Welcome, loyal Nerdcore readers to the first of many....Bum-bum-bummmmmm....80's Cartoon Character Reviews...and which character better to unearth then a favorite of many and part of the best 80's line there was: STARSCREAM!

Starscream was second in command of the Decepticons. Except when he wasn't, like when Shockwave was around. He also had an innate treacherous streak that made him very cool; and was one of the few Decepticons who occasionally noticed how pointless most of what Megatron did was...he also kicked Optimus Prime's ass once in the cartoon. Really.
Of course, in the comic he turns into Uber Starscream at one point and kills, quite literally, 75% of the Transformers...BY WAVING AT THEM. It's Issue #50. Omega Supreme? Dinobots? Blaster? Waved em all straight to hell. He also dies and returns more times then a Comic book super-villain.
Despite the fact Starscream regularly tried to kill Megatron, Megatron kept him around to hold him when he was in gun mode. Why Megatron would transform into a tiny handgun when he had a CANNON THE SIZE OF A TREE on his arm already was hard to fathom. Why Starscream never just dropped him and stepped on him is an even greater mystery that hardcore Transformers fans will hate you for mentioning.
Nonetheless, most of the Autobots were scared of Starscream and in both comic and show he kicked major ass...and he's had almost as many Toys as Optimus.

But I'm going to focus on the original because the pretender sucked and I never got the powermaster, so in bitterness I'm going to pretend it never existed.
SS was one of three "seeker" jets of the EXACT SAME MOLD. I mean exact...except for their coloring the toys of starscream, skywarp, and thundercracker were the same thing. However they were still among the coolest TF toys ever, and desperately needed for fair battles...I mean, c'mon, in the first wave the Autobots had Optimus and like 10 big cars. The Decepticons had Megatron, Soundwave, several step-on-able tapes, and 3 jets...the numbers war wasn't going well here.
Anyway, the SS toy was about 13% toy and 87% accesories...I've created a little diagram to show the fate these parts ALWAYS met:

80's toy accesory heaven must have thousands of clouds packed with that damn landing gear piece alone. I have about seven seeker jets in various stages of completion, and amongst them I have ONE landing gear thing. The jet mode was neat because it looked cool and had spring-powered missile launchers that would theoretically work if you found a magic lamp and made a wish.
Most of these toys perished the first time a kid transformed it. See, if an accesory attached to the toy it had a slim chance of survival...but if it didn't, like the fist pieces in jet mode and landing gear in robot mode...It was gone faster then you could put on a snap bracelet.
That means the fists are already gone; and the transformation is hard for A COLLEGE STUDENT...6 year old usually just gave up or broke it. Assuming it did get transformed, at least half the parts would fall off to never be seen again...and without the fists the toy had pathetic little stump-arms, which would earn the chagrin of most kids immediately. I know I just turned mine back into a jet and was too embarassed to ever use the robot form.
Unfortunately, the stump arms were the ONLY moveable part. His legs were fixed, as was his head...and once you lost the other accesories, he tipped over a lot. So it would have been difficult to have him seem like his badass self on the battlefield of your bedroom floor...Except that Optimus never had his fists and his legs always broke so they would never stay in "standing" posistion, and I think my Megatron toy is seriously the ONLY unbroken one remaining today; so actually Starscream wasn't any worse off then they were.
Now, back on Cybertron there were MILLIONS of Decepticons around when Megatron chose his crack crew of about 10 troops to attack the Autobots on their ship that crashed on earth. OK, he chose Soundwave because every evil overlord needs one guy that is always loyal and cool. The various tapes were brought along just so Soundwave wouldn't feel so bad about the fact that he turned into an essentially useless form. Skywarp was a badass jet that could TELEPORT, and THundercracker was just a big tough robot. So let's see....onnnnnne more...Ramjet? Nah...Trypticon? Nah...Oh yeah, of course, the most conniving and treacherous guy we can find; I'm sure he'll put us on top in the war! In the FIRST episode of the cartoon, Megatron dumps his cannon for some reason and SS is about to kill him! Yes, about 4 days into the mission the Decepticons have trashed the Autobots, built a spaceship, and are on their way to Cybertron...AND SS is going to beat Megatron!
But wait, no. Mirage steps in...Yes, Mirage. Mirage takes out the Decepticons...ALL of them. Mirage is the whole reason the Autbots didn't lose on Day One. But I can count the Episodes he was in and Comics he was in combined on my hands and one foot.
But I'm going to cut this short, and save my creative juices(Mountain Dew) for the next Article...Just remember Starscream is a major badass, and he can apparently dance too.


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