Thundertron
From Transformers Wiki
- Thundertron is a Star Seeker from the Prime portion of the Aligned continuity family.
Cybertron and its inhabitants will tremble, for they will hear the massive clang of steel amidst the sound of leonine growls, and fall before the might of Thundertron! The massive, peg-legged leader of the Star Seekers and Captain of the Tidal Wave, Thundertron claims to be "the mightiest freebooter on the spaceways". Aside from being a merciless pirate, the inadvertent destruction of his home-world by Cybertronian neglect has given him an unquenchable hatred and a desire for revenge. He vows to hunt down and slaughter any who come from Cybertron, and is equally brutal with anyone else who would get in his way.
Contents |
Fiction
Aligned novels
During Cybertron's Golden Age, when the Transformers colonized other worlds, Thundertron's colony loyally served the Cybertronian Empire. When the space bridge network collapsed and Cybertron turned its attentions inward, Thundertron and his fellow colonists were left to fend for themselves, dying by the millions. The survivors became the core of the Star Seekers, and Thundertron emerged as their leader. Retribution
Upon sensing the energy trail of a Cybertronian ship, Thundertron had his ship land on Velocitron. He quickly questioned the planet's leader if there were any Cybertronians there. She said there were none, but the leader's refusal to divulge where they were, her insolence in asking the fault of being Cybertronian, and her rival's insistence that she was Cybertronian quickly made Thundertron lose his temper and ordered his crew to attack.
Following the energy trail, they traveled through a space bridge to Junkion, where he found not only the Cybertronian ship, but another. While the Cybertronians were fighting each other, Thundertron met with the leader of the locals. He quickly forced the Junkions to repair his ship and attach a space bridge to it. He had two crew members show the Junkions they meant business by killing one of them. As soon as the space bridge was attached, Thundertron ordered the Star Seekers to attack the Cybertronians. Exiles
Some time after the battle on Junkion, Thundertron and the Star Seekers engineered a ruse to trap the Decepticons and destroy the Nemesis with the Requiem Blaster. While the trap was sprung, the more nimble Nemesis was able to exploit the Requiem Blaster's high energy demands, forcing the pirates to detach the weapon after an ineffective blast had been fired off. Furious, Thundertron engaged Megatron in personal combat on an asteroid. Though the pirate's savage might proved an equal match for the Decepticon leader, he opted for a retreat when the Nemesis began overpowering the Tidal Wave. Speaking to his foe one last time, Thundertron swore to face Megatron once again, an opinion that the Decepticon did not share, his speech allowing Megatron to deduce that Thundertron had not killed Optimus Prime. Retribution
Ask Vector Prime
Optimus Prime and the Earth Protection Taskforce unsuccessfully attempted to capture Starquest and Thundertron. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/08/17
Games
Transformers Online
Toys
Prime
- Thundertron (Voyager Class, 2012)
- Series / number: 1 / 008
- Accessories: Claw/Battle sword, claw/right foot
- Known designers: Joe Kyde and Bill Rawley[1] (Hasbro), Emiliano Santalucia (concept artist), Mark Maher (deco artist)
- Part of the fourth wave of Prime: Robots in Disguise Voyager Class toys, Thundertron converts from a robotic lion to a peg-legged space pirate and back! He features an incredibly long beard and looks like he's wearing a long-coat, with the latter being due to the beast mode "wings" on his robot waist and the coattail-shaped panel on his back. He also features translucent plastic, such as his back and forearms/beast mode forelegs, to accommodate his weapon's light-up gimmick.
- For accessories, he has a short-bladed claw which is pegged (via 5 mm peg-hole) into his peg-leg, and serves as his right robot mode and rear-right beast mode foot. He also has a long-bladed claw that transforms into a "Battle sword", the LED in the weapon illuminating the sword blade as a sort of "Energon glow". Either accessory can peg into his hands, forearms, robot and beast back, and into either side of his "wings". Additionally, the light-up weapon features a peg-hole on either side of the lever.
- In order for him to fit in the box, he is often mis-transformed in-package, with his chest panels not being opened, and his crest, "coattail", and pelvis being left in their beast mode positions. His package-back also features a call-out to his static snap-on claw/right foot accessory, but it incorrectly points to his claw/sword accessory instead. Additionally, his stock photography depicts additional paint operations not present in the final product, such as silver paint for most of his robot feet/beast hind-feet, and gold paint for the lower half of his peg-leg. Finally, his instructions forget to mention that the spurs on the sides of his rear feet have to be swung up and angled for lion mode, as shown in his package art and stock photos.
- He was later redecoed into Leo Prime, Go! Go Prime, and BotCon 2014 Alpha Trizer.
Legacy
- Prime Universe Thundertron (Voyager Class, 2024)
- Accessories: Sword, detachable foot/crossguard
- Known designers: Mark Maher (Hasbro), Takio Ejima (TakaraTomy)[2]
- Released in the first wave of Legacy: United Voyager Class toys, "Prime Universe Thundertron" once again transforms into a robotic lion, this time though with much design inspiration from the Zoids toyline[2], particularly the "Liger Zero" series of mechanoids, in 24 steps. His robot mode is based on an original preliminary sketch of the character by Emiliano Santalucia rather than the final Prime toy.[3] He includes a sword that can store on the back of either mode, and a removable right foot to expose a peg leg (at the cost of an ankle tilt). The foot can attach to his sword as a crossguard when not in use.
- While his left shoulder in robot mode has the typical 5 mm port, his right shoulder has two slots compatible with Siege Ratbat's feet for perching.
- The toy was planned to have sculpted space barnacle details, but it was changed to scars and battle damage on the final product.[4]
- Thundertron was revealed alongside the rest of United's first wave at Hasbro Pulse Con 2023.
- Star Raider Thundertron / Star Raider Nightstrike / Star Raider Calcitron (Multipack, 2024)
- Accessories: Sword, detachable foot/crossguard
- As part of the Walmart exclusive Star Raider Collection, this version of Legacy United Thundertron shifts his colors to a lighter shade, much like his original toy. He has also been retooled to have an head that resembles his original figure and a hook on his right hand.
- He comes packaged with Star Raider Calcitron and Star Raider Nightstrike, and unlike most multipacks, they're packed inside a box more similar to those carrying single figures than multiple ones.
- Thundertron and co. went up on pre-order on Walmart's website July 19, even though the set was available at Asian retail before any official acknowledgement by Hasbro. Bizarrely, the stock photos use the original version of the figure as opposed to the one it's supposed to come with.
Notes
- Thundertron was designed by Emiliano Santalucia.[5][3]
- The original concept of the Star Seekers was that each of its 13 members was from a different Cybertronian colony.[6] Hasbro designer Aaron Archer's original backstory for Thundertron positioned him as leader of one such colony during the Golden Age, who had been made reliant on support from Cybertron, only to suddenly be cut off after the deactivation of the space bridge network. In the present day, he would have been out for revenge on all Cybertronians, Autobot and Decepticon alike.[7] Although never explicitly named in published canonical material, the intent was for Thundertron's home colony to be some kind of Jungle Planet, hence his lion form. His design was specifically meant to differentiate him from Maximals and Predacons.[8]
- Despite being marketed as a Prime character, Thundertron was created without any involvement from the show staff; instead, he was created specifically for inclusion in the novels, playing a significant role in Transformers: Retribution.[9]
- Like several other Prime toys unrelated to the cartoon, Thundertron's toy came about as part of an opportunity to create a capsule line for the Asian market[10] (a la the "Global Development Organization" Generations releases from that same year), tying into the short-lived Transformers Online MMORPG.[11]
- Former Hasbro creative director Rik Alvarez claimed that Thundertron and the Star Seekers were at one point planned for inclusion in whatever TV project followed the third season of Prime (either a fourth season of Prime, or a new show entirely), which was what prompted Thundertron's toy and the seeds of their backstory being incorporated into the Aligned novels.[12] This doesn't really square away with Archer's substantiated account of Thundertron having no relation to the show (instead being conceived for the novels and/or the MMO), so it's unclear the extent to which this was something production staff on Prime actually thought about, versus something that Alvarez would have liked to have happened—either way, the dissolution of HasLab and their big vision for the Aligned continuity put an end to that.
- According to Rik Alvarez, Thundertron's name is a portmanteau of ThunderCats and Voltron.[13] Aaron Archer claimed that he came up with the name on the off chance it would hurt the competition, as both franchises were returning to prominence at the time![14]
- Thundertron's status as a captain of an independent ship, his apparent peg leg, and his unending quest for vengeance harken back to Captain Ahab from the classic novel, Moby-Dick.
- A catalogue that comes with the Leo Prime version of the mold erroneously labels the figure "Thundertron" (サンダートロン Sandātoron).
- Hasbro marketer Ben MacCrae and designer Mark Maher lampshaded the Zoids influence that went into Thundertron's Legacy: United toy by saying the character crashed into the Zoids' home planet, Planet Zi, while coasting across the galaxy in search of the Armorizers, to defeat Cybertron.[2][15]
Foreign names
- Japanese: Thundertron (サンダートロン Sandātoron)
- Mandarin: Pò Tiān Léi (China, 破天雷, "Heaven Breaking Thunder")
References
- ↑ HasCon 2017 - EXCLUSIVE Interview With Rik Alvarez (Formally With Hasbro)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Transformers panel with Ben MacCrae, Mark Maher, Evan Brooks, Takio Ejima and Thew Adams at Hasbro Pulse Con 2023.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 21.11.12 Thundertron concept sketches! at Emiliano Santalucia's blogspot
- ↑ "I did plan on adding some space barnacles but after they were sculpted they didn’t give the proper vibe, so I put my energon towards some scars and battle damage throughout the sculpt cause this star seeker has seen some serious battles."—Mark Maher, Instagram, 2023/09/29
- ↑ 10.11.12 Transfomers: Thundertron! at Emiliano Santalucia's blogspot
- ↑ Panel at TFCon 2018
- ↑ "One of the things that would come up from time to time—it wasn't a push exactly, but—"Are there other factions?", you know, was always coming up. So you can go down the line of how many different factions have been created over the years... but they largely fall under Autobot or Decepticon, even if they are kind of separate factions [...] subfactions I guess is what you'd call them. I'm also really into history as a person, and the different stories of colonization and/or people being shipwrecked on islands, and just... what happens with all of that. And we wanted to expand the universe, and we wanted to create a new- like a different allegiance, separate from Autobot and Decepticon. We had the opportunity to get into- "What happened on the far end of those space bridges?" was really the first question. So the Golden Age we talk about—from a story standpoint, more in the comics and whatnot—there was this great time where Transformer life was going all across the universe, they created space bridges, and commerce, and they populated other planets; we know this, from going back to the first movie and beyond, that there is Cybertronian life throughout the cosmos. Okay, now we added the idea that there's a Quintus guy that's like, spreading sparks around and stuff like that—that comes later. But like, if you had these space bridges, and you strung them together, and you could go further and further and further and further, away from Cybertron, and you are sharing goods and services and opportunities... and then one day... the Golden Age ends, right? There's some catastrophe, the war starts, what-have-you. And the far end of those space bridges now are cut off. And what would that story look like? That was the question. What what would happen if I got hooked on Cybertronian stuff, and one day it's all cut off, and my planet needs all that stuff, or I don't like how that turned my planet into what it turned into—I want revenge. Or I'm going to go figure it out, you know? And that was the original idea in this overall aligned continuity concept of... "What are the other planets about?" We obviously hit Velocitron and Gigatron and these different places, but let's create some other ones with some really unique type of characters. So our story, real simply, was that he was a leader of a... let's call it a planet that was more in balance, overall. The space bridges are bringing new Cybertronian stuff all the time. This happens over millions of generations also, right, it's not just instantly, so. And they get used to having the Cybertronian stuff, they lose a little bit of touch with their more nature-balance attitude... and then the space bridges close. And now his planet is in confusion, and he is not happy. And so our story was like, "What happens when this charismatic—Shaka Zulu-type character maybe, in the original days—wants to take the vehicles that were there, and go back to the host country, and cause trouble?" And that was the origin of this kind of guy, and then as he got onto that spaceship to go attack Cybertron, he became the pirate. And that's where that whole... the taking of the ship concept, of the Tidal Wave, and all that comes from that."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "17 - Transformers Created To SELL A STORY", 2024/06/14
- ↑ "When we were developing that planet, obviously we had it very much like a nature-balance. So it was kind of savannas, and open fields, and that's why we went with the lion as a theme—you know, king of the jungle, king of this planet, it's pretty on the nose there as far as that goes. We didn't want a Beast Wars lion, you know, so that's why he's blue and silver, you know, this Cybertronian has- planet has evolved the way it's evolved, right? So they look more like Zoids or something. And that's why he looks the way he looks, and is the way he is."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "17 - Transformers Created To SELL A STORY", 2024/06/14
- ↑ "We had the intention of putting it into IP... in a book form, or something. It was not a toy first, and it was not designed for Prime. Nobody related to Prime had anything to do with this character, this was all Hasbro/Rhode Island-internal, it just needed to sit somewhere when it got released, and they put it under that banner. So he doesn't have a connection to the Prime continuity show, as far as the people who worked on that show are aware."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "17 - Transformers Created To SELL A STORY", 2024/06/14
- ↑ "So this toy was originally a Hong Kong- or Chinese-kind-of-exclusive line that we were doing over there, in those black boxes. [...] It was all in this mix of, we want to create unique characters for China—or the collector market in Asia, I should say—and that's where this unique character came up, we had been working on him for the story, and they were looking for a dynamic new toy thing, that wasn't- you know, your standard thing, and that's how the kind of these two things got put together, and then timing, it got put under the Prime banner. [...] He's got different cost constraints, and feature-set, and everything. It's a whole different one-off."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "17 - Transformers Created To SELL A STORY", 2024/06/14
- ↑ "TRA MMOG DELUXE ASST 38261
TRA MMOG VOYAGER ASST 38262
TRA MMOG VOYAGER THUNDERTRON 38287
TRA MMOG VOYAGER ULTRA MAGNUS 38288
TRA STARSCREAM DLX W MMOG AND SLUG 38289
TRA BUMBLEBEE DLX W MMO CARD AND SLUG 38328
TRA IRONHIDE DLX W MMOG CARD AND SLUG 38330
TRA FRENZY DLX W MMO CARD AND SLUG 38331"—Monzo, TFW2005, "Monzo's Mega Hasbro Customer Service Listing Breakdown", 2013/11/01 - ↑ Former Hasbro employee Rik Alvarez in 2015
- ↑ Panel at TFCon 2018
- ↑ "The name Thundertron I did in a very goofy protection and/or defense concept, it is... Thundercats were coming out, and Voltron was also in the zeitgeist then. So Thundertron is my way of sitting a little bit on terms from other brands. So that's where that goofy name came from. I think it's a fine name, I don't know if it's a great name, but... it is a Transformer name. If you can clear it, you know, it might hurt the competition from using the word 'thunder' in something, you know?"—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "17 - Transformers Created To SELL A STORY", 2024/06/14
- ↑ "Crash landing at planet z did ol thunder knucks alot of good in my eyes."—Mark Maher, Instagram, 2023/09/29