Seeing as the deluxe Insecticons never had time on tv and only minute appearances in comics with no backstory, do you ever wish there was fiction elaborating more on what connection if any they have to the basic Insecticon trio?

They're not just from different toylines though with different size and engineering, Hasbro didn't even unify them color-wise leaving the basic three the same colors and deluxe ones four distinct schemes. In their comic appearances the deluxe cons are always part of other groups like the Mayhem Attack Squad or Ultracons but never associate with Shrapnel's gang.

And yet Venom claims the function of commander, not Shrapnel, so you'd think there was some connection to the other Insecticons. The only time I know of him interacting with the basic cons is in the Ladybird books.

Idk, just always bugged me that two groups in the same series/line released in the same year belong to the same subgroup bug have no connection even implied in any media outside a picture book 30 years ago. I wish there was some media connecting the groups or at least explaining why both Insecticon teams have insect modes but aren't related team-wise, color-wise or origin-wise. It'd also be nice to get rereleases of the Insecticons with a unified scheme, that's a discussion for the toy forum...

 

I've always felt like there was an unaddressed void in the fiction here as well... what exactly should the distinction between the "Deluxe" Insecticons and regular Insecticons be? Obviously the word "deluxe" seems more like toy marketing jargon, than an canonical term.

As a point of interest, Shrapnel was never the Insecticon leader. Not officially. Kickback outranks him, and is actually the smartest and most charismatic guy on the team (Bombshell is second). Shrapnel is far too much of a berserker to be put in command anyway.  

If you will indulge me, here's my 100% totally unofficial take:

How's that?  

zmog

 

One word... BRILLIANT!

Except, why take bug forms too if you know the downsides to the transformation?

 

Couse bugs are awesome, that's why.

 

The "bug modes" aren't the source of the energy conversion drive. They're just alt modes... in fact, it's mentioned specifically in the (rare) long bios for the Deluxe Insecticons that they can mass-shift down to actual insect size, or choose to remain as giant insects. Their mass shifting "power" was just modified to allow the "black team" to pretty much eat anything, something their Deluxe counterparts don't have.

And technically, there would be no "down side" to the energy conversion process. It works as advertised. The ability to create temporary swarm of clones was an accidental byproduct of the experiment, and it only turns them into ravenous zombie bugs if they decide to replicate themselves (the more they create, the worse it gets). If they just use it to fuel themselves on raw matter, it's not a problem... it's when they improvise that it gets weird.

This is just an idea that was rattling around in my head... a way to reconcile how the Insecticons were depicted in their original bios as opposed to their portrayal on the cartoon.

It also sort of allows for the divide between the 2 groups of Insecticons, by explaining that at one point on Cybertron, they were all part of one team. Maybe there were other Insecticons too, but by the time we reach the present day, only Venom, Ransack, Barrage and Chopshop survive.

And of course, this means that only the "black team" can consume raw matter and convert it into energon, and only those three can generate a swarm. Venom's "deluxe" team does not have this modification.

zmog

 

Beetras - true story beine of insecticons

 

Looking at those Beetras images again, reminds me just how awesome the Deluxe Insecticons were for the time... though I confess the limited arm articulation on Chopshop and Ransack did bug me.

zmog

 

When I found the Beetras way back when, I always wished we had got the ladybug so we could have had a female Insecticon...

 

Yeah, but as usual, the girl bot never got a toy.  

It's funny to see how anime marketing eventually shifted away from little boys and more towards an adult geek market that avidly consumes anything with boobs and eyes larger than dinner plates.  

zmog

 

with the just announced Amazon line and how good the two look and with news of Venom coming next year, this thread was exactly what I was googling to find since no one was answering my same questions or interest .

Ransack that came with the Buzzworthy 4 pack not so great but these new ones, WOW , they looks great and while I usually stick with only buying the cartoon stuff for my kids , they look so good and Im thinking manybe I should buy them for the kids.

 

The Deluxe Insecticons so rarely get any love, it's nice to see that the whole team is getting a proper release. And even if they are remolds, at least they are relatively extensive remolds. I'm curious how Venom will be handled.

zmog

 

I just retcon them to be Beast Era guys. The OG Insecticons are from the Jungle Planet, the Deluxe guys are BW era Predacons.

 

My personal canon is that the deluxe insecticons were an attempt to refine the insecticon's natural talents, and make them more practical in terms application. Between the cloning, size alteration, ability to consume matter, and special powers, the original three are hard to control. As a ,"finished model" the deluxe insecticons are more reliable soldiers, though not nearly as powerful.

• Generally, they trade reproduction and power chip rectifier for built in weapons and energy efficiency. This makes them more trustworthy, obedient, and cohesive.
• They all retain the ability to consume matter, above average strength, and flying insect modes.
• Kickback's production model retains his strength and speed, though trades the taxing energy weapons for reliable, energy efficient metal blades. Ransack doesn't seem to mind, citing that he can kill more bots with dull weapons over a longer period.
• Bombshell's production model loses the cerebro shells, due to the risks the technology poses. Instead, all power has been redistributed toward additional weapons. Barrage couldn't be happier, as he disdains gimmicks.
• Shrapnel's production model loses the electrode antenna, reinforcing them into bladed weapons. Due to the lack of excess electricity, this model is a lot more mentally stable than his predecessor, penchant for theft aside.
• The revised insecticon model uses data from all prior attempts to produce a jack of all trades- featuring lesser versions of kickback's strength, bombshell's intellect, and Shrapnel's energy efficiency. Additionally, it is augmented with a virulent toxin. Venom is threatened by the powers of his predecessors, but retains a sound mind, allowing continued leadership.

 

Shrapnel as leader? Not in my head canon. Maybe the cartoon suggested that— I don’t recall— but I’m pretty sure I owned all three purple bugs before ever seeing them on the show, and IIRC, Kickback had the highest rank of the trio. But then, I’m a toy-first TF fan, and my fiction was always based on the tech spec bios, not the cartoon.

Which leads me to a second point. The Deluxe Insecticons were/are primarily awesome because of their fantastic toy designs. That’s why they were marketed as “deluxe”— because they were more complex, more articulated, and more realistic than the Diaclone-based vehicles-that-resemble-insects. I’m actually glad they never showed up in the cartoon, because the artists tended to simplify the physical designs for ease of drawing. Eventually the cool details are lost and people start accepting the generic Sunbow look as the “definitive” character. Likewise, the cartoon writers diluted most of the personalities to weak stereotypes.

My (probably hugely unpopular) opinion is that not being in the cartoon is one of the best things that could have happened to the Deluxe Insecticons. Same for the Omnibots. The media ruins most characters for me.

 

The downside is that in the case of many of these characters (Omnibots, Deluxe Insecticons, Whirl & Roadbuster) their background status meant that their full-length character bios were never published, and were only unearthed decades later (this bounty was shared at the Disciples of Boltax blog). So in that sense, these guys languished with only the most bare-bones characterizations. I agree, this has also increased their mystique to some degree (a mystique that is enhanced by them being cool toys, unlike some other misfits like the Jumpstarters).

As I noted in an earlier post, yeah... Kickback is the obvious leader of this team based on their bios. Shrapnel is clearly 3rd in line. Always seemed weird that he was the selected spokesman on the Sunbow toon. But as you noted, these guys were quite simplified when transferred to the screen. Individually, they're interesting characters, but have become more or less subsumed under a unified gimmick for the cartoon. Of course, that made them stand out from other Decepticons, and they also had their creepy speech patterns, and of course THE SWARM. It wasn't necessarily bad... just different.

Obviously the Deluxe Insecticons were so named to enhance their marketability (Insecticons+ as it were) but as a group name now, it's a pretty bad fit for the canon. I do wish they'd been named differently.

Interesting, your take works in reverse from mine, making the "black team" the originals, and the Deluxe team the "updates". Of course, they all came out at the same time, so I guess anything goes.  

zmog

 

I never owned any of the Deluxe Insecticons, since they weren't in the cartoon they seemed rather ancillary to me, and I wasn't a big fan of bugs in general. But I assumed they were called "Deluxe" Insecticons because they were bigger and/or more complex and/or more expensive than the regular Insecticons. (Don't know if any of that is true.)

Nevertheless, the idea of them being bigger than the cartoon trio became ingrained in my mind, and now, forty years on, I have enough nostalgia for them from seeing them in the 1985 catalog that I want the new versions. And so ironically, their being remolds of the Legacy Insecticons completely blunted any desire to own those new versions, and I kept my Prime Wars Insecticon trio so there would indeed be a noticeable size difference between the two groups. And I ordered the Barrage/Chopshop set the minute it went up.

 

Nice!  

Yeah, the G1 versions of the Deluxe Insecticons are all larger and more complex than the 'black team'. Their aesthetics are also very different, being far more influenced by anime mecha stylings, and with much more realistic bug modes. The black team definitely look more like machines inspired by bugs, rather than being actual recognizable insects. While the black team definitely looks good in their unified deco, I think the designs and decos for the Deluxe team just look super cool.

BTW, here's the link to the long bios, in case anybody's interested. Ransack in particular sounds like a scary MF... and I love some of the details in Chopshop's bio (like the fact that he retains his super strength in tiny bug mode).

Disciples of Boltax: Extended Bios!

zmog

 

i think I am going to just go with either
1. that they are rival teams and there was a WAR OF THE INSECTICONS long ago that the cartoon trio barely won and now they are back for round Two ! , something that the cartoon trio doesn't look forward to and views as a major threat
or
2. Since the original 3 went missing long ago, Shockwave on Cybertron had NEW insecticons established

or combine those two somehow LOL

 

My headcanon is that the Venom, Ransack, Barrage, and Chop Shop were the original Insecticons who allowed Shockwave to experiment on pieces of them to create Kickback, Shrapnel, and Bombshell which were the new Rapid Deployment Soldiers for the Decepticons. The purple color is to make clear they are not the originals and a result of mass production.

 

I like the idea that Shrapnel, Kickback, and Bombshell are essentially representations of the Insecticon Swarm, like how toys of Gnaw are also used to represent Sharkticons as a whole, and the Deluxe Insecticons are the originals that the new, self-replicating ones are based on. They lead the regular Insecticons in battle, partially as commanders, but more as handlers to keep them from wandering off.