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NOTE: This entry was previously far longer, incorporating the Unicron Trilogy, movieverse and Animated. and Animated but it was lost when Seibertron was down. I didn't want to rewrite the whole entry so here's what I happened to have saved.

I almost don't want to do this entry. Half of you will love it, but half of you will complain that it should be higher up the list, and the other half will complain that I missed out, say, Pipes (of course there are three halves of you).

#9: Lorries.

Yep, lorries. Those of you born outside the UK may not have this word but for us it's how we differentiate between the types of trucks that have four wheels and tailgates (those would be trucks) and the type of trucks that have many wheels and are designed specifically to pull trailers (those would be lorries).

Trucks certainly have given us a lot as a lot as a society! For a start, the CB radio. For you younger readers, back in the days before the internet CB radio was what you used if you wanted to adopt a weird name, loudly voice your opinion and talk in code that no ordinary people would understand. Truck culture also gave us "Keep on Truckin'", mesh caps, and some of the worst moustaches outside of the world of professional wrestling or 3rd Division football. In the UK, Lorry drivers gave us little more than Yorkies and arguements with the French.

Anyway, I'm beating around the bush because I understand that there was a lorry or something in the early days of Transformers:


"...yeah, that guy..."

I joke! It is of course Optimus Prime. Now I'll be honest, I'm not the world's biggest fan of Optimus Prime, so if you think you're likely to get confrontational and angry about me not liking him as much as you do, you might want to skip this entry. To test your rage tolerance, please read the following sentences:

* "I heard Michael Bay is gonna hire Pat Lee to help with Transformers 3! This is gonna rock!"

* "Hasbro don't give a crap about the fans! When has there been a single piece of evidence that they care about us?"

* "I sure hope Sam Witwicky gets his own spinoff series!"

* "Returning Transformers boxes to the shops with the figure swapped for something else is acceptable and fun!"

If any of the above sentences made you want to write to me, Ryan, your congressman etc. and complain, then my particular brand of iconoclasty may not be for you.

Anyway, Optimus was the leader of the Autobots because he was the biggest. He had modestly good articulation, a robot mode that looked vaguely humanoid, a nice big gun and a trailer full of fun features such as Roller. Hopefully when you were a kid you held on tight to his fists because everyone knew the kid at school who'd lost them and had to pretend that Prime was "shooting his wrist guns". It's a fair enough figure but it's been reissued more times than The Matrix on DVD. That said, the Pepsi Convoy repaint is totally on my list.


"A competitive cola is the right of all sentient beings!"

In the TV show Prime was the consumate hero! He was brave and noble and heroic and self-sacrificing. He was actually kind of boring because he had no flaws, apart from maybe being what Dungeons and Dragons players refer to as "Lawful Stupid." Remember when Megatron made fake videos that suggested that the Autobots were evil to turn people against them, and the humans requested that the Autobots leave Earth and Optimus agreed even though he knew for a fact that the videos were fake and that the Decepticons were planning to use the humans as slaves, soldiers and comfy footrests? Either Prime is stupid, paralysed by his own honour system or is so petty he decided to let the humans get up to their eyeballs in it before he bailed them out. I actually like the latter explanation more.

Prime sure died a lot, huh? He almost died when the Decepticons kicked the chrome out of him, and then when Laserbeak shot his chest innards while he was being repaired (bet he was glad the writers hadn't thought up the Matrix yet). Then he died for real in the Movie, after the latest catfight with Megatron. He came back temporarily as a zombie in one of the best episodes ever but regained enough of his willpower to save his fellow Autobots from dying in an explosion. He was blown up in that episode but he's like Daffy Duck or something and the next time we saw him he was in perfect nick, though unconscious. He was revived by a captured Quintesson (would have been handy to try that before dropping the bodies of all the 1984 Autobots into a star, eh Rodimus?) and, by Japanese continuity was alive for about half a dozen episodes before dying and handing the Matrix back to Rodimus who then passed that hot potato to Fortress. Phew!

That's about it for my Prime bashing. No wait. The Autobots were composed of sports cars, racers and so on and they followed around a truck? Must've been frustrating, like being trapped behind an old lady on a narrow street. No wonder Cliffjumper was always in such a bad mood.

Anyway, there's been like a million Primes. Let's take a look:


"I'm a man in Japan!"


"It's not a skirt, it's a sarong."


This is totally the best Optimus figure.


"I'm kind of a big deal."


Let's take a brief break from Primes and look at some other G1 lorries:


"10-4 Rubberduck, three bears in the air"

Huffer's deal was that he kept complaining because he was homesick. Gears kept complaining because he was a complainer. And Cliffjumper was just a dick. Boy, the 1984 Minibots were a fun bunch!


"This is GLK London!"

Pipes was a retool of Huffer and rather than just a cosmetic change they switched his transformation around. Pretty neat. I'm sure Outback is jealous.


"I'm...at least the Queen of the Road!"

Years before any Nemesis or Scourge the anti-Prime was Motormaster. Sure, he may have had a terrible name but he was everything Prime wasn't: a mean-spirited bully of a leader. His ambition was to play chicken with Prime to prove who was King of the Road and he...well, he came a close second. His robot mode incorporates his trailer rather than just his truck so logically he should be three or four times Prime's height but it didn't work that way.


Ultra Magnus or Heat Armour Prime? You decide.

Two years after Prime came out Ultra Magnus made an appearance. He shared both a mold and a silly roman-esque name with Prime but had a car-transporter trailer rather than a commercial trailer. The trailer was able to merge with him to become a larger robot, but we were all more interested in the inner robot. Had Prime repainted himself? Was this Prime's brother? We all wanted to know.

In the cartoon, Ultra Magnus was a serious, underconfident, navel-gazing weenie with occasional moments of badassery. In the comics, every Autobot leader was a serious, underconfident, navel-gazing weenie with occasional moments of badassery so he didn't stand out so much.


"I'm full of EVIL fuel"

Octane transformed from a robot into a weaponless jet into a weaponless fuel tanker. Needless to say he was a little bitter about this so he ended up being all passive agressive about giving out his fuel. In the cartoon he ended up being temporarily an Autobot (it would have been Blitzwing but Octane's toy was newer) and in the comic he ended up having awesome Bono-style sunglasses. The figure, like many G1 figures, suffers from being bloody awful.


"I really shouldn't be he...oh, wait."

Powertrain was one of the early Micromasters. Of note is the fact that his arms are automatically above his head when pointing forwards. Try walking around like this, see how people react.He got repainted in even uglier colours but with his very own decal as Ironworks.

Also amongst the Micromasters were Erector (I see nothing funny about that), Roughstuff and Overload who was notable for getting both the most obscure Armada homage ever and looking like a tiny tiny Optimus Prime.


"If one more person sings that "I'm blue, daboodeedaboodai" song I'm gonna run them over."

Oiler and Slide merged to form...a tanker truck. I actually really liked the Micromaster Combiners, you could get some interesting combinations out of those little guys. I feel sorry for the guy who just becomes a fuel tank though. He can't smoke, he can't go to saunas and he definitely can't enjoy a nice bonfire.


"Those "What's the worst Transformer" threads you make? I laugh at those."

Yeah, it's Staxx. No Transformers collection is complete without Staxx. You should own, like, three of this guy.


"Optimus repaint in three...two..."

Thunderclash is one of the last Transformers to be produced during G1 and like most of his fellow Turbomasters he's raw awesome. He turns into a robot while his trailer becomes a weapons platform and he had mighty, mighty rocket launchers. He also had a fairly subdues colour scheme for the time. He was so obscure that the Botcon guys were able to snap up the character for a recent set. Oddly enough, much like Japanese G1 he was the leader despite not being Optimus Prime! Then he got repainted into Optimus Prime. On the side of evil, meanwhile, was Clench. He too was a truck whose trailer became a weapons platform and he was all kinds of groovy shades of dark. Here's hoping Clench also gets remade. Hey, the Energon Rodimus mold'll be fine here too.


"A popular black repaint. Let's see if this ever happens again..."

There'd been a few black repaints of Optimi before especially in the wacky realm of Takara (although Optimus Primal took the precaution of already being black) but it was never very clear whether these were supposed to be evil Primes or just Primes going to a funeral or feeling emo. Scourge was the first and arguably last succesful insertion of an evil Prime into the story proper. To give a bit of context the real Prime (currently a fire engine) was being backed up by three medium-sized cars, six small cars, three HUGE trains, a tow truck and an Indy car. Megatron, on the other hand, had a skunk, a squirrel, a frog and a shark. Needless to say, the Autobots won a lot during this time ("Go, my heroic Autobots! We outnumber them three to one!") until Megatron got his hands on some Autobot protoforms and turned them into Decepticons. The first five Decepticons ended up being a tank, a jeep, a helicopter, a space shuttle and an artillery truck (sound familliar?) but the sixth was activated while Prime was trying to save a petrol tanker from going up. It ended up scanning both the tanker and Prime, resulting in a 'Con with a tanker Alt Mode, Prime's strength, intelligence and leadership skills and a twist of pure evil. In a series filled with wacky hijincks and hilarious incompetence all around, the shrewd and sinister Scourge was a great character.

His figure was lots of fun too, with big ol' shouders and lighty-uppy bits.


Guess which figure is the more expensive. If you guessed the one with the bafflingly transparent smokestacks and the inconspicuous robot fists, you're right!

It's easy to bash Armada Prime. Fun too! His truck mode, as mentioned above, has ridiculously blatant fists meaning you have to have the trailer attached, his total vehicle mode sits in the awkward valley between realistic and futuristic, his combined robot mode is barely posable and downright ugly and his Minicon feels cheap. On the positive side he has tons of playable features and electronica, and combinations with fellow Autobots.


What happens when you combine Optimus Prime and Thunderbirds? You SHAME the franchise.

Energon Prime, on the other hand, is beyond redemption. Let's pretend this never happened.


Hasbro, d...did you lose the trademark for Pipes?

Armorhide is a cute little truck guy who interestingly transforms upside down.


"If you need me, you can reach me on 0-800-PISSED-OFF-TO-SPACE"

Energon Rodimus is, like so, so much of the Energon line, a charming homage. In this case he is G1 Rodimus reborn as a cool racing truck. In robot mode he has legs like Xenia Onatopp!


"Optimus repaints. The long-awaited "Eight Series". "Optimus visits relatives in Annapolis, Maryland. Optimus poses for repaint photo."

Yep, it's Movieverse Optimus. This guy can't help but remind me of more peaceful times when the same character wouldn't get rereleased more than once, maybe twice a year. Anyway, he's a face-removin', Shia-lovin' man's man with Peter Cullen's voice. Oh, and his ROTF Leader mold is great, especially the Buster Version. That is all.


"Endless homages are the right of all sentient beings!"

Yep, it's Animated Optimus. This guy can't help but remind me of more peaceful times when the same character wouldn't get rereleased more than once, maybe twice a year. Anyway, he's a work-slacking, lilly-hugging bath-taker with Megatron's voice. Oh, and his Voyager mold is adequate. In Japan he's shinier! That is all.

So that ends this particular article (ooh, Deja Vu). Next time it'll...uh...some joke about porsches.

That's a shame so much of it got lost. REWRITE IT! REWRITE IT NOW!

Hopefully when the galleries come back, this list will continue! (are the gals coming back? )

Giant Purple Griffin wrote:Hopefully when the galleries come back, this list will continue! (are the gals coming back? )

Yes they will. He's out of town for a few days but when he gets back they will be uploaded again, but it will take time. I think there's 300 GB of pictures or something like that

Good thing I read #9's entry before the board crash. Great entry, hope you do go back and edit it to where it was before.

But anyway, I learned something! I had no idea that semi-truck's were called lorries in the UK.

I also fully agree with your not putting them at #1 on the list, just cause Prime happened to be one. After all, while semi-lorries are cool(and I didn't realize there were so many non-Optimus ones), I do feel they are a little bit limited on how "cool" they are.

@Diem, please correct me but is that a Choro-Q Convoy? Nice looking, makes me want to hunt for one.

Giant Purple Griffin wrote:Hopefully when the galleries come back, this list will continue! (are the gals coming back? )

. Hopefully I'll soon be able to rewrite #9 and get on with #8.

fenrir72 wrote:@Diem, please correct me but is that a Choro-Q Convoy? Nice looking, makes me want to hunt for one.

It is indeed. All the Choro-Q figures are great fun, especially Megatron (he's a gun with a pull-back motor on the side) and I thoroughly recommend them.

Howdy, all... I figured what with the galleries back, I'd bump this thread back up into the public eye! 'Cause it's awesome!

I'd like to see it finished, too!

I'd like to see the conclusion also.

Hopefully Diem has time to finish this.

For god's sake man, get your priorities straight! Leave that college work alone and finish this thread!

Sorry about the off-time guys: between my laptop suffering more damage than the franchise at the hands of Pat Lee and some major life events (including getting married) I've been away from Seibertron for a while. But it'd be a shame to leave the list unfinished so here we go:

#8: Porsches

Whenever Optimus Prime would be away from his troops for a while or, more regualarly, die, he always seemed to pick the strangest successors. In Japanese continuity it was whoever had the most expensive toy at the time, in the wacky world of Furman it was usually Grimlock and in the cartoon it was the guy who couldn't deal with it right now.

All of which was strange because in his ranks he had one of the best possible substitute leaders imaginable. Jazz was intelligent, well-liked, cool under pressure, cool generally and incredibly skillful. He had the soulful tones of Scatman Crothers, a banging sound system and a sweet car mode. Jazz is kind of what would happen if Will Smith successfully won the role of James Bond in the movie where it turns out that James Bond is actually Bruce Wayne.


Rodimus sucked but Jazzimus Prime would've kicked Galvatron's aft all the way to Gobotron.


Never wash your porsche at too high a temperature.

Cliffjumper on the other hand was what would happen if Joe Pesci was playing the role of Lightning McQueen the day Lightning went through a car crusher.

This guy was one of those angry munchkin types you get in every cartoon. He managed to get Hound knocked off a cliff, branded his comrade a traitor; and at one stage he failed to jump up a cliff. Not the most valuable member of the Autobot cause. He got a couple of repaints.


"So I can get some screentime...but only if I fight Trypticon...?"

Hubcap was also not the finest of Autobots either, being an affable con artist. He and Smokescreen must have got on well, reading their comrades' diaries and giving Perceptor wedgies.


"Maroon with yellow stripes. Is it that hard to remember?"

While most early Transformers had one-dimensional characters (the brave guy, the tough guy etc.) Dead End had two-dimensions: Paris Hilton and Eeyore. He spent all his time pondering his inevitable death while making sure he was well-polished. Since then several figures have been homages to this guy but none of them were correctly coloured in car mode.

Nightbeat was one of the coolest combinations ever: a beautiful Porsche, a Headmaster and a hard-boiled detective. He was more Raymond Chandler than Johnathan Creek or Monk, but he was still awesome. Like all the small Autobot Headmasters he had a cool transformation with the smaller robot becoming his head and the car seat becoming the helmet, the two smaller guns becoming ears. Good luck finding him with all the parts intact!

Under Simon Furman's pen Nightbeat gained a vivid personality with a keen mind, a sharp tongue and a Dr. Watson in the form of noisy buddy Siren. Sometimes I think about which TFs could have had the best spin-offs of their own and my dream latenight cop show Sirens on the Nightbeat would have had almost as many viewers as Tracks and Raoul: True Crime[i] or Snipe and Boss: You Don't Know Who We Are[/i]. Then he was killed off.

Whoops.


"Being tiny and hanging around a large aircraft is a Skystalker family tradition"

Skystalker was one of the few original mold Micromasters to not come with a patrol; instead he came with a huge space-shuttle/combat jet/base thing that you can find parts of at thrift stores and behind furniture everywhere.


Minerva: Confusing 8-year-old Japanese boys since the late eighties.

Nightbeat's repaint from across the waters was a totally different character; namely the tiny human female type of character. For some reason this petite blonde sensitive girl who can become an ambulance/car/robot is incredibly popular. Like most female characters in groups of three she was the sensible one who curtailed the excesses of her two companions. The figure retails for roughly the price of Birmingham nowadays.


"True Stepper. True Stepper tonight..."

Stepper, AKA Ricochet is probably the closest thing to the Anti-Jazz before Shatter Glass started. His black and white have been inverted from Jazz's, the silver replaced with gold and the calm blue decals replaced with fiery-red and gold. Personality-wise he's a world of difference too: serious and agressive.

For some reason in 1987 Takara decided not to re-release as Targetmasters those characters who'd been released the year before, and instead added two new Targetmasters to the mix: Stepper (the anti-Jazz) and Artfire (the anti-Inferno). These figures were retooled to take Targetmaster partners (weirdly, those of Scourge and Cyclonus) and Stepper was eventually released in the US as Ricochet.

There was also a Porsche Spychanger mold but it wasn't as cool as the mold with the exposed engine and there's no gallery pictures of him, so let's not go there.

Next time, whenever that is, a serious, SERIOUS fan favourite. I'm dreading it as much as you are.

Thanks, Diem, for another fine entry. Congrats on getting married!

These are very fun to read! Very interesting and fun.

Married? Awesome! Congrats!

Congrats on getting married and good to see this back. And yes, Jazz would've been a much better leader than Magnus or Grimlock.

Yeah, Congrats! but you should have been reviewing TFs for us on your honeymoon

j/k, it's good to see the list continue!

It's time for entry number 7. Lucky seven, eh? But first...


It is the year 2015.

Coming home from work (man your boss has been a lot meaner since that alien slug took over his mind) you take a sonic shower then decide to sit at your computer (AKA. Device Label Mainframe) and as it loads up you idly glance at Masterpiece Scrounge (man, you can't believe Takara lost that bet).

Oh my god! The new Transformers MMORPG has finished downloading!

You log in and go to the character creation page...hmm, which style should you choose? G1, Beast Wars, Animated, Movie? Nope, has to be G1. After choosing the perfect name ([insert your first name here]imus Prime) you start the game. Instantly you go to the tutorial area, Autobot City on Earth but something's wrong. It's supposed to be daylight but instead it's all dark. After a moment you look up and...

...my god, it's full of Seekers.


A terrifyingly accurate view of the future.

#7: Seekers F-15

There's nothing wrong with being a fan of Seekers but much like fans of Naruto, fans of The Hills or fans of pretty much any sports team ever, there are a lot of bad apples in the crowd. It's impossible to turn a Transformers-themed corner on the internet without seeing some recoloured and badly renamed Starscream.


"I'm here to stab backs and chew Energon."

Starscream himself is a surprisingly complex character. Is he an impulsive idiot constantly being kept in line by Megatron, or is he a genius whose cunning strategy is, without fail, dismissed by the guy who loses every episode? Either way, Starscream is one of those rarities amongst Decepticons, skillful and independent at the same time.

As for the actual figure, well he's a terrible partsformer. His jet mode is okay but for some glaring gaps, but transforming him involves swapping bits, droppping them, picking them up again, putting fists on the wrong hands, accidentally shooting yourself in the eye, and in the end you end up with a stumpy un-posable robot with sticker-eyes and wings on his belt instead of on his back.


"Thundercracker you MORON!! I told you not to fly so close behind me!"
"Ouch."

The Pretender version of Starscream wasn't much better to be honest. At least he wasn't a partsformer this time.


"DAMN YOU Skywarp! Stop covering my cockpit in honey!"

The Robot Masters version was real close but...


"Stop chroming my weapons you FOOLS!"

The Classics/Henkei/Universe Screamer is pretty much the definitive Seeker mold with great show-accuracy in both molds. Believe it or don't they got four different Starscreams out of this mold alone.


"IDIOTS! Who painted me this colour?!"

In the annals of Things You Launch Into The Air To Try To Shoot Down Other Things That Was Launched Into The Air, the F-15 will be long remembered as both one of the most fantastic fighter jets and one of the things directly responsible for the making of Hot Shots Part Deux. That said, this figure could've used a little more Screamer and a little less military accuracy. Although this figure had lots of fun features like face-changing and boob missiles, it was lambasted for its colours and its tail-fin sticky-out bits in robot mode. It later got repainted in more G1 colours.


"KNUCKLEHEADS!! Who painted me to look like Skywa...oh wait, I am Skywarp."

For some reason in the early years a lot of Transformers had superpowers (apart from the superpowers that naturally come from being a 30-foot tall armour-plated transforming killing machine). If I were feeling generous I would say it was to give each character a stronger sense of individual identity, and if I were feeling cynical (and hey, I'm awake) I'd say that folks at Marvel were incapable of writing characters without superpowers. Either way while some were more subtle (Hound's illusions, Brawn's super strength) some were outright X-menny. Especially Skywarp's teleportation.

Either way Skywarp definitely had the coolest colour scheme of any Seeker. He also had the G1, Classics and Masterpiece molds though he was never a Pretender. Or an Action Master for that matter.


Thundercracker's wavering loyalty: providing material for 90% of fanfic and Mosaics.

The third Seeker with the dullest colours, TCs superpowers were the ability to produce sonic booms, the ability to star in several metric tons of poorly-written fanfic, the ability to have a truly hideous colour scheme in the Action Master years and the ability to leave Seeker fans with an imcomplete Classics collection and for the longest time an incomplete Masterpiece collection.


The Red Arrows are really grasping for straws.

The second set of Seeker had the exact same bodies but with new wings (eh heh...who'd by the same mold six times without some incentive, eh?) and were further differentiated by their wings facing down and their coneheads pointing up. They consisted of headbutt-loving Ramjet, creepy and sinister Dirge and the other guy.

Let's get out of the Seeker zone for a minute:

#
So you buy four of this guy, repaint one blue, one grey and red, one black and purple, and one yellow-orange. And I guess Silverbolt could be Machine Wars Starscream. Seeker gestalt go. Happy kitbashing!

Air Raid was easily the coolest of the Aerialbots with his cool colours and his gung ho personality. He loves nothing better than being in the thick of danger.

Talon was one of the Euro-exclusive characters from G1 1/2, a Predator and had a pretty turquoise colour scheme. Here's hoping this guy shows up in Last Stand of the Wreckers.


Sunstorm!



Acid Storm!


Bluestorm!

Together these three represent what can be achieved when you want to sell the same mold a good six or seven times. Seekers (along with Datsuns) seem to be the only time no-one whinges about repaints. Sunstorm got some real fiction even if it were only comics (and Dreamworks at that) as Starscream's loony, Vector Sigma-empowered twin. Acid Storm is a guy who once dumped some rain on Chip Chase.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I would tell you about next time, but it'd only bug you.

Gee, maybe the next review is insects/arachnids? Naaahhhhh.... too subtle with the hints, there.

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:Gee, maybe the next review is insects/arachnids? Naaahhhhh.... too subtle with the hints, there.

I'm thinking he's referring to Bumblebee. Volkwagen or Camero.

Also, nice job on the next couple alt. modes. Good stuff.

Hoping Diem has the time to finish this list.

I'm really enjoying it.

It's time for the next entry. But before I start, some of you may be unfamilliar with the "It's like X meets Y" formula that I'll be using throughout. To help you out: "Transformers Animated: it's like Transformers meets Teen Titans!", "Beast Machines: it's like Transformers meets angsty fanfic!" and "Transformers ROTF: It's like Transformers meets dying slowly in a pool of your own shame!"


Congratulations USA; you've managed to make Japan feel uncomfortable.

Anyway, on with entry 6:

A Bug's Life

This entry is dedicated to our insectoid friends.


"Rhyme connects perfects insects
That crawl and try to bite my rhymes
Pesticides I'm the double D combine the T
Thats DDT
A chemical more to better to burn
Roaches, germs, mouse, lice, termites and percunious bugs"

The Insecticons were an unusual addition to the Decepticon forces (although their colours fit the dress code well). In the cartoon they landed on Earth at a different time to the other 'Cons and remained awake, evolving into extremely-omnivorous giant robo-bugs with fun speech defects and the ability to reproduce into massive swarms. In the comic they were just larking around on Cybertron zapping deadbeat Autobots. In the toyline they were introduced because Hasbro was, at the beginning of the Transformers line, a giant magnet that sucked in transforming robot toys regardless of what they turned into.

Whatever continuity it was the Insecticons had a very uneasy alliance with Megatron's group and a sad lack of a rivalry with the Dinobots, despite them both appearing at the same time and having ludicrous (in the good way) powers and ludicrous (in the bad way) alt modes.

On the X meets Y scale, the Insecticons are Garfield meets the Rescue Team from Samurai Pizza Cats.


"SBD, seeking similar for friendship and MORE"

Kickback is a really friendly guy with a silver tongue (probably literally) who is always keen to lend a shoulder to lean on to his fellow troops. But then, sleazily enough once he's found out their innermost secrets he puts on his best blackmailing pants and threatens to reveal all.

This always seemed a little weaksauce to me. It's not like anyone in the G1-verse is capable of keeping secrets anyway. It's like: "Hey Megatron, did you know that Starscream wants to overthrow your leadership? It's true! And Wildrider is kinda crazy? Yeah, for reals!"

Kickback's other awesome ability is his incredible kicking strength. Let me put it this way: his kicks are so strong that if people were made of steel he'd be able to kick clean through Hurley from Lost and make it halfway through Vannessa Feltz too.

Kickback: He's like Leisure Suit Larry meets Eddy Gordo!


"Wild HERACROSS appeared!"

Bombshell is the giggly lunatic of the Insecticons with a love of warping brains. He has the persuasion skills of Michael Moore but used for EVIL. His power is the ability to shoot tiny cyber-bugs the size of actual bugs to burrow into the skin of humans and control their brains, and cyber-bugs the size of 1989 Gameboys to control fellow Transformers. And in the comics there was a really macabre bit where Ravage was remote-controlling Bombshell, but then Bombshell shot a cerebroshell into Ravage so they were both left mindless!

Bombshell: he's like Dr. Frankenstein meets Jim Henson!


Being mistakenly hired for stag nights since 1985.

Shrapnel seems to be the Insecticon leader in the comics and sometimes in the cartoon. He had the ability to manipulate and possibly generate electicity (this would be the most awesome power in the world were his opponents not mostly cars with rollcages and rubber tyres) and can, in some continuities, even control machines. So wait, what? Shrapnel can control machines, Bombshell can control robots, but Kickback has to chat them up first? How unfair.

Anyway, in addition to awesome electric skills, he has another awesome ability from which his name comes, the ability to launch grenades that explode into deadly spikes. Damn, man.

Shrapnel: he's like Voltorb meets Eneru from Onepiece!


"Stuck in the background, even in our own entry".

The Deluxe Insecticons aren't as well known as their smaller counterparts. I'm sure they're not bad figures but sadly I'll never know since these figures were prohibited from sale in any continent with less than four syllables (damn you Americans! Also Antarcticans!). Anyway these guys had brilliant names (especially Chop Shop) and fairly brash colours.

The Deluxe Insecticons: they're like Zeppo Marx meets the Green Ranger.


"GET TO DA CHOPPA!"

Sparkstalker was one of the Firecons, a team as cute as they are low-priced. He transformed into a cool fire-spitting insect monster with a Predator mouth and two too few legs.

All was fairly quiet on the insect front until Beast Wars arrived. While the Maximals were made up of mostly of mammals and birds, the Predacons were composed of reptiles, bugs and other creepy crawlies.


"Wazzzpinator finally comes first! Wait...zzomething horrible going to happen to Wazzpinator..."

Waspie was one of the most popular characters in Beast Wars, mainly due to his comedic indestructibility and his love of giving odd nicknames to, well, everyone.


"Big bad beetlebot."

Insecticon was supposed to be in the TV show but that got gypped early on. This wasn't too tragic since his beast mode is pretty boring but he does have a pretty awesome piece-together crossbow.


You have to be a brave MacDonalds executive to suggest deliberately putting bugs into their food.

And then he became a Happy meal toy. A sad fate.

Year two of Beast Wars introduced tons more bugs including Drill Bit (a weevil with a flip-out drill), Powerpinch (an earwig), Manterror (a... well, you can guess), Retrax (a woodlouse with a terrible, terrible robot mode) Transquito (a giant, shelfwarming mosquito) and Jetstorm. Jetstorm is extra cool, being a dragonfly. Dragonflies are like the Apache helicopters of the giant prehistoric insect world! Awesomely, he had both a water-squirter mouth and twin missile launchers. Cool. Sadly, none of these guys are in the gallery.

In Japanese continuity, all the year two insects were all part of one massive team of good guys, the Insectrons. They all had wacky personalities! Also they had great names like Drill Nuts and Powerhug.


"Y SO SERIAS?"

Beast Wars only had two combiners which was sad 'cos they were both pretty fun. The Maximal combiner was composed of all jungle animals, all with G1 names because of copyright retention and because Hasbro loves screwing with continuity. The Predacon version is composed of the world's most annoying insect, the cicada (gotta love anything that produces a high pitch all summer then dies and falls on your head), a rhino beetle and a lobster. In the TV show these guys were serious bigwigs. Sadly due to the animation budget they never actually got to be cool or look like themselves.


"Heh heh. Fire. Heh."

Inferno was, like all the best characters, totally loopy. His beast mode personality overtook his robot mode causing him to believe that the 'Cons were his colony and Megatron his Queen. Thankfully he didn't spend his whole time lifting food ten times his weight and carrying it to the Darksyde.


"Where the hell is my harem?"

Scarem was a stag beetle who looks like Insecticon would if he stole the chrome from a Caddy.In other words, he's Lucky Draw Insecticon. Or maybe Henkei Henkei Insecticon.

Scourge is a Transmetal 2 and a brilliantly-ugly locust guy. I love how unapologetically ugly Hasbro made figures at the end of the Beast era.


"Thizzz armour would have made Wazzpinator invincible! Univerzzze hate Wazzpinator."


He used to think he was an ant, now he thinks he's a Constructicon.

Two popular characters got Transmetallised outside of (but sadly not within) the TV series. Waspinator got a new cooler body that also became what could be generously called a jet and Inferno may or may not have started calling himself Scavenger. Actually, BW Inferno and G1 Scavenger have a lot in common. They both want to be helpful to Megatron but they both just piss him off.

Beast Machines saw Buzzsaw who, due to all the organics being good guys by default, was a Maximal. He may or may not be the same Buzzsaw who was a repaint of Waspinator; he probably isn't the same guy as G1 Buzzsaw who may or may not still be around in the Beast era. Phew!

Hasbro: they're like a cross between Chris Cartwright and Dan Brown!


"In fanfic I'm Bombshell!"

Energon Insecticon was a pretty fun guy, if a little chunky. Like many Energon figures he's a sneaky homage, in this case to the G1 Insecticons although he may also be a reference to BW Insecticon. God, the Transformers line is so incestuous. Insectuous. Something.


"Wazzpinator walk fine line between slapstick and pathos in Animated! Maybe when Wazzpinator get blown up, more people care this time!"

Animated (it's like Transformers meets a slice of fried gold) is full of ludicrously fun homages. It managed to make me enjoy Wreck-Gar and it got this close to making me care about Constructicons (still don't, though). Maybe my favourite homage aside from Swindle is Wasp. Originally a car with the same body as Bumblebee (ah, I see what you did there) he was falsely accused of High Naughtiness and went slowly mad in prison, gibbering to himself just like BW Waspinator. Eventually he ended up becoming a full-on technorganic wasp thanks to Blackarachnia's own Grand Naughtiness, and rather than becoming a comic buttmonkey he became a tragic psychopath more akin to BW's Rampage.

Despite coming with no weapons he had the cool lazer-beam-eyes that BW Waspinator used in the pilot and that G1 Decepticons used whenever the writers were careless. Also (and I refuse to go back and check this in case I'm wrong and thus totally disappointed) in wasp mode the eye-beams had the sound effect of a machine gun, further cement the bizarre insect-helicopter link that exists within my mind.

Seriously, if I'm wrong about this, just let me bask in my own ignorance. I'm happier that way.

Finally, a note on Revenge Of The Fallen. This movie had various vaguely insectile robots (including Scalpel who was a sort of mantis thing) and one such figure is being released as a toy in the future. Sweet.

Well, that's the end of talking about bugs and such. Please let me know about any I missed (I totally missed BW Scorponok's little wasp arm thing) and next time we'll be burning some serious rubber.

The Combaticons are WARRING / Diem is ROARING / He is one metamorphing DUDICUS / They all combine / and kick Superion's behind / as the big bad battling BRUTICUS!

I finally rewrote 9 from the best of my memory and all the enthusiasm I can muster for writing something I wrote and lost. It's not as good now but it has far more Simpsons references!

Great to see these back! Anyway, you did miss a few I think are noteworthy:

Repugnus:


No one suspects the cute one until it's too late....

BUGLY! Ok, it's just his shell, and he's not in the galleries: http://www.tfu.info/1988/Decepticon/Bugly/bugly.htm

Last but not least, and are grey areas because they're fuzors, Injector and the Buzzclaw Mold:


Me and Airhammer are the only Transformers that can suffocate on land and drown underwater!


Ha! Is that supposed to scare me?!

Nice reviews.

Diem wrote:
The Combaticons are WARRING / Diem is ROARING / He is one metamorphing DUDICUS / They all combine / and kick Superion's behind / as the big bad battling BRUTICUS!

Indeed. Bring on the most overused yet still brilliant of the Scramble City Combiners.