Predacons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Predacons are a group of fictional characters from the Transformers universe, and is also the name of a Decepticon in the Transformers: Armada series.
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[edit] Generation 1
The Predacons (the Animatrons in Japan) are a team of five fearsome Decepticon hunters, able to transform into wild beasts and combine their bodies and minds into the giant robot, Predaking. The team includes:
- Razorclaw is the leader of the team, who despises the unnecessary expenditure of energy and resources. In his lion mode he often acts like the real animal, lying unmoving for long periods of time, but it is not out of laziness that he does this - he is always watching everything and everyone around him, waiting for the perfect, most deadly moment to strike. Razorclaw is armed with shoulder-mounted concussion blasters that launches capsules of volatile gas, and wields a sonic sword that disrupts molecular bonding with its vibrations. He forms the torso of Predaking.
- Divebomb is not fond of his fellow Predacons, and would rather be soaring the skies in his eagle mode than combining with them. Outside of merging with his team-mates, however, Divebomb is perpetually in good spirits, delighting himself by selecting and destroying as many targets from above as his aerial abilities allow him. With telescopic sight and a beak that can tear through steel in eagle mode, Divebomb employs twin particle beam rifles and a laser-guided sword as a robot.
- Headstrong thinks that he knows what's best for himself, and won't take the advice of anyone else - not even his fellow Predacons - under consideration. Once he decides on a course of action, he will see it through to the end, for better or for worse, but his stubbornness and bluster is an effort to hide his insecurities, since he knows he is the weakest of his team. Attacking him psychologically to play on these doubts is often a more effective way to best Headstrong than by fighting him, but should he be confronted physically, his plasma sphere shooter will talk for him while his diffraction sword disrupts his enemies' vision. He is just as dangerous in rhino mode, as his horn releases corrosive acid on impact.
- Rampage is a veritable force of nature, barely able to talk or act coherently for more than a few seconds before he snaps back to the state that is his normality - a violent, uncontrollable fury that leaves even the other Predacons somewhat afraid of him. In tiger mode, he possesses incredible leaping and kicking abilities, and twin machine-gun ports above each leg, while in robot mode, he is armed with twin lightning rifles and a super-heated thermo-sword. There is one way to sooth the savage beast in Rampage - he is mesmerised by mindless television entertainment.
- Tantrum uses brute force at any turn, even when unnecessary - he would knock down a door before he would turn the knob. The other Predacons suspect there are a few loose wires in Tantrum's cranial casing, but he won't let anyone "mess around" inside his head to fix the problem, and deal with his pent-up rage by attacking inanimate objects to let it out. Tantrum transforms into a bull, able to shoot electricity from his horns and equipped with additional fuel tanks on his legs. In robot mode, he uses a catalytic carbine which shoots highly-reactive chemicals, and an electro-sword which generates harmful electric fields.
Despite being robots, the actions of the team's combined form of Predaking seem dictated by savage, animal action. His large size and bulky construction belies his true ability, since the Predacons fuse so well in their combination that Predaking can move with a vicious, dangerous fluidity - all the better, since he does not truly think, he merely reacts, responding to any target in the same brutal manner, be it an ant or a jumbo jet. Only the other Decepticons are exempt from Predaking's hair-trigger actions, but they fear he might make a mistake someday. Armed with an x-ray laser cannon on his arm and a double-barrelled mortar launcher in each foot and with the ability to respond to threats in 0.002 seconds, lift 500 tons, project an energy-dampening field and shatter fifty feet of solid concrete with one punch, Predaking is a warrior without equal, and a weapon without restraint.
Released in 1986, the Predacons are highly popular with fans, and came in two variants - entirely plastic, and with die cast metal parts, the latter version being the most sought after. Unlike the other combiners released that year, Predaking was substantially larger and did not follow the same basic "Scramble City" design which allowed his component limbs to be swapped freely; each arm and leg could be interchanged with each other, but an arm could not form a leg, and vice versa. Illustrating this point are the various depictions of Predaking's limb arrangement - his instructions and toy box art depict Divebomb as the right arm, Rampage the left, Headstrong the right leg and Tantrum the left, while his cartoon and comic book appearances perform a straight swap of this.
Predaking was designed by a group of engineers who had previously worked for Bandai, and there was some controversy over whether they had used some of Bandai's concepts for the Predacons. Most notably, Liveman, a Sentai series with a similar animal theme (albeit with a dolphin and not a tiger) had come out at the same time, and rumor has it that Predaking is was an unused Liveman mecha design.[citation needed]
[edit] Animated Series
The Predacons made their dramatic debut in the year 2005, as the Decepticon/Quintesson alliance began its attack on the Autobots on both Earth and Cybertron. With the Autobots Blurr and Wheelie and the human Marissa Faireborn stranded on Io, one of Jupiter's moons, while attempting to deliver the transformation cog that would allow the Autobot battle station, Metroplex, to transform and fight back, communications officer Blaster attempted to contact Cybertron for reinforcements, revealing his allies' plight. The transmission was intercepted by the Quintessons, however, and upon learning the location of the cog, they dispatched the Predacons to Io to ensure it would not reach Earth. After an initially poor showing in their individual robot and animal modes, the team merged to form Predaking, but were confronted by the massive Autobot Sky Lynx and bested, leading to an enmity between the two.
The Predacons were in their element for their first mission in 2006, operating in the wilds of the planet Dredd, where they again battled Sky Lynx and several other Autobots, but were defeated when they were buried in an avalanche created by the planet's native Chaos monster. Later, they participated in the invasion of Paradron, with Divebomb pursuing escapee Sandstorm and Razorclaw co-ordinating the shooting down of the Autobot reinforcement vessel he returned with.
What was perhaps the Predacons' most prominent adventure came when the Quintessons struck at the Transformers by animating the dreams of Daniel Witwicky. Having penetrated Cybertron's defenses for an unspecified mission, the Predacons attacked Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus and Springer, but when the whole group were then attacked by monsters conjured from Daniel's subconscious, the two groups were unwillingly thrust together to survive. Razorclaw and Springer were captured by a dragon and were forced to team up to defeat the creature and escape, while the others faced the threat of a giant Galvatron who injured Headstrong. With Daniel rescued, the damage sustained by Headstrong prevented the team from combining into Predaking, forcing them to flee.
While en route to Chaar at a later date, Predaking intercepted an unusual Quintesson signal and tracked it to a jungle planet, where they came upon a group of Autobots who had done the same and discovered an electronic journal recording Quintesson military transactions. The team merged into Predaking, who immediately targeted Sky Lynx among the group, seeking revenge for his past defeats; Sky Lynx out-manoeuvered the Decepticon, but, rather than best him in combat, had to get his fellow Autobots to safety. When the Decepticons then acquired the journal, Predaking was reluctant to retreat until having finished off Sky Lynx, but stood down in the face of Galvatron's wrath.
When the ancient genius Primacron unleashed his energy-absorbing creation, Tornedron, on the universe, Primacron's assistant sought to foil his former mentor by amassing a team of "Primitives" - Transformers with animal instincts that could hopefully thwart Primacron's complexities. The Predacons were among the Transformers summoned from a battle on Earth's moon to a dead world at the center of the universe, where Tornedron confronted them. Refusing to run from him, the Predacons formed Predaking and battled Tornedron, who took the shape of a giant warrior, absorbing all energy Predaking threw at them until he had been drained of life. Of all the Primitives, only Grimlock survived, and was subsequently able to stop Tornedron and Primacron, restoring the Predacons and the others to life.
After participating in the Decepticon attack on Japan, the Predacons were among the Transformers infected when the madness-inducing Hate Plague swept the universe. The animosity bred by the plague did not prevent the Predacons from combining into Predaking and pursuing the uncontaminated Galvatron, however, only to be forced to retreat by a squad of uninfected Autobots led by Optimus Prime. When Prime subsequently released the wisdom of the Matrix, the plague was cured.
The Predacons were voiced by Joe Leahy (Razorclaw), Laurie Faso (Divebomb, Rampage), Ron Feinberg (Headstrong), Phillip Clarke (Tantrum) and Bud Davis (Predaking).
The Predacons continued to put in short appearances in 1987's Japanese-exclusive spinoff series, Transformers: Headmasters, usually fighting alongside and against the other combiner teams in various battles. In 1990's Transformers: Zone, Predaking was one of the nine Deception generals in the service of the mysterious insectoid Violenjiger, and met his end when Autobot leader Dai Atlas cleaved his body in two (somewhat bizarrely revealing what appeared to be an organic brain within him).
[edit] Marvel Comics
On the planet Cybertron, some time before the departure of Optimus Prime and Megatron's crews and their subsequent four-million-year exile on Earth, the Dinobot-to-be Swoop went by the name "Divebomb," but when he was defeated in battle by an aerial Decepticon ace, the villainous victor claimed the name for his own - now, this Decepticon was Divebomb, and he eventually became a member of the Predacons. This particular piece of backstory, however, would not be revealed until after the Predacons made their Marvel Comics debut, in the United Kingdom's exclusive Transformers comic, which interspliced its own unique material between reprints of the US title. Here, the Predacons were summoned to Earth in 1986 and fitted with animal modes by Megatron in order to hunt Optimus Prime. Prime went against the Predacons alone (separated from the Autobots as part of a plan of his own to test their ability to function without him), using all his skill and ingenuity to survive, but as Megatron watched, the Predacons attacked him, having been ordered to do so by Megatron's rival for power, Shockwave. The Predacons then absconded, leaving Prime and Megatron to finish each other, but when Megatron transported them both to Cybertron, Shockwave dispatched the Predacons to find them. The team arrived back on Cybertron a little too late, as Megatron and Prime had returned to Earth, but an encounter with the Cybertron local Decepticon commander, Lord Straxus, had left Megatron with amnesia, unable to remember the Predacons' treachery.
The stage was now set for the Predacons' appearance in the US title, and appear they did, shortly after Optimus Prime perished in a virtual duel with Megatron. Megatron himself had begun to descend into paranoid insanity, and Shockwave summoned the Predacons back to Earth and had them pose as Autobots, planning to have them hunt Megatron as part of a scheme to once again seize command of the Decepticons from Megatron (the UK comic rewrote some of the dialogue in its reprint of this issue to make it appear as if it was the Predacons' second trip to Earth). The plan did not go smoothly, however, as Megatron defeated them all, even in their combined form of Predaking. Realizing that Shockwave was to blame, Megatron was about to kill him when he revealed that he had duplicated his mind to disc to guide the Predacons in their mission. Believing (accurately as it turned out) that this was how Optimus Prime had survived, Megatron apparently killed himself by blowing up the interdimensional spacebridge while standing on it. Shockwave was left as Decepticon commander, and the Predacons were absorbed into his Earth-based Decepticon army.
The UK title shone the spotlight on the Predacons again when they attacked a circus, and the news report covering it revealed to Swoop discovered that his old foe Divebomb was now on Earth. Divebomb himself was growing disenchanted with the lack of challenges on Earth, so when Swoop ambushed him, he relished the chance to have a battle that tested him. Neither he nor Swoop, however, were particularly pleased when the other Predacons and Dinobots intruded on their private conflict, but when Grimlock almost killed Divebomb, Swoop stopped him and allowed the Predacons to go, so that when they next met, it would be on his terms.
The Predacons and Constructicons were soon dispatched to collect rocket fuel and raw materials with which the Constructicons converted the Decepticons' island base into a spaceship. Not long after, the government organization the Intelligence and Information Institute (I.I.I.) captured a group of Autobots called the Throttlebots. In response to intensive Predacons raids ordered by Shockwave, I.I.I. publicly threatened to destroy the Throttlebots as a perceived ultimatum. Not realizing that their captives were in fact enemies of the attacking robots, they were forced to destroy their bodies as planned. Decepticon co-commander and fuel auditor Ratbat led the Predacons on a mission to inspect the corpses. Discovering that the Throttlebots brain modules had been placed in toy cars by Triple I's sympathetic operate, Walter Barnett, the Predacons pursued them, demolishing a mall in the process.
Later, when the treacherous Decepticon Starscream manipulated Ratbat's Decepticons in fighting the forces of Scorponok, the Predacons were at the forefront of battle, but when Starscream's scheming resulting in him acquiring the cosmic power of the interstellar databank, the Underbase, the Predacons aided in the defence of Tokyo, but were among the legions of Transformers deactivated by the villain.
The Predacons remained deactivated for the remainder of the US series, until it was rejuvenated as Transformers: Generation 2 a short time later. Although the Predacon toys were not re-released for the Generation 2 toyline, the characters were functional again for the comic book series - although that did not last long for some of them. Tantrum was destroyed in a head-on collision with Optimus Prime, while Razorclaw - attempting to kill Decepticon-turned-Autobot Manta Ray - was destroyed by his fellow defector, Leadfoot.
[edit] Dreamwave Comics
Dreamwave Productions' 21st century re-imagining of the Generation 1 universe had little time to focus on the Predacons before the company's closure, but what is known is that the five team members were once warlords on Cybertron who were cast into exile in space. Settling on Planet Beest, home of the Battle Beasts, the Predacons sank into a feral state, and lived as inhabitants of that world for untold years, until Megatron arrived. Having been jettisoned into space by Starscream and restored from the brink of death by Wreck-Gar, Megatron now had his sights set on reclaiming the Decepticon leadership, and required the Predacons to bolster his army. Abandoning his personal weaponry, Megatron pursued Razorclaw through the jungle and soundly defeated him. Subsequently, he re-engineered the Predacons to give them the ability to combine into Predaking.
Taking the Predacons to Cybertron, Megatron put Shockwave in his service again while the Predacons dealt with his Triple-Changer minions; Razorclaw was forced to destroy the resistant Blitzwing. The group then headed to Earth to deal with Starscream, where Predaking defeated Bruticus. The players were now all assembled... but unfortunately, Dreamwave's bankruptcy and cessation of publication left future stories of the Predacons untold.
Additionally, the Dreamwave universe visited the notion of "Predacons" being more than simply a sub-group, but an entire faction unto itself. After Megatron and Optimus Prime vanished in a spacebridge test 7.4 million years ago, the Autobots and Decepticons splintered into several smaller factions; Starscream established a faction named the Predacons. Whether or not Starscream intended any connection with the Predacon warlords, or whether or not that group predated his faction, is unknown.
[edit] Devil's Due
The Predacons would return in the third Devil's Due crossover between G.I Joe and the Transformers. Without Megatron or Shockwave's steadying influence the Decepticons had fallen apart in a series of internecine conflicts. One such was the Predacons taking on the Seacons. The Predacons seemingly had the upper hand, merging into Predaking and knocking the Seacons into the water. The Seacons emerged as Piranacon and prepared to do battle, until interrupted by a strange, tiny figure: Serpentor, a human military cyborg built with Megatron's memories. Using these memories to convince both combiners to join him, they then participated(along with the Stunticons) in the ambush that killed Bumblebee. They were then Serpentor's principal weapon, along with Piranacon and Menasor, in the attack on Capital City, where the three of them defeated Omega Supreme. They were among the Decepticon reinforcements that countered the G.I Joe/Autobot jailbreak, but Rampage was taken out by Grimlock. Razorclaw and Motormaster were the ones who stopped Prime's attack on Serpentor, beating him near death, but were then killed by the Cobra Commander-controlled Serpentor.
[edit] IDW Comics
The Predacons would receive a brief namecheck in The Transformers: Spotlights issue on Shockwave. When attacked by the Dynobots Shockwave is surprised that it is them and not Megatron or the Predacons that have come. Shockwave lists them as one of Megatron's "tactical assault units". The Predacons themselves would appear in The Transformers: Stormbringer, alerting Megatron on Earth to the reemergence of Thunderwing. Ordered by him to destroy Cybertron (and Thunderwing with it) if all else failed, the Predacons observed a futile effort by the Wreckers to hold Thunderwing back. Impressed by their bravery Razorclaw sent two Decepticon teams to assist the beleaguered Wreckers. After Thunderwing was finally stopped by Optimus Prime, Razorclaw aborted the firing procedure to destroy Cybertron. Here, Divebomb is shown to transform into a Cybertronian jet, while Headstrong transforms into a treaded assault vehicle.
[edit] Transformers: Titanium
A 3 inch tall non-transforming Predaking toy was released in the Transformers: Titanium line.
[edit] Beast Wars & RiD
For the evil faction of Beast Wars and Transformers: Robots in Disguise see Predacon
[edit] Transformers: Armada
2003’s Transformers: Armada introduced a first for the Predacon name – it was used not for a group, but for a single character. Predacon was a redeco of the Beast Wars Transmetal Megatron toy, which was remolded with dead Mini-Con ports, and came packaged with the Mini-Cons Side Burn and Skid-Z (respectively recolors of Backtrack and Spiral).
With no biography offered for the character on his packaging or on the company website, it was not until Dreamwave Productions created one that Predacon had any characterisation. Dreamwave’s profile for the character presents him as an unpopular member of the Decepticons. Mysterious in nature but overbearing and dramatic in action, Predacon espouses the values of blending organic tissue with Cybertronian robotics to the extent that he is viewed by most as a fanatic. Having performed the process upon himself, Predacon shares his views on the power of the flesh with listeners both willing and unwilling, hoping to convert the masses who find the concept revolting. Predacon does, however, have a small, dedicated circle of followers, but even they do not know the full story, and Predacon offers only flowery rhetoric to evade inquiries into his long-term objectives.
Predacon transforms into a biomechanical Tyrannosaurus Rex, capable of deploying vertical take-off and landing thrusters from his beast mode hips for use in both modes, and deployable wheels in his feet for the same. In robot mode, his beast mode tail converts into an electrified whip or cannon, and he is armed with two shoulder-mounted machine guns.
The character only had two appearance in fiction. The first was a short piece in which 4 members of a combined Autobot/Decepticon assualt on Unicron were abducted and reprogrammed as Unicron's heralds. (Possibly the others -- Armada's Cheetor, Rhinox, and Terrorsaur -- were Predacon's followers, but it is assumed that the others' allegiances are the same as their figures.) The second came in a flashback in Dreamwave's Armada sequel comic, Transformers: Energon, where Predacon was among the troops led into battle against the Autobots by Scorponok. Any possible other appearances were cancelled due to Dreamwave's bankruptcy and Hasbro's Transformers print license being transferred to IDW Productions.
