william-james88 wrote:Just curious, since Scourge is characterized as a black redeco of Optimus with teal highlights and red tinted windows, and Nemesis prime is characterized as a black redeco of Optimus with teal highlights and red tinted windows, what distinguishes the decos from one another as the basis for a toy?
I think the only reason Scourge stands out as a unique character with people is a combination of two factors: A) He was given his own unique name before the standard "Nemesis Prime" name came about, and B) he's the only version of the concept that exists as a fully fleshed out character, making people see him in a different light.
There may also be a third factor, in that many Nemesis Primes/Black Convoys are associated with Unicron, while Scourge has never been (though, Grand Scourge is, but he's a whole different confusing discussion).
In all honesty, if the name "Nemesis Prime" had existed at the time that Car Robots was being turned into Robots in Disguise, Scourge very likely would have been named "Nemesis Prime" instead, with the only reason that he wasn't being that the name simply didn't yet exist until it was conceived two years later during Armada.
Nowadays, "Black Convoy" and "Nemesis Prime" are equivalents of one another, and RiD 2001 Scourge was the first "Black Convoy". But since Scourge left such an impression with his fans, it might feel like a disservice to his legacy to retroactively rename him as just another Nemesis Prime.
Though, the "evil black and teal Optimus redeco" concept first originated with Copy Convoy in Beast Wars Second, while the "evil black Optimus redeco" in general all started with BotCon 1996 Onyx Primal (but he got retconned into being a Maximal by 1998, with a new online profile mentioning his defection from the Predacons to the Maximals after a falling out he had with the former).
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