CBS Transformers> The First Pitch part 2: The New Decepticon Concept

I would be remiss in my role as chronicler if I didn’t bring up a counterpoint to a previous perspective on why this first pitch, and presumably the one after it, is so far removed from the show we already had with the miniseries and continued to have with the show we finally got. In the comments of part one the owner of the Sunbow/Marvel Archive wrote in to challenge Chris McFeely’s take (which he quoted from Marvel Comics’ Jim Shooter) on why Sunbow and Marvel Productions went with such a radical change. It was his statement (or her–this is the internet and I wasn’t given a name so I’m covering my rear) that Marvel Productions “simply did not have the legal right to look at development work Marvel Comics created for their client Griffin-Bacal, until Griffin-Bacal contracted them to create this network pitch”. So what Jeffrey Scott was doing was doing the best he could with what he got.

I’m not so convinced, mostly because that would have been a really dumb decision on someone’s part. You’d think you’d want your client to see the story they approved for the toys used in the pitch to the network. That same backstory was on the packaging and promotional material already out in stores, plus Sunbow and Marvel already worked on the miniseries, so unless the timeline is really weird they should already know what happened in the first miniseries. This could explain why the second pitch is closer to what the toys were doing, and one change we’ll start seeing here was CBS’s fault, but whose to say Shooter had all the information when he made the quoted comment? I wasn’t there, but I have to at least acknowledge this new data in the name of fairness. In the end you’ll have to decide. We’re here to talk about Deceptions.

Speaking of part one, the backstory tells us that the Decepticons are now all dead, possessing machines on Earth like Starscream did in season 3. I’m not going to compare it to his mutant spark, an idea that started with Beast Wars while season 3 just called it his ghost (his namesake in the early episodes of Transformers Energon also got to be a ghost), and I made my comparison last time to other uses of the idea. The Decepticons would have been the “villain of the week”, which I guess would be their way to get the other toys in despite the Decepticons at the time being fewer in number than the Autobots even without packaging goofs like the red Bumblebee or the car that was neither Bumblebee nor Cliffjumper. (Fans named him “Bumblejumper” for years until Dreamwave officially named him the shortened name “Bumper”, which is a better name in my opinion and now I want one because he was a fun character in that comic.) That’s not the only thing different about the Decepticons in this story. Remember than cannon that was stolen from the Russians in the backstory?

First, let’s get properly introduced to these Decepticons:

The DECEPTICONS are an evil race of futuristic, robots. They came to earth in their formless, glowing energy state, looking for new mechanical objects to inhabit. The innate ability of a Decepticon energy entity is the ability to move into any mechanical object (car, boat, plane, etc.) and transform it into a living, mechanical robot of incredible power and sophistication.

It’s not a terrible concept, which we’ve seen play out in other media since. It’s just really far removed from what we got, which just works better.

When the Decepticons came to earth, they took refuge under the ocean in an area southeast of Florida. From there, each one of them entered a mechanical form which they transmuted into amazing robot bodies.

That’s actually not too far off from where the Decepticons were based in the series, though in that case it was their crashed ship from the end of the miniseries. From here we start meeting the individual characters from their pitch. I don’t know what they were going by when they created these versions of the characters, but I can see Megatron working out here given his alt mode.

MEGATRON is the ruthless leader of the Decepticons. He took the form of a particle beam cannon, which he transmuted into his current robot form. As all Decepticons, he has the ability to transform from the object he inhabited to his robot form, and vice-versa. Megatron also has the ability to change his size, thus he can be a small, hand-held laser pistol, a large, particle beam cannon, or a giant flying robot.

The tank from Generation Two really did suit him more. They didn’t have a tank that big to work with at the time.

I had to take a few typos out of that. What is it with Transformers pitches and typos? Extra spaces, missing letters…come on, guys. We did this with the Beast Hunters pitch & Beast Machines writer’s guide, too. Now I’m curious to see if this was a trend in every Transformers pitch and story bible. Just a heads up in case I miss some in this series. This time I felt the urge to fix it rather than leaving it in like I did with the previous later pitches.

I also have to wonder if they saw Shockwave and mistook him for Megatron. I’m not sure how something looking like a Walther P38 gun (Megatron’s “Micro Change” toy was based on the role play gun from The Man From UNCLE, an American spy show that was apparently popular in Japan at the time) is to be believed as a giant cannon, unless the Russians created their particle cannon like an oversized Nazi gun famously used by an American spy long after the war. Interestingly, Galvatron fits this description a bit more. Whether Hasbro had thought of this when they started trying to design original Transformers I couldn’t tell you. Could be a coincidence, but Galvatron’s toy did have an unfoldable gun handle. Shockwave was always a giant gun, but the toy was a hand-held laser complete with normal gun handle. If they weren’t using official material, what did they use?

Megatron possesses a strange, pulsating canister which is filled with innumerable glowing energy orbs. These orbs are dormant Decepticons. All Megatron need do is place one of these glowing energy orbs into his particle beam cannon and shoot it into any mechanical object. If he were to fire an energy orb into a locomotive engine we would see an intricate web of electrical energy spread throughout the object like a energized cancer; it would eerily transform the locomotive into an incredibly intricate, superpowerful robot Decepticon. And Megatron’s army would have one more loyal warrior.

“Energized cancer”. There’s a mental image. So Megatron would create his warriors by shooting them into machines. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it just sounds weird. At least Megatron wouldn’t be shooting all his warriors into things. Some of them got to tag along the proper way.

SOUNDWAVE is next in command to Megatron. Soundwave took the unlikely form of a cassette player. He, too, has the ability to alter his size, thus he can be a normal sized cassette player (thus giving him unique camouflage abilities) or he can rapidly transform himself into a monstrous flying robot of thirty feet; a guided missile cannon on his right arm, a laser blaster on his shoulder.

I’m guessing Scott was trying to give kids a way to play with these two figures at the proper size to play along with the other toys. I can respect that. Slight difference is that the laser blaster he carries and his shoulder had the missile launchers, at least officially. Admittedly you could put either battery formed weapon in either spot or have him dual wield, so it’s not completely wrong. Doing so would have respected the options, but as someone who owns the Protectobots and only saw the extra play pattern they missed when I was an adult and not as bound to the order they stuck with Combiners on the show. They also got Frenzy and Rumble mixed up, but that’s a different discussion.

Constantly at odds with Megatron, Soundwave feels he should be leader of the Decepticons and doesn’t hesitate to let the others know it. He’ll follow Megatron’s orders, but only after threats and vicious infighting.

Now this is intriguing. In Soundwave’s tech spec toy bio he’s an opportunist looking to blackmail even his allies if it will benefit his position. Here…he’s Starscream. Wait until you see what they did with Starscream, but on the show he was so loyal to Megatron that he even warned Megatron that Starscream was going to blast him in anger. This one would have been the one shooting.

At first it may seem odd that Soundwave took the form of a cassette player. But there is method to his madness, for when Soundwave’s chest pops open out comes a cassette. Not just an ordinary cassette, but one that can transform into …

BUZZSAW, the mechanical golden condor. His basic function is to run reconnaissance and perform spying missions. Although his spying is supposed to be for Megatron’s takeover (thus seeking out new mechanical forms for the other energy entities to take over, or searching out the Autobots) Buzzsaw sometimes spies for Soundwave, who hopes he can somehow gain an edge over Megatron and take control of the Decepticons. Like all of the Decepticon robots, Buzzsaw is equipped with lasers and a radio-telepathic communication link with the others.

Poor Buzzsaw. He actually came with the Soundwave toy but for some reason it was Laserbeak, whose toy role was “interrogator”, that gets all the attention as Soundwave’s go to bird bot. Has this pitch happened he would have been in his rightful spot of top spy bird. The other cassettes–Laserbeak, Rumble, Frenzy, and Ravage at the time–aren’t even in the main cast, so they’d probably be Decepticon-Of-The-Week characters, meaning he’s be top tape, too. Last tape standing, but still the one that everyone mentally connects to Soundwave today.

STARSCREAM, THUNDERCRACKER & SKYWARP are the three main Decepticon warrior-bots under Megatron’s command. They are all F-16 fighter jets in their normal mechanical form. But with a powerful pulse of their electronic intention, they transform themselves into huge flying robots, capable of firing smart missiles and laser beams. Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp differ in their attitudes and their weaponry.

Thus the rest of the team consists of the bots we call Seekers today, the three plane we all know…but not as we know them. Starscream’s is the biggest change, and one that accidentally plays into an old running gag in alt.toys.transformers newsgroup parodies.

STARSCREAM (white), as her name implies, is a “screamer.” She is vicious in thought and action, her synthesized robot voice crackling out at the others at the slightest provocation. And it is this very anger that fuels one of her two wing-mounted weapons: a laser heat-ray that can melt or vaporize anything it comes in contact with. Under her other wing is a chilling Zero-K blaster which can freeze anything to absolute zero, its atoms stopping dead. Starscream has a personal score to settle with Jazz, the Autobot who destroyed her robot body back on their home planet at the peak of Starscream’s criminal career.

I don’t think he’s happy about this news.

Yep, Starscream is a girl. That old gag about Starscream being gay for Megatron? Yeah…at least it wouldn’t be gay? This is CBS’s fault. They insisted on having at least one girl character among the heroes in every show. I’d say that explains the two girls in Dungeons & Dragons since neither of them looked like they play DND and this was a boys show based on a game primarily played by boys (yes, I know girls can and do play the game, too, I said primarily!), but to be honest neither did the boys on that show. I definitely don’t see Eric playing. They just wanted to ride the roller coaster. That means that one Decepticon and one Autobot were chosen to be gender swapped. We’ll see the Autobot next time. Meanwhile, Starscream’s null rays and cluster bombs were replaced with a heat ray and freeze ray, two competing weapons. The null rays sound better to me, even if he rarely got to use them after the miniseries. The rivalry with Jazz would at least add something to her character but the guy we got had more than enough to make up for the loss.

THUNDERCRACKER (red) is the strong, quiet type … except when he turns on his firepower, then we feel his thunder. And thunder is just what we hear when he switches on his main weapon: twin tractor beams. Anything caught in Thundercracker’s electro-magnetic clutches is slowly drawn nearer and nearer until it is in the hydraulic crushing hands of this towering robot Decepticon.

So Thundercracker would have a color swap (he’s supposed to be blue–like Rumble) and steal Windcharger’s powers, since he wouldn’t be here. The “thunder” was supposed to come from him breaking the sound barrier, though only his tech specs and one comic appearance gave us that. Missing is having doubts about his cause. The regular show never used it, and outside of the tech specs we wouldn’t see this until the first IDW run.

SKYWARP (black) is driven by five million volts of pure hate. He wants nothing better than to see all Autobots turned into smouldering molten metal, a fair reward he thinks for having imprisoned him for a thousand years in a force field detention cell. His main weapon is his Warp-Ray, an ear-shattering device that creates a wrinkle in space in time wherever he directs it. This wrap in the fabric of the universe allows the Decepticons to escape when necessary, or can be a deadly trap for an unsuspecting Autobot to fall into.

An interesting variation on his official teleporting power. They were still going with the idea that the Transformers each had something akin to superpowers or signature weapons, something that’s mostly fallen by the wayside without Marvel’s writing.

So those would have been your regular Decepticons. The others would be villains of the week, getting bumped off again or just being chased off for a cameo or something I guess. It doesn’t have that feel of an evil army like the show we got had. Lady Starscream was listed as a criminal, not a warrior in a war. It doesn’t sound terrible, but after “More Than Meets The Eye” I don’t see this being nearly as interesting. Then again, these were the guys who made Dungeons & Dragons so it’s not like they were bad at their jobs. There’s a reason Marvel Productions and Sunbow are one of the missed animation studios from the 1980s, and it’s not the ties to the comics.

In part three we’ll examine the Autobot side of things. Who gets gender swapped this time? Why did they do my boy Bumblebee so dirty? What’s their story? Did they kill themselves to get new Earth bodies as well? Answers in the next exciting installment of CBS Transformers.