Long Haul (G1)


 * Long Haul is an Decepticon Constructicon from the Generation 1 continuity family.



The problem, as Long Haul sees it, is that he gets all the work and very little of the excitement and the glory that goes with being a Decepticon. He knows his job is important; he'd just much rather be on the front lines fighting shoulder to shoulder with fellow warriors than moving supplies and building installations to make sure those warriors continue fighting. Long Haul keeps these secret desires to himself though, as he's smart enough to know Megatron is not likely to be sympathetic and has no patience for grunts who question their orders.

He also serves as Devastator's crotch. Tough break.


 * French-Canadian name: Costo
 * Italian name: Macigno
 * Hungarian name: Hosszú Pofa

Cartoon continuity

 * Voice actor: Gregg Berger (US), Masashi Ebara (Japan)

Roughly nine million years ago, Long Haul and the Constructicons were friends of Omega Supreme in Crystal City on Cybertron. Their engineering skills were permanently turned to evil, however, once Megatron and the Robo-Smasher reprogrammed them into Decepticons. They were also given the combined form of Devastator, making them the physical equal of Omega Supreme in combat. After they destroyed Crystal City at Megatron's command, the Constructicons earned the everlasting ire of their former friend.

Long Haul was eventually summoned to Earth (built on Earth?) by Megatron and the Decepticons, and joined them in trying to destroy Optimus Prime and the Autobots. Their first scheme was to supercharge Megatron with the power chip rectifiers of his fellow 'Cons, so that he could defeat Prime in personal combat. Though they failed, the Constructicons would be involved in many of Megatron's schemes from then on, including the construction of New Cybertron in Manhattan and the creation of a robot drone army out of human cars.

Long Haul's greatest claim to fame was abandoning his job of guarding the recently discovered pool of electrum, forcing Dirge to do it by himself. Dirge was then promptly beaten up by Seaspray, and the Autobots gained control of the electrum. Oops.

Long Haul was the most long-suffering members of the Constructicons, possibly even more so than Scavenger. He was constantly complaining about wanting a greater role in the group, either as a warrior or an engineer, but was inevitably relegated to "go fetch" work for Hook or Scrapper. It didn't help his mood any.

In 2005, Long Haul and the Constructicons joined in the assault on Autobot City, and their power as Devastator was key to breaching the city's defenses. After the Dinobots arrived, however, Devastator was effectively nullified as the two groups kept each other too busy and out of the rest of the fighting. They joined the other Decepticons in beating a hasty retreat after Megatron fell in battle.

Generation 1


Long Haul was created on Earth by Shockwave, combining the engineering material of G.B. Blackrock's hostily-occupied aerospace plant with the power of the Creation Matrix that had been pilfered from Optimus Prime's head. The Constructicons were not only given individual life, but also the power to merge into Devastator. Their first mission was to construct and operate a intergalactic transceiver which, combined with Soundwave's broadcasting abilities, would enable the Decepticons to make contact with Cybertron for the first time in millions of years. Despite some Autobot intervention, the transceiver was successful enough to open communications between Straxus of Darkmount and the Decepticons of Earth.

Long Haul found himself serving many masters over the following months. ''After Shockwave was deposed by Optimus Prime, the remaining Decepticons briefly came under Soundwave's command, and interfered with Autobot operations during the Dinobot Hunt. '' Shockwave and Megatron both attempted to regain power, and ended up having to share control and, after Omega Supreme wiped out a good portion of their forces, the Constructicons and Soundwave made up virtually their entire army. ''When Galvatron arrived from the future and removed Megatron from command, the Constructicons began serving the future Decepticon without much question, and built a massive space cannon for him. For some reason, Megatron didn't consider this enough of a treachery to annihilate Long Haul and his partners as traitors after regaining control. '' Megatron would later be deposed entirely by Shockwave, who was then replaced in turn by Ratbat, but the Constructicons remained operational with the Decepticon army. Long Haul and the others were instrumental in one of Ratbat's schemes, where the Decepticons engaged the Autobots away from the Ark long enough for the Constructicons to sneak on board and recover the deactivated remains of their comrades who had been captured by Omega Supreme.

For unknown reasons, the Constructicons stopped making appearances after the Underbase Saga. It's possible they were deactivated behind the scenes in the Decepticon Civil War or battling the super-powerful Starscream.

Earthforce
''When the Decepticon forces of Earth split, Long Haul and most of the Constructicons chose to work with Megatron instead of Shockwave. While patrolling the site of Megatron's ozone rocket, Long Haul and Mixmaster came across a pair of snooping Autobots. Despite being initially caught off guard, Prowl and Wheeljack quickly disposed of the two Constructicons. Later, at the Enclave, Long Haul was seen talking to Kickback before the "festivities" broke up the quiet little party. When Soundwave led the Decepticon in an attack on Autobot Earthbase, Long Haul took some heat from Swoop's bombing run.

Generation 2
Long Haul made a brief appearance at the climax of the battle with the Swarm, helping the united Autobots and Decepticons construct trenches filled with thermal mines.

Dreamwave comics continuity
The Constructicons' origin in this timeline is unknown, but they were already active as evil Decepticons under Megatron's control when Sentinel Prime was killed in battle, and Optimus Prime rose in his place. Long Haul was first seen working with his fellow Constructicons in readying Cybertron to function as an interstellar "warworld" for Megatron, propelled out of orbit and through space using massive planetary engines they had uncovered. Their efforts were foiled by Grimlock and his commando unit.

Sometime later, the Constructicons created the first set of gestalt programming directives, and tested the directives on themselves to create Devastator. The inevitable spread of combiner technology, however, proved to be more than Cybertron could handle, as the massive super-robots ran the risk of damaging the planet's very infrastructure if left to battle unchecked. As a result, by the time of the Dark Ages these "Special Teams" were banned from operating as a unit in any one faction by the universally agreed upon Crisis Intervention Accord. Long Haul and the Constructicons were the first to break these accords, and become active again as Devastator as part of the Ultracons. It is unknown if other teams later broke the accords as well.

In the modern era, the Constructicons somehow joined Megatron on Earth after the Nemesis left Cybertron millions of years ago. They were operating as Devastator in California battling the Autobots when they suffered serious damage and were believed destroyed. In fact, the Earth Defense Command took custody of their remains for study.

IDW comics continuity
Millions of years ago, after losing their engineering jobs during the automation of manual labor on Cybertron, Long Haul and the Constructicons began associating with the deathsport tournaments in Kaon. Instead of directly participating, Long Haul and his partners put their construction skills to work by building a new arena from scratch before each match. This enabled the gladiators to remain one step ahead of Sentinel Prime's security services, as they never operated in the same spot twice.

The modern activities of Long Haul and the Constructicons remain undisclosed.

Generation 1

 * Long Haul (Constructicon, 1985)
 * Team ID number: 5
 * Japanese ID number: 31




 * Long Haul transforms into a bright green off-road earth-moving dump truck. The dumping tray is articulated, but due to design, the forward lip of the tray (which hangs over the cab of the truck) is not actually connected to the tray itself. In contrast to the majority of truck-mode Transformers toys, he has dual rear wheels, which allows him to roll more easily. He comes with Devastator's chest plate, which can be attached to the top of the truck.


 * In robot mode, Long Haul is one bright green robot with purple arms and black fists, making him quite monochromatic. As with several of his teammates, due to his transformation sequence, Long Haul has a better-than-usual range of articulation for a Generation 1 toy.


 * Long Haul becomes the lower torso of Devastator.


 * "Long Haul" (Constructicon, 1992)




 * This European exclusive version of Long Haul was yellow, but with the darker purple from the original toy instead of the lighter Generation 2 shade, and came with no Devastator parts. This toy was also not officially named, as he came on a card shared by the other Constructicons.

Generation 2

 * Long Haul (Constructicon, 1994)




 * Generation 1 Long Haul is very similar to the European-exclusive release from 1992, being mostly yellow, but the shade of purple is paler, and he has a Generation 2 Decepticon faction sigil and the words 'Decepticon' tampographed onto him. Unlike the 1992 release, he comes with all the parts included with the original 1984 release.

Classics

 * Constructicon Devastator (Multi-pack, 2007)


 * Classics Long Haul is a green redeco of Energon Duststorm and Wideload, and his teammate Classics Hightower, only available as part of the Classics Constructicon Devastator giftset. Now a crane, Long Haul's crane arm extends out and can be fitted with a purple claw accessory. In robot mode the crane forms his left arm, and thus his otherwise-normal robot mode is rather awkward.


 * He can also form a leg or arm to any Energon-series "Powerlinx Combiner" super robot, though his nominal placement is as the left arm of Devastator.