Magmatron
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Magmatron is a Transformers character who first appeared in the Japanese Beast Wars Neo series, was later released in the American Beast Machines Dinobots toy line, and most recently in official Beast Wars comic continuity. Magmatron is one of the only two known reverse-combiners (the other being Tidal Wave in Transformers: Armada series) Three beasts, a Giganotosaurus, Elasmosaurus and a Quetzalcoatlus, can combine into a humanoid robot form, or that of a giant Fuzor with attributes of all three beasts. While in his beast modes he is able to maintain a singular consciousness/personality. Sometimes he is referred to as a Triocon, a being with technological relations to the Decepticon Duocons, with three split forms (relating to land, sea & air, respectively) instead of two.
Contents |
[edit] Beast Wars Neo
| Transformers character | |
 Magmatron |
|
| Magmatron | |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Predacon Maximal |
| Sub-Group | Dinobots |
| Rank | Emperor of Destruction |
| Function | Predacon Commander (Takara) Warrior (Hasbro) |
| Motto | "Power is everything. I am power. Therefore, I am everything." (Takara) "Till all is won." (Hasbro) |
| Alternate Modes | Giganotosaurus, Elasmosaurus and Quetzalcoatlus. |
| Series | Beast Wars Neo Beast Machines |
Magmatron's tech specs paint him as a study in contradictions. On the one hand, he is violently impulsive and tends to charge into battle without thinking. On the other, he is known to rationally and coolly appraise situations before committing himself fully. He is the successor to Galvatron (not the original) as Predacon Emperor of Destruction. Despite the inherently treacherous nature of his Predacon underlings, Magmatron's charisma is so powerful that many times they submit to his authority without question.
Magmatron became the "Predacon Emperor of Destruction" after Galvatron's defeat, establishing a rivalry and mutual respect with Maximal commander Big Convoy. Tracking his rival's forces, he became aware of the Angolmois energy pods released by the Nemesis and managed to gather many of them. However they were then stolen from him by the Blendtrons. He then discovered the truth - that the Angolmois Energy was really the lifeforce of Unicron himself.
As the Chaos-Bringer took Galvatron's corpse as a new body, Magmatron realised the disaster he had unleashed and his forces challenged Unicron. They were defeated, and Magmatron was left trapped in a wormhole. Eventually escaping he teamed up with his rival Big Convoy to stop the Unicron possessed Vector Sigma. After Unicron's defeat the two worked together to rebuild Cybertron.
[edit] Beast Machines
In a desperate attempt to combat Megatron's techno-organic virus on Cybertron, the Oracle Supercomputer reformats a group of surviving Transformers, rendering them immune to the plague and extremely powerful. Using the DNA schematics of former Maximal Dinobot, each warrior emerges as a hybrid of savage prehistoric power and advanced Cybertronian robotics...the result, the fearsome Dinobots are born!
Magmatron's tech spec described him as a fierce warrior determined to succeed at all costs, much like his original. However, this tech spec gave him a new background mixed with his old: He was returning from a mission to acquire energy capsules (a reference to the Angolmois energy capsules of Beast Wars Neo) to discover Cybertron overrun with armies of mindless Vehicon drones. This bio identified his title of “Emperor of Destruction” (which is not an actually rank in most mainstream Transformer fiction) as moniker given to him as a testament to his destructive presence on the battlefield. Magmatron’s ability to separate into three distinct bodies (identified as: Landsaur, Seasaur, Skysaur respectively) is attributed to a “Mitotic” spark.
Hasbro released Magmatron as a Beast Machines The Magmatron toy was part of the Dinobots faction of Beast Machines which featured no new molds but did release molds previously unseen in America. Unlike all the others however, Magmatron was neither repainted nor renamed and his bio even suggested that he may be the same Magmatron of Beast Wars Neo. In line with this release, he later appeared in the Botcon Exclusive Transformers: Universe - Wreckers Comic; however he was misinterpreted as the factions’ leader. In actuality the Dinobot T-Wrecks was the Dinobot leader.
Although the Dinobots' intro states that the Dinobots received their beast modes through the slicing of Dinobot's DNA, it is likely that the Oracle also used the fossil chamber (seen in the Beast Machine TV series) to utilize Giganotosaurus, Elasmosaurus and Quetzalcoatlus DNA.
Magmatron does not appear to be a homage to any of the original Dinobots team in name or form. He appears instead to be a direct homage to himself from Beast Wars Neo.
[edit] Dreamwave Productions
Magmatron was also set to appear in Dreamwave Productions' unpublished Beast Wars comic. Although the company's bankruptcy meant that no issues were released, released art and information have revealed that Magmatron would have been the overall villain of the series, even presiding over Megatron's trial on Cybertron.[1]. This indicates that the Dreamwave tales would have followed a different continuity from Beast Machines.
[edit] IDW Publishing
When the licence to produce Transformers comics passed to IDW Publishing they produced their own Beast Wars comic, featuring yet another version of Magmatron, this one apparently unconnected to the previous two. In this telling, during the Beast Wars (as the Predacons are installing Sentinel, which would place the events described here around those of the third season episode: Changing of the Guard), Magmatron and his troops arrived on Earth on a mission following up Ravage's failure. However, even the Tripredacus Council were unaware of Magmatron's true goal - to locate the mass of stasis pods jettisoned by the Axalon at the beginning of the Beast Wars, and turn their protoforms into a Predacon army loyal to him; one that he could use to overthrow the Maximals on Cybertron. His plan was sabotaged by the Maximal undercover agent Razorbeast, who managed to modify Magmatron's shell program, resulting in many of the protoforms emerging as Maximals. Hunting down and battling Razorbeast, even Magmatron's three modes were unable to prevent Razorbeast's escape.
Realising that time was running short, Magmatron also recovered the remains of Ravage and used a blank protoform to bring him back in a stronger Transmetal II form, intending for him to stay behind and hunt down Razorbeast. Magmatron now realised the only way to divert the Council's suspicion was to acconplish his assigned goal - capturing Megatron. Revealing himself to Megatron, the two would-be tyrants battled, but after Megatron gained the upper hand he was captured when Magmatron's lackeys managed to put a restraining collar on Megatron. Magmatron aimed to send him back to Cybertron, but was interrupted by an unexpected foe - Grimlock. As the two battled, Razorbeast and Optimus Minor sabotaged Magmatron's transport machine. Magmatron eventually defeated the former Dinobot, but Razorbeast used Magmatron's own chrono-wristband to battle Magmatron and stay ahead of his blows, before Minor used his own time displacement band to send him back to Cybertron empty handed. According to writer Simon Furman the next series, The Ascending, will reveal what happened to Magmatron. [2]
The sketch gallery at the back of the TPB edition of the Gathering indicates that Magmatron had his "split" Tricon technology before he received his beast mode. His Cybertronian modes were a tentacled submarine, a hovercraft and a tank.
