Devastator

Devastator is the merged form of the six Constructicons, the Decepticons' engineering corps: Scrapper, Hook, Bonecrusher, Scavenger, Long Haul and Mixmaster. As a construction crew they build Megatron's energy schemes; as a gestalt they are the sledgehammer that finishes an argument the crew cannot win. Devastator was the first combiner either faction fielded, and Megatron treats him less as a soldier than as a demolition tool: point him at a target, stand well back, and accept whatever else gets flattened in the process.

The merge is a physical triumph and a mental disaster. Devastator's psyche is limited to the thoughts and actions all six components can agree on, which in practice means smashing things, and the result is a lumbering, semi-articulate brute prone to bouts of destructive fury. His debut in "Heavy Metal War" set the pattern: he mauled the Dinobots, then was suckered by one of Hound's holograms and shot in the back by Optimus Prime, a hit that triggered a failsafe and blew him apart into the lava. In "The Core" the Autobots exploited that fragility differently, using Chip Chase and Wheeljack's dominator discs to hijack the Constructicons outright; when Wheeljack overloaded the signal it fried Devastator's logic circuits and sent him berserk against the very drill he was guarding.

He was Megatron's standing answer to any Autobot the Decepticons could not out-shoot, defending the geothermal drill, scaling the Empire State Building, terrorising the Dinobots in "Triple Takeover", but he is repeatedly beaten by newer combiners. Bruticus dropped him one-on-one in "Starscream's Brigade", and by 2006 on Chaar he was reduced to brawling over energon scraps until Menasor hacked him apart with a sword.

Enormous strength and near-unstoppable mass, capable of tearing through Dinobots, fortifications and Autobot lines alike; he carries a large laser rifle and, on the toy, spring-loaded fist and drill launchers. His component Constructicons also bring genuine engineering skill, so the team can build as easily as it can wreck. Weaknesses are severe: his intelligence collapses in the merged state and he can be defeated by simple deception, as when Hound's hologram of a bigger robot froze him in "Heavy Metal War". A hit to his back triggered a failsafe that forced him back into six robots, a vulnerability the Autobots inexplicably never used again. Because his mind runs on the Constructicons' consensus, external control signals such as the dominator discs can seize or scramble him, and enough disruption sends him berserk against his own side. He is also slow and easily toppled, blasted apart by Perceptor in "Carnage in C Minor" and flattened when Broadside landed on him.

• Hook - upper torso and head
• Long Haul - lower torso and waist
• Bonecrusher - left arm
• Scavenger - right arm
• Mixmaster - left leg
• Scrapper - right leg
• Note: this is the toy's fixed configuration. The cartoon's animation crew was loose about which Constructicon occupied which limb from shot to shot, and the 2007 Classics version drops to five members entirely.

• Megatron: values Devastator as raw firepower and has no objection to the collateral damage, but abandons him without a second thought, as in "The Core".
• The Dinobots: his recurring opposite number, from "Heavy Metal War" and "Triple Takeover" through to the battle of Autobot City where he flattens Grimlock and Sludge.
• Omega Supreme: the Constructicons' betrayal at Crystal City made the guardian robot's hatred personal; Devastator held him down for the Robo-Smasher and failed.
• Bruticus and Menasor: the newer Decepticon gestalts that repeatedly outclass him, first in "Starscream's Brigade" and again on Chaar.

The Marvel origin is completely different and far darker. There the Constructicons are the first new Decepticons Shockwave creates on Earth, built using the residual power of the Creation Matrix he drains from his captive Optimus Prime, at that point reduced to a severed head kept in Decepticon custody. Their debut mission is building a communications dish for Soundwave, and Devastator's first appearance in "The Next Best Thing to Being There!" plays his stupidity for horror-comedy: he stands there working out which Autobot to hit while Soundwave is helpless, and Soundwave afterwards rates his performance as "notably deficient". Marvel then does something the cartoon never does, explicitly upgrading him, with testing and enhancement making him a visibly more fluid warrior by "Devastation Derby!". Crucially, Devastator is also the origin of the Autobot combiners: in "Command Performances!" the entire Autobot assault on the coal-mining base is a ruse so Bumblebee can record the Constructicons' transformation pattern, data that leads directly to the Aerialbots. The cartoon has no equivalent; there the Autobot combiners come from Vector Sigma.

Devastator is never destroyed in the American cartoon. He survives Autobot City, the exile to Chaar and Menasor's sword, is blasted apart and reassembled repeatedly, and is still active late in 2006 chasing Broadside through the Sea of Japan in "The Burden Hardest to Bear". The Japanese Zone continuity does kill him: recruited as one of Violen Jygar's Nine Great Demon Generals, he is washed away in molten lava by Dai Atlas, which, given he already survived a lava bath in "Heavy Metal War", even the wiki treats as debatable.

• The Constructicons began life as Takara's Diaclone Construction Vehicle Robo; the six moulds were given a uniform green-and-purple scheme for the Transformers line, and Devastator became the first combiner toy ever released (1985).
• Unlike the later Scramble City combiners such as Bruticus and Menasor, Devastator's limbs cannot be rearranged: each Constructicon has one fixed position.
• Devastator had two animation models with different heads, one visored and one not, and they were used almost at random; the head even changes within "Heavy Metal War". The visored version won out and appears in The Transformers: The Movie and on modern merchandise.
• Marvel Comics already had a "Devastator": Russian supervillain Kirov Petrovna debuted under that name in The Incredible Hulk #186 (1975), which is why later toys carry the prefix "Constructicon Devastator" for trademark reasons.
• European Ceji-era Constructicons were released in yellow, with Scavenger's and Hook's combiner connector parts actually removed so they could not form Devastator; Generation 2 later reissued the team in yellow and then orange with the spring-loaded fists deleted.
• The 2007 Classics "Constructicon Devastator" five-pack dropped Hook and Mixmaster in favour of a single new member, Hightower, whose bio combines attributes of both.

Where the cartoon, the Marvel comics and the toy bios disagree, or where a popular claim does not hold up. We record these rather than smoothing them over.

• The Constructicons' origin is one of the most famous contradictions in G1. "Heavy Metal War" states Megatron created them on Earth after the war resumed; "The Secret of Omega Supreme" instead gives them a Cybertronian past as benevolent builders and friends of Omega Supreme at Crystal City, whom Megatron corrupted with the Robo-Smasher before they travelled to Earth.
• A third version appears in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4", where a flashback shows the Constructicons building Megatron, inverting the creator relationship entirely.
• "The Secret of Omega Supreme" adds that the Constructicons could not originally combine and that Megatron granted them the ability, which sits awkwardly with the Marvel account where combining is built in from creation.
• Marvel has Shockwave, not Megatron, create them on Earth from Creation Matrix energy siphoned from Optimus Prime's severed head.
• In "Heavy Metal War", shooting Devastator in the back forces him to separate. This failsafe is never referenced again, including during the Autobot City massacre in the movie.