Back when the new TCC Depthcharge toy was announced, it was presumed to be a pre-Earth toy of the Depth Charge character from the Beast Wars cartoon, along the similar lines of the "Dawn of Future's Past" toys from BotCon 2006.
But, when the toy's bio was first seen, this apparently wasn't the case, for the bio contained some things contradictory to the cartoon character's portrayal. Upon closer examination, however, it was revealed that this Depth Charge hails from an alternate universe that had a very different history to that of the Beast Wars cartoon.
What's more is that that this alternate universe wasn't/isn't just some random one-off universe made up for Depth Charge's bio. Rather, it was one that the Club had written about before, in the bio of Transtech Blackarachnia written in issue #25 of the TCC magazine.
And with the publishing of issue #49 of the magazine last February/March, an extended version of Depth Charge's toy bio elaborated even further on his backstory, solidly confirming him to be of the same alternate universe as described in Blackarachnia's bio.
Why do I keep insisting that it's an alternate universe instead of just the same universe as the Beast Wars cartoon? Well, for one, the history of this universe and its inhabitants described in both bios is quite blatantly different from that of the cartoon. and, the Depth Charge bio gave this world its own
Universal Stream designation of
Primax 209.0 Gamma ("Primax" for the G1 continuity family, "209.0" for February 2009 on an unknown day, and "Gamma" for "comic book"--even though it ought to be "Epsilon" for "Club/convention fiction").
Below are excerpts from both bios to explain the nature of this universe.
Blackarachnia's bio:
Intelligent, cunning, and fiercely loyal – there's no question why Blackarachnia was chosen by Alpha Trion to be his right hand woman. Along with Nightscream, Scavenger and Immorticon, she works closely with the ancient warrior as they try to escape the cage they believe the Transtech have built around them.
Although she and her three companions outwardly appear to be Transtech, inside the chassis of these four Transtech glow the Sparks of their outworlder doppelgangers; Maximals and Predacons, once lost and dejected, who were discovered by their would-be benefactor among the other lowtechs in the outskirts of Axiom Nexus. Upon discovering them, Alpha Trion soon found the leverage he needed to gather them into his herd.
On their own Cybertron, they were nothing but pawns. They were bred and trained to fight in a war whose original combatants had become old and tired. The Autobots and Decepticons were as ancient as Cybertron itself; their vocalizers crackled with age, and their structures encased in rust. The only thing that kept their Sparks fueled was the hatred they held for the other side So each faction built a new species to continue their battles. The designed them for war, and imbued them with the same hatred. Out on the battlefront, watching their comrades fight and die for a cause that was not their own, Blackarachnia and her battalion came to realize that they no longer hated their supposed enemy. No, their anger was now directed at the progenitors that had placed them on this chess board. The deaths of their fellow soldiers Silverbolt, Rattrap, and Rhinox were the final straws. They took up their weapons for what they had hoped to be the final time and struck down their commanding officer, Optimus Primal, who refused to turn against the Autobots. Predacon dissidents soon joined with their Maximal counterparts to fight against their oppressors. The uprising was costly, as they lost half their number in the struggle, and their new leader, Cheetor, lay damaged, dangling on the edge of stasis lock. So Blackarachnia and Nightscream fled, along with two Predacons (Scavenger and Immorticon), engaging an experimental transwarp engine, hoping to find themselves anywhere other than Cybertron.
Instead, when their optics booted, they found themselves right back where they had just left. It was still Cybertron... but different. Yet, it was still far too familiar for them. The priamry inhabitants still treated them like they were something less. Once again they felt that familiar twinge of anger, And Alpha Trion was more than willing to help them hone that anger into the blade he'd use to gain their "freedom" and to ensure his return back to his homeworld.
Depth Charge's bio:
Depth Charge's tracking skills are legendary. As defender, pursuer, and, if need be, judge, Depth Charge acts swiftly and with unquestioning resolve. So when the Autobot elders needed the murderous Protoform X captured and returned to them, Depth Charge was their first and only choice. It took the Maximal nearly nine stellar cycle and twelve doomed colleagues to hunt down the monster, but ultimately he succeeded and ended the massacre.
When he brought the shackled beast before the elders, he learned of his new task; two Maximals, Blackarachnia and Nightscream, and two Predacons, Immorticon and Scavenger, had participated in a rebellion that had left a Maximal commander offline and a distrust amongst the Maximal army ranks. The had stolen an experimental transwarp generator as a means of fleeing from authorities, and triggered the device in the outskirts of Cybertropolis. Retracing their steps with his own transwarp device, Depth Charge discovered their escape route was perhaps not of their own choosing - the experimental generator had malfunctioned, tearing a hole in the fabric of reality. Unable to relinquish his hunt, Depth Charge sabotaged his own transwarp device so that it would suffer a similar failure. Soon he too disappeared in to another reality.
When his optics rebooted, he found himself in a bustling world filled with strange faces. He had little idea of what this "Axiom Nexus" place was or how he had gotten there, but such questions were unimportant to him. He still had a trail to follow, which eventually led him to doors of a strange individual named Alpha Trion. The Autobot informed Depth Charge of how he encountered the four fugitives and had taken him into his home. He explained that once inside, they turned on him and threatened his life. He continued the explanation saying that his assistant - Topspin - was forced to intervene and use his unusual ability to extract and extinguish the fugitives' sparks. Depth Charge was unsure of the story he had just been told and and pressed Alpha Trion further, until Topspin showed him the four sparkless bodies. There was something about that Autobot that Depth Charge still didn't trust, but visage of the bodies appeared to be conclusive; his hunt was over.
Now unable to collect on the bounty or return home, the Maximal bounty hunter was trapped in a universe that was not his own. He took He took to prowling the streets of the "Low Tech" underworld, always searching for his next bounty. That is, until the Transtech came to call on him.
So, yeah, no Golden Disk theft, no time travel, no prehistoric Earth, no Pax Cybertronia, not even a "Beast Wars" event. The universe from which these Club characters all hail from lacks nearly all of the events from which the Beast Wars cartoon was known for, save only for Maximals and Predacons being the next generation after the Autobots and Decepticons, and Depth Charge hunting down and capturing Protoform X.
Speaking of which, it is more than likely that the character of new Protoform X toy, as well as that of the new Transmutate toy, will likely hail from this universe as well.
)
