Introdump

The buying public will never suspect their TRUE NATURES as commercial products until it is TOO LATE!

An introdump (also known as name-dropping, name-checking, forced introduction, or "really awkward self-exposition") is a scene in which new characters are introduced, and the dialog goes out of its way to give each character's name. It is particularly prevalent in certain portions of Transformers fiction.

Sometimes the characters give their own names (referring to themselves in the third person). On other occasions, the characters will work each other's names into the dialog. The classic G1 Marvel Comic was particularly guilty of this, not least because they introduced on the order of 200 characters across only 84 issues (counting Headmasters). In that comic, it was usually signified by the writing of each new character's name in bold typeface.

Because most Transformers fiction exists to sell toys, it seems likely that Hasbro required the writers of the comic to make sure every new character was explicitly named, so the readers could then go out and ask the toy store employee for 'em by name.

Though the G1 comics were particularly notorious for it, introdumps pop up across the whole spectrum of Transformers fiction. In egregious examples, the characters also describe their "selling points" (weapons, etc.)

Here are four examples, from most graceful to least:

Transformers Animated

• Here, the Decepticons bicker, giving their names and at least one important fact per character:

Lugnut: Megatron is wise! Megatron is bold! Megatron will return the Decepticons to Cybertron and...

Blackarachnia: ...and wipe our homeland clean of the stench of Autobot tyranny, blah-dee blah blah blah! Did you memorize that speech, Lugnut? Or is it just hardwired into that thick, one-track processor of yours?

Blitzwing: As usual, Blackarachnia, your demeanor is as unpleasant as that accursed organic mode of yours.

Blackarachnia: Blow it out your actuator, three-face.

Blitzwing: De name is Blitzving, insect!

Beast Wars

Painful Introductions The Maximals introduce themselves. — 350 KB

• In the sound clip at right, from the first episode of Beast Wars, the writers at least have the justification that the characters are adopting new names at that moment.

Transformers Armada

"Hi, my name is Rad, and I'd like to tell you about the Transformers." At the beginning of half the episodes, no less.

Marvel Comics G1

Mouseketeer roll call!

• At right, the Stunticons introduce themselves in "Heavy Traffic!".

Ten characters, nine color schemes, and only six molds.

• A particularly heavy example, from the first issue of the US comic. (Note Rumble's ironic comment of "Can the speeches.")

External links

• A parallel coining of "introdump", in the context of prose SF.
• "Infodump", a broader term, at the Wikipedia.
  
  
  From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.