Brainstorm is a character that's changed over the years. Back in the 80s, he was just a generic scientist type, always forgetting what he was supposed to be doing, or having so many complex ideas that he shorts out his own brain. Unless you were living in Japan, where he was so generic he possibly turned into a tin of Tesco Value baked beans. These days however, he's the most ambiguous, coldhearted and possibly sinister scientist you ever did see, Doctor Strangelovian even. Personally, I like the change. I also like the fact that we're seeing him without the Headmaster process having happened yet, all that lovely stuff is yet to come. Of course, in G1, we got the Marvel comic's version, which is all good, they at least attempted to adhere to the Tech Spec bio. Not very well, mind you. But they attempted. The cartoon, not so much. But that's what you get when you whittle 5 episodes down to 3, eh, Hasbro?
I love Brainstorm's toy. It's deceptively simple, it turns into a neat Cybertronic jet, and the Headmaster robot is just great (as they all were). He's also an impressive shade of cyan, which goes well with the grey and even the orange on Brainstorm. The Headmaster gimmick works really well with Brainstorm, and the face they gave him just suits him for some reason. I couldn't tell you how, it just does.
Brainstorm was always a great robot waiting for something to happen to him. It took 25 years of fiction screwing him over for that to happen, but it seems to be all going on for Brainstorm right now, he's a shady scientist working for the good guys. And let's face it, that's always going to be interesting.
The Terrorcons were pretty unlucky, really. They came in at a time when Hasbro didn't seem too concerned with combiners anymore, they were all excited about Headmasters et al. So when it came to interesting fiction to make kids want to buy the toys, well, that just didn't happen. Sinnertwin, as a member of the Terrorcons, was affected by this. He has an interesting Tech Spec bio, the guy who goes looking for trouble, and can rend any creature to pieces, bt is scared of mice and bugs? Come on, that's comedy gold as well as being an interesting Achilles' Heel. Sadly, the cartoon being the cartoon, we never got to see it. Sinnertwin was either growling as a Decepticon, or growling as a brainwashed Decepticon being used by the Quintessons. The comic was a little better, but not much; he never really did anything noteworthy.
It's frustrating, because here you have a Transformer (indeed, Transformers; let's treat the Terrorcons as a whole here) whose alt-mode is that of a MYTHICAL CREATURE. You have massive scope for this being an interesting, fun character to play around with. Hell, I can come up with a story here off the top of my head. The Terrocons and Technobots (their Autobot Counterparts) get sent back in time to Ancient Greece. The Terrorcons, being all monstery and mythical, prey upon the superstitions of the time and get themselves worshipped, and plenty of Greeks doing their bidding. The Technobots however, align themselves with the great scientific and philosophical minds of the time, meld together even better as a team as a result, and kick Abomnius' ass. There. Wasn't difficult now, was it? Instead we got Carnage in C-Minor. There's no justice.
Being a Scramble City-era toy means that Sinnertwin's robot mode is pretty much awful. That's ok though, because his alt-mode is a complete joy. It's a yellow and green Orthus, after all. (look it up, kids) The random purple tail and midsection are a bit strange, but able to be overlooked. The point here is that he transforms into a yellow and green two-headed dog creature. Man, I love the Terrorcons so much.
Sinnertwin then, as with all the Terrorcons, is a bit of a waste, fictionally. His Tech Specs are good, his toy is good, even the way he looked in the cartoon wasn't bad. He just had nothing to do. Which I guess is true of all the later combining toys, but it's still a bitter pill to have to swallow when the alt-mode is so awesome. At least he wasn't Blot, though.
Jazz was the very first Transformer I got as a child. Along with Runabout, on my 10th birthday, as a matter of fact. I specifically asked for Jazz, I remember, because, and I remember this with perfect clarity (and because I still believe it to this very day) that Jazz is cool.
He had a cool voice in the cartoon, Scatman Crothers, the man who had previously been the voice of Hong Kong Phooey (a childhood favourite of mine), and the guy who gets killed by Jack Nicholson in The Shining (spoilers). This guy was just too cool for school, and, by extension, so was Jazz. It helped of course, that Jazz was amazingly cool and awesome in the G1 cartoon. Always at Prime's side, like his Tech Spec bio states he is Prime's right hand man (even if the comics eschewed this notion and made Prowl Prime's go-to guy instead). He was always in the thick of the action, was Jazz, fighting alongside the others, yet always standing out looking good. It helped that he was in some very cool episodes too, one of the best being The God Gambit, where he keeps on explaining to the people of Titan that Transformers aren't gods, and that they don't need to be worshipped. He did it with style, though, as he did everything. It's his motto after all.
Sadly Scatman died in 1986, and the cartoon makers, quite rightly, dropped Jazz quietly from the cartoon, although he is visible in the early season 3 episode occasionally. After that though, Jazz disappeared, like I say though, only rightly. If Scatman couldn't voice him, then he just wouldn't have been the same.
Jazz's toy is classic G1 Autobot car. Although only his arms can move, he looks dynamic and stylish, with great detailling all over the toy. The car mode is also excellent, being a very faithful rendition of a Martini Racing Porsche 935(although later releases of the toy would drop the Martini stickers). The thing is with Jazz, whenever he's been brought out in another form, it's always exceedingly close to this version of the toy, even the movie version of Jazz would see a 'throwback' release in his old colours.
Jazz was never going to get much criticism from me, due to good old fashioned nostalgia. Thing is though, there's not that much, if anything to criticise anyway. The toy is a classic of the genre, and in the cartoon at least, his Tech Spec bio has been almost rigidly adhered to. He could have been allowed to do a bit more in the comics, maybe. He was lobotomised by Galvatron, though. I guess that's not the worst excuse in the world, is it?
At the time of writing, Blurr is the only one of the trifecta of Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr that I don't own, in G1 terms, anyway. I always did want to own a Blurr, though. My schoolmate Jeremy had one, and I was always very jealous. I loved Blurr's character from his Tech Spec bio, that he was a courier, a messenger, and not so much a fighter. I have to admit though, his motto sucked a little bit.
Blurr was an ever-present in the G1 cartoon from the movie onwards. His introduction was, like many of the 'new toy' characters a case of 'He's been here all along! Did you not notice him? No? Losers...' which was suitably brief and to the point. Blurr even had a storyline all to himself in 'Five Faces of Darkness', the post-movie miniseries that continued on from where the movie had left off. Blurr was definitely a big part of the new order in the Transformers universe. True, he never really did anything of worth or even note apart from talk fast like that guy from the Micro Machines ad (mainly because they were the same person, natch), but he was always there, and that's what counts.
In the comics, it was very much the same story. He was there, and he did stuff. Nothing that was particularly noteworthy, unless you count being slaughtered by Galvatron and being decapitated. Mind you, that timeline ended up not having ever happened, of course. In the UK comics at least, Blurr was around quite a bit, Simon Furman utilising pretty much the whole movie cast in lieu of having lots and lots of US material to play with - this was actually manna from heaven for Furman, because he could use the movie characters and not have to worry about messing up the US continuity, which took precedent. Blurr therefore turned up in lots of the UK-produced tomes, and is possibly better loved in the UK for it.
Blurr's toy is pretty standard for the era - not very articulated, transforms into a Cybertronic vehicle that doesn't really look like anything and could therefore BE anything, and is therefore cool. To me, anyways. I think that's just envy again. Seriously, I would have done anything for this toy in 1986. I always liked Blurr's colour scheme, too. Mainly for the fact that there's about a million shades of blue in there. There's a crappy fanfic BDSM book joke in there somewhere.
Blurr holds of a lot of happy memories for me. Mainly of the early 90's, watching Transformers: The Movie with my mate Andy, who also owned some of the Transformers VHS tapes with season 3 stuff on them. Plus, the UK Marvel comics where he featured heavily, and where I first started to love comic books as much as I do now. So, thanks Blurr. Even if you ended up being nothing more than a secretary in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon.
Runabout, along with Jazz, was one of my very first Transformers, on my tenth birthday, in 1986. I can remember it quite clearly; one of the only times I've ever been excited about my birthday. I usually hated them, but this year was different, this year, I'd be getting Transformers. Get them I did, and Jazz and Runabout were played with a lot, I can tell you. I still have them to this day, believe it or not.
In later years, I realised something; Runabout and his comrade Runamuck are basically Beavis and Butt-head. No, really. They're always seen together, they very probably like heavy metal, they're both complete idiots, and they both like to break stuff. I mean, Runabout and Runamuck went on a grand tour of the USA, graffittiing national monuments. They would have succeeded too, if Circuit Breaker and the world's lamest gestalt hadn't shown up. Sadly, that seems to be the high point of their fiction. In the cartoon they appeared in one episode only, and the focus of that was Starscream (who didn't even have a toy out that year). In the Marvel comics, Runabout survived the battle with Unicron but got eaten straight after by a Cybertronic demon; in Dreamwave he had all his energy sapped by Sunstorm and was left for dead; and in IDW he was electorocuted by the Reapers until he exploded. Seriously, this guy needs to stop dying. Stat.
I know what you're going to say. His toy suuuuuuuucks. I AM aware of this, you know. Because he's a Battlecharger, his gimmick destroys any chance that the toy may have had of having any sort of articulation. The pop-up gimmick is pretty cool though. And the black and red go together really well. And sod it, he was one of my first ever Transformers. I'm always going to love and forgive him for anything.
Runabout then, is cool. His toy may not be cool, and he may have a serious survival problem when it comes to Transformers comics. But I love the guy. He's Butthead in Transformer form. What's not to love? Huh-huh-huh.
Over-Run was the first Action Master vehicle toy I bought. I never regretted it. I remember it was Autumn 1990 or thereabouts, and that I was excited as all getout to get him out of the box and get playing, I mean, erm, appreciating the toy's engineering. I'll be honest, the Attack Copter isn't the greatest vehicle ever made. But it was fun to play with. Darn.
The character of Over-Run's a weirder one to pin down, though. As you see from his Tech Spec bio, all you get is that he doesn't take orders from anyone but himself. As bios go, it's a stinker. I mean, it's almost as bad as the ones we get today (Megatron is a Decepticon, etc). The first time I had any hint as to what he was like, was in Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye series. Whereupon you find out that Over-Run is a bit of a jackass, honestly. He bosses people around, shouts abuse at them if he thinks they're not doing their jobs properly, and generally is hated by everyone. But in fact, he doesn't care about that, because he's here to win the war, and not make friends. This is just me, but he actually sounds like Frank Burns from M*A*S*H. For that alone, I kinda like Over-Run a little bit more. He's also brave - look at that Courage bar! An ass he may be, but he's a brave ass.
Like I said, the Attack Copter's not the greatest toy, but heck, it's fun. Over-Run himself is brightly coloured (even if he is predominantly red) and suits having a Copter as his vehicle, having seemingly once transformed into a helicopter himself. The Copter transforms into a mobile missile battery, with Over-Run as it's pilot, which I think is a nice touch. Personally, I love the Attack Copter, especially the windscreen. Potentially the most pointless windscreen in the world.
Over-Run has sadly been forgotten by many. He has been in the Wings Universe (not that anyone cares), but has only been in the IDW universe once, as a guard in Spotlight: Arcee. I look forward to him popping up elsewhere, as I think a Frank Burns-alike in the More than Meets the Eye book would be a welcome addition!
Needlenose is more relevant now then he was back in 1988. There, I said it. In a world where celebrity is now king, where TOWIE and Paris Hilton are listened to more than politicians, where better for the ultimate celebrity cool dude Needlenose to reside?
I always liked Needlenose's Tech Spec bio. A lot of the Decepticon bios tend to be about how they're going to bring about the Autobot's ultimate doom, and their general badassness, Needlenose fell into the category of 'a little bit on the selfish side'. He's one of those who could have been an Autobot, if not for the fact that they were a little bit TOO much on the selfish side of things. He's like the anti-Jazz, fascinated with Earth fads and Earth pop culture in general, but instead of wanting to help people and join in the culture, he just wants it all for himself and no one else.
In the comics, he was a little bit inept too, being constantly talked up by Spinister, and always letting him down by being rubbish and lazy and yep, you guessed it, selfish. He ended up surrendering to the Autobots after Thunderwing went mental, and was never heard from again, until he wound up being one of Soundwave's neo-Decepticons, that is. He's around in the IDW-verse too, avoiding being lynched and generally being angry and looking cool and badass. In his mind, anyway. He was never in the cartoon though, and never got any Japanese action, the double Targetmasters not being sold there at all. Which I always thought of as slightly odd.
Needlenose is pretty much your gimmicky G1 brick, his only articulation being in his shoulders. To be fair though, that's not why you'd want him, it's Sunbeam and ZigZag, his partners, that's why you'd want him. Because Double Targetmasters are cool. He's actually a really cool toy, all things being equal, the plane mode looks good, and his robot mode does too, even without the articulation. Also, Double Targetmasters are cool. I may have mentioned this before.
It looks like Needlenose might be due a comeback then, given the way that IDW's comics are going. Will he ever be a big player? Doubtful. But he's always there, so someday, the time may come when he can get his richly deserved 15 vorns of fame...
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