[Transformers][Color Models] Blight of the Insecticons!
These sexy 'bots are the Insecticons:
Back in the mid-1980's these guys were the height of cool. The Insecticons are the first Decepticon sub-group, sorta-counterparts to the Dinobots. They had boss matching color schemes, a separate command structure, and a completely alien modus opperandi that made cartoon episodes feraturing them (and there were several) very memorable.
From left to right they are Kickback, Bombshell and Shrapnel.
Kickback is a suave blackmailer who turns into a gigantic robot grasshopper. He also looks awesome. Bombshell is a malicious rhinoceros beetle who injects his victims with "cerebro shells" that take over their minds. Shrapnel (usually their leader, sometimes alternating with Bombshell) is a playful master of electricity capable of shooting lightning from his antennae that can temporarily remote-control simple machines, including Transformers in vehicle mode.
All 3 of them are slimy, gleefully evil jerks who manipulate others for their pleasure, and they were lots of fun to watch in action. This also made them an antagonist's antagonist; the Insecticons were frequently at odds with the Decepticons themselves and when they fought you always cheered for the Decepticons.
In addition to their individual powers (and blackmailing) the Insecticons also had a group ability; when they consumed mass amounts of energy (or biomatter) they could generate insect-mode 'clones' of themselves, hundreds of them, which would descend like a swarm of locusts devouring everything in sight. Defeating the originals caused the clones to vanish.
These clones never transformed into robots, and looked identical to the Insecticons themselves:
There were a couple other Insecticons but they've never done anything important in fiction, ever, so let's pretend they don't exist. (Everyone else does.)
In the 1980's Marvel Comic the Insecticons had a different (more toy-accurate) color scheme. I like the subdued comics purples and Bombshell looks boss. ...but I have no idea why the comics Insecticons had eyes and the cartoon ones had visors. The mind wobbles.
In the comics the Insecticons' altmodes were teeny-weeny robotic insects not big ones so they were frequently used to sneak into places. Also they never used their clone-power. Lame.
Japan remembered the clones though! In 2004 TakaraTomy re-released the 1985 Insecticon toys and their affiliate e-HOBBY produced an exclusive set of recolors based on the original 1982 Diaclone color-schemes the toys had before they became Transformers. (Virtually every Transformer fromthe first 2 years originally came from a different toyline.)
e-Hobby's backstory for these guys declared that they were the Insecticons' clones. ...who no longer looked just like them. And transformed. ...huwah?
Now if the Insecticons had been created post-1999 this would almost certainly be how it would work! The "Vehicon General" system, where one important bad-guy has a horde of exact copies of himself to command -- only in a different color scheme -- had become a "thing." So you might figure that these guys are post-Universal 'representations' of the idea of Insecticon clones as they would exist today.
(But no appearance since then of the Insecticon clones in fiction has bothered to use these colors.)
And Japan gave them names! From left to right they are Shothole, Salvo and Zaptrap.
And Based on their toys' color layout, their box art, the way colors were altered for the original Insecticons as the were turned into character models.... *noodles*
The clones would look sorta like this:
The simplest answer would be that these were a specific type of Insecticon clone. The identical-to-the-original type of clone from the cartoon is the most basic type, but there are also upgraded, higher-quality or special purpose clones which look different, like Soldier ants vs. worker ants or Command Ravages, a differently colored stealth-variant of the feline Terrorcon horde... a type distinct from the normal rabble of identical robot cats but only as a different kind of rabble.
9 years later the Android/iOS Transformers game Transformers Legends was released. It's a digital CCG that allows players to compete against one another and collect ever-higher-ranked cards to build their deck. Pretty fluffy and inoffensive, right?
...God help me, it has a story!
I grant you it's not much of a story, about 2-paragraphs every 8 days, but it's an ongoing story with plot threads that interlock and are revisited. Those 2 paragraphs come in the form of a opening and closing narration for an 'episode,' a week-long competition with rewards allocated for rank. There's a story for each episode including antagonists (winnable cards,) event-specific protagonists (purchasable or rare-draw 'elite' cards) and score-reward cards (double-stat achievement cards) ...all of who are incorporated into the story.
Heck, the most recent event (featuring Starscream upsurping command of the Decepticons) was interrupted midway through with a story-update where Megatron came back from the dead-- and the reward-structure and rank setup was reshuffled to reflect his return in the middle of the event. (And pissing off a lot of players who would have played harder if they knew Megatron was a winnable card and found themseleves having to play catchup with the event half over.)
...sorry, I'm a Transformers geek and I'm just delighted when something is better than it has any right to be, like when the creators of 2007 the Allspark Wars online game promoting the live-action movie staged an unannounced Mini-ARG on the game's message boards featuring its own story and characters. So yeah, an ongoing story (however thin) in a tablet-exclusive Transformers CCG? That makes me happy. Like including short bios on every one of the cards it just indicates a degree of caring too often missing in games like these.
(Now put Sunder in damnit! He's mentioned in Rewind's back-of-the-card bio...!)
Anyway, the very first episode from Transformers Legends was the "Harvest of the Insecticons" event:
The Insecticons have grown tired of Megatron's rule. They detected a research facility that stored genetically engineered crops with an ultra-high concentration of bio-energy that they could turn into energon. A few days later, the Autobots detected a small but powerful energon signal and decided to investigate. They were terrified of what they found: the Insecticons had grown both in size and in power after attacking multiple storage facilities around the world. Teletraan I estimated that in seven more days, the Insecticons would be powerful enough to unleash a clone army that would deplete Earth of all organic life. Optimus Prime realized that in their current form, the Insecticons couldn't be defeated by the Autobots alone, and that a truce with the Decepticons was needed to accomplish his objective.
Take your team and hunt for the Insecticons. They are hidden all across the planet. Scan all sectors to uncover an Insecticon Boss. Battle them to weaken them. Ask your friends for help. Time is running out.
Pretty standard fare, the plot is a mash-up of "The Insecticon Syndrome" and "A Plague of Insecticons" and one of the autobot event-exclusive-protagonists (not mentioned in the episode intro-paragraph though subsequent events would integrate them more explicitly into the story) was the Autobot formula-1 car Mirage who fought he Insecticons in the episode "Traitor".
So why does this matter for my purposes? Well, the Harvest of the Insecticons episode-exclusive version of the Mirage card had new art of him beating up Insections for the episode. Specifically I'm interested in the card showing his altmode:
...are those Insecticons green? They are! Those Shrapnel and Bombshell guys (actually Shapshot and Hardshell -- trademark issues) are green and purple! The Bombshell-lookalike has purple eyes!
Like Mirage the Insecticons got episode-exclusive art for their cards... but it showed them in their traditional colors, they didn't look anything like this!
[...] Teletraan I estimated that in seven more days, the Insecticons would be powerful enough to unleash a clone army that would deplete Earth of all organic life. [...]
Holy shit, these guys are clones, differently-colored insecticon clones!
Vehicon general-style color-swap clone army confirmed baby, it's canon!
Actually, the Kickback on the left is color-swapped too. You can't see it well here, but it's really obvious on his event-exclusive cardart:
No black, gray-and-purple with the purple in different places? Shit man, that's pretty! Kickback is the only Insecticon whose colors were different on his own event cards, but he appears in that color fighting Mirage with definitely-not Sharpshot & Hardshell. Does this mean it represents a clone-color for Kickback? Some sort of overpower-colors as he surved with bio-energy, as per the logic of the story?
...I have no idea. It's probably simplest to say "clone" though. (Though I don't say so definitively, of course.)
What would that look like applied to his G1 model? *noodles*
Oohhh...! Me likey. :)~
Anyway, the green guys, after a lot of squinting and color sampling to figure out if that part is light-black-or-just-dull-purple and some extrapolation based on other color models, original toy spue layout etc... I get this for the green guys:
P-pretty...! :D
Um... anyway? Yeah, in-canon insecticon-clones-that-are-a-different-color. Awesome. Plus I got to do some color models!
Maybe I'll do that orange conehead next...
Back in the mid-1980's these guys were the height of cool. The Insecticons are the first Decepticon sub-group, sorta-counterparts to the Dinobots. They had boss matching color schemes, a separate command structure, and a completely alien modus opperandi that made cartoon episodes feraturing them (and there were several) very memorable.
From left to right they are Kickback, Bombshell and Shrapnel.
Kickback is a suave blackmailer who turns into a gigantic robot grasshopper. He also looks awesome. Bombshell is a malicious rhinoceros beetle who injects his victims with "cerebro shells" that take over their minds. Shrapnel (usually their leader, sometimes alternating with Bombshell) is a playful master of electricity capable of shooting lightning from his antennae that can temporarily remote-control simple machines, including Transformers in vehicle mode.
All 3 of them are slimy, gleefully evil jerks who manipulate others for their pleasure, and they were lots of fun to watch in action. This also made them an antagonist's antagonist; the Insecticons were frequently at odds with the Decepticons themselves and when they fought you always cheered for the Decepticons.
In addition to their individual powers (and blackmailing) the Insecticons also had a group ability; when they consumed mass amounts of energy (or biomatter) they could generate insect-mode 'clones' of themselves, hundreds of them, which would descend like a swarm of locusts devouring everything in sight. Defeating the originals caused the clones to vanish.
These clones never transformed into robots, and looked identical to the Insecticons themselves:
There were a couple other Insecticons but they've never done anything important in fiction, ever, so let's pretend they don't exist. (Everyone else does.)
In the 1980's Marvel Comic the Insecticons had a different (more toy-accurate) color scheme. I like the subdued comics purples and Bombshell looks boss. ...but I have no idea why the comics Insecticons had eyes and the cartoon ones had visors. The mind wobbles.
In the comics the Insecticons' altmodes were teeny-weeny robotic insects not big ones so they were frequently used to sneak into places. Also they never used their clone-power. Lame.
Japan remembered the clones though! In 2004 TakaraTomy re-released the 1985 Insecticon toys and their affiliate e-HOBBY produced an exclusive set of recolors based on the original 1982 Diaclone color-schemes the toys had before they became Transformers. (Virtually every Transformer fromthe first 2 years originally came from a different toyline.)
e-Hobby's backstory for these guys declared that they were the Insecticons' clones. ...who no longer looked just like them. And transformed. ...huwah?
Now if the Insecticons had been created post-1999 this would almost certainly be how it would work! The "Vehicon General" system, where one important bad-guy has a horde of exact copies of himself to command -- only in a different color scheme -- had become a "thing." So you might figure that these guys are post-Universal 'representations' of the idea of Insecticon clones as they would exist today.
(But no appearance since then of the Insecticon clones in fiction has bothered to use these colors.)
And Japan gave them names! From left to right they are Shothole, Salvo and Zaptrap.
And Based on their toys' color layout, their box art, the way colors were altered for the original Insecticons as the were turned into character models.... *noodles*
The clones would look sorta like this:
The simplest answer would be that these were a specific type of Insecticon clone. The identical-to-the-original type of clone from the cartoon is the most basic type, but there are also upgraded, higher-quality or special purpose clones which look different, like Soldier ants vs. worker ants or Command Ravages, a differently colored stealth-variant of the feline Terrorcon horde... a type distinct from the normal rabble of identical robot cats but only as a different kind of rabble.
9 years later the Android/iOS Transformers game Transformers Legends was released. It's a digital CCG that allows players to compete against one another and collect ever-higher-ranked cards to build their deck. Pretty fluffy and inoffensive, right?
...God help me, it has a story!
I grant you it's not much of a story, about 2-paragraphs every 8 days, but it's an ongoing story with plot threads that interlock and are revisited. Those 2 paragraphs come in the form of a opening and closing narration for an 'episode,' a week-long competition with rewards allocated for rank. There's a story for each episode including antagonists (winnable cards,) event-specific protagonists (purchasable or rare-draw 'elite' cards) and score-reward cards (double-stat achievement cards) ...all of who are incorporated into the story.
Heck, the most recent event (featuring Starscream upsurping command of the Decepticons) was interrupted midway through with a story-update where Megatron came back from the dead-- and the reward-structure and rank setup was reshuffled to reflect his return in the middle of the event. (And pissing off a lot of players who would have played harder if they knew Megatron was a winnable card and found themseleves having to play catchup with the event half over.)
...sorry, I'm a Transformers geek and I'm just delighted when something is better than it has any right to be, like when the creators of 2007 the Allspark Wars online game promoting the live-action movie staged an unannounced Mini-ARG on the game's message boards featuring its own story and characters. So yeah, an ongoing story (however thin) in a tablet-exclusive Transformers CCG? That makes me happy. Like including short bios on every one of the cards it just indicates a degree of caring too often missing in games like these.
(Now put Sunder in damnit! He's mentioned in Rewind's back-of-the-card bio...!)
Anyway, the very first episode from Transformers Legends was the "Harvest of the Insecticons" event:
The Insecticons have grown tired of Megatron's rule. They detected a research facility that stored genetically engineered crops with an ultra-high concentration of bio-energy that they could turn into energon. A few days later, the Autobots detected a small but powerful energon signal and decided to investigate. They were terrified of what they found: the Insecticons had grown both in size and in power after attacking multiple storage facilities around the world. Teletraan I estimated that in seven more days, the Insecticons would be powerful enough to unleash a clone army that would deplete Earth of all organic life. Optimus Prime realized that in their current form, the Insecticons couldn't be defeated by the Autobots alone, and that a truce with the Decepticons was needed to accomplish his objective.
Take your team and hunt for the Insecticons. They are hidden all across the planet. Scan all sectors to uncover an Insecticon Boss. Battle them to weaken them. Ask your friends for help. Time is running out.
Pretty standard fare, the plot is a mash-up of "The Insecticon Syndrome" and "A Plague of Insecticons" and one of the autobot event-exclusive-protagonists (not mentioned in the episode intro-paragraph though subsequent events would integrate them more explicitly into the story) was the Autobot formula-1 car Mirage who fought he Insecticons in the episode "Traitor".
So why does this matter for my purposes? Well, the Harvest of the Insecticons episode-exclusive version of the Mirage card had new art of him beating up Insections for the episode. Specifically I'm interested in the card showing his altmode:
...are those Insecticons green? They are! Those Shrapnel and Bombshell guys (actually Shapshot and Hardshell -- trademark issues) are green and purple! The Bombshell-lookalike has purple eyes!
Like Mirage the Insecticons got episode-exclusive art for their cards... but it showed them in their traditional colors, they didn't look anything like this!
[...] Teletraan I estimated that in seven more days, the Insecticons would be powerful enough to unleash a clone army that would deplete Earth of all organic life. [...]
Holy shit, these guys are clones, differently-colored insecticon clones!
Vehicon general-style color-swap clone army confirmed baby, it's canon!
Actually, the Kickback on the left is color-swapped too. You can't see it well here, but it's really obvious on his event-exclusive cardart:
No black, gray-and-purple with the purple in different places? Shit man, that's pretty! Kickback is the only Insecticon whose colors were different on his own event cards, but he appears in that color fighting Mirage with definitely-not Sharpshot & Hardshell. Does this mean it represents a clone-color for Kickback? Some sort of overpower-colors as he surved with bio-energy, as per the logic of the story?
...I have no idea. It's probably simplest to say "clone" though. (Though I don't say so definitively, of course.)
What would that look like applied to his G1 model? *noodles*
Oohhh...! Me likey. :)~
Anyway, the green guys, after a lot of squinting and color sampling to figure out if that part is light-black-or-just-dull-purple and some extrapolation based on other color models, original toy spue layout etc... I get this for the green guys:
P-pretty...! :D
Um... anyway? Yeah, in-canon insecticon-clones-that-are-a-different-color. Awesome. Plus I got to do some color models!
Maybe I'll do that orange conehead next...