Undergroun

Undergroun is a Beastformer from the Generation 1 continuity family.

This is Moleman in the Morning. Good Moleman to you. Today, part four of our series of the agonizing pain in which I live every daaaay.

Undergroun (アンダーグラン Andāguran) comes across as kind of a gloomy gus. He doesn't talk much, he shies away from attention, and he spends a lot of time in the dark. But those who get to know him soon find out he's an incredibly kind and caring beast, with one of the biggest hearts on the planet. When he makes a promise, he sticks to it, and he has earned his reputation for honesty and reliability. He lives to see planet Beast as a world at peace.

Though not much good on the surface (the sunlight hurts his sensitive eyes), he is nigh-unbeatable underground. His vibro-axe Ungrinder (アングラインダー Anguraindā) helps him clear soil and hard rock out of the way easily, allowing him to tunnel through the terrain at up to 80 km an hour. He's an expert in subterranean tactics, capable of taking down surface targets from below.

Following the war, he returned to his home island of Rhodes where he rules as its King. And despite his subordinate Emperor Ultragas having been on the other side of the war, the two have turned into close friends. The rowdy extroverted skunk and quiet introverted mole work amazingly well together, even sharing a telepathic link so they can coordinate between the surface and the underground.

Toys

Transformers: Beastformers

• Undergroun (Beastformer, 1987)

• ID number: 42
• Pack: E
• Accessories: Axe (usually)

Released in the third series of Takara's Beastformers toys, Undergroun is a lavender anthropomorphic mole in purple robotic armor. His left arm ends in a robotic clamp. The Battle Emblem on his chest reveals one of three symbols when warmed up; Fire, Water or Wood.

In the Hasbro Battle Beasts line, this toy could come in either purple or black armor, black being significantly rarer. While black-armor Undergroun toys appear in various Beastformer checklists and posters, it is uncertain if it was ever actually released in Japan.

He usually comes with a copper axe weapon marked with the same ID number as on his back. However, Beastformers is notorious for toys coming with someone else's weapon; it's unclear if this was just originally poor QC, but in the sequel series, this semi-random weaponry was actually turned into a "gimmick".

He was only available in the "E Pack" assortment, and came in a green-grid generic "Cybertron Beastformer" box. He came with a bio card with a comic-style character image on a jungle backdrop, though there was a chance his bio card would instead be replaced with the rare "VS Holography Mirror" card featuring Green Chameles and Platinum Tiger.

Notes

• Undergroun's 1987 poster-checklist art incorrectly gives him Black Turtle's coloring, with black body parts and orange armor. (They both got claws on the left hand, after all.) It also incorrectly colors his weapon silver. His 1988 bio art corrects both of these mistakes, giving him the purple-armor colors.
• As he was not sold in the post-Transformers sequel series and thus had no bio card, his "RPG"-era bio comes from the Hero Special 4: Beastformers mook. This bio gives him the nickname "Ungra" (アングラ Angura), a common abbreviation of "underground" (アンダーグラウンド andāguraundo) in Japanese.

Foreign names

• English: Miner Mole