15 - Pretenders on the Throne

[Grand Moff Muffin]

PRETENDERS ON THE THRONE

"It's working! Flesh and metal are mixing together in a manner unimagined by all but me! Only my genius made it possible!"

- Marvel's Transformers #40
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"Go to Earth. Establish a secret fuel depot for our eventual landing, Skullgrin. As a Decepticon Pretender, your outer shell hides your robotic form. Perhaps you'll arouse less suspicion that way."

- Marvel's Transformers #45
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"We did a little job for Scorponok, okay? These shells were our reward!"

- Marvel's Transformers UK #219
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"My outer shell armour can resist almost any impact!"

- Marvel's Transformers UK #226
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"With your new outer Pretender shell, you've got your own personal reinforcements! You can operate it by thought!"

- Marvel's Transformers #59
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"Before, when I was small, I was humoured, tolerated. Now that I'm a Pretender, others look up to me, respect me - even fear me!"

- Marvel's Transformers #60

NOW READ ON

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

CARNIVAC

Allegiance: Ex-Decepticon
Function: Hunter/tracker
Sub-groups: Mayhem Attack Squad, Pretender, Survivor
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #201 ('Time Wars')

"A cunning smile is more devastating than the fiercest weapon."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

A growling, howling, mad dog destroyer, Carnivac and his troops committed abominable acts against the Autobots on Cybertron with unrelenting glee, always smiling, even in battle. But at the end of 1988, Ratbat summoned the Mayhem Attack Squad, which Carnivac had been commanding since Blitzwing's departure from Cybertron, to come to Earth, fight alongside the Wreckers to defeat Galvatron, and then kill any Autobots left standing. Carnivac had no problem with killing Autobots face-to-face in battle, but stabbing allies in the back didn't sit well with either him or his fellow Decepticon, Catilla, and so they disobeyed orders and let Springer, Broadside and Inferno live. The duo returned to Cybertron, where Carnivac was demoted to rank 4. Carnivac and Catilla were summoned back to Earth a few weeks later by Ratbat's successor, Scorponok, along with a third Decepticon, Snarler. Scorponok equipped the trio with four-legged animal Pretender shells and ordered them to hunt down and kill Spike Witwicky, binary-bonded human partner of Fortress Maximus. They failed, and a disgusted Scorponok told them to find their own ride home.

When Carnivac and Catilla joined forces with Springer's little group of 'Survivors', Snarler branded them traitors and returned to the Transformers' homeworld to recruit a new Mayhem Attack Squad to execute the pair for consorting with the enemy. When they killed Catilla, Carnivac took his revenge by slaying Needlenose, Snarler and Spinister. Carnivac was transported to Cybertron by Primus in 1991 and took part in the battle with Unicron, though he half-expected every Decepticon present to turn on him, truce or no truce, for his crimes. Months later, the war was over. Carnivac tried to find his niche on Cybertron, but neither Autobot City nor Trypticon's Decepticons would ever offer him a welcoming home. The Autobots did, however, provide him with an upgraded Pretender capability, enabling him to phase into the likeness of a normal-sized wolf, and in recognition of the good deeds done by him between 1989 and 1991 as a member of the Survivors, the governments of Earth permitted him to cross the Space Bridge once more. He now roams the forests of North America, indistinguishable from a real wolf, at least to human eyes. Where he will surface next, no-one knows.

Carnivac's original outer shell had built-in hydraulic lifters that enabled him to jump over 50 feet in any direction. High-intensity laser beams in his eyes incinerate targets in seconds, while in robot mode he is armed with an anti-thermal cannon with infra-red scope that freezes targets on impact.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

CATILLA

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Surveillance
Sub-groups: Mayhem Attack Squad, Pretender, Survivor
First appearance (as original Catilla): Marvel's Transformers UK #201 ('Time Wars')
First appearance (as Thundercat mount): Right here

"Stalk before you strike."


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Silent, yet vigilant, Catilla the Decepticon enjoyed stalking his Autobot victims before then moving in to attack. Nothing escaped his cunning clutches, and yet he always displayed a very un-Decepticon reluctance when it came to making the final kill, and he was more than happy to follow his unit commander, Carnivac, in switching sides and joining Springer's Survivors. He even went so far as to undergo the Rite of Autobrand, something Carnivac has never consented to.

The battle helmet of the feline Pretender shell bestowed on Catilla by Scorponok was equipped with infra-red sensors, long-range radar and tracking systems. His whip-like tail could crush buildings with its iron grip, while his top-mounted turbo blaster provided him with phenomenal speed and agility on the battlefield. Catilla had a maximum speed of 150 miles per hour, and was armed with an air concussion cannon, durabyllium-steel alloy fangs, and claws capable of slashing through the thickest armour. Tragically, a year after Catilla joined the ranks of the Autobots, the hurled sword of Bludgeon, evil master of Metallikato, struck his brain module and cut short his newfound life.

Towards the end of the year 2020, the living Nebula called Cloud helped her friend Thundakat locate another drifting spaceship bearing survivors from his species in suspended animation - three Thunderian refugees, named Felina, Shadowkitten and Alleykat. He brought them to Avengers Tower on Earth, where they were awoken from their sleep and informed of the new Cats' Lair being constructed on Planet Beast. Before arranging passage for all of them to their people's new home, the Matrix-bearer, Katy Witwicky, presented them with her latest living creation, a mechanical sabretooth mount based on Catilla's old Pretender shell.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

CHAINCLAW

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Ground trooper
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #228 ('(Double) Deal of the Century')

"The only thing for certain is uncertainty."


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Although a ferocious warrior, Chainclaw is usually too busy worrying to fight. He used to be afraid that his original Pretender shell would refuse to unlock, and now fears that his upgraded Pretender capability will fail, leaving him trapped in the form of an Earthen bear. He worries that his fuel might be low, that his joints are rusting, or that a Decepticon is watching him, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. He sometimes appears inoperative when he literally worries himself to a standstill. Being captured by the mercenary Doubledealer on his first assignment to Earth, and then beaten up by the new Pretender Starscream while on a routine surveillance mission, did nothing to boost his confidence. Nevertheless, he fought courageously against Unicron and in the Battles of Klo and Hydrus Four. He now roams the wild areas of Canada in the likeness of a bear, on the alert for any new threat to his adopted home, Decepticon or otherwise.

In an alternate timeline where Unicron came in 2006 and the Decepticons conquered the Earth, Chainclaw was one of the last seven Autobots remaining at liberty in North America in 2009, but died at the hands of Galvatron in the course of the final attack on the Decepticons' headquarters.

Chainclaw's original outer shell was equipped with serrated thermal claws capable of searing through metal like paper. In robot mode, he is armed with a double-barrelled solid sonic energy blaster.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

SNARLER

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Assault warrior
Sub-groups: Pretender, Mayhem Attack Squad
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #51 ('Man in the Machine')

"Stealing isn't a crime, getting caught is."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

A selfish, obnoxious master of destruction, Snarler did everything for himself and gained a reputation for refusing to follow orders, but he began to take his responsibilities more seriously when Scorponok bestowed on him a fearsome Pretender shell that increased his size and combat potential. When Carnivac and Catilla began openly consorting with Autobots that they had been explicitly ordered to kill, Snarler was outraged and took the initiative of assembling a posse to hunt them down and execute them. His commanding officers were impressed and gave him a temporary promotion from rank 3 to Carnivac's old rank of 8 for the duration of the hunt. Alas, Carnivac got the drop on him, literally, and squashed him flat, ending his promising career as a leader before it had ever really begun.

Snarler transformed into a robotic boar with a front-mounted, razor-tipped drill capable of draining enemy fuel supplies. The horns on his outer shell were equipped with sonar distorters that disrupted the flow of cerebral impulses and ruptured enemy circuitry. He was also equipped with an armoured hide on his outer shell and a 30-millimetre sub-machine gun in his tail. In robot mode, Snarler carried a programmable explosive shell rotary cannon with a range of 6 miles.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

ROADBLOCK

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Ground Forces Commander
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron

"To show fear is to admit defeat."


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A malevolent master of mayhem, Roadblock was known for crushing everything in his path with his studded, iron-steel wheels. A frequent front-runner for the Decepticon army and a locomotive of destruction, his arrival on the battlefield was characteristically announced by the detonation of corrosive rust bombs, which ate away at his enemy's armour. Roadblock's outer vehicular shell was equipped with high-intensity heat generators in its exterior, providing him with a thermal force-field for protection, while its infra-red tracking and navigation systems and large-scale fuel capacity made it ideal for remote-controlled reconnaissance missions. The outer vehicular shell was also armed with two proton shatter-cannons and a hydraulic battle ram equipped with acetylene cutters. His inner humanoid Pretender shell transformed into a subsonic windcruiser armed with twin plasma blasters.

Roadblock was one of the most fearless of all Decepticons. In the great battle with Unicron in 1991 he rallied his panicking troops and led them in through a hole in the Chaos-Bringer's foot, but his bravery led to his death as he had no idea where to go once inside, and was quickly cut to pieces by Unicron's razor-clawed antibodies. His outer vehicular shell was found intact by the Micromaster Sports Car Patrol following the battle, and, thirty years on, they continue to make use of it as a mobile base.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

ROADGRABBER

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Gunner
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron

"Destruction has a beauty all its own."


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A road-ripping demon of destruction, the cruelest of the cruel, Roadgrabber was able to hide undetected inside his bulletproof protective vehicular shell and use its front-mounted claws to crush his enemies. Roadgrabber himself transformed from his robot mode into a fast-attack hoverjet with vectored thrusters for lightning-fast manoeuvrability. Built-in, turbo-powered boosters enabled him to reach speeds in excess of 3,000 miles per hour. He was also said to be equipped with vaguely defined 'subspace capabilities', and was armed with dual pom-pom action freeze lasers capable of converting into flamethrower cannons, which could be mounted on either the outer vehicular shell or inner hoverjet.

Roadgrabber was not a Pretender in the strictest sense, as he possessed his vehicular shell long before Scorponok developed his process on Earth, and it therefore contained no synthoplasmic organic elements. Roadgrabber, Skyhopper, Beastbox, Squawktalk and fifteen other Cybertronian Decepticons vanished in 1991 in a searing fireball created by one of Unicron's lethal eye beams, and, quite reasonably, were presumed vaporised, though sensor logs were later found to contain records of high levels of subspace activity coincident with that point in space and time, and those who like to speculate about Roadgrabber's mysterious 'subspace capabilities' enjoy inventing wild theories as to his survival.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

BOMB-BURST

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Predator
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"The greater the foe, the sweeter his fuel!"


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The first six organic Pretenders - Bomb-Burst, Bugly, Finback, Iguanus, Skullgrin and Submarauder - were created on Earth in 1988 by Scorponok, when he bestowed upon six of his soldiers (who had been forced to stay on their ship with very little to do during the Decepticons' time on Nebulos) synthoplasmic exo-shells in the likenesses (albeit oversized) of Battle Beasts encountered by the Decepticon Skystalker when he first scouted Planet Beast in the year 1986. Unfortunately, no such creatures as these existed on Earth in 1988, so the process did little to help the Decepticons to blend in - though it undoubtedly provided a great advantage in battle.

A vicious, vile, automated vampire, Bomb-Burst enjoyed swooping down on unsuspecting Autobots and using his serrated metallic fangs to drain the fuel from his victims. His specially textured outer shell caused rust rashes to develop on contact. Blinded by bright sunlight, he was considered the ultimate terror in conditions of total darkness. Outside his shell, Bomb-Burst transformed into a vertical take-off and landing hoverjet with dual lasers. Within his shell, he was armed with a corrosive slime shooter and an armour-piercing battle axe.

Loyal to Scorponok, Bomb-Burst performed impressively in combat, subduing both Soundwave and Ratbat during the battle between the two Earthen Decepticon factions in the Arctic in January 1989. However, Bomb-Burst's Pretender shell was flattened into a synthoplasmic pancake by the sole of Unicron's foot in 1991, while his inner hoverjet was brought down by the Chaos-Bringer's plasma breath, crashing to the ground in close proximity to the remains of his Autobot opposite number, Cloudburst.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

BUGLY

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Strategist
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"The greatest power is the power to control."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Bugly was a deadly warrior, possessing pinpoint manoeuvrability in the air. Intense, mystical and very cruel, he practised the deadly martial art of Circuit-Su, which channels energy into a single powerful electric blast. The electro-stingers in the helmet of his Pretender shell were capable of delivering 3,000-volt charges that would paralyse on contact. During the battle with Unicron in 1991, three Decepticon electric warriors - Shrapnel, Bugly and Bludgeon - attempted to channel Cybertron's power grid through their bodies and direct the electrical energy into Unicron's systems in the hope of burning out his essential circuits. Unicron roared in pain as his circuits were overloaded with a power surge courtesy of the three electricity-wielding Decepticons, coinciding with the attack of the human Neo-Knight known as Circuit-Breaker. But the assault could not be sustained for long, and Bugly was the first to burn out and explode, ending the daring venture - and the Decepticon strategist's life.

Bugly's outer shell was armed with twin photon rifles, while his inner robot transformed into a laser-powered hoverjet with built-in, forward-thrust turbo boosters. Like all his fellow Pretenders, Bugly could pilot his outer shell by remote control.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

FINBACK

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Naval assault
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"Ashes to ashes, rust to rust."


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Considered a wheezing, wretched, wreck-in-the-making by his fellow Decepticons, Finback's chief enjoyment in life was making his enemies feel worse than he did. Besides serving as a container for his loose components, his external, pressure-sensitive Pretender shell enabled him to dive to a depth of 30,000 feet. The shell's specially reinforced scale armour was composed of 'living' mecha-organisms that would regenerate spontaneously to protect his inner circuitry, and it also came armed with a metal-corroding stun rifle capable of ensnaring his enemy in a layer of thick, viscous underwater slime. His inner robot transformed into a high-speed hovercraft equipped with long-range sonar and scanners, and armed with a jet-propelled, armour-piercing harpoon gun.

Finback's witty last words were something along the lines of, "Ahhahahaha! Hurt, yes. We see if we can't make it hurt some more, Unicron! Full power, yes." And he had a tech-spec intelligence rating of 8. Not his finest hour.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

IGUANUS

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Terror trooper
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"Sow the seeds of fear and victory is yours."


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A hideous, slithering monster, Iguanus was so in love with his loathsome, lizard-like outer shell that, given the choice, he would rarely ever remove it. He believed himself to share a camaraderie with all reptiles. He would show off his super robotic strength by crushing cars with his reptilian claws. Hypno-beams from his eyes enabled him to penetrate the cerebro-circuits of his enemies and override their primary programming directives. He was also armed with a hurricane air blaster that fired concussive blasts of pressurised air. In his Cybertronian cycle mode, his wheels were equipped with spinning blades for tearing through enemy armour, while built-in anti-gyrostators allowed him to disrupt the equilibrium of enemy robots.

Shortly after a failed attempt to take over an oil rig - and an escape from Autobot custody with his fellow Pretenders, Bomb-Burst and Skullgrin - Iguanus climbed and fell from the Empire State Building and was smashed to bits on the pavement below. The human authorities gathered up the pieces and put him back together - in restraints - in order to interrogate their latest prisoner from the planet Cybertron, and this period constituted the most tedious two years of Iguanus's entire life. Then, suddenly, in 1991, Iguanus vanished from the SHIELD facility where he was being held, teleported to Cybertron by Primus to help fight the Chaos-Bringer. And when Unicron broke free from the energy bonds imposed on him by Thunderwing's Dark Matrix, the resultant explosion wiped out several nearby Transformers, one of whom happened to be the unfortunate Iguanus.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

THE TRIAL OF SKULLGRIN


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Okay, so here's the thing.

The Transformers Universe entry of Decepticon siege warrior Skullgrin states:

When Skullgrin dons his synthoplasmic outer shell, he becomes a monster in more than just appearance alone! Where the robot Skullgrin is cold and logical in his approach to warfare, the Pretender Skullgrin is a brutal, uncontrollable engine of destruction who won't stop attacking until everything is destroyed... How and why is still a mystery, but the theory is that his outer shell has a personality of its own, and when Skullgrin is inside, he loses himself in it... Because his intelligence is somewhat limited in Pretender mode, Skullgrin is always eager to lead the charge into battle - and he never, ever retreats... At times, the Pretender Skullgrin's behaviour becomes quite erratic, even for him, possibly as a result of the two disparate personalities trying to interface on the same level. This could account for the uncharacteristic lack of hostility and extreme vanity he displayed when he briefly became a movie star. At times, there can be something of a communication problem. When he's in Pretender mode, Skullgrin often tends to communicate in a series of snorts and snarls... His only real weaknesses stem from his lack of intelligence. Not only is it sometimes hard for him to make himself understood, but he sometimes gets so carried away in the heat of the battle that he's as much a danger to his fellow Decepticons as he is to his enemies.

Now, Skullgrin fought alongside the Autobots in the battle against Unicron, but then followed Bludgeon to Klo and participated in unspeakable acts of genocide against the peaceful natives while inside his Pretender shell. When the first wave of Autobots arrived, led by Grimlock, Skullgrin left his shell and fought in tank mode alongside Bombshock, Flywheels, Growl and Krok's Neutro-Fusion Tank. Then the second wave of Autobots arrived, led by Optimus Prime and the Last Autobot, and Skullgrin's shell was destroyed. Skullgrin surrendered, and claimed that it was the violent personality of the shell that had committed genocide - not Skullgrin himself.

Was Skullgrin (the robot) guilty of breaking the Autobot-Decepticon pact and committing war crimes on Klo, or was he under the influence of the will of his outer shell? Should he be considered eligible for citizenship on post-war Cybertron, along with Trypticon, the Combaticons, the Constructicons and the other Decepticons wise enough to break with Bludgeon and maintain their truce with the Autobots, or should he be treated like Bombshock and Growl, powered down and switched off for all time for the good of the Galaxy?

Thirty years on from the Battle of Klo, the trial continues.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

SUBMARAUDER

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Undersea warfare
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"Conquer the seas and the rest will fall!"


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Sly, sinister and as silent and mysterious as the ocean depths, Submarauder roamed the seas of Cybertron and Earth in solitary contentment. But he angered easily, and frequently exploded into a furious frenzy. The serrated claws of his outer Pretender shell could shred a battleship like paper, while his inner robot transformed into a deep sea attack submarine, armed with a proton cannon with which he sank the Autobot Seaspray. When in his Pretender shell, he wielded a torpedo rifle and an unbreakable organic-steel sword that ate metal away on contact.

After the battle with Unicron in 1991, the remains of Submarauder's Pretender shell were retrieved from the waves of the Rust Sea. His inner robot was never found.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

CROSSBLADES

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Ground reinforcement
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"A warrior is only as good as his weapons."


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Crossblades was a hyperactive, overheated sky jockey who talked constantly. His job was originally to patrol Autobot headquarter perimeters, searching for Decepticon infiltrators, a task he carried out with lightning speed, only ever stopping long enough to refuel and check his weapons.

Crossblades was armed with automatic 35-millimetre machine guns, air-to-air missiles and a searing thermal cannon. He was also equipped with mid-flight refuelling capabilities and a cloaking device that would make him virtually invisible to sensors. He transformed into a supersonic dragster, equipped with high-speed turbo boosters and electro-jammers capable of disrupting enemy circuitry, while his outer shell turned into a chopper, equipped with metal-eating rotor blades. Crossblades could combine chopper with dragster to form an ultrasonic helicopter equipped with a front-mounted magneto-ray that magnetised targets on impact.

Towards the end of his life, Crossblades gained the ability to shrink in size when entering his outer shell, enabling him to pass as a regular human and serve alongside the Autobots' allies in Cameron Space Control. However, he was in the form of a helicopter when he was shot down and destroyed by the missiles of Skyquake during the Predator War of 2018.

In an alternate timeline where Unicron came in 2006 and the Decepticons conquered the Earth, Crossblades was one of the last seven Autobots remaining at liberty in North America in 2009, and sacrificed his life to bring down the force-field protecting Galvatron's headquarters.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

VROOM

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Saboteur
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Nucleon

"Don't take a chance if you don't stand a chance."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Vroom was a drag-racing daredevil who learned his trade blowing up enemy fuel depots in the Asphalt Wars on Cybertron. He was armed with two exterior 3,000-rounds-per-minute ion pulse guns, a magnetic repeller rifle, and a mind-altering illusioniser that distorted optic impulses. He transformed into a rocket car with rubber-coated armour capable of deflecting and ricocheting enemy shell fragments. His outer shell became a cycle equipped with oil slick and smokescreen ejection mechanisms, retractable tyre spikes, hydraulic jumpers in its suspension system, and rocket boosters in the rear that gave it short-term flight capabilities. Vroom combined cycle with rocket car to form a super cycle equipped with digital fuel gauges and micronised turbo injectors.

In later years, Vroom was given the ability to shrink when entering his outer shell, allowing him to pass as a regular human and serve on ships belonging to Cameron Space Control. He was on one such ship when it was destroyed by the missiles of Decepticon Predators in the year 2018.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

BLACK SHADOW

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Aerial enforcer
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Right here

"We will rise again."


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When Decepticon colonisers led by Commander Jhiaxus crossed swords with the extragalactic alien entity known as the Liege Maximo, they found in him an opponent who was more than a match for Cybertronian might, and were all but wiped out - General Rook, Mindset and his Cyberformers, even Jhiaxus himself - the cream of Decepticon soldiery. The Liege Maximo kept just a few of the fallen warriors alive, for study and for his amusement. The centuries of torture that followed made them wish they had died that day. But eventually, salvation came in the form of Godmaster Optimus Prime, Grimlock and Sky Lynx, who, aided by the bounty-hunter Death's Head, slayed the monster and liberated his prisoners. Upon learning that the war was over, two of the three surviving Decepticons accepted Sky Lynx's offer of a lift back to Cybertron. (The third, Sixknight, went his own way.)

One of the two, Black Shadow, was an inorganic Pretender built to the same specifications as Thunderwing. His Pretender shell had been destroyed battling the Liege Maximo. The robot who remained was able to transform into an interstellar jet pod, though his engines had suffered damage that made them unsafe to use until full repairs were effected back on Cybertron.

Black Shadow struggles with the reality of a Cybertron no longer under Decepticon control, and fantasises about one day reclaiming their homeworld in its entirety. But when Decepticon City Commander Trypticon calmly challenges him to explain how they would occupy the entire planet when less than a hundred Decepticons remain alive, he has no answer.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

BLUE BACKLASH

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Gladiator-for-hire
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Right here

"Carbon-based life is a disease, and I am the cure."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Black Shadow's fellow survivor, Blue Backlash, is the Decepticon twin of the Autobot Crossblades, but, unlike Crossblades, he never had the opportunity to introduce synthoplasmic elements to his transforming outer shell before it was destroyed while fighting the Liege Maximo. Had he ever been offered such an organic upgrade, he would have found the proposal offensive in the extreme.

Blue Backlash retains his loathing of non-mechanical life in all its forms, and despises Trypticon's Decepticons for harbouring Battle Beasts and consorting with a human Matrix-bearer and her associates. But, realising that if he attacks alien ships and worlds without provocation, he will be disowned by his fellow Decepticons and hunted down, he instead buys passage to beyond the limits of 'civilised' space, and the one place in the Galaxy where he can kill sentient organic beings and be rewarded for it - the Murderpits of Derut Four.

Blue Backlash is armed with automatic 35-millimetre machine guns, air-to-air missiles and a searing thermal cannon. He possesses mid-flight refuelling capabilities and a cloaking device that makes him virtually invisible to sensors. He transforms into a supersonic dragster, equipped with high-speed turbo boosters and electro-jammers capable of disrupting enemy circuitry.

Blue Backlash aims to obtain shrinking Pretender technology, while taking care not to contaminate himself with any organic tissues. Having the ability to phase between a miniature version of his original transforming Pretender shell and his full-size robot mode will enable him to participate in gladiatorial deathmatches with both smaller opponents like Battle Beasts, Eternians and Thunderians and larger fighters such as Femaxians, Tyroxians and Urtuskians.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

THUNDERWING

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Aerial espionage
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK Annual 1991 ('The Magnificent Six')

"Cover yourself with lies and no one will find you."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

A two-faced, lying, cheating, back-stabbing scoundrel and former protege of the maniac called Megadeath, Thunderwing was the ultimate Decepticon villain. Like Roadgrabber, his so-called Pretender shell lacked any synthoplasmic organic components, but was blessed with a power-enhancing, impenetrable exoskeleton, electrostatic gun ports in its shoulders and a metal-eating laser beam in its forehead. Reserve fuel tanks in its legs provided Thunderwing with a seemingly unlimited fuel supply, while aerator hoses in the chest emitted noxious gases. He wielded a cyclone cannon, and his inner robot form was able to transform into an interstellar jet pod carrying a full payload of plasma charges. Thunderwing's Pretender shell's jet mode was equipped with a neutron power pack that increased its firepower by 50 percent, and it could combine with his inner jet pod to form a super jet armed with heat-seeking laser blasters.

Thunderwing's theft of the Autobots' Micromaster blueprints earned him a place on the shortlist for Decepticon leadership on Cybertron following the death of one Megatron and disappearance of the other, and the ruthlessness that he displayed in pursuit of Autobots on Earth secured him the top job, but he became obsessed with beating Optimus Prime to the Creation Matrix. He succeeded in winning the race to the Matrix, but only at the cost of his sanity and, ultimately, his very life.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

CLOUDBURST

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Space defence
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"You can't tell a 'bot by his cover!"


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The first six Autobot Pretenders - Cloudburst, Groundbreaker, Landmine, Sky High, Splashdown and Waverider - were created on Earth in 1988, when six of the Steelhaven's crew volunteered to be encased in synthoplasmic exo-shells in the likenesses of giant humans to counter the new team being created by Scorponok. The process did little to help them blend in on Earth, but undoubtedly provided a great advantage in battle, as the outer shells gave them extra protection and could be controlled remotely. All the Nebulans on the Steelhaven were white males, so the early Pretender shells were, sadly, similarly lacking in the diversity of Earthen humanity.

Cloudburst could be aggressive, witty and (as demonstrated on Grand Central Space Station and the planet Femax) charming, but only when hiding inside his Pretender shell. His inner Autobot was wary of everyone and everything, especially Decepticons. He used his outer shell to disguise his dull personality as well as his appearance, and was reluctant to leave it in order to transform and expand into an interplanetary star cruiser, capable of carrying his own shell and a fellow Autobot. In all his modes, Cloudburst was armed with a particle beam cannon, which could be converted into a thunderbolt laser pistol. Within his shell, he also carried a fearsome lightning whip.

Cloudburst was utterly destroyed in 1991 by Unicron's plasma breath, but his Pretender shell was preserved intact and now stands in the Great War Museum in Iacon.

FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

GROUNDBREAKER

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Ground trooper
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"The first one in is the first to win!"


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A fast-moving fighting machine, Groundbreaker was always the first to arrive and the first to start shooting. Brash and impulsive, he acted like someone with his foot always on the accelerator. Built-in thermal and geological sensors in the helmet of his Pretender shell homed in on enemy installations and fuel supplies, while the shell's high-density outer armour emitted a laser beam force-field capable of withstanding almost any direct enemy bombardment. The shell was equipped with a state-of-the-art, radar-targeting electron assault rifle. Groundbreaker was also armed with a laser-guided, programmable pulse blaster that could be flown as a remote-controlled drone. His inner robot's rocket car mode had all-terrain capabilities and, under the right conditions, was able to reach speeds as high as Mach 1.

In the Battle of Klo in 1991, Bludgeon assigned a new Decepticon Double Powermaster called Overlord to take the eastern continent of the planet on his own. Twelve Autobots from Grimlock's assault force were sent against him. Of the eleven who failed to make it out alive, Groundbreaker was the last to die, his shell's force-field proving no match for Overlord's awesome firepower.

FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

THE RETURN OF LANDMINE


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The Transformers Universe entry of Landmine, Autobot asteroid miner, states:

Landmine sometimes sees his job as a bit on the boring and unglamorous side. He's very good at what he does but yearns for something more. Landmine loves adventure stories, be they literary, celluloid or video, and wants very much to live out his fantasies. That he's an Autobot warrior, waging an epic war against the evil Decepticons (an adventure by anyone's standards), doesn't seem to be enough. He fears others think he's as old and dusty as some of the artefacts he unearths... Landmine tends to rely too heavily on his outer Pretender shell, becoming almost reluctant to leave the safety of it.

As Landmine returned to operational status, the following conversation was recorded by the computers in Iacon's medical bay:

"Whu- Xaaron? What did I miss?"

"Take it slow, Landmine, you've been out for a long time."

"How long?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Thunderwing - he boarded the Ark using a stolen Autobot shuttle. He had the Matrix! Blasted me..."

"Try re-booting your short-term memory banks."

"Okay... Wait... Now I remember waking... Wheeljack repaired me... Cybertron... tearing itself apart... I'd missed the battle with Unicron. Cloudburst and Waverider - dead! We were heading to Klo to stop Bludgeon's Decepticons. The Autobot piloting the ship with me was a Powermaster called Double. He shot me in the head!"

"Yes, that confirms what we thought."

"Let me up - I'm going to demolish that stinking traitor!"

"He's dead. Sky Lynx got him on Klo."

"Damn, that makes it 2-1 to him."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing. Just keeping score. Now I owe him one."

"The head wound you received damaged your essential circuitry. It took a very long time to heal you without triggering any permanent long-term memory loss."

"How long? A hundred years? A thousand?"

"Try thirty."

"Could be worse. Well, I'm ready to return to the fray. Just give me a gun and point me at the nearest Decepticon."

"Not so fast. The war has been over for almost as long as you've been gone. We won. We're at peace."

"Whoa - you mean we got them all?"

"All the Decepticons who broke the post-Unicron truce, yes."

"So we won back Cybertron? It's ours again?"

"As much as we can use, yes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Landmine, there aren't many of us left, and Cybertron is a big planet. Big enough for us, for Trypticon's Decepticons, and for the Quintessons, the Zoids, the Robo Machine Monsters, the Cosmic Carnival, Godzilla, a few dozen Battle Beasts..."

"Battle what?"

"They're kind of hard to describe. Most of them live on Planet Beast, along with the survivors of the destroyed worlds of Dromedan, Eternia and Thundera, as well as a few Transformers such as your old leader, Fortress Maximus - or Grand Maximus, as he now calls himself - and Black Zarak, who is essentially Ratbat's mind in a Scorponok-like body."

"Anything else you want to tell me?"

"About your Pretender shell..."

"Can you fix it?"

"We can, but the other few surviving Autobot Pretenders have all upgraded their abilities so that they can now phase into human-sized Pretender disguises. Interested?"

"Hell, no. I like my shell the way it was."

"As you wish, although that will preclude you from serving alongside our human allies."

"I'm sure you'll find a use for me."

"Well, in the short term, we could use an ambassador to the planet Femax. I gather you have friends there in high places."

"Sounds good to me, Xaaron."

"My name's Thunderclash now, Landmine, not Xaaron - Thunderclash Prime. I'll make the necessary arrangements. Now, Crosshairs, Pointblank and the Monsterbots are waiting outside to see you..."

"Send 'em on in."

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

SKY HIGH

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Scout
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"Imagination is the key that unlocks the chains of reality."


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A flying powerhouse of mechanical muscle, Sky High was all brawn and no brains. He frequently had trouble remembering where he was and why he was fighting. He transformed into a jet helicopter with long-range assault capablities. In Pretender mode, the helicopter's rotor blades doubled as a molecular-bond-smashing sonic scythe. Sky High was also armed with an impulse-scrambling stun gun for jamming enemy frequencies, and leg-mounted energy beams that would temporarily burn out an enemy's visual sensors, rendering him sightless. His outer shell included a utility belt equipped with side-mounted plutonium blasters with suborbital capabilities, whatever that means.

The lasers of the Decepticon Overlord's jet module melted Sky High's rotor blades in the skies over the eastern continent of the planet Klo in 1991, causing him to crash and explode. His Pretender shell survived the battle and stands alongside those of Cloudburst, Splashdown and Waverider in the Great War Museum in Iacon.

Sky High had the coolest motto of any Transformer.

FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

SPLASHDOWN

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Naval Commander
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"Outflank your enemy and you won't have to outgun him."


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Splashdown was a hard-living, hard-hitting, wind-torn soldier, purportedly a veteran of battles on 10,000 oceans on 1,000 worlds throughout the universe, at home on water, mercury, even liquid lead. His Pretender shell was composed of high-density armour, impervious to corrosive liquids and strong enough to withstand underwater depths of over 30,000 feet. His inner robot transformed into a hovercraft with a maximum speed of 210 miles per hour. Splashdown's outer shell was armed with a long-range, armour-piercing harpoon gun and electro-sword, while his inner robot was armed with a photon blaster in both modes.

Splashdown led an Autobot assault force against Overlord on the eastern continent of Klo in 1991, approaching the Decepticon Self-contained Nomadic Assault Machine's coastal position from three directions - land, air and sea. Groundbreaker, Backstreet, Override, Steeljaw and the Monster Trucks Patrol came at him from the land, Sky High and Dogfight rocketed down from the sky, while Broadside joined Splashdown in a naval bombardment. The weapons fire from all three groups bounced off Overlord's reinforced armour, and the Decepticon took his time, savouring the Autobots' weakness. In his battle station complex mode, he launched rockets that rose into the air and then fell directly onto their targets. Splashdown exploded, and so mercifully never had to watch what Overlord did to his men. His Pretender shell survived the battle and stands alongside those of Cloudburst, Sky High and Waverider in the Great War Museum in Iacon.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

WAVERIDER

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Naval warfare
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #40 ('Pretender to the Throne')

"Freedom for all starts with freedom of navigation."


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A furious fighter and formidable adversary in battle, Waverider always preferred exploring the ocean bottom for buried treasure to warfare. He enjoyed the 'out-of-body' experience of working side-by-side with his humanoid Pretender shell. Outside his shell, he transformed into an aquatic sea-skimmer capable of diving to a depth of 25,000 feet. Waverider was armed for underwater combat with his armoured shell, energy-spear gun and thermal broad-axe. Sadly, he died on dry land in 1991, blown to bits by Unicron's eye beams. His Pretender shell survived intact and stands alongside those of his friends, Cloudburst, Sky High and Splashdown, in the Great War Museum in Iacon.

Being outdated technology, relics of the last century, the four shells are not kept under particularly tight security.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER CLASSICS


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In 1989, Megatron had Darkwing and Dreadwind retrieve the body of Starscream from Earth and resurrected him as the first Decepticon humanoid Pretender, but Megatron's prisoner, Ratchet, used the Decepticon's facilities to restore the injured Bumblebee, Grimlock and Jazz at the same time, giving them synthoplasmic armoured Pretender shells of their own.

Bumblebee's original Pretender shell was equipped with titanium armour, a sonic blaster, a turbo-thrusted rocket pack, and a reinforced helmet with multi-band radio transmitter and thermal trackers. Jazz's shell was armed with a semi-automatic ion pulse gun and deflector shield. Both Bumblebee and Jazz have since upgraded their Pretender systems so that they now phase into human forms of the correct size to pass as citizens of Earth, with Jazz being the first Autobot Pretender to choose a skin colour other than white, the first step on the road to diversity among humanoid Pretenders.

Grimlock, who still has his original giant-sized Pretender shell in the year 2020, gets particularly nasty when reminded that he resembles a human when he's inside it (and furious if you tell him that it looks like Richard Nixon, which it does), but then he remembers that it comes equipped with a jet pack, and an atom-smashing sub-machine gun that pierces all forms of armour and eats away enemy fortifications, and he puts his distaste to one side.

Starscream's outer shell was equally formidable, being armed with a methylial-powered jet pack and a thermal carbine that could either freeze or melt metal on impact. The American government retrieved it intact from Scorponok's headquarters on Earth in the year 1991, along with all its weapons. The humans reverse-engineered its technology and used it to improve the armour of their Robot-Buster exo-suits and remote-controlled Centurion drones.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER MONSTERS: DINOFORCE WORKS

1. BIRDBRAIN

Allegiance: Decepticon
Functions: Aerial attack trooper, sea-devil soldier
Sub-groups: Pretender Monster, Dinoforce
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"Anyone who is not a predator is considered prey."


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"Galvatron - we have come for you!"

"Who? Where did you- AAAH!"

"I am Hook. We three are servants of Unicron. He sent us through the years to find you, to bring you to him! Line - yours!"

"Unh! Getting tangled, can't- No! Why is Unicron doing this? I served him faithfully! He gave me Earth!"

"Different Unicron. Sinker - finish it!"

"No! It's not fa- AAAGH! Urrr..."

To their credit, while all this was going on, the Pretender Monsters weren't just sitting back, eating popcorn. No, they were moving to the aid of their leader. Not quickly enough, but they were moving. By the time Sinker had rendered Galvatron momentarily senseless, the Decepticons had engaged Hook in close-quarters combat. And when Hook, Line, Sinker and Galvatron made their exit through space, time and reality, travelling back from a 2009 where Unicron had consumed Cybertron in 2006 to a 1990 where Unicron was just months away from attacking the Transfomers' homeworld, the Pretender Monsters were caught in the backwash of the dimensional jump - and vanished.

The six Decepticons rematerialised in the same destination universe as Hook, Line and Sinker, but instead of going back to the year 1990, they were still in 2009, and on Earth. But New York was no longer in ruins, North America was no longer under Decepticon control, and the Pretender Monsters were no longer in America. They were in Antarctica - surrounded by dinosaurs! Their advanced Pretender shells quickly scanned the local fauna and phased into more appropriate defensive configurations...

In his original monster shell, Birdbrain was a high-flying predator who was just as likely to swoop down on a poultry truck as he would on an Autobot. Incorporated with advanced 'eagle-eye' mechanisms, this fearsome flyer could zone in on Micromaster Autobot opponents more than 300 miles away. His beak could snap a truck in half, while his talons locked onto an unsuspecting victim like a steel clamp. Now his Pretender shell has scanned and reformatted itself as an Apatosaurus, the better to survive in the Savage Land, Birdbrain struggles to adapt to wading through water rather than flying over it, and uses his dual back-mounted 'Bronto-Gun' to take out his enemies from a safe distance rather than ripping into them with beak and claw. His inner creature/robot is armed with a laser rifle.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER MONSTERS: DINOFORCE WORKS

2. BRISTLEBACK

Allegiance: Decepticon
Functions: Ground assault, defence soldier
Sub-groups: Pretender Monster, Dinoforce
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"You can't tell a Decepticon by its cover."

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The Pretender Monsters' shells were relatively low-tech when they were first presented with them in the year 1989, but Decepticon science advanced over the two decades that followed, so that by the time Cybertron was gone and Galvatron's Decepticons ruled North America in the year 2009, they could phase into and out of their synthoplasmic monster guises with a simple mental command, and the shells also now had the capability of scanning their surroundings and altering their configurations to adapt to changed circumstances - such as suddenly finding themselves transported to another universe, and a continent populated by dinosaurs!

Bristleback is a bad-tempered, foul-mouthed malcontent made meaner by his decision to become a Pretender. When he first entered Earth's atmosphere, he discovered that his armour was prone to rust. This forced him to don his original monstrous outer shell, causing him to lose much of his natural speed and agility. The spikes on the back of his outer shell, which now resembles an Earthen Ankylosaurus, secrete corrosive acid on contact. The enclosed creature/robot is armed with a rapid-fire electrostatic pulse rifle, which he can also mount on the back of his dinosaur shell, alongside a twin long-range laser cannon.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER MONSTERS: DINOFORCE WORKS

3. ICEPICK

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Demolitions
Sub-groups: Pretender Monster, Dinoforce
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"From today's rubble-strewn fields shall emerge a new Decepticon world!"


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When Hook, Line and Sinker came for Galvatron, only five of the six Pretender Monsters were fully operational - Icepick was strapped to the back of his leader, Slog, undergoing automated repairs within his damaged Pretender shell following injuries sustained in an explosion in New York. He was nevertheless transported across the dimensions with the rest of his team when Hook, Line and Sinker made their escape with Galvatron as their captive.

A fanatical follower of Planned Obsolescence, the metallic monster known as Icepick preaches about the destruction of things today so that they can be recycled into more advanced technologies tomorrow. His outer shell can withstand virtually any explosion, something for which he was extremely grateful when he triggered a booby trap in New York and set off explosives that brought a building down on top of him. The claws on Icepick's shell (in its original monster configuration) could pierce through 12 inches of pure-grade steel, and he can crush a tank without even trying. Since crossing into a universe where Cybertron still exists and the Decepticons lost the war, his reformatted shell now resembles a Tyrannosaurus rex, perfect for continuing his primary function of demolitions in Earth's Savage Land. The enclosed creature/robot has a leaping range of 1.8 miles and is armed with a fireball bazooka, which he can also mount on the back of his dinosaur shell.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER MONSTERS: DINOFORCE WORKS

4. SCOWL

Allegiance: Decepticon
Functions: Sonic saboteur, land soldier
Sub-groups: Pretender Monster, Dinoforce
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"Control sound, and the faintest whisper can be the fiercest weapon."


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Scowl is a terrifying, merciless warrior who signed on as a Pretender when he realised his robotic appearance didn't scare anybody. With his menacing outer shell (recently reformatted to resemble an Earthen Stegosaurus) and his steel-shattering, hypersonic, stereophonic implants, his bark now matches his bite. Scowl's supersonic hearing capabilities enable him to pinpoint even the quietest sound. The enclosed creature/robot is armed with dual sonic disrupter gun, which he can also mount on the back of his dinosaur shell.

When the Pretender Monsters arrived in their current universe, and Earth's Savage Land, Scowl scanned the airwaves for Decepticon signals and reported to his comrades the most disturbing news that there were Autobots scattered all across the globe, but not a trace of a fellow Decepticon. They therefore decided to disguise themselves as intelligent, armoured dinosaurs and hide their true robotic natures from anyone they happened to meet in this strange country. They would spend as little time as possible outside their Pretender shells, and if anyone saw them as robots they would be swiftly silenced. Having agreed to this course of action, they set about building themselves a new home.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER MONSTERS: DINOFORCE WORKS

5. SLOG

Allegiance: Decepticon
Functions: Combat artist, strike soldier
Sub-groups: Pretender Monster, Dinoforce
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"Destruction is the highest form of art."


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Slog has taken sculpture out of the art studio and transplanted it onto the battlefield. In his Pretender guise, he can whittle an Autobot warrior into an abstract wreck within minutes. He considers his carved-up conquests to be renowned masterpieces. In his original Pretender Monster form, his diamond-steel-alloy talons could tear through any material known to man or robot, and as a Triceratops his horns act in very much the same way. The enclosed creature/robot is armed with a magnetic repellor-attractor, which rips iron-bearing opponents into microscopic pieces, and a photon cannon that can also be mounted on the back of his dinosaur shell.

Although a slow runner, Slog is the most skilful Decepticon warrior still alive in the year 2020, and one of the most intelligent. In different circumstances, he would make a fine Decepticon Leader. As it is, since their arrival in the Savage Land, Slog deserves most of the credit for keeping the Decepticon nature of his Dinoforce comrades hidden from outsiders, and they have grown to trust his leadership.

A few years after they crossed over into this universe, the Dinoforce ran into three Dinobots - Slag, Sludge and Swoop. Slog had trained his team well and they stayed inside their Pretender shells, attacking the enemy with the weapons mounted on their armoured backs. They outnumbered the Dinobots two-to-one, and their opponents didn't know what they were dealing with. Intelligent dinosaurs with guns and armour? Were these creatures native to the Savage Land, and were their motives good or evil? The Dinobots also had to protect their comrade, Snarl, whose mind now resided in a real Stegosaurus, and they couldn't risk him getting caught in the crossfire of an all-out battle. So they retreated, leaving the Dinoforce victorious, their enemy completely oblivious as to who it was who had beaten them.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PRETENDER MONSTERS: DINOFORCE WORKS

6. WILDFLY

Allegiance: Decepticon
Functions: Aerial assault, 'light-speed' soldier
Sub-groups: Pretender Monster, Dinoforce
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')

"Strike fear into your enemy, and you've won half the battle."

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A flying fury of flashing fangs and tearing talons, Wildfly is a one-robot wrecking crew, who has been known to reduce high-rise office towers into rubble within seconds, just for laughs, and to get his kicks snapping wings off commercial airline jets. His enclosed creature/robot is armed with a high-powered, laser-sighted photon rifle and an incendiary grenade launcher, both of which can be mounted on the back of his dinosaur shell for intense air-to-surface assaults.

Several years after arriving in the Savage Land, Wildfly returned in his Pteranodon disguise from an aerial surveillance mission to report that the three Dinobots were now five, having been joined by a new member, Tyrannitron, and having succeeded in returning Snarl's mind to a new Transformer body. Slog decided it would be wise to increase the distance between themselves and the Dinobots, and they withdrew deeper into the jungle. Then, in the year 2020, Wildfly spotted a new group of intruders - dinosaur Laser Beasts of the Kingbuster and Slag King varieties, sent to Earth by Blitzkrieg Devilbat. Slog pondered the possibility of forming an alliance with these bizarre creatures...

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

MONSTRUCTOR (a.k.a. Dinoking)

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Warrior
Sub-groups: Pretender Monsters, Dinoforce
First appearance (as Pretender Monsters): Marvel's Transformers #67 ('Rhythms of Darkness')
First appearance (as himself): Right here

"I'm here to ruin your day."


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Six fearsome Pretenders - Birdbrain, Bristleback, Icepick, Scowl, Slog and Wildfly - combine to form the towering, metal-mashing menace that is Monstructor, a super-destructive robot who amplifies the abilities of his six components to their fullest. Monstructor's corrosive touch causes metal to decay, making it easier for him to use his incredible strength to crush his robotic foes. His solar fission cannon utilises the power of the stars to obliterate anything in its sight, and he possesses enough strength to crush a battleship with one hand.

Following Thunderwing's disappearance in late 1989, Sixshot recruited the newly commissioned Pretender Monsters to his side to boost his tentative bid for the Decepticon leadership, and led them, along with all his Firecon battle droids, into the field against Unicron in 1991. At the height of that fateful battle, Unicron decided it was time to turn the slaughter up a notch, and released his life-destroying gas, lethal to the touch, which spread out like a mist from around his ankles, annihilating any who came into contact with it. The Pretender Monsters found themselves surrounded and fired all their weapons in desperation, but were soon destroyed.

However, in an alternate timeline where Unicron came in 2006 and the Decepticons conquered North America, the Pretender Monsters lived on, acting as the enforcers of Galvatron's rule until that day when Hook, Line and Sinker arrived to bring Galvatron over into this timeline, and the Pretender Monsters accidentally came along too, landing in the Savage Land of 2009, where their shells reformatted in line with the local fauna - and the Dinoforce were born.

Upon encountering Laser Beasts named Kingbuster and Slag King in the year 2020, some members of the Dinoforce team proposed renaming Monstructor as Dinoking. Their leader, Slog, let them have their way, but stressed that they must only combine as a last resort, and continue to fool friend and foe alike by pretending to be intelligent dinosaurs until they find a way to leave this planet and rejoin their fellow Decepticons.

In their years training in the Savage Land, the Dinoforce have secretly developed an ultimate fighting technique, which they refer to as the 'Dino Crusher Energy', whereby Monstructor/Dinoking concentrates all his power into the core of his body and unleashes it with enough force to alter a planet and send a great metropolis back to the Stone Age (figuratively, not literally). Needless to say, they are saving this special ability to utilise in only the most extreme of circumstances.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

DOUBLEHEADER

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Surveillance
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #61 ('The Primal Scream')

"Burn, baby, burn!"


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Doubleheader meant double trouble for the Decepticons - all his functions and personality traits were divided between his two heads, both in Pretender mode and as a twin-cockpit fighter jet. The right head would see, smell and analyse, while the left heard, talked and made decisions. Despite his split mentality, Doubleheader remained cool under pressure. Jet boosters in the feet of his Pretender shell gave him lightning-fast manoeuvrability in the air, while coil springs in his legs provided incredible jumping ability. Doubleheader's shell was equipped with a semi-automatic acid-pellet pistol, while his inner robot was armed with a rust-ray gun that corroded metal on contact.

Doubleheader survived the war between the Autobots and the Decepticons, but, more than a quarter of a century after it ended, in August 2018, the Decepticon Thrust ploughed into the side of the Grand Central Space Station, killing thirteen. At the same time, a fiery Dirge fell like a blazing meteor from the sky of the Junkion homeworld. Inside the ruins of each Decepticon warrior was found one of Doubleheader's heads, and on the back of each head was scrawled the message, "Skyquake is nigh."

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

LONGTOOTH

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Undersea defence
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #249 ('Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?')

"The greatest truths lie at the greatest depths."


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Longtooth is an amphibious assault warrior who patrols the murky ocean depths, defending underwater installations. The huge webbed feet of his Pretender shell enable him to swim at over 30 knots, while his giant, fang-like tusks can be used to shred metal like paper. The electronic eye on his walrus form features advanced sonar, an infra-red firing scope, and heat and light sensors. His specially reinforced ecto-suit can withstand underwater depths up to 300 feet and comes equipped with a searing ionic field generator. In his robot and land vehicle modes, Longtooth carries a plasma cannon.

Longtooth had a tech-specs courage rating of 8 while he possessed a fragment of the Creation Matrix, but this dropped to 6 when he returned that fragment to Optimus Prime on Earth in December 1989. Like Doubleheader and Pincher, Longtooth's fellow members of the Matrix Quest C-Team, he made it through the war more or less in one piece, but in August 2018 his body was fished out of the ocean on Pequod by the town of Gottlieb's coastguards, with a message etched on its back, which simply said, "Skyquake is here."

It was touch and go whether the medics in Autobot City would be able to save Longtooth's life, but, after over a year of treatment, he was finally returned to operational status, much to the delight of all his fans. (Over the years he had become quite the cult hero in certain quarters.)

Longtooth's original Pretender shell was a stolen Decepticon invention based on a Battle Beast encountered by Skystalker in 1986. (It was actually the grandmother of the idiotic Wolfgang Walrus Sea Iron, if you really want to know.) Following his near death at the hands of Skyquake's Predators, Longtooth awoke to find Battle Beasts at large on Cybertron, and a couple of Autobots stationed on Planet Beast, and Prowl had the bright idea of upgrading him with shrinking Pretender technology so that he could pass himself off as a Battle Beast. This was done, and Longtooth's walrus form is consequently now much smaller than it used to be, and features something called a 'rub-sign' (a novel concept), which Longtooth can use to display the symbol of water whenever he wishes to explain away his technology-driven underwater prowess as 'magic'.

Longtooth has been assigned to Planet Beast, his orders to go undercover among the aquatic Battle Beasts, acting as eyes and ears for Grand Maximus and Red Phoenix the Blazing Eagle.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

PINCHER

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Chemical engineer
Sub-group: Pretender
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #249 ('Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?')

"Be humble of word, but great in deed."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

A mad scientist of sorts, Pincher was an over-achieving, unassuming genius who concocted metal-eating, corrosive acids, oxidising agents and other powerful formulas for the Autobot war effort. The venom-coated stinger on his scorpion mode paralysed Decepticons on contact, and could also drill through metal to drain enemy fuel supplies. His Pretender shell was armed with a 20-megavolt stun rifle that fired short bursts of metal-fusing energon, while his inner robot carried a laser torch. In both robot and scorpion modes, Pincher's serrated claws were capable of piercing metal, and could also emit a circular force-field, giving him extra protection when outside his Pretender shell.

The leader of the Matrix Quest C-Team, Pincher survived the war, but, in August 2018, the Autobot survivalist Wheelie found his corpse washed up on the shore of the planet Quintesson. It had been badly chewed up by Sharkticons, but the message on it was still legible. It said, "Skyquake is here."

Pincher's friend Longtooth loves a good Captain-Ahab-style quest for revenge, and was therefore sorry to learn, upon recovering from his own severe injuries, that Thunderclash Prime and his allies had vanquished the Decepticon Predators in his absence, thereby avenging the deaths of his friends. Longtooth likes to imagine that he was the one who fired the shot that killed Skyquake, crying, "This is for Pincher and Doubleheader!" as he brought down his great enemy with an armour-piercing harpoon.

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[blueshift]

Good lord Martin, what did the Autobot Small Pretenders ever do to you?? D:

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jun 9, 2019 19:58:26 GMT blueshift said:

Good lord Martin, what did the Autobot Small Pretenders ever do to you?? D:

They just popped into my head at the wrong time when I needed some cannon-fodder characters last year. But at least in doing these profiles I've brought one of them back from the dead.

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

BLUDGEON

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Electric warrior
Sub-groups: Pretender, Mayhem Attack Squad
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #226 ('Aspects of Evil: Megatron')

"To know your own limits, you must first know your foe's limits."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

A merciless, emotionless master of Metallikato, the deadly Cybertronian martial art, Bludgeon attacked his enemies' fracture points while remaining outside their line of fire. High-powered antennae mounted on the helmet of his Pretender shell produced electric fireballs with a range of over 400 yards. His battle armour secreted odorous mucus slime, while smoke generators in his legs produced billowing clouds of black smoke to disorient the enemy. Bludgeon's inner robot was armed with a high-voltage electric cannon and transformed into a tank, while his Pretender shell wielded a laser rifle and shield.

Notably, Bludgeon's Pretender shell did not originally include the katana that later became his trademark weapon. It is said that he acquired this from a fallen alien foe, and that it possessed magical properties, being able to levitate and strike on its own accord in response to a mental command from its current master (as reported by Inferno) and find the fatal weakness in any adversary (as suggested by the death of Catilla).

The first reported sighting of Bludgeon, Octopunch and Stranglehold in their Pretender guises was by Hot Rod in early 1989, when he was captured by the Straxus clone of Megatron whilst on a mission to Cybertron. Megatron used Bludgeon as bait to flush out and kill an Autobot deep-cover agent called Warmonger. Strangely, being used in this way didn't turn Bludgeon against Megatron but rather increased his respect for the Decepticons' founder. Later that same year, Thunderwing began assembling a third Mayhem Attack Squad to replace the teams of that name previously led by Shrapnel, Blitzwing and Carnivac. On their first job they earned a mention in the history books by playing an unwitting role in waking Primus and bringing Unicron to Cybertron. Bludgeon led a small team of three on that occasion, but following the Matrix Quest they came under the command of Snarler and Spinister. Along with Needlenose they travelled to Earth to hunt down and kill the deserters Carnivac and Catilla, and Bludgeon's thrown sword somehow found Catilla's brain module deep within his Pretender armour.

Along with the Keeper of Primus, that meant two missions, two kills. But Bludgeon failed to stop Carnivac from avenging his friend's death on Needlenose, Snarler and Spinister, and he was briefly captured and imprisoned by Grimlock's Autobots. He used his sword's mystical powers to escape, and soon afterwards Shockwave and the clone Megatron (now controlled by the brain of the Decepticon Minispy known variously as Roller and Overlord) hired Bludgeon, Octopunch and Stranglehold to eliminate Soundwave and Starscream. Once again, Autobot interference prevented them from making the kill, and they made their way back to Scorponok and were duly present amongst all those teleported to Cybertron by Primus to battle Unicron.

Following the destruction of Unicron, Bludgeon briefly took command of some of the surviving Decepticons, and led them in two major battles with the Autobots led by Grimlock and Optimus Prime, the first of them on Klo, the second...

1991, The Battle of Hydrus Four.

"Yes!" urged Bludgeon. "Kill Prime! Kill them all!"

Behind Bludgeon, a technician emerged, shouting his protests. "Too soon! He's not finished! He can't-" Bludgeon's sword flashed before anyone could react, and the wounded technician staggered onwards a few paces before finally collapsing.

Bludgeon was suddenly seized by multiple robotic arms, the 'spider' instantly starting to weld, cut and unbolt. In the terrible seconds that followed he was taken apart, piece by piece, circuit by circuit, until component parts were all that was left.

Bludgeon didn't so much as cry out...

At the controls, Swoop smiled. "Gotcha!"

Everyone remembers Bludgeon's sword striking down the worried technician, but nobody recalls what happened to it after that.

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[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

OCTOPUNCH

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Salvage
Sub-groups: Pretender, Mayhem Attack Squad
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #226 ('Aspects of Evil: Megatron')

"Anything that can sink is worth sinking."


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

The terror of the deep, if Octopunch wasn't stealing sunken treasure or ancient artefacts, he'd be amusing himself by smashing holes in submarines and cruise ships. His Pretender shell wielded an electrically charged, razor-tipped harpoon gun and trident, both of which momentarily short-circuited Autobots on contact. It was also 'armed' (ha-ha) with vice-like tentacles capable of sticking to any surface. He was so strong underwater that he could wrestle a whale to a standstill. Octopunch's inner robot converted into a metal-rending crab creature equipped with depth gauges, deep-sea radar and an acetylene torch gun.

If you wanted to know why Octopunch's Pretender shell wore a diver's helmet, you only had to take one look at him with the helmet off, and you'd understand. We don't know what the Cybertronian Decepticons were on when they took Scorponok's Pretender idea and created the outer shells that they bestowed on Bludgeon, Stranglehold and Octopunch - a skeleton samurai, a circus weight-lifter with detachable moustache, and an ugly purple thing with tentacles in a diver's costume - but we want some of it.

Octopunch was destroyed in the Battle of Hydrus Four when the Autobot Micromasters swarmed over him, pulled off his helmet, dropped a plasma grenade down the neck of his suit, stuck his helmet firmly back on and legged it.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

STRANGLEHOLD

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Enforcer
Sub-groups: Pretender, Mayhem Attack Squad
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK #226 ('Aspects of Evil: Megatron')

"Rule one is: There are no rules!"


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Stranglehold was a muscle-bound monster, willing to do anything in order to win. He kicked, gouged and sucker-punched his way to victory. In the months before being assigned to the new Mayhem Attack Squad, he used his recently acquired Pretender shell to become the 'Intergalactic Cybertronic Wrestling Federation Champ' on Grand Central Space Station, and became rich in the process. The organisers had no clue that he was actually a robot in disguise. If they had, he would have been instantly disqualified. (They now know about Pretender shells, so the ruse won't work a second time.)

A powerhouse of brute strength - all brawn and no brains - Stranglehold enjoyed bench-pressing houses and arm-curling cars, as if he needed to exercise to stay in shape. He would send his opponents down for the count with his steel-smashing ultra-suplex or a short-circuiting atomic piledriver. His Pretender shell was armed with a spiked ball-on-chain and a 'brawn blaster' that drained his enemies' power, while his robot mode was equipped with a concussion blaster. But when deception was not required, his preferred mode of fighting was to leave his shell and charge the enemy in his robotic rhinoceros configuration. His headlong rush was almost impossible to withstand, but relatively easy to avoid.

After the Warmonger incident, Bludgeon, Octopunch and Stranglehold were inseparable. They fought together, and - on Hydrus Four - they died together. After Bludgeon was dismantled by Swoop, Stranglehold went mad and charged Quickswitch, who was in his armour-piercing drill tank mode at the time. If you've never seen a robotic rhino impaled on a drill, whizzing round and round at a hundred revolutions per minute before flying apart and scattering its components over a wide area, you'll just have to use your imagination.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

SLAMDANCE

Allegiance: Autobot
Functions: Audio correspondent (Grand Slam), video correspondent (Raindance)
First appearance (as Grand Slam and Raindance): Marvel's Transformers #47 ('Club Con')
First appearance (as himself): Right here

"The sounds of war are history speaking." (Grand Slam)

"Every picture tells a story." (Raindance)

Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Grand Slam is a war-weary veteran of 10,000 battles on a hundred worlds. He has dedicated his life to recording the sounds of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict - the nervous laughter, the cries of pain, the blistering explosions, the chilling quiets - in the hope that his work will one day serve as a grim reminder of the awful price of war. He can audio-record up to 20 years of sound. His armament, a smoke discharger and dual repulsors, is purely defensive. He can shrink in size as he transforms from tank to audio storage device.

Raindance is the death-defying daredevil of the skies, willing to take any risk to record the best picture. With his partner Grand Slam, he's covered thousands of battles, and entertains everyone he meets with stories about each one of them. He is witty and well-liked, never a bore. He can video-record up to 20 years of pictures, and carries two air-to-air proton missiles to defend himself if attacked. He can shrink in size as he transforms from jet to video storage device. Raindance combines with Grand Slam to form the robot Slamdance.

Grand Slam and Raindance are the last survivors of a group of Autobot astronomers linked to the Disciples of Boltax, who, having detected the Underbase heading towards Earth, were launched into space to intercept it, or at least evacuate as many of the planet's inhabitants as possible before it arrived. Their ship malfunctioned and crashed, and the two Autobots were damaged and stuck in their cassette modes, and wound up in a pirate treasure chest. A storm sank their ship, and they spent more than a century on the ocean bed until recovered by the Seacons and returned to Optimus Prime by Ratbat during the alliance to stop Starscream in early 1989.

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FACT-FILE INTERFACE

SQUAWKBOX

Allegiance: Decepticon
Functions: Interrogator (Beastbox), translator (Squawktalk)
First appearance (as Beastbox and Squawktalk): The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron
First appearance (as himself): Right here

"Speak now if you intend to ever speak at all." (Beastbox)

"If you have nothing interesting to say, say it anyway." (Squawktalk)


Image source: botchthecrab.com/archive/

Beastbox's violent temper often overcame his natural curiosity. He was more inclined to whittle down his captives with his fists than with his words, and few survived his interrogations long enough to reveal anything useful. He could record up to 6,000 hours of testimony, and was equipped with two compression cannons, capable of crushing a target with tons of compressed air pressure. He could shrink in size as he transformed from gorilla to data storage device.

Squawktalk never stopped talking except to refill his fuel tank. He knew over 250 Earth and 6,300 alien languages, but never had anything important to say in any of them. Other Decepticons often threatened to rip out his vocal circuitry and wrap it around his beak to shut him up. He carried two deafening high-decibel sonic boomers. He could shrink in size as he transformed from bird to data storage device. Squawktalk combined with Beastbox to form the robot Squawkbox.

Beastbox and Squawktalk pursued Grand Slam and Raindance to Earth in the year 1717, determined to wrest from the Autobots their method of tracking the course of the long-lost Underbase through interstellar space. Squawktalk hacked into the Autobot ship's computer, causing it to malfunction and crash-land in the North Atlantic Ocean, but when the Decepticons' pursuit craft set down in the water to search the sinking wreckage, it immediately came under fire from a French merchant vessel ('La Concorde'), which had mistaken the Decepticons for English privateers. (It was rather foggy.) The Decepticons returned the broadside, and were joined in their efforts by a genuine pirate ship that bore swiftly down on the French, whom they had already been pursuing for some hours, and who quickly surrendered. But in the confusion Raindance managed to transform to his jet form and carry Grand Slam away to the safety of a nearby island.

When the fog lifted and the smoke cleared, Squawktalk deciphered the humans' speech and came to an accommodation with the pirates. If they helped the Decepticons to find and capture the two Autobots (who Squawktalk assured them were French), the Decepticons would serve dutifully as part of the pirate crew. The captain readily agreed. With a new ship (which he renamed 'Queen Anne's Revenge') and prisoners to handle, he needed all the help he could get. And besides, he had always dreamed of acquiring a talking parrot. And boy, could this one talk!

The pirate captain was surprisingly strong for a human, his strength equal even to that of Beastbox, as they soon discovered in the course of a friendly wrestling match. Squawktalk could only assume that all the natives of this planet were equally powerful!



Meanwhile, Raindance, badly injured and low on fuel, set down on dry land and joined Grand Slam in data storage device mode in the desperate hope that their automatic repair systems would kick in and patch them up before they ran completely out of energy and became totally inoperative. Alas, they were found inert a few days later by a pirate landing party, taken for trinkets and tossed into a treasure chest back on board the original pirate ship.

The crew continued to search fruitlessly for the Autobot tank and jet, but eventually gave it up. Beastbox and Squawktalk didn't mind - they had come to enjoy the pirate's life. Until, that is, a storm sank their ship, and Beastbox had to walk along the ocean bed all the way to shore while Squawktalk flapped overhead, talking all the while.

Captain Blackbeard sailed away, on board his new ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. (Eventually he returned to the 1960s and rejoined the superhero team known as the Fantastic Four, but that is apparently quite another story.)

More than a century and a half later, in the mid-1980s, Beastbox and Squawktalk were still mucking around in the Caribbean, looking here and there for the sunken treasure chest, which they had rather belatedly deduced must contain the two Autobots in their disguise forms, when they picked up radio signals from the other Decepticons now active in North America. They wasted no time in establishing contact with Soundwave and alerting him to the fact that there were Autobots somewhere in a chest on the sea bed, who knew how to track the course of the coveted Underbase. Soundwave told them to hold their position, and the Decepticons' flying island would be with them shortly.

("Your journey to paradise begins the moment one of our expert travel agents arrives at your doorstep, to personally fly you to a magical island whose beauty and climate are unequalled in all the Caribbean, where a friendly staff awaits to serve your every need, and where you and your family can play on the whitest sand to be found on any beach, and dine on the finest cuisine to be found in any restaurant in the world! Come to Club Con! Club Con, where your vacation dreams come true! And when you arrive, say the king sent for you!")

Beastbox and Squawktalk survived the battle with the Underbase-powered Starscream in early 1989, and steered clear of Grimlock's Autobot Earthforce in 1990, but were transported back to Cybertron by Primus in 1991, vanished in a searing fireball created by one of Unicron's lethal eye beams, and were presumed vaporised.

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