Toon wise..........I really dont recall a time when Starscream said he wanted to stay and fight.

 

Cyclonus. He has the edge by being newer and having slightly more sophisticated tech. Plus in my mind, Starscream should never win. He's an arrogant doofus. The ony redeeming point is when he gets what's coming to him.

Cyclonus, while still a bad guy, at least showed traces of nobility and genuine loyalty.

 

cyclonus

he was a newer toy they would of wanted to sell him and there for he would of won

 

In cases where it's patently blatant that the bios got switched around, I think the authorial intent is certainly more relevant. Also, all three '84 seekers got switched, not just Skywarp and Starscream... Thundercracker too.

I think you can pretty safely ignore any bios written after 1990, at the very least. BeastWars had an awful copywriter... the fiction was saved only by Mainframe's TV scripts at that point. However, early G1 was a rather special case, when there were actually several prominent, somewhat competing, versions of the fiction circulating simultaneously. I generally go with the bios because they were the originals, and the best.  

As far as I'm concerned, the G1 cartoon was so awfully written, so inconsistent, and so compromised by the format, that it's really the WORST source to refer to, without question.

I do agree with this to some degree. I always disliked the tendency to treat TF's as becoming their alt modes, rather than just effecting the outward appearance of cars and aircraft...

That said, I think that there are still some inherent limitations of design that carry over. Autobots aren't aquatic by nature (otherwise Bumblebee and Seaspray wouldn't be special, right?), and referring back to the bios, Autobots and Cons can fall prey to similar physical and mechanical issues shared by their alt-mode counterparts (poor braking, rotor stress, mid-air stalls, blowouts, overheading, etc... )

I think there's always room for interpretation and discussion... that's why we're here, right? But I start with (and default to) the G1 bios 99% of the time, because they tend to have the most detail, consistency and care applied to them (besides being the original source of everything, almost literally). I usually give them more weight than the media, but most especially when the media sucks.  

If you look at his proper stats, he's still pretty damn good. But considering that he compared himself favourably to Megatron himself, I think we can safely say that he definitely overrated himself.  

  I like this.

I think that more than most characters, Starscream is the one that needs the most rehabilitation and redemption, because in many ways, he's the character that has been MOST robbed of any dignity by the old cartoons (Shockwave too). I liked that both Furman and McCarthy made the effort to dig into his character a bit more and restore some integrity to him. It's absurd to take Megatron's heir apparent, and portray him as nothing more than a capering buffoon.

Which also makes him kind of dull and complacent. In the end, that's why he'll always be #2 (at best). With Starscream, his ambition drives him to be #1... or nothing! In a way, you have to admit that takes balls.  

zmog