It's time for the final countdown. Let's get dangerous.
#10: Musical MediaHell...yeah.
Authentic 1984 iPod.
He was the figure you wanted most of all when you were a kid. He was one of the few decently-proportioned robots amongst the lardfooted busty Datsuns, the trigger-crotched Megatron, the ape-armed Optimus and whatever the hell Wheeljack was meant to be. He had one of the earliest special gimmicks, namely keeping another Transformer in his chest. In the cartoon he was monotone, sinister and awesome. He was so good he survived the movie massacre and kept on rocking in the 21st century. He is Soundwave.
As much as I disagree with the same characters being trotted out over and over again, I have to say that Soundwave is emblematic of Transformers in general and the Decepticons in particular. Not only did he give the 'Cons his face for their symbol, but he remained perhaps the most iconic and recognisable of Decepticons, all things told. Plus hisfigure is very cool...tapes in his chest? Guns become batteries? Switches and dials? That's
amazing.Soundwave's tape army though...that's half the cool right there:
This picture is available as part of the "Diem's messy computer desk" collection.
In the earliest days of G1, the full size Decepticons consisted of Megatron, Soundwave and the three Seekers. Needless to say, they were horribly outnumbered, but the Cassettes (along with Shockwave, Reflector and a million Seeker repaints) helped bolster their forces.
"Ha! I'm the only 1984 Cassettecon with no repaint buddy! I'm so lonely..."
I covered Ravage in more detail in Big Cats, (okay...select, copy, paste...nah) so I'll just say he was one of Soundwave's best minions except for the whole getting captured thing. He also once got beaten by Spike.
By Spike.
"I'm trapped in a glass box of emotion!"
Buzzsaw and Laserbeak were possibly brothers, though I don't know, all birds look alike to me. I covered
these guys in Birds. Anyway it's a nice enough figure though due to mold-overuse his head and weapons may fall off. You can pretend he's being attacked by Omega Supreme or something.
"We might have been left to sift the whole field of human nomenclature, like two blind 'Cons looting a bazaar for their own portraits."
Rumble and Frenzy were awesome! These two guys both were tough-talking midgets with more brawn (not Brawn) than brains, they both had piledriver arms (in the cartoon at least) and they both had the same appearance. But one was black and red and the other was blue and purple. I guess it would have been a big deal if Rumble were red and Frenzy were blue (hey, that's kinda catchy) but as they were both essentially the same guy it doesn't really matter. Anyway, they don't like it when Soundwave gets called "unchrasimatic" "boirng" or " a wnaker".
Aside from all of the above, the most famous Cassettecon was probably Ratbat:
He's an auditer and an evil bloodsucker. But then, I repeat myself.
Despite his rubbish name, Ratbat was a pretty awesome guy. He was in charge of accounting on Cybertron so he was more concerned about fuel economising than defeating Autobots. He was all like "Trypticon, sic 'em" but after Trypticon's rampage (not Rampage) went on too long, he was all like "Trypticon, heel!" And that was Trypticon's only role in the comic! Ratbat not only had Trypti at his beck and call, he also seemed to be Soundwave's boss for a while. He may have come up with the idea of the "Carwash Of Doom" which hypnotised people when they went through the carwash and made them bring him fuel (haha guys who only got into Transformers recently, this is all true) but he got to be big boss for a while until Scorponok shot him over the whole Underbase mess.
This was all in the comics. In the cartoon, he was a mute and did sweet F.A.
Overkill and Slugfest both had excellent names, and fun alt modes. These guys barely had any screen or page time but they're great figures, and vital purchases for the cassette-enthusiast/paeleontolgist crossover demographic.
Let's press pause (ha!) and switch over to the forces of good. While Soundwave was a cold-hearted 'Con with a serious attitude, his Autobot counterpart was very different:
"Hey dude, having "Blast" in your name's gonna be the cool thing in the future!"
Blaster was a pretty hip dude! He was a crazy cat! He was outdated slang words! Much like Jazz before him he was "black" and much like Jazz he loved nothing better than blasting out music. He also loved to rap! Man, the eighties were progressive. He even had a musical duel with Soundwave in an evil disco. He was one of the few pre-movie characters to survive the movie and continued to be a main character even afterwards (although that involved him getting stuck in Carnage in C Minor). In the comics Blaster was a cold and serious character who ended up being a nemesis to the power-mad Grimlock. This resulted in Blaster leaving the Autobots, having wacky adventures in space and eventually duelling Grimmy on the moon. Then Optimus came back anyway, so there was no question of who was leader.
Anyway, the figure of Blaster was great, looking almost like a real tape player (albeit a red and yellow one) although the odd side-effect of this was that Blaster's robot mode was ludicrously tall. He towered over Optimus and Megatron and could stand head to head with the equally massive Sixshot. I suspect this was how the Autobots reclaimed Cybertron between 1985 and 2005; they just sent Blaster to push all the Decepticons over.
Blaster had his own little tape buddies. Steeljaw was Ravage's counterpart, a yellow lion who never really did anything much. He's pretty popular though! I now own three copies of this guy, and I stil don't "get" it. Sorry.
Ramhorn has quite a fun personality, being a raging lunatic and a rhino. He's good fun.
Eject and Rewind both have catchy names. One is a football fan, the other is a trivia buff. I'd love to go to a pub quiz with these guys. They kind of took over from Perceptor's schtick.
In Headmasters, Blaster and Soundwave, after much hairpulling and namecalling finally got down to a serious duel and after shooting at each other from about two metres away for five minutes (again, I'm not kidding) before dying. Rodimus agreed to rebuild Blaster after getting cried at by Daniel and the Cassettebots (so what, he can rebuild anyone at anytime?) into the charmingly blue, double-capacity Twincast while Galvatron decided he still needed a radio guy so Soundwave became the black Soundblaster.
I see a blue 'Con and I want to paint it black.
"Yeah, I used to be into Man U, but Chelsea are clearly the way to go."
These two restarted their personal vendettas with one another and added some new tapes to their armies. These new tapes could join in pairs to form larger robots. Some of these cassettes were released in very limited numbers only in Japan so they cost a million, squillion dollars. Roll on Encore Big Cassette Mission sets 4 and 5!
At one point during G1, Hasbro allegedly planned to make Transformers that changed from a guitar and an amp into robots with
rooted hair. I'm always open to new ideas but that sounds like the worst idea since Rock Lords.
Authentic 2007 iPo...oh, never mind.
Takara, apparently deciding that the Transformers line wasn't meta enough, decided to make a line of Transformers that had real life electronic functions, including a Soundwave that really played music! Admittedly it's a very cumbersome, low memory, low-function mp3 player, but it's probably the closest thing to a Classics/Universe Soundwave figure we have, with switchable fists, high posability and cool weapons. For those who have the budget to pay 90 dollars for a Deluxe class, it's a must buy. He comes in iPod white, Soundblaster black and raspberry ripple.
The face of vital purchases.
As companions to Music Label Soundwave, Frenzy and Rumble transform into headphones. If you want awkward looking Fremby, or robots hanging from your ears, they're a must buy.
As part of the movieverse, the Real Gear series was released. These guys represented 1:1 scale characters who transformed into numerous non-functional devices. The game controller that turned into a gorilla was awesome! Also released was Booster, a red iPod who could transform into a Laserbeak-inspired bird mode with an earbud that became a cannon. He makes a good companion to ML Soundwave. This figure was repainted into a skyblue Autobot with the name Nightbeat. That was weird.
This one goes to eleven.
In Animated, Soundwave made a homage-heavy reappearance but as a van. However this time he wielded Laserbeak, who was part bird, part guitar. He rocks. Literally. Because he's a guitar. So he rocks...screw it.
"Like a me out of hell!"
The only way a bat who once ruled over all the Decepticons could be any cooler would be to become a KEYTAR. If Hasbro want to improve on this they'll have to make the next Ratbat able to transform into a fully-functional bottle of Southern Comfort.
Well that's it for this musical mystery tour. Join me next time for some serious fanwank. You knows it.
