Amazon.com have pre-order for G1 Reissues
Prowl,
Skywarp and
Red Alert
up on their site. They’re due out in June, but again won’t ship outside of the USA. Note too that Amazon have spelled Skywarp ‘Skywrap’… dunces.

ALLEGIANCE: DECEPTICON

SUB-GROUP: COMBATICON
FUNCTION: MUNITIONS EXPERT
FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS # 24

“Make deals, not war.”

Profile: Don’t let Swindle’s easy-going, good-natured personality fool
you; within him beats the fuel pump of the most greed-driven street hustler.
Without blinking an optical sensor, he’d trade Decepticon leader Megatron’s
right arm for a toaster if he needed the toaster badly enough (and if he could
get the arm off of Megatron!). He is an opportunist without peer. He thrives
on wheeling and dealing and seemingly is capable of procuring anything to fulfill
the design and equipment needs of his armaments work. Although the weapons he
builds are much appreciated, his fellow Combaticons know that Swindle’s efforts
on behalf of the Decepticons are a mere sideline to his actual purpose: He is
solely concerned with himself, and most of his entrepreneurial activities are
for his own personal material advancement. If he thought it were in his interest
to trade with the enemy, the Autobots, he probably would. He is truly a one-robot
“black market.”

Abilities: Perhaps Swindle’s greatest talent is his gift of gab. He
could probably sell oil to an Arab sheik, if given the chance. In both jeep
and robot modes, he uses two weapons: a scatter blaster that shoots bursts of
explosive buckshot-type pellets over a wide area, and a gyro-gun that disturbs
the balance centers of Transformers, severely hampering their driving, flying,
and/or walking. With his fellow Combaticons, Swindle combines to form the giant
robot Bruticus.

Weaknesses: In jeep mode, Swindle can’t handle sharp turns at high speeds
very well and is prone to overturning. Although his exterior is fairly well
armored, a direct hit on his unprotected and open dashboard can easily disable
him.

ALLEGIANCE: AUTOBOT
SUB-GROUP: AERIALBOT
FUNCTION: WARRIOR

FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS # 21

“To live is to fight; to die is to stop.”

Profile: Superion is a fierce and frightful machine. As the collective
consciousness of the five Aerialbots, Air Raid, Skydive, Fireflight, Slingshot
and Silverbolt, he might find it confusing and unproductive to assimilate each
of his component personalities into one. Therefore, he suppresses much of what
is potentially more than he can handle and directs his thinking to one primary
purpose: the destruction of the Decepticons. And that’s about all he’s good
for. Little else interests him; he’s unlikely to even engage in conversation
about anything else. The other Autobots take this to be a cold and aloof attitude,
as if Superion held himself above them. In truth, it is the most Superion can
give of himself.

Abilities: Superion can fly at speeds up to 800 mph. His range is 5800
miles. His strength is formidable; he can demolish a battleship with one blow.
The stress fracture cannon he carries shoots a beam that locates and then overloads
the natural fracture lines in any object it hits. The result can be anything
from cracking open a peanut shell to causing a small earthquake.

Weaknesses: Superion finds it difficult to adapt to new situations and
to be innovative. His thought processes are too primitive to allow for such
higher mental functions. This often restricts him in battle. Although incredibly
strong and resistant to most artillery and beam weapons, he does have certain
“pressure points” – areas of structural weakness where one component
Aerialbot connects to the next – that are particularly vulnerable to attack.

ALLEGIANCE: AUTOBOT
SUB-GROUP: TARGETMASTER
HUMAN COMPONENTS: RICOCHET AND BOOMER
FUNCTION: CHEMIST

FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS # 60

“The faster it is, the better I like it!”

Profile: Quickmix was a crabby, absent-minded professor at the Computechnic
Institute of Microprocessor Engineering on Cybertron at the time Autobot-Decepticon
hostilities began millions of years ago. His specialty was developing new materials
that possessed enhanced energy-transmitting properties, a technology that, in
the wrong hands, could be applied to improving weaponry. Although he wanted
no part of the war, after repeated raids on his laboratory by a band of Decepticon
bandits, Quickmix felt compelled to join the Autobots. But first, as going away
present of sorts, he rigged his lab to blow up the next time it was broken into.
Shortly thereafter, he returned. Amid the rubble of the devastated lab, Quickmix
couldn’t find enough pieces left of the Decepticon bandits to make into a charm
bracelet. He achieved instant popularity among his new Autobot comrades. Now
they know him as much for his impatience and short temper as for his brilliant
inventions. He’s constantly devising new formulas and gadgets to use against
the Decepticons. In fact, he’s so busy beginning new projects that he rarely
sees old ones through to completion.

Quickmix is teamed with the Nebulans Ricochet and Boomer. On Nebulos, the mercurial
Ricochet was a renowned environmental sculptor, combining landscapes and foliage
to create natural art forms. After witnessing the Decepticons’ trampling some
of his more famous sculptures, he joined the Autobots. As is the case with so
many artists, Ricochet responds poorly to criticism in any form.

Boomer is Ricochet’s virtual opposite in personality. He is warm, friendly,
generous – a pleasure to be around. He never has an unkind word for anyone,
even the Decepticons. As head of the Consumer Complaint Agency on Nebulos, he
learned to not take offense at anything. He concluded that if he could successfully
deal with thousands of angry citizens, deterring a few dozen deranged Decepticons
from conquering his world should be easy for him. And so he joined the Autobots.

Abilities: Quickmix transforms to a ground vehicle with the outward
appearance of an Earthen cement mixer truck. But in reality, his mixer tank
contains a sophisticated system of sensors, gauges and catalytic agents, which
allow him to create a virtually endless variety of chemical compounds and metal
alloys. He applies many of these results to improving Autobot armor and weaponry.
As a truck he has a maximum speed of 150 mph and a range of 450 miles. Ricochet
is bio-engineered to convert to an automatic sub-machine gun that shoots metal-piercing,
titanium-tipped bullets. Boomer is bio-engineered to convert to a ground-shaking,
steel-shattering sonic pulse cannon, which sends out discrete waves of concentrated
sonic energy. Ricochet and Boomer can also combine to form one weapon, which
retains the capabilities of both components.

Abilities: To operate properly and efficiently, Quickmix’s mixing tank
must constantly rotate. However, the tank often gets stuck. On those occasions
when it contains volatile chemicals that are allowed to settle for too long,
the tank… and Quickmix… can be seriously damaged.

ALLEGIANCE: AUTOBOT
SUB-GROUP: JUNKION

FUNCTION: JUNKION LEADER
FIRST APPEARANCE: THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE # 3

“Collect and save, collect and save.”

Profile: Wreck-Gar is the leader of the Junkions, and like his people,
is a creature comprised of rusted scraps, dented odds and ends, chassis bits,
and manifold parts – a walking, very powerful and all but indestructible Junkbot,
i.e., a robot of junk. When he is hit by laser blasts and falls apart, he reassembles
himself out of the junky remains of his body and available junk heaps that constitute
the structure of his planetoid, and keeps right on coming. And his speech and
attitudes are also a junkyard-like collection of languages and broadcast fragments
overheard from all over the universe – scraps of T.V. commercials, soap opera
dialogue, old song lyrics and valentine inscriptions merged with quotations
from history given out of context. As Wreck-Gar might say, “Holy Mackeral,
Mrs. Olson, your mountain-grown easy-listening sidekick, kimosabe, wishes you
have a nice industrial-strength day. Film at eleven or not.”

Abilities: Wreck-Gar can transform into motorcycle mode and back to
robot mode continuously in battle, so that his “ruins” become his
transformed mode and back again any time he takes a direct hit. In robot mode,
he carries an armor axe and a decelerator laser that inhibits an enemy robot’s
flow of cerebral impulses. Speed: 160 mph. Range: 100 miles.

ALLEGIANCE: DECEPTICON
SUB-GROUP: HEADMASTER

HUMAN COMPONENT: VORATH
FUNCTION: HYPNOTIST
FIRST APPEARANCE: HEADMASTERS # 2

“Just one look from me and you’ve lost.”

Profile: Mindwipe is perhaps the most mysterious and definitely the
most mystical of all the Decepticons. When not performing his duties as a Decepticon
warrior, he devotes his time to trying to establish contact with the electromagnetic
essences of long-dead Decepticons. He hopes that by communicating with them
he can learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes they did when they
fought and were eventually defeated by the Autobots. So far, despite designing
and constructing numerous receivers, antennas and other equipment, his labors
has borne only limited success. He has managed to pick up a few stray broadcast
signals bouncing around outer space from some Earth television programs of the
1950s and 60s, but little else. Of them, the TV show once known as “My
Mother The Car” is his favorite.

Mindwipe is binary-bonded to Vorath, the former Minister of Science of the
planet Nebulos. Vorath was expelled from his office when Galen, a member of
the ruling Council of Peers, uncovered Vorath’s involvement in illegal medical
experiments. When contingents of Autobots and Decepticons arrived on Nebulos
and plunged the planet into war, Vorath saw an opportunity for revenge on Galen.
Galen had allied himself with the Autobots, so Vorath eagerly volunteered to
undergo the bio-engineering process that gave him the ability to transform and
become the head module of Mindwipe. Although things didn’t work out exactly
as Vorath had hoped, he fully enjoys his new life as a Decepticon Headmaster.

Abilities: In bat mode Mindwipe can fly at a maximum speed of 700 miles
per hour, has a range of 1200 miles and has great strength. His eyes emit a
sub-optic radiation that, although invisible, has the effect of overriding the
self-will circuitry of almost any mechanical being who is unfortunate enough
to look into them. In other words, he has the power to hypnotize Transformers.
In robot mode he uses a viper pistol, which shoots a stream of liquid that paralyzes
the neuro-circuitry of any mechanical being it hits, freezing the victim in
his tracks for up to 30 minutes.

Weaknesses: In his attempts to contact departed Decepticons, Mindwipe
often becomes so involved in his self-induced trance-like states that he is
unaware of anything else. This leaves him extremely open to enemy attack. He
can be just as vulnerable while watching an old TV show, depending on how much
he likes it.