Sharkticon (G1)


 * 'Sharkticons are Quintesson mass-produced enforcers from the Generation 1 continuity family.



Sharkticons are big, dumb, plentiful and voracious. In short: Perfect soldiers for the Quintessons. It's not unusual for the Quintessons to throw their captives into a big tank full of the feisty nippers after a mock trial just for chuckles. Though individual Sharkticons are not especially durable, like piranha they swarm in en masse, and can devour a full-sized robot in a few seconds with their razor-sharp teeth and claws.

One notable Sharkticon -if not the only notable individual Sharkticon- is Gnaw, friend to the young Autobot Wheelie.


 * Japanese name: Sharktron

Animated Series
Sharkticons were found on the Planet Quintessa, possibly as the planets' original inhabitants, and possibly built by the Quintessons. Regardless of their origin, there were still plenty of Sharkticons around after the planet was destroyed. The Quintessons were cruel masters to the Sharkticons, apparently having not learned their lesson about abusing servants with the Transformers.

During the brief Quintesson-Decepticon alliance which besieged Cybertron, a command team of Sharkticons were deployed to the deeper levels of the Transformer homeworld in order to find the master switch which would shut down all Transformers as part of the Quintesson master plan. Fortunately, the command team were intercepted by Rodimus Prime and Blitzwing who prevented the trio from succeeding in their goal. (Five Faces of Darkness, Part V).

Dreamwave comic continuity
Wild and deadly, with a voracious appetite for energon, packs of Sharkticons are known to prowl Cybertron since at least the Great Shutdown, though their exact origins are unknown. One such pack attacked Shockwave shortly after he was reawakened, and only the intervention of Herald of Unicron Scourge saved his life. As thanks, Shockwave blasted his savior and used him as the basis for his twisted experiments. Gee.

Around the same time, a lone Sharkticon identifying itself as "Gnaw" was befriended by the Autobot survivalist Wheelie, and when his young companion joined the Autobot resistance movement led by Hot Rod, so did he.

Generation 1

 * Gnaw (Sharkticon, 1986)


 * Gnaw/Sharkticon transforms into a rotund, squat-limbed shark-like monster. His beast-mode tail becomes a mace-weapon for robot mode, and is also one of the items that are missing from many Sharkticons on the secondary market. Because of its fictional appearance as mass armies, it is one of the few Generation 1 army builder toys, and is notably costly to do so.


 * Though the toy is labeled as "Gnaw", much like the Scrapmetal toy, it can be considered either the individual character or one of the countless others of its type.

Trivia

 * In Japan, the Sharkticon is considered an "Animatron", the Japanese name for the Predacons. It was also not available as part of the normal retail assortment, despite the semi-prominent fictional appearance. He was instead a mail-away offer.


 * When asked about the Sharkticon design in an interview, Floro Dery's reply was, "Sharkticon is a shark." He's seen some pretty weird ass sharks.