dragon was Megatron, Transmetal 2.


"Hey, did you hear that Puff the Magic Dragon was supposedly about drugs? I can't stand the prejudice against dragons."
*snooooort* "Doesn't bother me, I'm a helicopter."

Yep, the Beast Wars line had finsihed doing real animals, mechanical animals and mutations of real animals mixed together and went outright mythical. Megatron was now a big ol' shiny dragon, as was his repaint, Cryotek. Sadly in the show he didn't get to keep this form for long before getting shipped back to Cybertron.


"I wish for the most comfortable underwear in the world!"


"You must spawn more Overlords!"

For some reason, Megatron decided that he hated being a dragon, and decided to discard his bio bits. This led to the creation of Savage/Noble, who in the show was an interesting and sympathetic figure and in the toyline was a thing that turned from a crappy werewolf into the creature above.

Let's move on...


"Heh heh...lemon sour poop..."

Blurrz already waxed lyrical about the awesomeness of RiD Megatron's jet and car mode but I wanna have a look here at the dragon mode. This is where Megatron's ostentatious purple, black and gold really shine. This dragon Megatron, with his ornate, vivid colours, his long neck and big wings branching from a small body and his dramatic crests, looks brilliantly like a Chinese decoration or parade dragon. Excellent.


"You wanna see my sweater puppies?"

Scourge (and his repaints) may well be the last non-minicon Dragon that we'll see for a while in Transformers. The movie line has been eschewing beast modes for the most part, no Dragonformers are really iconic enough to be must-sees in Universe 3.0, and War For Cybertron probably won't include any characters that weren't introduced in 1984-1985. But if Scourge is the last dragon we'll see, we're going out on a high. This guy is huge, imposing and fierce-looking. In the storyline he was the ruler of a planet where authority was decided by physical strength and he sure looks the part. With his huge axe, his fangs and his extra heads, he ensures that the legend..will never die.

That's it for dragons. Next time, we'll be taking to the skies. See you then!

you forgot BW2 Galvatron. He's got a nifty dragon mode too.

olokin wrote:you forgot BW2 Galvatron. He's got a nifty dragon mode too.

D'oh! I meant to include him too. Oh well.

And that (admittedly mediocre) dragon minicon from Classics was ignored, too?

Valandar wrote:And that (admittedly mediocre) dragon minicon from Classics was ignored, too?

But you can't ignore him, because he's got a $1000 repaint - Dragoyell.

Valandar wrote:

I own a cat, and she's a wonderfull little furball. And the closest living relative to the T-Rex is the chicken, which isn't so awesome. Cats win.

Except, I don't believe in evolution, so that doesn't apply But still even when it's Sabre toothed Tiger VS T-Rex, I'd say T-Rex is cooler.


Back on topic, WOAH! Dragons for the next, awesome choice, I had no idea half of those even existed..ok this definitely redeems motorcycles over T-rex completely.

Time for the teens:

#19: The Birds

It's finally time for me to give you the bird. The bird in question is:


"Hitchcock was an optimist."

Laserbeak. Admittedly his brother Buzzsaw probably came first (if only by a small margin) but we all know Laserbeak's the king. Lemme check my Transfodex...


"A wild FEAROW appeared!"

Laserbeak is a powerful Transformer with several powerful attacks, including FLOATY GUN, LASER EYE and SHOOT MUTHALOVIN' OPTIMUS PRIME OFF A CLIFF WITHOUT EVEN TRYING. His favourite habitat is the arm of whoever leads the Decepticons at the moment, or Soundwave's chest. Even the most powerful trainers should attempt caution when trying to catch this Transformer.

Laserbeak is on the Uber tier and cannot be used in regular competitive play.

Seriously. Laserbeak had a whole book dedicated to him (Laserbeak's Fury), once took down Optimus, if directly responsible for most of the victories the Decepticons had and basically hangs on the arm of the mightiest Decepticon around. He basically is the Deception Matrix Of Being A Badass.

A Buzzsaw is fine too, I guess.


"Finally, a vast predatory bird. Wonder how well he hangs in the sky."

Divebomb is a G1 Predacon. That's +10 cool points right there. He also carries the orange, red, yellow and black colour scheme of the team off well, being mostly black with huge orange and black wings. That's +5. His toy bio makes him a pretty well-developed character: He's a genuinely happy and merry guy unlike the misanthropes and psychopaths that make up his fellow 'cons. He enjoys making mecha-nests (ie batchelor pads) in high places and chilling out. That's +10. In the comics, he had a rivalry with Swoop, whose original name he stole. This led to the Dinobots and the Predacons ending up in a massive brawl. That's, like +20. All in all, Divebomb is so cool that he makes Jazz look awkward and uncomfortable.

I've gone on about the Terrorcons before, and this is almost the last time, I swear. But the one who looks most like a regular animal rather than some fearsome bestial alien is Cutthroat. Sadly there's no pictures in the gallery but this guy resembles a vulture. He's no scavenger though; his profile paints him as a lunatic fighter so bloodcrazed that it even disturbs his fellow 'Cons.


"Wait, Punch thinks that whole "Counterpunch" thing works!?"

Wingspan and Pounce were the Decepticon twins. The idea here was that they had identical robot modes but different alt modes to fool the enemy (their different weapons and little badges revealing their alt modes probably didn't help here). The upshot of this was that Pounce turned into a fairly good puma while Wingspan turned into a broad-chested, tiny-winged eagle. D'oh!


Three birdies joined the bad guys in 1988:

"This is my friend, Snuffleupagus!"


"I don't know why, but every third song on this mixtape is "I Believe I Can Fly". Weird."



Why are all these birds bad guys? This is a common theme up until Beast Wars. Either way, Flamefeather is almost as cool as Cindersaur from the last entry, and Squawktalk is a triple-changer, able to transform into a bird, a tape, or a pair of legs. Doubledealer (Sir Not-appearing-in-this-entry) was either a heroic robot or yep, an evil bird. I don't own the figure but his double Powermaster gimmick is pretty neat.


Good luck not seeing this in your nightmares.

One of the Pretender Monsters, Birdbrain had this as his shell. Enough people clamour for a Monstructor remake, maybe it'll happen!

I'm going to skip Sights and go onto the Beast Wars:


"I'm Silverbolt. Not that one. No, not that Silverbolt either."

Unlike in G1, most of the birds here were goodies. The first Silverbolt in BW was this wide-winged eagle dude. He had pretty simple colours but it looked good. He could use his feathers as swords, or fire them as missiles from his wing tips. He also formed the chest and comedy hat of Magnaboss.


"I'm a man in Japan!"

Airazor was made at a time when the Beast Wars line kept pumping out hits. She (it turned out that she was a she) was very posable, had neat features like flapping wings and a talon gun. In the show she was kind of a hippy and bummed around with Tigatron instead of doing anything useful. For shame! She also had a Transmetal figure that had sort-of boobies and turned into sort-of a seaplane.


"Well, I'm an embarrassment to both birds and dinosaurs."

This guy was released in Japan first, then repainted as one of the Beast Era Dinobots. He's a pretty ugly customer in both modes but he has little wing bombs and his robot mode is unique, to say the least.


"I wanted to stay as a jet. Can you blame me?"

Silverbolt (no, not that Silverbolt) went evil for a while in Beast Machines, and came back emo with a moustache. Like most of the BM beasts, he looks terrible.

To finish off with, since I won't hear the end of it if I skip another minicon, there was a bird minicon, and he was repainted as various guys including tiny Shattered Glass Divebomb:


"I'm noteworthy!"

Were there really no birds between BM Silverbolt and this guy? Am I missing someone?

Anyway, that's it for this entry. I'd like to share with you a brief anecdote about the movie The Birds. I watched it and despite the weak effects it kept me on the edge of my seat in suspense. Until the very end, where the heroes are walking safely away from the hungry beady-eyed masses. We, the viewer overhear the radio talking about the violent birds and how to avoid them. The radio then mentions that the roads have been blocked.

That's it for beast modes...for a while anyway. From next time, it'll be good old fashioned machinery.

Armada Laserbeak

Shadowhawk and Shadowhawk Cosmos Type from Energon/Superlink

Cybertron Soundwave's Laserbeak

Razorclaw0000 wrote:Armada Laserbeak

Shadowhawk and Shadowhawk Cosmos Type from Energon/Superlink

Cybertron Soundwave's Laserbeak

Who can forget that cool Laserbeak...no not the weird orange camcorder/gun thing.

I'm talking about the cool Bomb Hawk minicon of Cybertron Soundwave.

Not only was his transformation cool, he was quite poseable for such a small figure, and he turned into a hexagonal canister bomb.

A great little sub line of canister figures could have been born (Kind of like RockLords meet Casseticons), but Hasbro decided to only release the one mold.

Because everybody knows that the bird is the word.