Special Teams
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"The universe is a very large place."
Special Teams is a collective name given to several combiner teams released after the Constructicons.
Most commonly associated with the term are the four "Scramble City"-style combiner teams that debuted in 1986:
- The Aerialbots
- The Combaticons
- The Protectobots
- The Stunticons
The name is also less commonly associated with the two "Scramble City"-style combiner teams that debuted in 1987:
- The Technobots
- The Terrorcons
It is also very rarely associated with the final "Scramble City"-style combiner team that debuted in 1988:
- The Seacons
Additionally, a member of a combiner team that didn't follow the "Scramble City" concept was also retroactively declared a member of a "Special Team":
- The Predacons
Use of the term
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The term "Special Teams" was used by Hasbro in their 1986 Toy Fair retailer catalog, calling the smaller team members/combiner limb figures the "Special Team Mini-Vehicles Assortment" (a name reapplied from the Mini-Vehicles), and the larger leader/torso figures the "Special Team Large Vehicles Assortment". Though those assortment names were never used on the toys' packaging nor in the official catalog included with the figures, they were printed on the toys' shipping boxes at least until 1987. Additionally, the names were heavily used in newspaper ads for the toys in 1986. Interestingly, the name "Special Team Mini-Vehicles Assortment" is still used in Hasbro's 1987 Toy Fair catalog, while the "Special Team Large Vehicles" have been renamed into "Special Team Leader Assortment". The term also still appears (though to a lesser degree) in newspaper ads from 1987<ref name="ads">Collection of newspaper ads that use the name "Special Teams"</ref>, and also on 1987 Hasbro shipping cases (see the image on the left). Bizarrely, one of those ads referred to the individual members of the Technobots as "special teams" ("4 special teams and leader form giant Computron", see the image to the left), which suggests that the Toys"R"Us in-house department which created this ad was really struggling to implement outdated Hasbro marketing terminology. Also, the Terrorcons certainly don't qualify as "vehicles". (This would neither be the first nor the last time an outdated marketing term found its way into print ads nontheless. See the history of the term "Seeker" for one of the most prominent cases.) The 1988 Toy Fair catalog further renames the "Special Team Mini-Vehicles" into the "Special Mini-Team Assortment", while keeping the name "Special Team Leader Assortment". Additionaly, an internal Hasbro spreadsheet from 1988 referred to the assortment that contained the Seacon limb figures as "Seacons Special Team".<ref name="lineplan">"1989 European Lineplan Development document recreated" at Transformers at the Moon.</ref>
On the fiction side of things, it was employed predominantly in the Marvel UK Comics, first used in the mini-comic "The Special Teams Have Arrived" included with issue #54 (which also featured an ad that referred to the toys as the "Special Team Collection"), and continuing in the three-parter "Second Generation!" from issues #63–65. Though the term was never used in the US Marvel comic (where the Aerialbots debuted in issue #21, the Stunticons in issue #22, and the Protectobots and Combaticons in issue #24), it was again used on the "Transformations" introductory pages, in the "next week" previews and the recaps for the previous issues when those US issues were reprinted in the UK title (in issues #89-92 and #105-106, respectively). On top of that, an audio drama titled The Special Teams was also available in the UK, whose plot centered around the 1986 combiner teams. However, later ads in the UK comics simply called them the "New Teams".
In 2004, the term "Special Teams" made a reapparance in the book Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, written by Marvel UK veteran Simon Furman and published by DK Publishing, where it was used as the title of the double page that featured the four 1986 combiner teams. On top of that, in 2008, a five-pack named "Special Team Leaders" was released as part of the 2008 Universe toyline, which featured tiny Legends Class figures representing Hot Spot (named "Hot Zone" for trademark reasons), Scattershot (spelled "Scattorshot"), Razorclaw, Hun-Gurrr, and Silverbolt. While all the other teams represented in this set had been previously covered by the term "Special Teams" one way or another, this marked the first time the term also encompassed a member of the Predacons.
In 2013, the term popped up in, of all things, a UK Prime comic.