Okay, in the original Transformers G1 toyline, binary bonding with organic lifeforms is treated as the next evolution in Transformer life with the introduction of the Headmasters, Targetmasters and Powermasters. But as we seen in that Skybound comic with Starscream squishing humans like paste and not to mention how long Transformers live compared to humans, it seems more like a downgrade to be binary bonded to an organic.

In fact, I wonder if any writers tried to reconcile the fact that those Transformers who binary bonded to organics like Nebulans would outlive their partners and how much issues it would cause to see their partners waste away in a instant from a Transformer's perspective . Seems like wasted writing material

 

It's absolutely a wasted opportunity that hasn't been explored much in-canon.

Throughout James Roberts' Eugenesis Nightbeat's relationship with the Nebulon detective Muzzle and coping with his loss is a big part of his character. There's also undoubtably a body-horror element to it all, in an earlier draft of Last Stand of the Wreckers when Scorponok was part of the plot, we were going to find the remains of the man he 'bonded' with, and it sounds like it wasn't gonna be pretty.

 

Unfortunately the most we have in canon is Rodimus mourning his deceased Targetmaster partner in one of the Marvel UK future-era stories.

Binary Bonding is one of my favorite elements of Transformers lore, and something most non-G1 entries are less rich without, so I'd have loved to see this delved into more.

 

That's why I like to think that all these dudes (headmasters, targetmasters, powermasters and etc.) are Cybertronians as well. Like Mini-Cons, but with direct usage.

 

Frieren handled the issue of outliving everyone you know quite well. Something like that could be explored with how the Headmasters ,Targetmasters and Powermasters will outlive their partners.

 

Exactly, it's not exactly breaking new ground but it still adds an additional element to the story that isn't often played with.

While I don't dislike the idea of the -masters in question being tiny Cybes I think something is lost if they aren't another species like humans or nebulons.

 

I think in addition to the rich character stuff it adds, the Cybertronians' war spilling back onto them as they literally merge with some of the species whose planets they're messing up is thematically on point. Shows their conflict spreading to the point that other planets are very literally roped into it. (Direct line to the Beast era with all the organic mergers too.)

Part of the good, good anti-war stuff Marvel does. (Plays less well in "The Rebirth" where they basically just show up and solve all of Nebulos' problems for it... but even then, it still would have been an interesting development, and at least Spike literally becoming an Autobot is rich.)

Them not getting into the partner-death angle much isn't a sign that the concept was a bad idea. If anything it's a sign that it had even more storytelling potential left to give.

 

Flesh is weak, only metal is strong. I don't care how they try to shill it, there is no benefit to binary bonding with an organic.

 

it must have hurt for headmaster knees to bend the wrong way during transformation

 

Why? Sunbow is a bit unclear in that some scenes suggest that he Nebulon wears pretty tight fighting armour while in others they're more in a suit that transforms around them. In the first instance, yep, that's going to hurt, but not in the second.

And in Marvel they underwent heavy surgery with bones and joints being replaced by metal.

First, as mentioned above, in Marvel the Nebulans underwent lots of surgery and wore armor. Plus they transform into parts of a Transformer, so the Nebulans likely end up just as strong and resilient as a regular Transformer.

And considering Nebulans are an alien species, we have no way of knowing how long they live. Could be twice as long as humans or more. Granted, this still would be short compared to a TF. And a big problem is that the TF and Nebulan don't just combine mechanically, they also merge mentally. Thus losing a part of yourself when the Nebulan partner dies must have a great effect on the TF, as told by Roberts in Eugenesis already mentioned by @Novaburnhilde.

And I agree, it's a shame official fiction never did anything with this -- save Rodimus mourning Firebolt in one short moment. IDW's sequel to Marvel, Re:Generation1, would've been a great opportunity. But outside of Zarak and his frailities and doubts, Furman already showed a great disinterest in the Nebulan partners during the original Marvel run so little surprise nothing was done with them. Still, a missed opportunity.

 

With the exception of the Powermasters (Godmasters), in the Japanese take, they WERE Cybertronians. Albiet small ones who fled the planet during the war and settled on a planet with a harsh environment and developed the Master technology and they utilized that to build larger bodies on par size wise with most normal sized Cybertronians. And of course there was a typical group of malcontents who defected with the stolen tech, becoming Decepticon Headmasters Mindwipe, Weirdwolf, Skullcruncher, and Zarak (Scorponok). And the two Decepticon Horrorcons Apeface and Snapdragon. The Targetmasters were Cybertronians from same group who were en route to join up with the Autobot Headmasters but an accident that also encompassed three Autobots and three Decepticons resulted in the Targetmasters.

The Godmasters were indeed humans, imbued with Master technology due to a malevolent being named Devil Z being a typical bad guy. But his machinations in absconding with this tech, he only ended up with four Godmasters who allied with him, and the other five being "lost" and then found by humans and Autobot allies giving us the Autobot Godmasters (Powermasters) in addition to the Decepticon ones already involved. But at the end of that series, all the Godmaster Transtectors were granted their own sentience and therefore no longer needed their human components.

 

You know what it is, don't you? Shall I tell you? It's the least I can do... Steel isn't strong, FLESH is stronger! What is steel compared to the flesh that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart...

The ___masters get sort of short changed in transformers fiction, a kind of strange gimmick from when g1 was already starting to lose steam, and for a lot of the history of the brand, I'd say not a particularly popular one. Very little tie-in fiction stateside, and what we got didn't delve deeply into the process and it's implications (they're just better/stronger for some reason, I guess!). We see it creates a sort of 'team' for better or for worse, with the 'bulk' having access to knowledge and skills of the partner, and the partner getting the power of a robot body (and if injured, a new lease on life). The comics gave fort max a bit of time to shine, and we get some insight into the mental link/summoning ability of a headmaster, but for all his size and power, fort max doesn't really excel in combat. The Japanese headmasters series treats headmasters as mechs piloting larger mechs, so not the most useful comparison.

The machination/sunstreaker arc in IDW shows headmaster tech as a way to make sort-of Cybertronian troops out of available human ones, rather than building new Cybertronians, and appears to be a step on a line of research that ends with a Cybertronian/organic hybrid able to reproduce more easily via organic means.

It's the Masterforce series that gives us I think our best insight into the binary bonding process, and the value of bringing flesh and metal together. On a basic level, the powermaster process seems to give a transformer access to an immense spiritual power that natural Cybertronians don't have, and also can be used to develop a transtector body into (eventually) a living, thinking, fighting Cybertronian being that no longer requires being bonded to a human pilot. I'm not sure if the end of Masterforce (or victory) goes into whether that new Cybertronian retains the use of human chokon power, but I don't think they do. On a more metaphorical level, however, Masterforce comments on humans as beings able to transform themselves, not into planes or tanks mind you, but into enlightened, better versions of themselves over time (they can learn to become heroes, they can turn from enemies into friends, they can find solutions that Cybertronians can't envision) - comparatively the Cybertronians seem trapped in their war and unable to truly grow as individuals in the same way.

So maybe that's the real opportunity in combining via binary bonding - access to the ingenuity, vision, indomitability and other intangible aspects of the human spirit - a human body may be fragile and fleeting, but our spirit (maybe because of that fragility and short lifespan) is able to generate changes in the world around us that Cybertronians can't on their own. It's a bit unoriginal and maybe corny, especially as Cybertronian characterizations don't seem that different from humans in terms of their feelings, desires, and vision, but there might be some mileage there for a story.

Other than that, you'd have to lean on the differences between cybertronian and human physiology - maybe the human mind can multitask or process information in a way the cybertronian mind can't, maybe human consciousness is resistant to a form of hacking or shielding that only affects cybertronians, maybe there's something synergistic in techno-organic fusion that surpasses the limitations of either (which would sort of lead to what we see in beast wars, and later, beast machines).