A Decades-Old Transformers Mystery Has Finally Been Answered

This was a pretty cool article. Apparently Bob Budiansky confirmed in a recent interview that Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker’s tech specs were mixed up on the original G1 packaging.

Below is a copy of the complete interview with RodimusPrimal.

Apologies if this was reported already. I know the interview is about a week old, but I just saw this article on cbr.com posted today and didn’t see any threads about it.

"Given his prominence within the franchise and his power-hungry personality, Starscream is consistently viewed as the main Seeker, leading his "brothers" Skywarp and Thundercracker. Yet, the Tech Specs tell a different story. Skywarp's Tech Specs from his 1984 toy indicate he's far more intelligent and significant than Starscream in the Decepticon hierarchy. Specifically, Skywarp ranks 9 out of 10 in Intelligence, and 9 on both the Rank and Courage scales. Starscream meanwhile is rated as 7 in Intelligence, 8 on the Courage scale, and merely 5 on Rank -- surprising, given that he's typically portrayed as second-in-command to Decepticon leader Megatron.

These aren't the only perplexing rankings. While Skywarp is described as "not too smart" in his official bio, written by Budiansky, he rates 9 on Intelligence, beating out Starscream's 7 ranking and Thundercraker's amusingly small rating of 4 out of 10. Thundercraker, however, is described as being skeptical of the Decepticons' cause and deep enough to have doubts about his actions. It would seem clear that Thundercracker isn't the dumbest of the group.

When asked about fan speculation on the alleged mix-ups, Budiansky initially indicates he doesn't know, before he consults his records to provide an answer. Budiansky, who has a degree in civil engineering, drew the Tech Specs by hand when creating the character profiles. He's kept an archive of his original notes and character bios, and was able to present the original chart of Tech Specs created in the early 1980s for the original 26 Transformers.

He confirms that the fans have been right: Starscream should have a much higher Rank at 9, while Thundercracker and Skywarp should only have 5. Based on that, it's clear he other number rankings are also inaccurate and attributed to the wrong Seeker.

It's remarkable that the answer has gone so long without official confirmation, but it's satisfying to see the proof presented in such an authoritative format. It's difficult to argue with the original handwritten documents used to create the initial lore."

 

I'm fairly certain this has been speculated before, so it's nice to finally get confirmation from the man himself.

 

Is there a written summary that gives this information?

 

It’s all in the link that Dave posted:

 

This is pretty cool. It's great that the fandom keeps the story developing even after almost 30 years.

 

Thanks, didn't even look at the link, I thought it was just another way to the video.

 

I usually don’t watch videos, but I loved Buduansky’s run. I liked Furman, too, but Bob was instrumental in building the ship that sailed. Also, the one thing that Furman did that I hated was turn Blaster into a generic lesser side character that said “dude” instead of the freedom fighting badass that Bob made. I’ll never understand why he did that to Blaster when he resurrected him. Even Wildman drew him like the cartoon to add insult to injury.

 

Some later releases tried to fix this. Skywarp's rank was also changed in the Japanese release.

 

Thanks for posting the video! I am glad I was able to finally uncover this mystery. Bob Budiansky was an awesome guy to chat with.

 

I loved his tf marvel comics, we all knew starscream was the best, but it's good to see the proof

 

If IDW is smart and still has permission (considering all the TF licensing rumors). They should make one more TF Encyclopedia based strictly on IDW 1's continuity that gives current breakdowns on TF's characters Stats and a short synopsis.


Hell, I still appreciate these 2 Guidebooks to this day and TF wiki will always have a place of its place with me. But I still wouldn't mind them creating a new book or even a set of G1-ish books that breaks down IDW 1's continuity of factions, subgroups, Colonies, locations and more.

It would be the best way to commemorate all that IDW had done for TF's during that time. Plus I'd buy a physical and digital copy.

 

Bob’s run is THE canonical source from which all other Transformers lore is derived.

 

Haha I'm going to treat this as the reason for Starscream having such a chip on his shoulder at all times. He was robbed of his rightful tech spec glory.

 

Is it OK to say I appreciate his contributions to Transformers lore, (probably especially in writing their tech specs), while saying the Marvel comic was extremely frustrating? Absolutely, Budiansky's hands were tied by the whims of the toy releases. And I get where he tried to give the characters some depth and direction. But man, he got boxed in by the toy company releases.

For the record, I love the original Marvel Transformers run, say, issue 5 — 12. The story arc he gave to Ratchet and Shockwave was the best of any Transformers media run I've seen. He hardly got to give much depth to Optimus Prime. But he had limited issues before Bob was ordered to kill him off, alas. So the Sunbow cartoon really drove home Optimus Prime to be the symbolic character of the series.

And Optimus' death in the comic was legendary dumb. It derailed the entire comic in a way that it never recovered from.

Not Budiansky's fault either, but the art really fell apart after those early issues. It was phenomenally bad. Like they didn't even pay the artists enough to try and draw objects in proportion. And it bothered me. Even as a kid.

I also liked Carwash of Doom just fine. It was a little stupid, but on par with the more frivolous cartoon episodes. Also, Budiansky made Ratbat a better character than he ever needed to be.

But two WHOLE issues dedicated to "The Mechanic," a fat human who goes around causing chaos with Ratchet's scalpel? That's when I think you can feel he stopped trying.

 

Bob is responsible for several of my all-time favorite Transformers. Ratchet, Blaster, Ratbat, Shockwave, Scorponok, and Fort Max. Furman gets half credit for Scorponok, however. The Marvel versions of these characters FAR FAR FAR exceed anything since or at the time.

 

Ever since 84 without looking at the specs, Skywarp has always been my superior Seeker.

 

I....... thought we all knew this already?

Doug Dlin of the old TF fandom days did an interview with Bob years ago and it was part of his Cybertronian TRG books by Antarctic Press back in 2001. That book was filled with a lot of those tech spec flubs that we know today from the sources

 

Let's be honest about something. As much as the shuffling was a mistake, Skywarp was a huge beneficiary of the shuffle and his tech spec description is usually interpreted in creative ways past the whole "sneaky but dumb" thing, to the point where in WfC he's an officer that isn't even directly under Starscream anymore (as an Espionage officer no less, which only one of his previous portrayals described him as a ninja unit). Somewhere along the line he's now seen like a skilled officer who's bored/lazy/unmotivated.

On the other hand, Thundercracker largely either remained a thug or stayed true to the tech specs.

Starscream was so beyond that he was untouchable so it was largely irrelevant to him.

 

That very well may be, but its not something easily accessible since that's been out of print for so long. Think of this as reinforcement and now, revealed knowledge to the fan base currently at large.

 

We need someone with a filter to clean up this image. For the sake of the Fandom.