Tales Of The Beast Hunters - Chapter 10: Smokescreen

Tales of the Beast Hunters - Chapter 10

With Bumblebee injured and Bulkhead near total shutdown, it's up to Smokescreen to discover where these new and dangerous Predacons are coming from. Luckily, the Autobot trickster is also a capable spy, and soon he finds himself creeping through the shadows of a remote Decepticon lab. At first, he thinks the place is abandoned. Then he discovers a room lined with large glass chambers, each one filled with a strange, murky liquid, and the vague outline of a beastly machine. Satisfied that he's discovered exactly what Optimus Prime needs to know, he turns to leave, only to find Shockwave blocking his way. "You should not have come here," the Decepticon scientist says, raising his laser cannon.

That Time Smokescreen Became A Decepticon

I've said before that I don't care for things if they felt too much like fan fiction. Which is true, however it's not completely a hill I'll die on. There's been some fan works I like a whole lot. Sometimes so much I think of it as legit fact.

Transformers Chronicles by Hirofumi Ichikawa is one of those that I'm going to talk about today. It's a fan comic released around the late 90's/2000 (little fuzzy on a time stamp) firmly during the beast era of Transformers.

The story pretty much involves the introduction of G2 into a generally cartoon based timeline (there's a little dash of the creation matrix involved). The art is very toy based and it looks fantastic. There's a few different things going on in the book, but one thing in particular that I feel like talking about right now.

Earlier this weekend there was the revelation that the Earthrise Bluestreak toy is exclusive to Walgreen's. So today while I was heading out with the intention to run some errands, stopping by Walgreen's to hopefully find him was on my to do list. Unfortunately I had some car trouble and I'll just have to do that stuff later, including looking for the toy.

Stopping for some lunch after dropping my car off at the shop it occurred to me. It was Bluestreak at Walgreen's, not Smokescreen. I got the two mixed up. It happens sometimes. Which is what brings me to talking about Smokscreen today. Because I was thinking about him. Deep content here folks.

Early in the book, Smokescreen is among some Autobot's who fight Decepticon Sky Scorchers and Predators led by Skyquake. Smokescreen is seemingly taken out in the fight only to reappear later as the Smokscreen from the G2 Dreadwing set. The Decepticons rebuilt him as a new bad guy and he's pretty ok with it.

The books not official story telling, but I occasionally forget that fact. I just love it so much. The art is really great and the story is pretty cool too. Hirofumi went on the do official work on Transformers not long after this. If you've enjoyed the e-Hobby exclusive bios or the Binaltech fiction, then you've seen some of the great stuff he's done for Transformers. I wish he had something to do with the Walgreen's Bluestreak that I got confused for Smokescreen earlier. That would have gave me something to end this with.

A Three in One villain that's Chillin

I'm going to talk a little about one of the best Transformers toys ever made. Dreadwind from Generation 2. A combination of great articulation, colors, and play value, Dreadwing is just the best. Dreadwing is a set though, combining the Dreadwing toy with his partner Smokescreen (they reused names, get over it) to create the combined vehicle form.

On their own, the two figures are solid. Dreadwing is a big and bulky brute who's a triple changer. He can turn either into a stealth fighter or a tank. The gattling cannon carries over to each mode, allowing for a ton of firepower no matter the situation. Smokesreen is a much smaller toy, turning into a jet and packing two missile launchers that can be utilized in both modes. Both figures weapons use the same missiles. Combining the two is not much more than inserting jet mode Smokescreen into jet mode Dreadwing. Doing so adds to the overall look of the vehicle mode however.

The mold got reused several times as different characters, in fact the first intended reuse in G2 as Megatron and Starscream is one of the most rare Transformers ever. A version of this set came out in Beast Wars 2, but it's not completely the same. I think my favorite version of the mold is the Gigant Bomber and Smokesniper set from Robot Masters. It's just a super pretty version of the set as new characters from Victory!

Generations Selects Smokecreen

Thanks to Hasbro and Rogers and Cowan
for providing Zone Base with this news

The new Generations Selects Smokecreen is up for pre-order at most online retailers now, so go out and get one! I don't have any affiliate links, so don't worry which one benefits Zone Base, just hope readers enjoy the site!

That's pretty sharp looking, hope I can get one myself.