Inferno (BW)


 * Inferno is a Predacon in the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.



Inferno wholeheartedly believes that he is an ant and that Megatron is his queen. Unlike many Predacons, he has no personal ambitions or future plans; everything he does is for the good of the colony and his queen. Luckily for Inferno, many of the tasks his queen assigns him involve burning things - and he likes burning things.

Keeping with his ant mentality, Inferno has absolutely no regard for his own personal safety whatsoever. He is fanatically loyal to Megatron, and as such will use his heavy firepower and incredible strength full-on and take any task given of him, no matter how suicidal. And he'll do it laughing maniacally the entire time, for the glory of the colony.

An alternate-universe incarnation of Inferno was rebuilt into an Autobot. No, really. Another one was rebuilt into a Vehicon.

"FOR THE ROYALTY!!!!"

- Inferno, too many times to source


 * Italian name: Formicula (toyline), Formikon (show)
 * Spanish name: Infierno

Beast Wars

 * Voice Actor: Jim Byrnes (English), Shinichiro Miki (Japanese)

When Inferno's stasis pod crashed to prehistoric Earth, Tarantulas and Blackarachnia immediately set out to claim him as their own. Unfortunately, Inferno had been awakened automatically, having scanned the form of a fire ant. Moreover, his beast mode came to overwhelm his logic circuits, causing Inferno to become wholly convinced that he was an actual fire ant and that his stasis pod was his "colony". Airazor arrived at the scene and was immediately attacked by Inferno and Blackarachnia. During the fight Tarantulas escaped with the stasis pod, which was his real goal, and an enraged Inferno followed. Pursuing the Predacons, Tigatron was able to destroy the stasis pod before Tarantulas was able to get it to his lab. This act put Inferno completely over the edge and he went even crazier (if possible). Before he could finish Tigatron off however, Optimus and Airazor showed up and blew him to bits.



However, Megatron took an immediate shine to the brutish psychopath, proven with the quote "Oooohhh, I like him.", and had him restored, possibly with some mental improvements, and thereafter Inferno was fanatically loyal to Megatron (thinking of him as his "Queen"). A few death threats changed Inferno's words to calling Megatron "The Royalty", although he occasionally backslid. He continued to make references to his ant mentality (for example, calling the Predacon base the colony and Rampage a drone) throughout the series.

In subsequent skirmishes, he killed Tigatron's mate, discovered and recovered the Alien Disk, and was sent to assassinate the treacherous Tarantulas, though the latter ended in temporary defeat while the Vok's Planet Buster ravaged the planet's surface. After the death of Scorponok, Inferno became the Predacon Sub-Commander. He was taken as seriously as Scroponok was.

When Ravage arrived in the Beast Wars and Megatron's troops were scattered, Inferno sacrificed himself by detonating a huge cache of Energon in a failed attempt to defeat the Maximals. Despite his apparent vaporization, he revived yet again, though with several holes in his chassis.

As the Beast Wars conflict escalated, Inferno's importance and intimidation factor declined. When he was sent (alongside Quickstrike and Waspinator) to destroy a protohuman settlement, not only was he beaten severely by the cavemen, he was also accidentally killed when he was caught in the Nemesis' firing range.

His head was used thereafter by the protohumans as a drum.

Beast Wars

 * Inferno (Mega, 1997)
 * Japanese ID number: D-11, VS-11


 * Inferno transforms into a red fire ant. His beast-mode mandibles conceal a missile launcher weapon, plus his abdomen splits open to form spinning blades surrounding a quad-jet thruster.


 * In Japan, Inferno was available both separately and in a "Hell Showdown" vs. pack with Cybershark.


 * This mold was also used to make Antagony.

Beast Wars Metals

 * Metals Inferno (Mega, 1999)
 * Japanese ID number: D-46


 * Metals Inferno is almost wholly identical to the Hasbro Mega-Transmetal Predacon Scavenger, only the name tampograph was changed from "SCAVENGER" to "DESTRON" with the faction sigil. He transforms into a robotic ant with a third "transport mode", a double-drill tank.  The drills end up as his robot-mode hands, and spin using gear-wheels.

Trivia

 * In a bit of little known trivia, Hasbro originally intended Inferno to be the new body for Megatron. According to a 1997 interview conducted by fan HooksX, Bob Forward stated: "For a while there Hasbro was planning to make the Inferno toy the new Megatron. We were going to kill Megatron and bring him back as Inferno."


 * It's unknown as to why Transmetal Scavenger, a toy clearly designed to be an upgraded Inferno, ended up not being Inferno. Maybe Hasbro was just really keen on reclaiming the "Scavenger" trademark.  Another theory is that since there were ant colonies of Inferno clogging store shelves (as Inferno had been shipped in a solid case), retailers wouldn't want even more Infernos, so Hasbro had the name changed.  Ironically, colonies of Scavengers also formed, as the Transmetal was also shipped in a solid case.


 * No one knows exactly how Inferno's beast mode mentality became so dominant; his stasis pod was perfectly intact upon landing, thus ruling out any problems due to damaged circuitry, and Tarantulas' other attempts at reprogramming Maximals caused no such glitch in personality. Perhaps soldier ants simply have such strong instincts that they couldn't be resisted, or perhaps Tarantulas did something different this time around, or perhaps... whatever.  A wizard probably did it.


 * The general life of an ant drone is to eat, defend the colony and... mate with its queen, when "the time comes" (like finding a new base). Whether Megatron agrees to that is another thing. Prrrrrrrrrrrrobably not.


 * Inferno quite clearly gets utterly vaporized in an Energon explosion at the end of Season 2. This is likely because it wasn't known if Beast Wars would be renewed for a third season.  Once they were, Inferno is brought back, looking charred but more or less completely intact.