Stinger rifle
| This article is about Bombshell's weapon. For Bumblebee and Wasp's weapons, see Stinger (weapon){{#switch:{{#sub:Stinger (weapon)|-1}}|!=|.=|?=|.}} For a list of other meanings, see Stinger (disambiguation). |
The Insecticon Bombshell has a stinger rifle, or stinger, that injects cerebro-shells into his victims' heads, allowing him to take control of their minds.
Fiction
[edit]Marvel The Transformers comics
[edit]In his tiny insect mode, Bombshell would infiltrate human populations, using his stinger to inject them with cerebro-shells. In his larger robot mode his stinger worked in much the same way on other Transformers, except it used its small laser torches to bore a hole through the metal casing of its victim's head first. Bombshell's Universe profile
Toys
[edit]The Transformers
[edit]
- Bombshell (Insecticon, 1985)
- Accessories: twin ion impulse blaster
- The Transformers Bombshell could inject cerebro-shells into robots and humans with his stinger, according to his packaging bio. This toy was reissued (notably with some minor mold differences to the insect mode horn) in 2004 as part of The Transformers Collection and in 2009 as part of Universe, and redecoed to make Salvo.
- Bombshell with Needler (Action Master, 1991)
- Action Master Bombshell came with a gray weapon, labelled as a rifle in his instructions and extrapolated to be a short burst stinger rifle that fires cerebro-shells in his packaging bio. This toy was available in the European-market Transformers toyline during the first year following the end of the US line.
Merchandise
[edit]ULTIMATES!
[edit]- Bombshell (ULTIMATES!, 2021)
- Accessories: twin ion impulse blaster, short burst stinger rifle, Needler partner, left & right closed fists, left & right gripping hands, left & right open hands
- Transformers ULTIMATES! Bombshell came with new versions of both his Generation 1 toys' weapons.
Notes
[edit]- Bombshell's original toy's instructions call his hand-held weapon a twin ion impulse blaster, though like Shrapnel's gamma ray detonator and Kickback's electrothermic blast tube, that name was almost never used again.
- Bombshell's Marvel Universe profile goes into some detail about the capabilities of his stinger in insect and robot modes but then adds that he also has a head-mounted mortar in robot mode, implying that his hand-held weapon is his stinger. Given that his stinger in beetle mode physically transforms into his robot mode's head-mounted weapon, this description creates a confusing ambiguity over the exact nature of Bombshell's weapons which is difficult to resolve.
- For what it's worth, every time we saw Bombshell inject someone with a cerebro-shell in the Marvel comics—Ricky Vasquez, Optimus Prime, Anthony Duranti, Superion, and Irwin Spoon—he was in insect mode. The one exception is in the out-of-continuity Marvel UK story "Plague of the Insecticons!" where he injected Ravage with his robot mode's head-mounted weapon.
- Conversely in the Generation 1 cartoon, Bombshell injected Mirage with a cerebro-shell while in insect mode in "Traitor" and transformed to insect mode to inject Soundwave in "A Plague of Insecticons", though later in that same episode he also used his head-mounted weapon to fire cerebro-shells at Starscream and Megatron.
- Bombshell's Action Master neatly sidesteps all of the above ambiguity by calling his hand-held weapon a stinger rifle and leaving off his head-mounted weapon entirely, while the ULTIMATES! figure consolidates this approach by including both a twin ion impulse blaster and a stinger rifle as hand-held weapons.
- True to form, the writers of Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye series pretty much ignored all of the above, as Bombshell's profile doesn't mention a stinger at all; in insect mode he could launch cerebro-shells (which themselves were armed with miniature laser torches) and in robot mode he was armed with a head-mounted mortar and a generic laser rifle.