Silverbolt (BW)


 * Silverbolt is a Maximal from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.



"Pure, strong, and fast," Silverbolt ' s sense of right and wrong is so overdeveloped his fellow Maximals wonder if his programming has a glitch. He speaks in lofty platitudes of chivalry, nobility, and idealized heroism; his speeches make even Optimus Primal roll his optics. His conviction is both his strength and his weakness. He sees the world in black and white—and not just because his beast mode is partly canine.

The only gray area for Silverbolt is Blackarachnia. His fierce love for the "evil" Predacon causes him to question his preconceived notions of right and wrong. He was very proud of his ability to convert Blackarachnia to the Maximals, and, though most of the Maximals are skeptical of her loyalty to the cause and to him, he has nothing but faith in her.

Despite his usual naiveté, Silverbolt has apparently been able to "break the fourth wall" by describing himself as a "heroic character."

"Though threatening your own comrade is no doubt business as usual in the Predacon guide to villainy...it is simply unacceptable behavior in my book!"

- Silverbolt


 * French-Canadian name: Vif-Argent
 * Chinese name (Taiwan): Yín Láng (銀狼, "Silver Wolf" in Beast Wars) / Yín Shǎn-dìan (銀閃電, "Silver Bolt" or "Silver Lightning" in Beast Machines)
 * Italian name: Grifo
 * Spanish-Mexican name: Lobo Plateado
 * Polish name: Srebrny Grom

Beast Wars

 * Voice Actor: Scott McNeil (English), Mitsuo Iwata (Japanese), Bruno Rocha (Portuguese)



The explosion caused by the destruction of the Vok Planet Buster sent all stasis pods crashing to Earth. Some pods' scanners were damaged in the shock wave and eventual crash-landing, resulting in the Fuzors, a blend of two beast forms and the advanced Transmetal technology.

One of these Fuzors was the winged wolf Silverbolt, while his neighbor was the violent, psychotic cobra-scorpion Quickstrike, who immediately picked a fight with the peaceful Silverbolt upon their activation. The fight was interrupted by Megatron, who tricked both Fuzors and recruited them into the Predacons. Silverbolt felt the faction's activation code and Megatron's orders to attack the passing Cheetor to be distasteful (seeing how the cat had not attacked them), earning furious punishment from the Predacon leader. Soon, he and the other Predacons faced the remaining Maximals in battle.

However, Silverbolt felt out of place with so treacherous and cruel a group. After witnessing Maximal compassion and Dinobot's own admission of defection, he made an important decision and joined the Maximals, saving the newly reborn Optimus Primal from Megatron.

Soon afterwards, while on patrol with the much more laid-back Rattrap (who spent a lot of the time pointedly ignoring Silverbolt's lines of honor and virtue), Silverbolt encountered the alluring Blackarachnia when Tarantulas and Quickstrike were attempting to set up a forward base. She was somewhat surprised by his complete refusal to strike her simply because she was a female and used it to her advantage to attack him. However, the Maximal had no such compunction against fighting the coarse Quickstrike.

Soon, Silverbolt found himself reluctantly sneaking off to aid Blackarachnia in constructing a small airship out of a fallen stasis pod. When it was complete, she ran off at first word of the Ark being discovered, Silverbolt in tow. He pleaded with her to join the Maximals, and refused to leave until she did, even after she shot him in the thigh.

When Megatron arrived, Silverbolt was the playing card to convince Blackarachnia to open the doors to the Ark and allow him inside. Soon after, when Optimus Prime was injured enough to cause a time storm, Blackarachnia used Silverbolt to put everything right and defected to the Maximals soon after.

Most of the time thereafter, Silverbolt stayed by Blackarachnia's side, more than happy that the subterfuge was over. He was extremely pleased when Blackarachnia was converted fully into a Maximal (and a Transmetal 2 as well).

Beast Machines

 * Voice Actor: Scott McNeil (US), Mitsuo Iwata (Japan), Marcus Jardym (Brazil)

When the Maximals found themselves back on Cybertron running for their lives from armies of Vehicon drones, their memories of their past had been tampered with. Even Blackarachnia could not remember Silverbolt fully until she hacked into the memory backup on their ship.



Blackarachnia began to suspect that Silverbolt's spark might be inside one of the Vehicon Generals. At first, she erroneously thought it was within Thrust, but after a mishap with some technorganic goop, Silverbolt's spark was proven to be inside Jetstorm (and Thrust turned out to be Waspinator, whose amorous advances were tragically spurned by the arachnid chick). For a precious few moments, Silverbolt's consciousness was completely awoken within Jetstorm's body, reverting him to his old personality, until the goop was absorbed completely and Jetstorm's shell program reasserted itself.

Obsessed with bringing Silverbolt back, she hounded Jetstorm, demanding he remember their shared love and return to the Maximals. Needless to say, Jetstorm was vexed by this. When Rattrap created a gizmo that would help them transfer the stolen Transformer sparks into new bodies, Blackarachnia stole it. Leading Jetstorm into the planet's organic core, she attached the gizmo to his back and trapped the Vehicon in a pool of the technorganic goop with her webs. After much screaming, reformatting, and brilliant light, Silverbolt was reborn as a condor, having scanned skeletal remains inside the cavern in the process.



Counter to Blackarachnia's expectations, Silverbolt was not pleased. Gone was the Maximal who exemplified honor and chivalry, replaced with one who desired only retribution and vengeance. "I was a fool back then," he once said. "I believed in things." Distraught, Blackarachnia managed to convince him to come along with her to help rescue Optimus Primal and Cheetor from inside Megatron's Big Floating Head, but Silverbolt did not accompany her for their friends, as he was not interested in them. He went to confront Megatron.

Megatron, seeing that his General had been reformatted into a Maximal, tried to seduce Silverbolt back to his side. Silverbolt was told he was a creature of honor who fought for just causes, and that Megatron gave Silverbolt not only a just cause (the technological purity of Cybertron), but also the power and strength to fight for that cause. Blackarachnia countered at every point, pleading with Silverbolt to remember their love and friendship. Silverbolt ignored her, bitterly retorting that Megatron had given him nothing. With nearly insane fury, he let loose a volley of feather bombs, disrupting Megatron from within. Cheetor and Primal were rescued, and Silverbolt was dragged away from the battle.

Slightly calmed, Silverbolt was later approached by Blackarachnia. He confided in her the real reason for his anger: It was not what Megatron had done to him, but that he'd been freed from his code of honor and enjoyed the experience. He did not trust himself any longer. This did not deter Blackarachnia. She believed, no matter what, that Silverbolt had goodness in his heart.

As time went on, Silverbolt began to become more comfortable with his past. With the final defeat of Megatron and the reformatting of Cybertron, his old personality reemerged&mdash;only for him to ruin the moment by saying the corniest line he could think of. And more power to him.

Pack-in/CD-ROM comic
Silverbolt followed Optimus Primal in fighting against Reptilion and his Decepticon forces. He engaged Razorclaw in combat, but was probably defeated by him as the latter moved on to fight Striker. After the Decepticons were abducted by Unicron's ship, Silverbolt asked his leader just what that thing was.

3H Universe comics


One year after Cybertron's Great Reformatting, five great Autobot heroes (Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Shadow Striker, and Roulette) returned home to a peaceful planet. Amidst a media blitz and celebration, Silverbolt, Blackarachnia, Cheetor, and Rattrap were among the Maximals to greet them.

However, what appeared to be celebratory fireworks struck Silverbolt and Blackarachnia and also the five Autobots. They were transported to the firey Pit deep within Unicron, where all but Trailbreaker were rebuilt painfully into new bodies. Silverbolt was piece-by-piece reassembled into a version of his original Fuzor form.

Seeing an arena up ahead, the seven moved towards it, only to be attacked by a swarm of shape-shifting, lava-like creatures. Silverbolt and the others were overwhelmed and taken into the arena (or the Cauldron), where they were caged along with a multitude of Transformers kidnapped from across the multiverse.

During this time, Blackarachnia was corrupted by Unicron to become one of his warriors. Silverbolt vowed to bring her back to the light again, as she had done for him.

When the whole place went to pot after the formation of the Unicron Singularity, Silverbolt escaped with the rest of the prisoners, taking Blackarachnia with him. Presumably, they returned to their own time and universe.

Beast Wars

 * Silverbolt (Deluxe Fuzor, 1998)
 * Japanese ID number: C-41


 * Part of the first wave of Fuzors, Silverbolt transforms into a wolf with the wings, fore-legs and tail of an eagle. In either mode, pulling his tail activates a spring-loaded "wing flap" gimmick.  Moving the wings far enough forward triggers their built-in spring-loaded missile launchers.  Silverbolt's missiles are also designed to be held in his hands like clubs. They also happen to look like spoons.


 * For his Japanese release as part of Beast Wars Metals, Silverbolt's silver was made much much brighter.


 * This mold was used to make BotCon 1999's Windrazor.

Beast Machines

 * Silverbolt (Basic, 2000)


 * Beast Machines Silverbolt transforms into a technorganic condor. His wings have a snap-together feature, and the entire wing assembly detaches to form a hand-held shield-blade for robot mode. It is woefully out of scale with the other Maximals, making Blackarachnia look like she has a midget fetish.


 * Silverbolt (Basic, 2005)
 * Japanese ID number: BR-10


 * In 2005, the Beast Machines toy was redecoed for the Takara Beast Wars Returns series in a much more show-accurate purple color scheme. He was only available at Toys "R" Us stores.

Universe

 * Silverbolt (Deluxe, 2003)


 * A purple redeco of the original Fuzor toy and part of the very first assortment of Universe product, Silverbolt once again transforms into a wolf/eagle fusion. He retains all of his previous gimmicks.  This version also adds an Autobot sigil to his tummy-gem.

Robot Heroes
Silverbolt vs. Transmetal Megatron (2008)

Trivia

 * In the Japanese dub of Beast Wars, Silverbolt was not portrayed as a stereotypical "knight in shining armor" as he was in the West. Instead, his unique character quirk was that he was psychotically polite and always happy no matter what—even in the one scene in "Optimal Situation" where he thought Blackarachnia was dead. F**kers. He ended nearly every sentence in a loud, stressed "desu!" which made every sentence of his needlessly over-polite. Suiseiseki would be proud.


 * Silverbolt's line in Beast Wars ("I think my name is... Silverbolt") mimics the original Silverbolt's first line.


 * Many fans have taken to giving the Beast Machines Silverbolt toy a four-legged "griffin" alt-mode rather than the official "condor" mode.


 * According to various Hasbro representatives, Universe Silverbolt's colors (and those of pretty much the entire first wave of Universe product) were done by Hasbro employees from outside the Transformers team.


 * Silverbolt's robot mode in Beast Machines was heavily designed after a traditional Japanese samurai.


 * Silverbolt was the only Beast Wars character besides Megatron to change his animal form completely, first being a wolf/eagle hybrid, later becoming a condor.


 * According to one of the writers' commentaries on one of his episodes, he made the changes to Silverbolt based on the evolution of the Adam West Batman into the Dark Knight.


 * Silverbolt has the dubious distinction of being the only Maximal who has not taken out Waspinator, instead being taken down by the bug twice. Ouch.


 * He does, however, have the distinction of being one of the few Maximals who defeated Megatron one-on-one.