TRANSFORMERS: THE BASICS on MONSTRUCTOR - Halloween 2024!

Time for another peek into the creepy corners of the Transformers universe in a Halloween Basics about the monstrous Decepticon formed by the combination of the Pretender Monsters Birdbrain, Bristleback, Icepick, Scowl, Slog, and Wildfly - MONSTRUCTOR! Plus get the lowdown on his Japanese counterpart from "Victory,", DINOKING and the DINOFORCE, back in the headlines this year thanks to the Legacy toyline!

Profile pic by Cody Laine

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[LaBambaMan]

"A fanatical believer in planned obsolescence" Huh, I never knew Icepick was a tech company CEO.

[StopMoshin]

kinda funny how much the lore for their original figures mention how they cause metal to decay while being made of the infamous gold plastic.

[angelbasiliorodriguezbusto]

Fun fact: Several Dinobots & Terrorcons from the Power of the Primes toyline had some alternate heads and accesories based on the Pretender Monsters/Dinoforce that sadly went unused.

[sephiroth]

The way they depict Monstructor makes me think he's like a scary story monster that autobots tell their children when they want them to behave

[fredmedinaii]

Monstructor has a special place in my heart as he was my first completed combiner as a little kid. I remember saving all my allowance money and doing extra chores to get a bigger allowance.Just so that I can get all six of them. I still have them somewhere in my collection

[Samuel_Loegan]

the minute I hear about the bio for the Dinoforce, I'm like "these doesn't sound like Decepticon-y" XD. Coz if you hear the individual bios for the other Decepticon Combiner team, NONE of them are sunshine and rainbows lel

[misterbadguy]

I'm going to repost Slog's bio in the Dreamwave More Than Meets The Eye series, because it's weirdly intriguing for a character who's mostly been a nonentity in the franchise.

*Bio:* Slog is the most tasteful and refined of his comrades. When he originally joined the Decepticons, they used his exceptional talent as an artist to produce sculptures and art pieces depicting the glory of the Decepticon empire and its leaders, and record their rise for posterity. Eventually, they realized Slog was a capable warrior as well as an artist, although his battlefield work is definitely more of the 'abstract' variety. He carves up his foes on the battlefield more out of a desire to survive than actual spite, and he always attempts to make each of his victims a work of art to honor their memory. This aspect of war, and the fact that the Decepticons have no interest in supporting free expression and art, troubles Slog. Although he finds destruction to be the best way to create pure, chaotic art in an inanimate subject, he wonders about the lives lost in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict. Slog once organized an underground art show of his work, reflecting the horrors of war in the twisted, rusting ruins of his foes. This led to the coining of a new art form - 'slogism' - and the use of the exhibit's pictures in the Autobots' anti-Decepticon broadcasts. This and occasional doubts about his cause have not pleased his Decepticon superiors.

*Weapons/Abilities:* Subject possesses great intelligence and exceptional skill as an artist. He is a surprisingly effective warrior. Subject's outer Shell has harder-than-diamond talons capable of cutting through almost any substance. Inner robot is armed with a magnetic rifle that can be set to fire waves that repel or attract; it can even make its target's bodies repel themselves, tearing apart metallic opponents. Combines with fellow Pretender Monsters to form Monstructor.

*Weaknesses:* Subject has bouts of depression that make him useless in combat.

Also, going by that one Marvel appearance, he talks like Yoda. I learned this stuff because I found an oddly elaborate Slog-focused fanfic back in the day.

[monkeydrajanka]

4:54-5:04 the fact that it took Optimus prime & Omega Supreme to take him down shows how powerful he is

[cylasbreakdown]

Eee! I remember you saying this was meant to be last year’s Halloween special, but then the Core Dinobots were announced. I’ve been loving my copy of Dinoking!

[davepowder]

This video went from "spooky" with Monstructor to hopeful and cool with Dinoforce!

[sivanlevi]

I love both Monstructor and Dinoking! I'm grateful in knowing what the names of the Dino Force members mean in English. My favorite member of the Pretender Monster team (my friend and I call them Monstercons) is Slog because of his Yoda-like speech patten.

[TheMagicalAnimatron]

1:17 Bird Brain, like a bird's brain!

[JGreen-lexx]

"Fuse six robots together"

Human centipede but with robots?
He was a mad scientist after all.

[starforcenetwork]

I find it funny how despite being on the Decepticons, the Dinoforce turned out to just be a bunch of silly goofballs.

[MrAnthem]

That Dreamwave Monstructor looks fantastic, I really like it when someone tries something new with the designs.

[spiketheguy]

1:23 Ohh, the irony of that part of his bio if you know of the toy

[nealnoir]

Birdbrain was one of the first transformers I ever owned and I still have him to this day.

[reyonXIII]

In the Japanese script, the Dinoforce" was just literally "Kyoryu Sentai".
And there's six of them

Speaking of Japanese names, knowing the meanings of their names makes it easier to know who's who

[MDestron]

The life-draining agent of destruction Monstructor has so much potential for some amazing stories.

[gamebrkr]

I had no idea that the Dino Force were redesigns of the Pretender Monsters. Makes me want a continuation of Transformers G1 that includes the Japanese toy lines and foreshadows into Beast Wars even more than ever. You could easily see them at first being created by Starscream as the Monster Pretenders, (f.y.i, in the commercial for the Monster Pretenders it's shown that Starscream supposedly created them, since it was shown him dipping the six into vats of ooze that gave them their Pretender Shells) then after they get seemingly destroyed we'd see Deathsaurus rebuild them as the Dino Force.