Constructicon (G1)

The Constructicons, so named for their group job of design, engineering and construction for the Decepticon forces, are particularly notable for their status as the very first combining sub-group of Transformers, able to merge their bodies and minds together to form the gigantic Devastator (Devastar in Japan). The individual members of the team include:


 * Scrapper, the leader of the Constructicons, is a master designer who conceives the myriad structures the Construticons assemble. Although he's genuinely modest about his work, he's prone to bragging amongst his fellow Constructicons. He transforms into a wheeled front-load shovel and forms the right leg of Devastator. As indicated by a cut line from the original script of the Constructicons' debut animated episode, Scrapper was originally to be named Gravedigger.
 * Bonecrusher is brawler by nature and specialises in demolitions work. He would enjoy the extra potential for destruction as Devastator if it didn't mean sharing the same mindspace as his fellow Constructicons. He transforms into a bulldozer, and forms Devastator's left arm.
 * Scavenger is an unashamedly pathetic Decepticon. Desperate to prove his worth to his team-mates, he uses his one true gift - his shovel's ability to detect various magnetic, ionic, electrical or gas readings - to locate items of value, although invariably, all he can usually find is junk. He transforms into an excavator, and the right arm of Devastator. Originally to be named Scrounge, Scavenger was erroeously referred to by this name once in the Constructicons' debut animated series episode.
 * Mixmaster might have a few chips loose in his logic centre, judging by the cackling with which he undertakes his role of materials fabrication. Although manic and erratic by nature, he is a genius of a chemist, able to mix chemicals in the drum of his concrete mixer alternate mode. He forms Devastator's left leg.
 * Hook (Glen in Japan) is the team's perfectionist second-in-command, who considers himself far too elite to deal with most of the 'ruffians' that call themselves Decepticons. He is excellent at performing tasks which require extreme precision, but the time he takes to perfect his work and his arrogance are his weaknesses. He transforms into a crane, and forms the head and shoulders of Devastator.
 * Long Haul is not fond of his role as transport, ferrying construction materials to and fro on a Constructicon building site, and although he accepts its importance, he would much rather be a full-time warrior. He transforms into a dump truck and forms Devastator's lower torso. In a children's coloring book, Long Haul is once mistakenly referred to by Scrapper's early name, Gravedigger.

The team's combined form of Devastator is brutality in its purest form - his sole purpose is to destroy anything and everything that gets in his way. It is ironic that the suitably intelligent Constructicons should sacrifice their thinking ability in their combined form, but simple-mindedness is a common limitation of the assorted other first-generation combining Transformers, due to the fact that Devastator's thoughts and actions are limited to what his six components can agree upon at any given time. Consequently, Devastator seems like a being of instinct, lashing out at everything around him before contemplating the consequences, but he is also slow and lumbering and very easy to trip up.

Animated Series
According to the Autobot, Omega Supreme, millions of years ago, the Constructicons were the creators of the beautiful Crystal City on the Transformers' homeworld of Cybertron, which he was assigned the task of guarding. As a friend of the Constructicons, he was hurt the most when they were attacked by Megatron, who, seeking to bolster the forces of his then-small, subjected the Constructicons to the Robo-Smasher, a device which reprogrammed their minds and turned them into Decepticons. In their first act as Megatron's troops, the Constructicons lured Omega away from Crystal City and demolished it, enraging Omega, who pursued the Constructions across the planet. Eventually, he succeeded in capturing them and apparently restored their programming to its original state, but as the group returned to rebuild Crystal City, Omega learned that Megatron's reprogramming could never be undone - the Constructicons were still Decepticons, and more than that, Megatron had given them a new power: the ability to combine their bodies and minds into the giant known as Devastator. In the ensuing struggle with Devastator, the Robo-Smasher attacked Omega's mind. He was able to stop it before the reprogramming was complete, only to wind up losing his emotions. Filled with only hate for the Constructicons, Omega relentlessly pursued them, until they finally fled Cybertron in a spacecraft, which Omega chased across the galaxy.

In 1984, the Constructicons joined with Megatron's forces on Earth, and their first mission was an impressive one - Scrapper designed a machine to transfer the other Decepticons' powers to Megatron, and while he battled Optimus Prime, holding the attention of the Autobots, the Constructicons invaded the Ark) to destroy Teletraan I. Unfortunately for them, the Ark was protected by the Dinobots, but by merging into Devastator, they became more than a match for their prehistoric foes. The return of the other Autobots and the discovery of Megatron's deception spelled the end of the battle, however, as Hound distracted Devastator with a gigantic hologram, and Optimus Prime blasted the giant at just the right spot to force the Constructicons to disengage. They and the other Decepticons were then forced into a river of lava.

The Constructicons all managed to survive their magma bath mostly unscathed, except for Mixmaster, whose mind was apparently damaged by the experience, as he developed his manic personality and a fondness for repeating his words, which he had not dispalyed before. Regardless, the team was soon back at work again, performing such varied tasks as assisting in Megatron's reconstruction of New York City - which also involved turning Optimus Prime's scrapped remains into a robotic alligator - and building a device to paralyse Transformers in their vehicular modes, as well as another that could crush them. When the Autobots would interfere in their plans, Devastator would invariably be formed - something that the Autobots chose to use to their advantage when they discovered that the Constructicons were drilling to the Earth's core. Sneaking "dominator disks" onto the separate Constructicons, when they merged into Devastator, the Autobots took control of his mind and used him for their own ends until he escaped, and, surprisingly, helped stop the dril to prevent the destruction of the Earth.

Upon learning of the Autobot Grapple's solar power tower design, Scrapper and the Constructicons pretended to have defected from the Decepticons in order to help him and Hoist construct it, exposing their treachery upon its completion. Later, when the other Decepticons began to suffer from Cybertonium degeneration, the Constructions - apparently working fine, presumably as a result of their newly-built Cybertonium-free Earth bodies - took delivery of a shipment of the mineral via the Spacebridge, and as Devastator, failed to stop Spike Witwicky and Carly from getting by them and travelling to Cybertron.

In 1985, when Omega Supreme learned that the Constructicons were active on Earth, he arrived on the planet and joined Optimus Prime's forces, biding his time until he could face his former friends again. That chance arose when the Constructions were discovered mining an asteroid, and Omega was dispatched to investigate. Ignoring Optimus Prime's orders, Omega Supreme engaged the Constructicons, and in the battle, split the asteroid in two, revealing that it was an egg of sorts, incubating a monstrous alien creature, which promptly attacked San Francisco while Omega, ignoring the plight of the city, continued to battle the Constructicons. Optimus Prime then entered the fray, convincing Omega that saving the city was more important than revenge, and forcing the Constructicons to retreat.

The building skills of the Constructicons remained in demand - other creations around this time included an army of drone Transformers created from common Earth cars; various constructs for Blitzwing, including a throne constructed from deactivated Autobots and a massive maze; and a giant ruby-powered laser cannon - but their combing powers soon became a lot less unique with the creation of several new similarly-powered Autobot and Decepticon sub-groups. Devastator was even defeated in battle by the Combaticons, who Starscream specially designed with the ability to combine into Bruticus for that eventuality.

In the Earth year 2005, Devastator was the Decepticons' primary weapon in the Battle of Autobot City, tearing through the defences and walls of the city and battling the Dinobots once more. On the return trip to Cybertron, it was Bonecrusher who advocated the "survival of the fittest" policy that saw many wounded Decepticons ejected from the shuttle, among them Megatron, prompting Scrapper to vote for the Constructions as the new leaders of the Decepticons. Hook took great offense to the notion that Soundwave would make a better leader than them.

In the remainder of this year and throughout 2006, the Constructions maintained a smaller, but still present, role in the Decepticon army, lending their talents to the Decepticon/Quintesson alliance by constructing Trypticon out of a populated human city in only one night. Later, they built a planetary engine on an asteroid and battled on the planet Eurythma, aided in the overthrow of Paradron and took part in an attack on Japan. Although brief, the Constructicons even played a part in the battle for the Plasma Energy Chamber in 2007.

The Constructicons' voices were performed by Michael Bell (Scrapper), Neil Ross (Hook, Bonecrusher), Gregg Berger (Long Haul), Frank Welker (Mixmaster), Don Messick (Scavenger) and Arthur Burghardt (Devastator). The individual Constructicons are six of only nine characters to have appeared in all four seasons of the Transformers animated series (the others being Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Spike Witwicky), and they would contiue to make brief, token appearances throughout the Japanese-exclusive Transformers: Headmasters series. Later, in the single episode of 1990's Japanese Tranformers: Zone series, Devastator was among the nine Decepticon Generals assembled by the villainous Violenjiger.

Conflicting Origins & Load Hauler
The original Transformers animated series is infamous for its slip-ups regarding the Constructicons, presenting at least three apparently-contradictory stories that give different origins for the group. In their debut episode, the Season One finale, Heavy Metal War, Megatron professes that the Constructicons were built on Earth. Yet, in the Season Two episode, The Secret of Omega Supreme, the secret history of the eponymous character and the Constructicons comes out, which reveals their past on Cybertron together, where the Constructicons were formerly not Decepticons and were turned to evil by Megatron. Scrapper also makes a comment in The Master Builders that he admired the buildings of the Autobot Grapple on Cybertron, indicating a past there.

Interestingly, the official bible to the series originally describes the Constructicons as having "no explained origin." Presumably, this encouraged David Wise, the writer of The Secret of Omega Supreme, to give the characters an explained origin, unaware that it conflicted with the one-line reference to their being built on Earth from Heavy Metal War. Nevertheless, it is not impossible to reconcile these two stories, if one simply assumes that when Megatron said the Constructicons were "built," he was referring to their new Earth bodies after their arrival from Cybertron (ironically, The Secret of Omega Supreme neglected to give the Constructicons redesigned Cybertronian modes, making it appear as if they always turned into Earthly construction vehicles). That said, one would have to assume that the Constructicons did not have their existing bodies modified, but had entirely new structures created, due to their ability to function and even form Devastator when the other Transformers on Earth were suffering from Cybertonium degeneration in Desertion of the Dinobots.

The third contradiction emerges in the third season, with the episode Five Faces of Darkness, Part Four, in which Rodimus Prime witnesses Megatron's creation in a flashback, and the animation shows the Constructicons surrounding him, implying that they were responsible for building him, which contradicts The Secret of Omega Supreme's claim that they were not originally Decepticons. There are two ways of rationalising this:


 * 1) The Constructicons were not evil when they constructed Megatron. Megatron was either accidentally created evil or later became evil. He then later corrupted the Constructicons, as depicted in The Secret of Omega Supreme. And then later, he rebuilt them on earth.
 * 2) The scene is a mistake. Five Faces of Darkness is notorious for its flawed animation, and it is entirely probable that these characters were not intended to be the actual Constructicons, but rather either characters who resembled them, or generic robots that the animators simply used the Constructicons' model sheets to fill the roles of. In strong indication of this is the fact that there are eight Constructicons displayed, rather than six.

The presence of a larger than usual number of Constructicons in the Five Faces of Darkness scene was referenced somewhat by the release of Load Hauler, a Constructicon-colored repaint of the Autobot, Grapple, released exclusively by online retailer E-Hobby in 2003. His biography presents him to have once been a member of the Constructicons, before they were Decepticons, who joined up with the Autobots after Megatron co-opted his team-mates with the Robo-Smasher, and accompanied Optimus Prime's crew aboard the Ark. This in itself is a reference to the anomalous character of Hauler, an Autobot clearly based on the Grapple toy who features in the first animated series episode, but never appears again. Orange in his animated appearance, Load Hauler's bio explains this color discrepancy by presenting Load Hauler as a "highly capricious self-expressionist," who frequently changes his coloration.

Marvel Comics
The origins of the Constructions in Marvel Comics' Transformers series was not nearly so complicated. Seeking to bolster the size of his forces on Earth in 1985, Decepticon Commander Shockwave arranged for the construction of six new Decepticon bodies, which were then infused with life by the power of the Creation Matrix, tapped from the head of the imprisoned Optimus Prime. Thus, the Constructicons were born, and were immediately put to work building a massive radio transmission dish that Soundwave used to beam a message to Cybertron. When the Autobots attempted to interfere, the Constructicons revealed their hidden power and merged into Devastator to fight them off, allowing the message to successfully go through.

The Autobots, intruiged by Devastator's unique combining power, attempting to replicate it with the construction of Omega Supreme. But as Omega was composed of only three components, unlike the six Constructicons that made up Devastator, the Autobots conducted a raid on the Decepticon base, luring out Devastator so that they could gather data on him. This allowed them to accomplish the construction of the new combiner team, the Aerialbots, capable of forming Superion, who Devastator battled during the Transformers' adventure alongside G.I. Joe.

Although the United Kingdom's exclusive Transformers comic series shone the spotlight on the Constructicons when they were charged with hunting down Buster Witwicky, and again when the time-travelling Galvatron co-opted their services to build a gigantic laser cannon, the team's special talents were not required in the US title again until they and the Predacons stole large amounts of rocket fuel and raw materials, with which the Constructicons rebuilt the Decepticons' mobile island headquarters as a spaceship. With the entire Earth-based Decepticon army aboard the ship, under the command of Ratbat, they attacked an Autobot congregation on the moon, and while the battle raged, the Constructicons penetrated the Ark and recovered the deactivated bodies of several Decepticons defeated in an earlier clash with Omega Supreme.

Although the Constructicons did not appear again in the US Transformers title, they were not among the Transformers deactivated by the Underbase-empowered Starscream. In the alternate future universe of 2008 featured in the UK Transformers comic, Mixmaster was briefly indicated to have ascended to leadership of the Constructicons.

Action Master Devastator & the New Constructicons
In 1990, the final year of the Transformers toyline in the US, an Action Master figure of Devastator was released, with a transforming partner named Scorpulator. The following year, exclusive to Europe in 1991, the Constructicons' toys were re-released under the name "New Constructicons," now in a yellow and grey color scheme and lacking the additional pieces that allowed them to combine into Devastator. Around the same time, in the UK's Transformers comic, a break-away storyline began that was separate from the ongoing continuity, one chapter of which reflected the release of the New Constructicons and the existence of Action Master Devastator by revealing that the team had lost the ability to combine, and were attempting to rebuild Devastator as a singular, separate entity. The Autobots Ironhide and Bumblebee arrived on the island to investigate, and Ironhide was able to bypass the security grid and plant explosives to destroy the site, and Devastator with it.

Coincidentally or not, when the Transformers: Generation 2 toyline began a few years later, the Constructicons were again released in a yellow colour scheme, this time all over the world, and including the combining pieces (although for their sparing appearances in Marvel's Generation 2 comic, they retained their original green and purple appearances). A rare orange variant was also released.

Dreamwave Comics
In Dreamwave Productions's 21st Century re-imaginging of the Generation One universe, the Constructicons were responsible for activating Cybertron's planetary engines, under the command of Megatron eight million years ago. When Megatron disappeared into the depths of the planet fighting Optimus Prime, Starscream temporarily took command and had Scrapper prepare a process for the resurfacing of Cybertron, which would transform it into a mobile war-world. Scrapper cautioned against such an action, but Starscream ignored him, and prevented him from stopping it when the process was underway. 1.5 million years later, when Megatron and Optimus Prime were thought to have died in an early test of the space bridge transport system, and the Autobots and Decepticons splintered into several smaller factions, the Contructicons broke the treaty that had downgraded the combining teams to non-combat status by siding with Ratbat's Ultracons and battling Defensor.

It is apparent that the Constructicons were not aboard the Ark when it crashed on Earth four million years ago, but they did eventually find their way to Earth and joined Megatron's forces there after they awoke in 1984. All the Transformers were rendered inactive in the explosion of the Ark II in 1999, but when they reactivated in 2001, Devastator was the main weapon in Megatron's attack on San Francisco. Rampaging through the city, he battled and defeated Superion, but was defeated by Optimus Prime through a point-blank blast to the face, which toppled the giant. His remains were recovered by the Earth Defence Command, and dissected and studied in their underground base.

The ultimate fate of Devastator was not revealed, however, as a result of Dreamwave's closure.