TRANSFORMERS: Revisiting The Characters Of Generation 1 - SCATTERSHOT

TRANSFORMERS:  Revisiting the Characters of Generation 1

    "Decepticons are like rust spots - they're ugly and can pop up anywhere." - Scattershot, 1987.

AUTOBOT

Name - SCATTERSHOT

Function - Technobot Leader

Series Debut - 1987 / Wave 4

Sub-Group - Technobot

BACKGROUND...

    Scattershot has a wild, uncontrollable nature in battle.  He loves to charge into hordes of Decepticon warriors with all his weapons firing away.  Typically the only thing that can stop his relentless assault is when he runs out of ammunition.  Those that find fault in this particular battle strategy, he considers "tinplated bucketheads"!  He's a rude, loudmouthed braggart, yet somehow got the position of Technobot Leader.

    Scattershot transforms into a large, heavily-armed starfighter.  His main weapon, however, is an electric-pulse cannon located inside his nosecone.  This weapon can also be utilized in a third battle-station mode.  As a robot he carries an automatic Acid-Pellet Gun that fires 500 rounds-per-minute.  Scattershot can combine with the other Technobots and form the giant robot - Computron! 

MY THOUGHTS...

    The Technobots from G1 were awesome!  I thought all 5 were great, and I quickly picked up all of them.  As cool as Scattershot was, however, I thought he seemed like an odd choice to be the team's leader.  To have an intelligent, sophisticated, state-of-the-art group of high-tech vehicles led by an Autobot with a reckless-side and an itchy trigger-finger - didn't fit.  I guess I really didn't care though... the Technobots, Scattershot included, were all fantastic!

    Of Scattershot's 3 modes - the starship was the coolest of the three.  He had cannons all over!!  It looked as if Scattershot truly opened fire with "all weapons blazing" - there would be nothing left standing!  NOTHING!  The spring-action nosecone to reveal the cannon inside was a nice touch as well.

    While I really liked Scattershot and his fellow Technobots, unfortunately it seems they never got a fair shake in the media.  As for their cartoon origin - where they were created by a super-intelligent Grimlock...?  Ehh, I don't know.  That was a little too far on the "weird-side" for me.  I would have liked to see the comics give the Technobots a little more background, but they were too busy focusing on the Headmasters at that time.  This great team (and characters) basically got sidelined.

    Scattershot here is represented by the Combiner Wars version of the character.  NOW... first of all, Combiner Wars did NOT do a good job with the Technobots as a whole!  Unfortunately, most of them were disappointing.  Scattershot is probably the best of the bunch and I DO like this figure.  As a retool of Silverbolt though, he still falls short of the amazing sculpt of the original.  The G1 had a nice big, powerful look to the starship.  This one, is a little flat and not as intimidating.  Again though, it's cool, just not as cool as G1.  I really hoped Hasbro would have taken a better crack at the Technobots, but so far this has not happened.

I cut this out from one of the packages of my original Technobots.  I wish I still had the Technobot!!!

    (Information on the character's lore was taken from the Sunbow Transformers cartoon series, including the Movie and the figure's original Tech-Spec.)