#47: Tailgate (1986)

If I'd written this blog entry a year ago, things would have been vastly different for ol' Tailgate. I would have said that he was hardly in anything at all, and certainly wasn't a major player in the cartoon, where he had about one scene where he got trashed by Trypticon, or one story in the G1 comic, where he woke up some Cybertronic demons. That would have been about it. Then Rocherts happened.

Suddenly, Tailgate is now a superstar. True, he's been offline for six million years, lost his legs, and nearly been duped (kinda) by Cyclonus into becoming a Decepticon (and would have done too, if not for the intervention of Ultra Magnus). He's come a long way. Personally, I liked Tailgate even before he was more well known to the fandom; his Tech Spec bio had a lot to do with that. Basically, Tailgate is Robot!Moses, believing that ALL Earth machines are alive, and in bondage to their overtly cruel human masters. In my mind's eye, I can quite plainly see Tailgate singing 'Let my people goooooooooooooo!' in his best Paul Robeson voice. This image makes me happy.

I love Minibots, so Tailgate automatically wins brownie points with me just for existing. The fact that he's a really good toy is just icing on a very delicious cake. True, he's a repaint of Windcharger, but I think he improves on the original design, with a better and more detailed (and therefore interesting) faceplate, and a great colour scheme of white and blue which just stands out and pops so well. It's a repaint that is even better than the original, and for that I salute you Tailgate.

Tailgate is an interesting 'bot, that just keeps on getting more and more interesting. I truly hope that Rocherts keep writing for this guy, and continue for a long time to come. Tailgate's a great character and a great toy. If only the Generations/RTS version of him was more readily available...