Tarantulas (BW)


 * ''Tarantulas is a Predacon from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1/Beast Era continuity family.
 * His name is also officially spelled "Tarantulus".



Tarantulas is the scheming mad scientist of the Predacon crew. The type of mad scientist who experiments on living beings, cackling in his trademarked laugh all the while, and then if things go wrong, happily eats what's left as his midday snack (considering his appetite, that must happen a lot). He was one of the Predacons to join Megatron during his theft of the Golden Disc and the search for Earth. In addition to being an utterly psychotic, sadistic sociopath (even by Predacon standards, which is something he appears to wear with pride), Tarantulas has a record for treachery rivaled by few other Transformers. Tarantulas is actually an agent of the Tripredacus Council who is trying to coax the Beast Wars toward an unspecified goal, where neither Autobot or Decepticon won the Great War.

Tarantulas has a particularly notable hatred of the Vok aliens, a hatred strong enough to make him work to eliminate them by any means. "Lunatic."

- Blackarachnia on Tarantulas

Japanse name: Tarans

Toy Bio
Tarantulas is a sneaky, mysterious ninja feared across the galaxy. A master of the martial arts, he's suspected in the disappearances of many earthlings and rumors swirl of giant cocoons where he stores his prey.

(Note: The Tech Spec bios of the first wave of Beast Wars toys predate the development of the Beast Wars cartoon and its backstory. Instead they seem to present the characters as a direct continuation of the previous Autobot/Decepticon conflict with their battles taking place on present day, human-inhabited Earth, rather than in the distant past. Once the cartoon launched, the toyline adjusted itself to match that continuity instead.)

Optimus Primal VS Megatron pack-in comic
Tarantulas is guarding the Predacon's jungle-based genetics lab along with Megatron and Waspinator. When the Maximals discover them he engages Razorbeast in combat briefly before Megatron calls retreat and destroys the lab. (This story predates the Animated continuity and seems to be set on present day earth, see note above.)

Timelines: Dawn of Future's Past comic


As Megatron and his rogue band of Predacons escaped Cybertron in their stolen ship, the Darksyde, Tarantulas was in charge of scanning the disk for a desired set of coordinates. While Megatron was not watching, he was in secret communications with a member of the Tripredacus Council. (The reflections in his helmet show the silhouette of General Ram Horn.)

Using the decoded coordinates, the Darksyde opened a transwarp portal, which it and the Axalon passed through.

Beast Wars cartoon

 * Voice actor: Alec Willows (English), Yūichi Nagashima (Japanese)

Tarantulas was one of the original crew on the Darksyde when it crashed to prehistoric Earth. As Megatron's technical leader, he manned the scanners to appropriate Beast Forms based on the most powerful local creatures.

Tarantulas caused as many problems for Megatron as he fixed. Tarantulas always needed a separate hideout to plot other, evil schemes, and he managed to stay one step ahead of most of his 'allies'. The only partner he worked with frequently - though they betrayed each other just as often - was Blackarachnia.

When Tarantulus learned of the Vok and their impending return to Earth, he spent his best efforts to capture a working stasis pod to craft an escape shuttle. At the hour of the Vok's return, he finally crafted one. Megatron had known of his and Blackarachina's plans, and threw a wrench in the works - Inferno. Inferno stomped into the room, interrupted his download of the stasis pod's datatracks, torched Tarantulas, and was defeated by Blackarachnia.

Fortunately for him, Blackarachnia picked up his discarded download visor. Tarantulas jumped into her mind, controlling her (presumably from his stasis-locked body). When the quantum surge knocked out all of the Transformers on Earth, his body was upgraded to a Transmetal form, complete with a motorcycle vehicle mode. He maintained a link to Blackarachnia's mind, but was forced to severe it when she threatened to to commit suicide - which would also off-line him.

At some undisclosed point, Tarantulas discovered the Nemesis, the flagship of the Decepticon fleet. Although his longterm goals for the vessel are unknown, he did manage to restore the ship to working function, complete with a Predacon control console.

When the transwarp explosion finally reached through the time warp and had enough potency to enter Cybertronian space, Tarantulas's alliances were revealed; he was a member of the Predacon Secret Police and an agent of the Tripredacus Council. The Tripredacus Council was the first alerted of the transwarp explosion, and realized it was Megatron's ship. Ravage was sent to ally with the Maximals, arrest Megatron, and then betray and destroy them all.

Allied with the Maximals, and with his stealth ship, they easily overwhelmed Megatron. Tarantulas knocked out the power to his ship at the exact moment, allowing an easy capture.

Megatron managed to manipulate Ravage into his servitude using a recording of the original Megatron on the Golden Disc and gained his freedom. Tarantulas joined Ravage on his stealth ship for an attack on the Axalon. However, Tarantulas was blown to pieces by Rattrap through a combination of the rodent's demolition bombs and the explosion of the ship. Tarantulas survived, though, and was quickly put back together by his spider drones.

Megatron, in all his wisdom, forgave Tarantulas' treachery, as it was simply the Predacon way and Tarantulas was too useful to execute. Tarantulas appeared back in the Precadon camp on a regular basis -- though it would later become clear that he was still very busy working on his own agenda, apparently during his numerous unexplained absences. He battled the Maximals alongside Megatron's Transmetal raptors (a harbinger of things to come), and helped the other Predacons construct a massive disruptor ray (which ultimate backfired on them.) When the Maximals attempted to remove Blackarachnia's shell program, he revealed to Megatron that he had included "certain safeguards" that guaranteed she would not survive, and joined the other Predacons in an attack on the Maximals that was meant to disrupt the attempted shell removal. He fired the missile which knocked the Maximals' power offline at a crucial instant, seemingly bringing an end to his "treacherous creation". Enraged by the death of his beloved, Silverbolt attempted to kill the scientist, but was thwarted by Rampage, who was later defeated by a revived&mdash;and Transmetalized&mdash;Blackarachnia.

Tarantulas participated in the Predacons' next attempt to retake the Ark, but manipulated Quickstrike into throwing Megatron onto the lava, while he set the Ark's engines to overload. At this point, he claimed to be descended from neither the Autobots nor the Decepticons, which was why he was willing to destroy the core members of both factions then present (in stasis-lock) in the Ark. Megatron survived his lava-dunking, becoming a Transmetal 2 in the process. However, Megatron had lost his patience. While he tolerated Tarantulas' treachery, he could not tolerate incompetence. Tarantulas survived, however, and fled back to his lair.

When the Vok emmisarry Tigerhawk arrived on Earth shortly afterwards, Tarantulas managed to disable and capture him. Tarantulas intended to force the all-powerful being into his servitude by drawing the Vok influences out of his body and reprogramming him. Tarantulas' scheme backfired, however, as his energy beam device expelled two actual Vok out of Tigerhawk. The formless spectres attempted to take over Tarantulas' body. Panicking, he opened fire on them -- a futile gesture that merely served to spin the energy device around, till its rays were blasting him and his lab equipment. Overloaded by the beams, Tarantulas exploded, leaving nothing behind but his boots; the remainder of his equipment detonated seconds later, blowing the lair to rubble. Cheetor managed to rescue the inert Tigerhawk, and Tarantulas was presumed dead. When Megatron learned of Tarantulas' death, he referred to him as "Unicron's Spawn".

3H Primeval Dawn comics
Following the Beast Wars, Tarantulas' body returned to life, reanimated by the Vok powers he previously absorbed. The undead Tarantulas, along with a rebuilt Ravage (as Tripredacus Agent), nurtured new troops to life through enigmatic means, growing Razorclaw and Iguanus in tubes. The remaining Vok anticipated Tarantulas' plan to destroy the rest of them, take their power, and fashion the timestream to his desires, and so they assembled an army of their own consisting of Primal Prime, Airazor, and Tigatron. Tarantulas met this opposition in battle, overwhelmed them, and ripped the Matrix of Leadership from Primal Prime's chest. Wounded critically, the Maximals withdrew to the Ark. Tarantulas ordered Ravage to take Razorclaw, Iguanus, and their new recruit Spittor and assault the Ark in order to finish them off.

(3H Productions dissolved before this storyline could be completed. It can be assumed that the Matrix of Leadership was restored to Optimus Prime's body at the end of this altercation, and that the Maximals were triumphant.)

3H Universe comics
When the influence of Unicron sways Blackarachnia to the side of darkness, she is surprised to see Tarantulas (still in his undead body) greet her as she joins the ranks of the Minions of Unicron.

Beast Wars

 * Tarantulas (Deluxe, 1996/1997)
 * Japanese ID number: D-4, VS-4


 * Part of the first wave if Beast Wars product, Tarantulas transforms into an organic spider (NOT a tarantula). His abdomen contains a spring-loaded missile launcher, which fires the anchor-missile kept in his spider-butt.  This missile is attached by a string so he can hang from things like a real spider.  The launcher can be removed and used as a robot-mode weapon, using any of his front four spider-legs as missiles.  Like all early Deluxe-and-up Beast Wars toys, his has two different robot-mode "heads", a  robot-mode one and a "mutant" face.  He is almost always depicted using the mutant face.


 * There is a variation of this toy in the Hasbro line: later releases (the smooth-bubble) lack the yellow paint on his elbows.


 * The Japanese release of Tarantulas was originally unchanged, and could also be purchased in a two-pack with Dinobot. Later, a slightly-color-altered version was released, using a brighter shade of green and a slightly-darker gray.  The color-altered version also replaced the blue eyes on the 'robot' head with gold as well as the black eyes of the 'mutant' head.


 * This mold was used to make the first Blackarachnia toy.


 * Orcanoch (MicroVerse, 1997)
 * A small, non-transforming micro-figure of Tarantulas came with the MicroVerse Orcanoch playset. It was presumably painted based on the original design, as its a bright copper rather than purple.


 * Tarantulas (Deluxe Transmetal, 1998)
 * Japanese ID number: D-44


 * Part of the first assortment of Transmetals, Tarantulas transforms into a robotic spider. He also has a third "transport" mode, flipping down a wheel from his abdomen and a saw-blade under his beast-head, making a spidey-cycle. The saw detaches for robot mode to become a hand-held weapon.


 * The Japanese version is slightly different, replacing the "TARANTULAS" tampograph with "DESTRON" and the Predacon sigil, plus his robot-mode eyes were painted as a single visor to better match the show.


 * Tarantulas (Deluxe "Fox Kids" Transmetal, 1999)


 * A redeco of the Transmetal Tarantulas toy in grays, silver and black. He and a Transmetal Cheetor redeco were part of the little-seen second wave of Toys "R" Us exclusive "Fox Kids" toys, so called for the advertisements for the Fox channel on the packaging (as the Beast Wars cartoon has moved there from syndication).  Internal Hasbro documents have listed this toy as "Steel Tech Tarantulas", a name that did not make it to final packaging. These colors were used to depict Tarantulas in the Primeval Dawn and Universe comics.


 * Predacon Tarantulus (Tenth Anniversary, 2006)


 * This toy is a slight redeco of the original Tarantulas toy, more closely resembling Tarantulas' appearance in the cartoon (save the big Predacon faction sigil tampograph). Part of the second wave of Beast Wars 10th Anniversary product, he came with a DVD of the episode "Spider's Game", plus the left leg to Trans-Mutate.

Trivia

 * Tarantulas' origins are a bit complicated. He declares in "Other Victories" that he and the Tripredacus Council have origins other than Autobot and Decepticon, such that they would not be affected by the destruction of the Ark.  Megatron's line about "Unicron's spawn" was apparently not intended by Bob Forward to be taken literally -- it was to have been a generic insult rather than a statement of fact.   (Forward's own inkling, albeit never realized, was that they might be descended from Jhiaxus's Cybertronian Empire.)  But, much like Terrorsaur's line about "the darkside", this line developed a life of its own.  Eventually this connection was reasserted in 3H Productions' Primeval Dawn storyline.


 * In the Japanese dub of Beast Wars, Tarantulas retained his trademark cackle, however, it was a little different. His voice was very high-pitched and he shrieked almost constantly.  His trademark laugh more closely resembled a wicked witch of sorts.


 * Early promotional pictures showed the original Tarantulas toy as being transparent orange, but the final toy was a clear deep purple instead. Presumably, this was for a little visual variety in the early line, which already had a largely-tan toy (Dinobot) and a largely yellow toy (Cheetor) in the Deluxe range, plus another then-planned clear-orange Mega-sized Predacon arachnid (Scorponok) and Tigatron who was at one point slated to be a traditional orange tiger.


 * The original Tarantulas toy has nine eyes in beast mode, as does the show model. This makes characters' references to him as "eight-eyes" rather... interesting.


 * In the original control art for Tarantulas, the claws are shown in the same configuration as used in the show. In other words, the claws were somehow swapped during the assembly process and have remained as such on every version of the mold thereafter.