Constructicon (G1)


 * The Constructicons are Decepticons in the Generation 1 continuity family.



The Constructicons are the Decepticons' foremost designers, engineers and builders. They are also particularly notable for their status as the very first combining sub-group of Transformers. The individual members of the team are:


 * Scrapper, (usually) the leader, a modest but masterful designer - front-load loader.


 * Bonecrusher, a destructive berserker - bulldozer (and later front-end loader).


 * Scavenger, who has some major self-esteem issues - power shovel.


 * Mixmaster, a manic and somewhat crazed chemist - cement mixer.


 * Hook, a snobbishly perfectionist engineer - crane.


 * Long Haul, a hard-working transporter who longs to be on the battlefield - dump truck (and later crane).

They are able to merge their bodies and minds together to form the gigantic Devastator.

In several continuities, there are more Constructicons in addition to or in lieu of the primary six. The named ones include:


 * Gravedigger, a Long Haul lookalike - dump truck.


 * RoadHauler, an Autobot ex-Constructicon - crane.


 * Hightower, a stand-in for Mixmaster and Hook whose personality is a merger of the two - crane.

In the Universe continuity, a Micromaster Constructicon team includes Buckethead and Quickmix. Since Universe characters come from all across the multiverse, these may be two more G1 Constructicons as well.


 * Japanese name: Buildron
 * Hungarian name (Marvel Comics): Szerkesztettek ("The Constructed Ones")
 * Hungarian name (Movie, second dub): Konsztruktorok ("Constructors")
 * Italian name: Excavators
 * Portuguese name (Brazil comic): Constructors
 * Russian TV dub name: Конструктиконы ("Constructicon")

Marvel Comics continuity


Seeking to bolster the size of his forces on Earth in 1985, Decepticon Commander Shockwave arranged for the construction of six new Decepticon bodies, which were then infused with life by the power of the Creation Matrix, tapped from the head of the imprisoned Optimus Prime. Thus, the Constructicons were born, and were immediately put to work building a massive radio transmission dish that Soundwave used to beam a message to Cybertron. When the Autobots attempted to interfere, the Constructicons revealed their hidden power and merged into Devastator to fight them off, allowing the message to successfully go through.

The Autobots, intrigued by Devastator's unique combining power, attempted to replicate it with the construction of Omega Supreme. However, Omega was composed of only three components, unlike the six Constructicons that made up Devastator. The Autobots, needing additional data on combiner technology, conducted a raid on the Decepticon base, luring out Devastator so that they could study him further. This led to the construction of the new combiner team, the Aerialbots, capable of forming Superion, who Devastator battled during the Transformers' adventure alongside G.I. Joe.

''The Constructicons were later charged with hunting down Buster Witwicky, and again when the time-travelling Galvatron co-opted their services to build a gigantic laser cannon. ''

The team's special talents were not required again until they and the Predacons stole large amounts of rocket fuel and raw materials, with which the Constructicons rebuilt the Decepticons' mobile island headquarters as a spaceship. With the entire Earth-based Decepticon army aboard the ship, under the command of Ratbat, they attacked an Autobot congregation on the moon. While the battle raged, the Constructicons penetrated the Ark and recovered the deactivated bodies of several Decepticons defeated in an earlier clash with Omega Supreme.

''In an alternate 2008, Mixmaster was briefly indicated to have ascended to leadership of the Constructicons. ''

Earthforce
''At one point the team had lost the ability to combine, and attempted to rebuild Devastator as a singular, separate entity. The Autobots Ironhide and Bumblebee arrived on the island to investigate, and Ironhide was able to bypass the security grid and plant explosives to destroy the site, and Devastator with it. ''

The main Constructicon team worked for Megatron during the Decepticon Civil War, and Mixmaster happily dealt Syk to everyone - happily until Soundwave happily blackmailed him over it...

Timelines Classics comics
The Constructicons were among the troops that Megatron covertly rebuilt on Earth after Bludgeon's defeat and exile. Both Hook and Mixmaster were curiously absent from the team, with the enigmatic Hightower in their place. It's unclear why this was, but Hightower himself joked about stripping enough spare parts off of Grimlock to "build a new Hook."

Cartoon continuity


The Constructicons' origins are clouded. They were reportedly on Cybertron millions of years ago, though the accounts jell poorly. When Rodimus Prime took a near-death trip into the Matrix of Leadership, he saw a vision of Megatron's creation - by eight(!) apparent Constructicons. But according to Omega Supreme, at the time that Megatron was building up his Decepticon army, the Constructicons were not Decepticons at all (though they were seen bearing the Decepticon symbol). They were the peaceful creators of the beautiful Crystal City on Cybertron, and Omega was both its guardian and their friend. However, Megatron secretly used the Robo-Smasher to reprogram the Constructicons into Decepticons, then he had them send Omega away on a fool's errand so they could demolish Crystal City.



The enraged Omega tracked the Constructions down and reprogrammed them again, intending to return them to their previous state. But as the group returned to rebuild Crystal City, they attacked Omega while his back was turned. Megatron's programming was not to be undone, and he had also given them the ability to merge into Devastator. As they wrestled with Omega in their combined form, the Robo-Smasher latched onto Omega Supreme's head. Omega was able to fend off both his attackers, but his mental brush with the Robo-Smasher left him filled only with hate for the Constructicons, whom he pursued across the galaxy for millions of years. While this tale was only conveyed second-hand, some details would be corroborated in conversation between Omega and the Constructicons in the modern day.



In 1984, the Constructicons bolstered Megatron's forces on Earth (and Megatron referred to "the time we spent building them in these caverns," adding to the origin ambiguities). Scrapper designed a machine to transfer the other Decepticons' offensive powers to Megatron. While Megatron battled Optimus Prime, holding the attention of the Autobots, the Constructicons invaded the Ark to destroy Teletraan I. Unfortunately for them, the Ark was protected by the Dinobots, but by merging into Devastator, they became more than a match for their prehistoric foes. The return of the other Autobots and the discovery of Megatron's deception spelled the end of the battle, however. Hound distracted Devastator with a gigantic hologram, and Optimus Prime blasted the giant at just the right spot to force the Constructicons to disengage. They and the other Decepticons were then forced into a river of lava.

The Constructicons all managed to survive their magma bath mostly unscathed, except possibly for Mixmaster, who developed a manic personality and a fondness for repeating his words, which he had not displayed before. Regardless, the team was soon back at work again, performing such varied tasks as assisting in Megatron's reconstruction of New York City (which also involved turning Optimus Prime's scrapped remains into a robotic alligator) and building a device to paralyze Transformers in their vehicular modes, as well as another to crush them.

The Constructicons' history of mental manipulation continued when the Autobots planted dominator discs on them, which the Autobots activated when the Constructicons merged into Devastator. He instantly began fighting against the Decepticons, and Autobots took him back to their base. However, Megatron was secretly aware of the whole plot, even spying on the Autobots through the Constructicons' own eyes. Meanwhile, the Constructicons contentedly helped fix the battle-damaged Autobots and then accompanied them on a raid against the Decepticons, who were trying to drill into the Earth's core. During the battle, Megatron used a "control switch" to deactivate the discs, and as Devastator turned back against the Autobots, Wheeljack boosted the discs' power. This drove Devastator mad, and he began attacking everyone indiscriminately. The only thing that brought him back to sanity was the threat of the Decepticons' drill, which was seconds away from destroying the planet. He dove into the drilled hole and wrenched the bit to a standstill, saving the world.

Afterwards, the Constructicons returned to their Decepticon roles, but treachery remained a running theme. Upon learning of the Autobot Grapple's solar power tower design, Scrapper and the Constructicons pretended to have defected from the Decepticons in order to help him and Hoist construct it. But upon its completion, they turned it and the two Autobots over to Megatron. In a demonstration of Scrapper's motto, Grapple and Hoist were imprisoned in the very structure of their tower.

Later, when the other Decepticons began to suffer from Cybertonium degeneration, the Constructions, apparently working fine, took delivery of a shipment of the mineral via the Space Bridge, and as Devastator, failed to stop Spike Witwicky and Carly from getting by them and traveling to Cybertron.

When Omega Supreme learned that the Constructicons were active on Earth, he arrived on the planet and joined Optimus Prime's forces, biding his time until he could face his former friends again. That chance arose when the Constructions were discovered mining an asteroid, and Omega was dispatched to investigate. Ignoring Optimus Prime's orders, Omega Supreme engaged the Constructicons, and in the battle, split the asteroid in two, revealing that it was an egg of sorts, incubating a monstrous alien creature, which promptly attacked San Francisco while Omega, ignoring the plight of the city, continued to battle the Constructicons. Optimus Prime then entered the fray, convincing Omega that saving the city was more important than revenge, and forcing the Constructicons to retreat.

The building skills of the Constructicons remained in demand; other creations around this time included an army of drone Transformers created from common Earth cars ; various constructs for Blitzwing, including a throne constructed from deactivated Autobots and a massive maze ; and a giant ruby-powered laser cannon. It's unclear how unique their combining ability actually was (especially if Devastator had been around since the Golden Age), but their gestalt-monopoly on Earth was undone with the creation of the Stunticons and their Autobot counterparts, the Aerialbots. These were soon followed by the Protectobots and Combaticons, the latter even defeating Devastator in battle as their merged form, Bruticus.

Still, twenty years later in the Earth year 2005, Devastator was the Decepticons' primary weapon in the Great Battle of Autobot City, tearing through the defenses and walls of the city and battling the Dinobots once more. On the return trip to Cybertron, it was Bonecrusher who advocated the "survival of the fittest" policy that saw many wounded Decepticons ejected from the shuttle, among them Megatron, prompting Scrapper to vote for the Constructions as the new leaders of the Decepticons, arguing that Devastator was the most powerful robot. Hook took great offense to the notion that Soundwave would make a better leader than them. In the end, Starscream became the new leader of the Decepticons, and the Constructicons, as a sign of no hard feelings, provided the music by playing horns at his coronation. Starscream, desperate to get on with the ceremony, eventually shot their horns, showing that he still had hard feelings. How they were able to play the horns, as a number of them don't have mouths, is unknown.

In the remainder of this year and throughout 2006, the Constructions maintained a smaller, but still present, role in the Decepticon army, lending their talents to the Decepticon/Quintesson alliance by constructing Trypticon out of a populated human city in only one night. Later, they built a planetary engine on an asteroid and battled on the planet Eurhythma, aided in the overthrow of Paradron  and took part in an attack on Japan. Although brief, the Constructicons even played a part in the battle for the Plasma Energy Chamber in 2007, seen firing on Autobots with the Terrorcons.

Origin inconsistency
As seen above, the cartoon presented several conflicting origins for the Constructicons. The series bible described the Constructicons as having "no explained origin," but this only seemed to promote variant portrayals.

A straight reading of the "facts" appears to go: The Constructicons started out Decepticons, built Megatron, left the Decepticons, built the Crystal City, were Robo-Smashed back into Decepticons, ran around the galaxy for umpteen million years, ended up on Earth, and were (re)built by Megatron. However, there are issues with that narrative:
 * There was no hint in Omega's flashback that they had ever been Decepticons before; their treachery was entirely unexpected. On the other hand, they did have Decepticon symbols throughout.  Another possibility is that the Constructicons had built Megatron without realizing how evil he would be, which allows their early insignia to be chalked up as the animation error they most likely are.
 * Even if Megatron's claim of "building" them just means "rebuilding," their Crystal City flashback showed them anachronistically already in their Terran vehicle forms, so what would he have rebuilt them into? On the other hand, that's just one more reason to doubt the veracity of Omega's flashback.

Making the issue either simpler or more complicated, depending on your view, the unreliable narrator rationale could negate much of the Constructicons' supposed history, between the vengeance-driven Omega's tale and the tripping Rodimus' near-death mystical vision. But the real-world truth of the matter is that different writers and haphazard animators gave us a mix of possibilities with no clear canon answer.

Headmasters Cartoon
The Constructicons are not shown doing much individually in the Headmasters animated series other than acting as infantry for Galvatron. Their combined form of Devastator, however, is shown with much more frequency. In the first episode, Devastator is defeated by Optimus Prime with a single jump-kick to the back.

Zone Cartoon
Devastator was among the nine Decepticon Generals assembled by the villainous Violen Jygar. Devastator met his end via underground magma, having apparently lost his resistance to it sometime after Heavy Metal War.

Dreamwave comics continuity


Eight million years before the modern era, the Constructicons were tasked by Megatron to activate Cybertron's planetary engines. When Megatron disappeared into the depths of the planet fighting Optimus Prime, Starscream temporarily took command and had Scrapper prepare a process for the resurfacing of Cybertron, which would transform it into a mobile war-world. Scrapper cautioned against such an action, but Starscream ignored him, and prevented him from stopping it when the process was underway. . After this, the Constructicons worked on the theory of mass intellect, and succeeded in stabilizing the neural-meshing, creating Devastator. However, the process was not as efficient as the Constructicons believed, as the technical geniuses of the Constructicons did not translate into Devastator, causing him to suffer from a serious "dumbing down" problem. Despite the drawbacks, Megatron was impressed with Devastator's destructive potential. Besides, being intelligent and powerful was overrated in Megatron's opinion. When Megatron and Optimus Prime were thought to have died in an early test of the space bridge transport system, and the Autobots and Decepticons splintered into several smaller factions, the Constructicons broke the treaty that had downgraded the combining teams to non-combat status by siding with Ratbat's Ultracons and battling Defensor.

It is apparent that the Constructicons were not aboard the Ark when it crashed on Earth four million years before the modern era, but they did eventually find their way to Earth and joined Megatron's forces there after they awoke in 1984. All the Transformers were rendered inactive in the explosion of the Ark II in 1999, but when they reactivated in 2001, Devastator was the main weapon in Megatron's attack on San Francisco. Rampaging through the city, he battled and defeated Superion, but was defeated by Optimus Prime who blasted the titan point-blank in the face, sending him plunging into the ocean. His remains were recovered by the Earth Defense Command, and dissected and studied in their underground base.

IDW comics continuity
The Constructicons started out as the builders of the Forge, the arena for the illegal gladiatorial combats that Clench ran, and continued in that role when Megatron took over. They did not move the parts for the arena between venues, but rather built them on site, using any materials availableand that included empties. After Megatron began his preparations for the Decepticon insurrection, the Constructicons turned their talents to modifying the gladiators into warriors.

They eventually joined Megatron on Earth, and were modified into their familiar Earth modes. They enjoy causing mayhem, and also apparently now have obtained combiner technology to merge into Devastator.

Generation 1

 * Constructions (1985)
 * Bonecrusher
 * Hook
 * Long Haul
 * Mixmaster
 * Scavenger
 * Scrapper


 * The Constructicons were first released in 1985. They were sold individually as carded figures at the $6 price point, and also as a six-figure gift set.  Each carded figure came with one or to pieces of combiner kibble for Devastator, which could also attach to the figure's vehicle mode to form an attack mode.


 * The individual figures feature limited articulation, typical of smaller G1 figures; most can only swivel their arms at the shoulder, and cannot move their legs at all. Each came with a small laser pistol for the individual robot to use in addition to various Devastator pieces.


 * In parts of Europe, the G1 editions of the team were released in yellow instead of green.


 * The original Constructicons have the dubious honor of being the most heavily bootlegged Transformers toys in existence. Individually carded and packaged sets have persisted at Walgreens and other market six stores for years, both in the original green and purple and in entirely new decos, often without the kibble required for their combined form.  Occasionally they receive delightfully creative new names like Building, Feeding, Picking, and Sanitation.


 * Devastator (Action Master, 1990)


 * Constructicons (1992)
 * In 1992, the team was released in Europe with some changes. This version had yellow instead of green, had the soft plastic parts changed to grey, and lacked the combiner kibble as well as the metal pegs on Scavenger and Hook used for combination. Also, these toys had no official name, as the blister card that all six members used identified them only as "Constructicons".

Generation 2

 * Constructicons (1993)
 * The Generation 2 release was a redeco of the original G1 molds. Sold individually on cards, they came came in either yellow or orange; the latter was only available at Kay-Bee Toys. The G2 release of Mixmaster doesn't include the single-tabbed missile.

Classics

 * Constructicon Devastator (2006)


 * A redeco of Constructicon Maximus, the combined form is known as Constructicon Devastator. The set is composed of Scrapper, Bonecrusher, Long Haul, Scavenger, and Hightower.  Wal-Mart exclusive, 2007.