G1 Canadian Scourge

One of these guys first appeared a few posts ago when I talked about the "C-309 Godbomber" that my buddy "M" had bought.  Also included was a G1 Canadian Scourge.

Definitely a classic G1 piece, though not one of my favourites.  I think that goes back to how traumatizing the movie was to me in the way that they killed off so many
of the original characters…..hey, I was just a little kid after all.

Scourge is Galvatron's implacable tracker and leader of his own group of hunters, the deadly Sweeps. 

TFTM

He was created by Unicron from the remains of a dead Decepticon.

Unicron "reformatted" Shrapnel into a Sweep to serve his new master, Scourge (formerly Thundercracker; centre character).

Immensely powerful like all the Unicronian Decepticons, arrogance is his only true weakness. Despite being quite powerful in his own right, Scourge generally acts as a near subordinate to Cyclonus, and, despite his leadership of the Sweeps, is generally content to take orders from others.

• Scourge (Decepticon Jet, 1986)
  • Japanese ID number: D-71
  • Accessories: "Disintegrator Ray", "Laser Blaster"

Scourge has a beard and a mustache and transforms into a Cybertronic hovercraft. On  early releases, the blue on the center of Scourge's alt mode was paint. This was changed to two stickers for later releases. The stickers on his ankles tend to get damaged through normal transformation.

Scourge's design has some oddities to it other than just him being a beardo. His head mounted gun (the "Disintegrator Ray") is on a standardised 5mm post hole, but his fist holes are smaller — so his Laser Blaster and Disintegrator ray aren't interchangeable. Scourge also has knees. He's got no reason to have knees, they're not part of his transformation or really useful for anything, but he still has them. Maybe he could use them for flying poses in robot mode.

deviantART.com

Just a little bit more threatening than the front box artwork.

NOTE : There was another version of Scourge released the following year as a   
              Targetmaster.

• Scourge (Targetmaster, 1987)
• Accessories: "Fracas" Targetmaster "Incendiary Cannon", "Rocket Booster"

Targetmaster Scourge w/ Fracas

Targetmaster Scourge

A retool of the original Scourge toy, Targetmaster Scourge's has larger fistholes to accommodate Fracas, a grey and black Nebulon that transforms into his gun, and lacks the blue handgun that the original comes with. The Targetmaster has a larger hole in his head, along with a larger post on the head-mounted cannon.

His handgun was replaced with Fracas. 

This retooling made his weapons interchangeable, allowing Scourge to wear Fracas on his head and to hold his "Rocket Booster" (the new name for the "Disintegrator ray") in his hand.

Some releases of Scourge came with a piece of a four-part The Transformers: The Movie poster with glow-in-the-dark elements.

1986 Decipher The Decepticon Sweepstakes Posters

In 1986 Hasbro began including glow in the dark posters with many Transformers toys as part of the lead up to Transformers: The Movie.

Strength = 8         Intelligence = 8          Speed        = 9   Endurance = 8
Rank      = 9          Courage     = 9         Firepower   = 8   Skill           = 8

As I said at the start, not one of my favourites, but then again, not a lot of the new characters they created in the TF Movie really appealed to me.  It has taken this long for me to just start coming around to Hot Rod/Rodimus.  

I don't really think they did a good job developing these new characters in the cartoons, but I think by then, it was the start of a temporary decline in the TF franchise so they may not have cared as much.

As a toy, in comparing both modes, I have to admit that it is very good; that meaning it has two very distinct alternate modes.  Scourge's vehicle mode certainly stands out as well as it's robot mode with wings and old Cybertronian face sculpt.

In the end though…..it is certainly no Thundercracker.