Buzzclaw (BW)

The name or term "Buzzclaw" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Buzzclaw (disambiguation).

Buzzclaw is a Predacon from the Beast Era of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Know that I am... wait, never mind.

Buzzclaw is a savage, powerful Fuzor warrior, focused and stoically confident on the battlefield, immensely arrogant, condescending and boastful of it. Or so he seems. Few would guess that underneath that deadly, proud, snide exterior he is actually a horribly insecure wreck of a robot. Beneath the protective persona of lies he's wrapped himself in, Buzzclaw is full of crippling self-doubt and paranoia. He's convinced that everyone else is judging him at all times and finding him wanting. He tends to work alone and isolate himself from his comrades as another layer of protection against this feared rejection.

Fiction

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

Buzzclaw was among the protoforms remotely reprogrammed into Predacons by Magmatron. He was assigned to join Iguanus, Lazorbeak, Sky Shadow, and Jetstorm in hunting Razorbeast's Maximals. The Gathering #2 When Sky Shadow discovered the fugitive Maximals, Buzzclaw was among the Predacons who participated in the battle that ensued, where he tangled with Noctorro. After Magmatron was defeated, Buzzclaw presumably retreated with the rest of his comrades. The Gathering #4 The battles continued, though, and Buzzclaw later joined the other flying Predacon insects in another assault on the Maximal camp. The Ascending #1 During the battle, he fought with Prowl in midair. The Ascending #2 When the Blendtrons attacked both sides, Buzzclaw was apparently killed fighting Rartorata. His claws were all that was identifiable when he (and a completely unidentifiable soldier) were disintegrated by Rartorata's Angolmois vomit. Yuck. The Ascending #4

Beast Wars: Uprising

Buzzclaw was a sports fan without much of worth in life until he was chosen to fight in the Games himself and, to his amazement, won after Armordillo tripped and fell on a spike. Or, as the official record says it, Buzzclaw did a cunning ambush. He lived off that victory (and the winner's stipend for extra fuel) for twelve decacycles before Lio Convoy revealed the matches were often rigged. The doubt haunted him, as did the debts he was in after Lio Convoy had disrupted a match he'd bet on.

When the Grand Uprising kicked off, Buzzclaw (who was pretty unclear of what that was all about) had been busy trying to pull Ser-Ket at The Proton Blaster. As a former champion, everyone expected him to know what to do and, luckily, his "barricade ourselves in and get drunk until it blows over" plan worked! This confirmed for the Resistance that he was who they wanted and Cybershark recruited both Predacons with a fine speech of the need to fight and their need for good leaders. (The fact Ser-Ket was going with it got Buzzclaw to agree, still hoping to impress her.)

At Resistance HQ, Buzzclaw was overawed by the sheer activity and the Maximal/Predacon interaction, and over-overawed when Lio Convoy himself talked to him! His first mission was to raid Fortress Maximus to free political prisoners, deep in the city of Tarn. Worry started to dig at him, and while he did well in the fight to get into Fortress Maximus, he'd screwed up an intelligence report and accidentally caused Corahda to dive into a larger army. Ser-Ket had his back though, and she even argued with Bighorn when the Maximal accused him of messing up.

Unfortunately for Buzzclaw, he was separated from the crew and found himself steadily being talked to by Cerebros, the real power behind Maximus. Starting with 'stray thoughts' and escalating to a full interrogation, Cerebros preyed on Buzzclaw's fears and doubts and the fact that he was being pushed into actions, before pushing him towards the view that the Uprising itself was bad, that it would only spread the Transformers' violence back into space. And hey, did he know this was the third raid and Fortress Maximus always killed the rebels? Did he want to save Ser-Ket? Well, all he had to do was betray the others and she'd be spared!

The instant he tried to betray them, Cybershark had him killed: Cerebros had been carrying out a psychic attack to turn Buzzclaw into a puppet and not only had the Resistance known Cerebros did this, they'd known Buzzclaw was the most vulnerable to the attack. That had been the real reason they'd recruited him. Killing him knocked out Cerebros and, much to Ser-Ket's horror, everyone up to Lio Convoy was in on this plan and considered it a necessary evil. Except Bighorn, who didn't give a monkey's and was happy to say so to her face.

Buzzclaw was dispersed with full honors for his 'sacrifice' Head Games and became a propaganda figure for the Resistance. Stellar cycles later, Ikard and Blackarachnia set up the "Buzzclaw Memorial Games" in which, with Lio Convoy's tacit blessing, POWs would be forced to fight a deathmatch Game themselves. Ser-Ket, wanting to do something for her dead friend that wasn't part of the Resistance lies about him, agreed to help set it up, much to her self disgust. Neither Preditron nor Cheetor, who mistakenly thought Buzzclaw was a noble warrior, felt he would have enjoyed having his good name attached to all this.

While Buzzclaw had doubted his win was genuine, Ser-Ket believed that his fair and free win was the only real truth that the masses knew about him. Safe Spaces

2005 IDW continuity

Buzzclaw was one of Onyx Prime's Maximals that fell under the command of Unicron. When Optimus Prime led a force against Unicron to prevent him from eating Caminus, Buzzclaw was sent out to attack, clashing with Fireflight. Last Stand

Legends comic

Buzzclaw was part of a pack of Blentrons who were searching for Angolmois Energy and attacked Blue Big Convoy and Big Junior. The villains were destroyed, but the elder Convoy was fatally wounded in the process. LG-EX Blue Big Convoy

Precursor World

A lizard-mantis creature and a winged hammerhead shark were among the native fauna of the Green Planet, tended to by Green Tender Convoy. God Neptune comic 1

War for Cybertron Trilogy marketing material

Buzzclaw's the orange one with the blue eyes.

In a possible destiny recorded on the Voyager Golden Disk, Buzzclaw was present when Blackarachnia ascended to the leader of the Predacons, alongside Retrax, Predaking, Buzz Saw, and Manterror. Kingdom Golden Disk cards

Toys

Beast Wars

He comes in colors everywhere.

• Buzzclaw (Basic Fuzor, 1998)

• Accessories: Claw-pack, tail/shield
• Known designers: Masakatsu Saito (concept artist), Doug Hart (packaging artist)

Part of the third wave of third-year Beast Wars Basics, Buzzclaw is a green, orange, and pink lizard-mantis Fuzor. His beast mode foreclaws and wing-assembly can either be left mounted on his back in robot mode (though its mass makes him rather back-heavy), or be detached and used as a hand-held melee weapon (though its mass then makes him rather front-heavy.) His tail can be mounted on his arm as a shield.

Buzzclaw was later redecoed to make Universe Repugnus and Timelines Buzzclaw, Dirge, and the Virulent Clones. The original toy is the only use of the mold to have the jaw assembled correctly.

• More information on Buzzclaw at TFU.info

Notes

• Buzzclaw's toy bio states that he uses "ion discs". This, together with the mantis link and likewise shared function, suggest that he is perhaps Manterror reborn as a Fuzor. Either way, Manterror and Buzzclaw appear side by side as separate individuals in subsequent fiction.