Digger

Digger is an Autobot Micromaster from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Digger (ディッガー Diggā) is the strongest of the Build Team, and he knows it. And he's proud of it. Thankfully, he's not a jerk about it at all; boisterous and likable, he even sets up recreational events for the other Autobot Micromasters.

He also has an evil counterpart running around.

Fiction

Micromaster

Digger was one of several Cyberdroids in stasis at the Autobot Micromasters' Earth base. During a particularly pitched battle with the Decepticon Sixwing in Berserker Mode, the capsules containing the Build Team took a shock, activating them. A little while later, Micromasters resembling the Build Team were spotted wrecking human construction sites. The Build Team soon confronted them in Sixbuilder mode...only for the impostors to do the same! The green Decepticon Sixbuilder announced that the two teams were actually halves of the original whole, and that he would rejoin with Sixbuilder only after all the other Autobots had been destroyed. Sixbuilder the Ill-Fated Warrior!?

Later, after Sixtrain beat back the Decepticons at an excavation site by a dormant volcano, Digger eagerly suggested the Autobots began their own investigation as to just what the Decepticons were digging up. When Raise discovered two pieces of metal, one of which bore a strange purple insignia, both Cybertronian in origin, the Autobots realizing something incredibly important was buried there, something that needed to be kept out of Decepticon hands. Sixtrain! Activate Red Mode!!

Operation Combination

Years later, Digger and the rest of the Six-team Micromasters joined Guard City and the Road Corps in defending Earth from the forces of the Decepticon High Regent Scrash. Operation Combination

None of the combiner team individuals ever actually show up as individuals, only as components of the combined robot modes.

Toys

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers

• Sixbuilder (Micromaster Six-Team, 1992)

• ID number: TF-01

Released in the eighth and final year of the original Takara Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers line under the Operation Combination banner, Digger transforms into a Coles 25/28 T mobile crane, only with the crane arm swapped out for an excavator. He can also form the right arm of any of the similar-build Six-Teams (Sixturbo and Sixwing), though his nominal placement is as Sixbuilder's right arm (he cannot form a left arm because only Sixbuilder's right fist will attach to him).

The toy's combiner connector socket is approximately 5mm wide, making Digger compatible with oh so many other toys and accessories.

He was only available as part of a complete Sixbuilder gift set, packed with his teammates Crush-Bull, Gran Arm, Iron Lift, Mixing, and Treader.

The original Six-Teams are considered among the more difficult Japanese Generation 1 pieces to find, due to their final-year release well after Transformers had faded from relevance in Japan, and thus command some hefty prices even with the molds' later re-releases.

This mold was also used to make Universe Micromaster Scavenger and the evil half of Digger.

• More information on Digger at TFU.info
• Digger toy gallery at Transformertoys.co.uk

Micromaster

A yellow construction vehicle? I've never heard of such a thing.

• Digger (Micromaster, 2003)

• ID number: 2
• Accessories: Sixbuilder right fist, gun

In 2003, the entire Sixbuilder team was re-released as the fourth wave of The Transformers: Micromaster, in individual boxes with a number visible to show which mold was inside each box. For this release, the team was extensively redecoed; Digger went from orange-yellow and red to bright yellow and bright orange-yellow. All decals were also replaced with paint applications.

On top of this, two out of every twelve toys in the shipping/display case were in mostly-bright-green decos, as part of the Destron Sixbuilder chase figure. The evil half of Digger came in the same box and with the same packaging as the normal version.

• More information on Micromaster Digger at TFU.info
• Micromaster Digger toy gallery at Transformertoys.co.uk
• Translation of Digger's Micromaster bio by Doug Dlin

Notes

• Digger, like all of the six-team Micromasters, had no individual bio information whatsoever until his Micromaster release a decade after his original Operation Combination release.