Frenzy (G1)


 * Frenzy is a Decepticon Recordicon from the Generation 1 continuity family.



For Frenzy it's not about any "Decepticon cause," it's not about any quantifiable cause, or goal, or purpose at all. It's about violence, fear, destruction, and mayhem. Frenzy lives to fight. He lusts to destroy with an intensity that borders on insanity. War is his fuel, his oxygen. Despite his small stature he'll lead a charge into battle against robots many times his size, screaming for destruction with every microchip of his being. This single-minded obsession makes him a hard bot to associate with personally, but a frightening asset on the battlefield. His partner and brother, Rumble, is only too eager to back him up. Frenzy's manic attack style and his "battle cry" (a sonic attack produced by special drums in his torso that can severely disrupt electrical flows, resulting in all sorts of mechanical malfunctions and balance issues) make him difficult to get close to in combat, but cool and measured reaction to his wild ragings is usually the most effective strategy.

"Yeah, let's kick tailgate!"

- Frenzy, bravely preparing to blindly attack Devastator


 * Nickname: Maddog
 * French-Canadian name: Frénétik
 * Italian name: Tartar
 * Hungarian name: Tomboló (Raver/Rampager)
 * Portuguese name (Brazil comics): Frenético
 * Portuguese name (Portugal comics): Frenesim

Generation 1


When the crew of the Nemesis boarded the Ark four million years ago, Frenzy was among the warriors who took the fight to the Autobots. Their battle was interrupted when Optimus Prime threw that fateful switch and crashed the ship into the planet below, leaving all on board inactive until the volcano they crashed into exploded in 1984, shaking the repair systems back online. Frenzy and the other Decepticons abandoned the Ark immediately, and began making plans to claim the planet's vast resources. They began by disassembling a nuclear power plant as raw materials for a vast fortress on an Oregon cliffside. They then kidnapped a local mechanic (and potential friend of the Autobots) named Sparkplug Witwicky to devise a method of transforming Earth fuel into a form they could properly intake. The Autobots came to rescue their friend, and so Rumble and Frenzy confronted the enemy. Rumble attempted to disable their foes with some seismic tremors, but the burly Brawn fought through the shaky ground to punch out the "junk punk" Decepticon. Enraged, Frenzy used a sonic blast to disable the Autobot, and carried his brother back to the fortress for repairs. On the way, though, they encountered Gears and Spider-Man infiltrating the base, and were tripped up by some webbing, taking them out of action.

Frenzy and Rumble were repaired several days later, after Shockwave arrived and took control of the Decepticons from Megatron. Though he didn't particularly care which master he had to serve, Frenzy was still a robot of action. Shockwave's slow and methodical approach to conquest grated on Frenzy's nerves and, after several days of inaction in a hastily-occupied Blackrock aerospace plant, Frenzy was climbing the walls. He threw a temper tantrum in front of their human slaves after overhearing on the news that G.B. Blackrock had designed a new "anti-robot cannon" to take back his plant. Shockwave nearly bit his head off for the insubordination (or rather, he would've had Buzzsaw do it), but Starscream stepped in and suggested a day out for mayhem and carnage would be good for troop morale. However, their attack on Blackrock was interrupted not only by Jazz and Wheeljack (who had recently made a protection deal with the business magnate in exchange for fuel), but also the neophyte robot hunter named Circuit Breaker. Things got too hot for the Decepticons, and they fled.

It got a little confusing to be a low-ranking Decepticon for a few months after that. Shockwave was tossed into a bog by Optimus Prime, and Soundwave briefly took command before Megatron returned as well. This led into a period where Soundwave, the cassettes, and Seekers would sometimes serve Shockwave, and other times Megatron, often without even informing the respective commanders that they were pulling "double shifts". ''Frenzy in particular got the short end of the stick when he was ordered to accompany Shockwave to the Decepticon's old fortress. Supposedly their mission was "salvage", but Frenzy clearly saw Shockwave was on edge because of Megatron's rumored return. Frenzy was sick of dealing with this balancing act, and really wanted a chance to hit something. He was given a chance, because Buster Witwicky was also spoiling for a fight. The young human had been given a robot suit by Wheeljack and Ratchet so that he could protective himself. Looking for a chance to prove himself after Prime tried to shut down the project, Buster came to the old fortress and spotted Frenzy. He shot the Decepticon in the back, but even the littlest Decepticon could easily shrug off Buster's onboard weaponry. Only by employing an echo cell Wheeljack had installed did Buster survive, reflecting Frenzy's own sonic power back at him. Still, that HAD to be humiliating. ''

On a subsequent mission, Frenzy accompanied Megatron and several others in an attack on the unguarded Ark. Unfortunately, they ran into the Autobots' new defense system, by the name of Omega Supreme. Frenzy was one of a half dozen Decepticons who didn't walk away from that fight, and was taken prisoner by the Autobots for an extended period of time. He was eventually recovered by the Constructicons who, under Ratbat's orders, used a major Decepticon assault on the Autobots as cover to sneak aboard the Ark and retrieve their fallen comrades.

Frenzy's revival did him little good, however, as he remained largely unheard from for the next few years.

Generation 2
Frenzy was among Bludgeon's warriors when Megatron resumed command of the Decepticons, and began working alongside the Autobots as well once Megatron acknowledged the threat posed by the second generation Cybertronians. He was onboard the Warworld's bridge when Jhiaxus attacked, expositing about Starscream's treachery and how the Cybertronians knew all the weak spots to target. He apparently took an escape pod down to the surface, because he was seen on Earth during the fight with the Swarm. In final combat, Wheeljack cooked up a way to supercharge Frenzy's sonic powers and fend off their attacker. The feedback apparently overloaded his body, destroying him.

Cartoon continuity

 * Voice actor: Frank Welker (US), Ken Shiroyama (Japan-See note) Katsumi Suzuki ("Attack of the Autobots" and "Day of the Machines" only)



Frenzy first saw duty on Earth shortly after Cybertron was pulled into Earth's orbit. He was performing some menial work in the Decepticons' base, and voiced his discontent with the workload, requesting Skywarp's job instead. When Skywarp stomped on Frenzy in return, Frenzy threw the Seeker into a wall, after which he was pummeled in the face by Rumble.

Frenzy proceeded to accompany Rumble upon occasion during missions. He also traded in his "battle cry" for a pair of piledrivers exactly like Rumble's, and talked practically the same way. The two of them were part of Megatron's attack on New York, where they faced off against a group of Autobots in Central Park. Frenzy later tried to ram a train into Prowl and Hound, but his vehicle was blown apart before he reached them.

Megatron would later take Frenzy and Rumble with him to help take control of a fleet of oil tankers by using circuit linker cards connected to TORQ III. Frenzy was then assigned to defend the force field generator around the oil platform where the Decepticons were emptying the tankers, but failed in this task when he was distracted by Skyfire taunting him, letting Hound sneak up and destroy the generator.

Frenzy and Rumble later accompanied Soundwave on a mission to secure the Negavator for the Decepticons. They failed, but not before A) Frenzy single-handedly tackled Optimus Prime and B) Rumble nearly disintegrated him with that oh so indiscriminate Negavator. All in all, a very interesting day for Frenzy.

Frenzy can be briefly seen aboard Megatron's drone-plane-mothership griffin, driving it alongside Rumble.

In 2005, Frenzy was involved in the assault on Autobot City. He joined Rumble, Ratbat and Ravage in preventing Blaster's distress call to the Moonbases. After swarming over Blaster and Perceptor like scraplets, however, Blaster unleashed his Mini-Cassettes to even the score, and Frenzy got into a fistfight with Eject.

After Megatron was defeated, the Decepticons fled Earth aboard Astrotrain and Starscream tossed their injured commander into space, a fight for control of the army broke out. Soundwave called the Constructicons inferior, Hook called him uncrazamatic and, well... it got ugly. Rumble and Frenzy popped out just as the Constructicons began to merge into Devastator (slag, Astrotrain is roomy) and turned their piledrivers on the floor to upset their combination ritual (slag, Astrotrain is sturdy). This Decepticon Civil War was shortlived, however, as Starscream assumed command by the time they reached Cybertron.

Dreamwave comics continuity
Frenzy was one of the earliest recruits into Megatron's Decepticons over nine million years ago, apparently associated with Soundwave and his "Cassetticons" from the very beginning. Frenzy was possibly involved with Shockwave's major assault on Iacon, shortly after Optronix rose to become Optimus Prime. In later years, he and the other cassettes joined Soundwave under Shockwave's command during the Dark Ages, as part of the main Decepticon faction.

Four million years ago, Frenzy was onboard the Nemesis when Megatron and its crew attempted to hijack the Ark, and crashed on the planet Earth to spend millions of years in stasis lock. In 1984, a volcanic eruption woke the sleeping Transformers, and they reactivated to carry on their war for nearly a decade on our planet. We know exactly bupkis about this time, so let's move on. The Decepticons were eventually defeated and captured by the Autobots, who placed Frenzy and the others on-board a spacecraft called the Ark II which they planned to fly back to Cybertron. The craft was sabotaged, however, and exploded on its maiden flight, leaving the world believing the Transformers dead when in fact they had plummeted into the Arctic waters.

Many Transformers were salvaged by the human arms dealer known as Lazarus, who wanted to turn them into Weapons of Mass Destruction for the highest bidder. Frenzy was not seen among Lazarus's stock, though, implying he was too damaged to activate at the time, or was only recovered by the Decepticons later after they regained control of their facilities.

Soon after the Decepticons reorganized and began fighting the Autobots again, both sides were confronted with an unexpected visit from Cybertron -- Shockwave and Ultra Magnus working side-by-side in a unified Cybertronian government. Quickly dispatching Megatron, Shockwave demanded the loyalty of the remaining troops from the Nemesis. Back on Cybertron, he used Rumble and Frenzy to further his own purposes by freeing the psychopathic Stunticons from the detention facility, distracting Magnus and the Wreckers. Starscream was also making schemes, though, and intervened on their mission to extract the Combaticons as well. With Soundwave's assent, Frenzy and the rest of the Nemesis crew agreed to follow Starscream back to Earth and pillage and plunder its energy resources.

Things didn't quite go as planned. Starscream's "brigade" and the remaining Autobots posted on Earth each imposed heavy losses on each other, and Frenzy was one of the Decepticons taken prisoner aboard the Ark. They were freed by Bruticus, but ran smack into Sunstorm: exposure to his energon radiation quickly took Frenzy and friends off-line once more. They were quickly taken back into Autobot custody. In order to deal with Sunstorm, however, the Autobots were forced to deal with Starscream, and he bartered for his troops' release at 50% power levels in exchange for his help. That was meager compensation, though, and so when Megatron made contact with Soundwave shortly thereafter, the Decepticons jumped at the chance to mutiny against Starscream. Frenzy was last seen sliding confortably back into Megatron's command.

Devil's Due G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers comics continuity
Frenzy was one of the many Transformers recovered from the crashed Ark by Cobra. He was repaired and retrofitted by Doctor Mindbender, who proudly displayed him, Soundwave, and his fellow Mini-Cassettes to Destro. Frenzy was released by Soundwave, along with Laserbeak, Rumble, Ratbat, and Ravage, during an attack on the SPS Center. Frenzy was the first of the Battle Android Troopers to fall when Sci-Fi fired a laser through his head. His body was taken into custody by G.I. Joe.

IDW comics continuity
Millions of years ago, Frenzy and Rumble were working together as "industrial equipment" on mining outpost C-12, harvesting energon veins for Cybertron. Their services were suddenly declared "not necessary" by the Senate, however, as the mines were being retrofitted to require only automated workers. When Megatron took violent action against the Senator delivering the news, a riot broke out and Frenzy and Rumble joined in the melee. They and the other surviving members of the uprising were taken into custody after a brief skirmish, and prepped for transport to a penal facility known as "The Rig". Rumble broke out of his chains and attacked the guards on their transport shuttle, prompting Megatron and the other prisoners to join in. They hijacked the ship and took it to ground in the bad part of Kaon, fleeing into the underground.

Staying together, Frenzy, Rumble, and Megatron hooked up with a deathsport tournament that had been growing under the direction of a robot named Clench. In only a short period of time, Clench was "retired" and Megatron assumed control of the deathsport, with Rumble and Frenzy as his top lackeys. As his power grew, so did Megatron's ambition, and he forged an alliance with Soundwave, middleman for the corrupt Senator Ratbat who was feeding information and technology to the gladiators. Once Soundwave was firmly in Megatron's camp instead of Ratbat's, the up-and-coming "Decepticon" leader began planning to take the games out into the streets.

As part of the endgame, Frenzy and Rumble were modified to lose their vehicle modes and instead fit inside Soundwave's chest compartment. When Sentinel Prime and his security services team raided the arena and took the gladiators prisoner, then, they played a key role in the Trojan Horse plan. Soundwave received clemency due to his Senate connections, and was given free roam of the facilities. When the word was given, Soundwave unleashed Frenzy, Rumble and his other cassettes and chaos reigned through the Kaon Council chambers. The other newly-minted Decepticons were released, given weapons and badges, and went out to lay waste to the city. Frenzy and Rumble were present for Megatron's final beatdown on Sentinel Prime.

Frenzy's activities over the next few million years are unknown. He was apparently not with Soundwave in 1984 when the communications officer was mode-locked and trapped on Earth for decades by Bludgeon and his minions. Frenzy did eventually reconnect with Soundwave alongside Megatron and the Decepticon detachment on Earth when they declared open warfare on the human populace. When the Decepticons were faced with hundreds of armed troops on the Great Lawn of New York City's Central Park, Soundwave unleashed Frenzy to single-handedly annihilate the entire human detachment.

Hearts of Steel continuity
Frenzy was guarding the borders of the Decepticon factory, when Jacob Lee Bonaventure arrived. At Bonaventure's request, Frenzy escorted him to Starscream. (Frenzy is not named outright, so he could be Rumble instead, but to be consistent with his portrayal in comic books, we've assumed he's Frenzy.)

Generation 1

 * Frenzy/Laserbeak (Mini-Cassettes, 1984/1985)


 * His mold was also used to create Rumble, and is the basis of Enemy.


 * Frenzy (Cassettron, 1985/1986/1987)
 * Japanese ID number: 18, D-58, D-103


 * For the Japanese market, Frenzy was packaged individually with a clear-plastic cassette case. He made available for three years straight, from the original series through Scramble City and finally again during Headmasters.


 * Frenzy/Ratbat (Mini-Cassettes, 1984/1985/1986)


 * For 1986's Hasbro line, Frenzy's pack-mate was changed to Ratbat, and for some of the Frenzy/Ratbat sets the weapons were gold chrome colored, changed from the silver chrome used previously. Much later 1986 releases of Frenzy also used black plastic for his toes instead of die-cast metal, and the stickers on his shins were removed.

Generation 2

 * Frenzy (Go-Bot, 1995)


 * Generation 2 saw the return of Frenzy as a redeco of the Go-Bot Blowout, transforming into a Porsche 959 sports car in purple and gray. He features through-axle wheels for super-fast rolling on smooth surfaces, and is designed to work with most "Hot Wheels" and "Matchbox" car sets, despite being made by competitor companies.


 * This mold was redecoed for Generation 2 Go-Bots Megatron, then later to make Robots in Disguise Hot Shot.

Trivia



 * The US cartoon accidentally reversed the colors of the two Decepticon cassettes, portraying Rumble as blue and Frenzy as red. (See FIBRIR.)


 * Sunbow casting documents indicate that "Frenzy" was originally considered as a name for the Terrorcon, Rippersnapper, but was dropped - presumably because that name was already in use.


 * According to the cardbacks of Generation 2 figures, the Go-Bots version of Frenzy was originally planned to be in red... which would've just added more fuel to the FIBRIR/FIRRIB debates.


 * According to his toy's bio, he "Can roll his drums to produce high-pitch, grating sound of 200dB." This is about 100 times as loud as the famous Krakatoa volcanic eruption, which was audible 3,000 miles away, and is actually louder than the theoretical limit for noise in a normal Earth atmosphere.