Hunt for the Decepticons Terradive

Possibly one of the strangest things about Michael Bay's TransFormers movies is that there are so few flying Decepticons. We've had Starscream, we've had Blackout, we've had Laserbeak... and that's pretty much it. The toylines expanded on this with repaints of the original and multiple versions of Starscream for RotF, plus the odd few additional characters from the associated fiction. Weirdly, though, even in the extended toyline, there still seem to be more airborne Autobots than Decepticons

One of the most enduring kinds of TransFormers toy designs is the Generation 2 Cyberjet. They have been reused and remixed time and time again, with straight repaints and mold upgrades. As one of the few airborne Decepticons in the extended toyline for Revenge of the Fallen, it was surprising to find Terradive so familiar, though he's still very much his own mold.

AM06 Arms Micron (TF Prime) Skywarp

Hasbro have really been dropping the ball of late. Ever since the first live action TransFormers movie, they've had an alarming habit of releasing a Starscream, and then either Skywarp or Thundercracker, with the missing Seeker becoming some hard-to-find exclusive, frequently from Takara Tomy only. While they have begun to correct this baffling omission (releasing all three as Leader class figures in Combiner Wars based on Generations Jetfire), they declined to create any repaints of the Voyager class Starscream from TF Prime, and only released alternative versions of Starscream using the First Edition mold, rather than repainting into other characters.

Thankfully, then, Takara Tomy were not afflicted with the same unreason, and happily produced the appropriate repaints of the FE figure as part of their Arms Micron take on the TF Prime line (albeit with one as a retail chain exclusive). Since buying these invariably means importing - with the additional expense that implies - I ended up getting Skywarp on the cheap, second hand, via eBay... Which may not have been the best plan...

Superlink Nightscream Reverse/Rebirth

When Nightscream/Starscream first turned up in the Superlink/Energon TV series, he was a ghost, Starscream having been apparently killed off at the end of Armada. While the original take on the toy - from both Hasbro and Takara - didn't interest me much due to both having uniquely drab colourschemes, the repaint, in more G1-like colours, was just as different between the two toymakers but, while Hasbro went straight G1, to the extent of ignoring much of the molded damage detail, Takara Tomy kept the basic idea of the original, but brightened the palette considerably.

Robots in Disguise Dreadwind & Smokejumper

While overlapping continuities are positively de rigueur now that Hasbro has separated the TransFormers brand into age groups and whole new branches of the toyline open up whenever a movie is released, it was fairly unusual about ten years ago. Nevertheless, around the time Robots in Disguise/Car Robots was phased out in favour of Armada, Hasbro decided to re-release a 1994 Generation 2 set as a swan song for RiD.

This is one of those odd situations where I don't remember exactly how/where I came to buy this... but I'm going to have to assume I picked it up loose because, according to my research, there's something not quite right about the set.

Armada Thundercracker

Hasbro and Takara/Takara Tomy are an interesting pair of companies: they are ostensibly working on the same toyline in TransFormers, but frequently handle them in a very different way (and often with a very different story coming out the redubbing of the same TV series). One case in point - rather ancient now, being from a toyline that appeared 14 years ago - was the Decepticon jets in TransFormers Armada, where Takara Tomy introduced Starscream and had him later develop a 'Supermode', while Hasbro evidently took one look at Supermode Starscream and decided he looked sufficiently similar to G1 Thundercracker to turn him into a unique character for their version of the continuity...

TransFormers: Prime Skyquake

TransFormers Prime started its run killing off one of the Autobots, which pretty much set the tone for the series. None of the other key characters actually died, but the show certainly didn't shy away from killing off a less central character in the service of the story.

...And so, the first Decepticon to properly die was Skyquake... and while his brother, Dreadwing, may have had frequent appearances in the remainder of the series, he was only really interested in getting revenge for Skyquake's death and almost ended up in the G1 Thundercracker role of not being entirely behind Megatron's plans for tyranny. Skyquake only appeared briefly, but was utterly in Megatron's thrall, to the extent that he wouldn't consider Starscream his leader, even with Megatron out of action. Yet, since the series' first casualty, Cliffjumper, presented only a single opportunity for a repaint - as a zombie version - Skyquake and Dreadwing were more sensible chance to reuse a mold from TF Prime's limited character roster.