Nightracer (G2)
| This article is about the Decepticon clone from Generation 2. For the Decepticon she was cloned from, see Nightracer (G1). |
- Nightracer is a Decepticon clone from the Wings Universe portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Female Decepticons were thought to have become extinct sometime during Cybertron's long history of war, among them, the original Nightracer. Her skill with a gun and especially as a sniper became legendary, and as the war grew and bled on into history, a myth. However, Jhiaxus had remembered the myth of Nightracer, and chose to clone her and re-create one of Cybertron's deadliest warriors. In particular, he chose to include her acerbic personality to see how his other clones, his 'Second Generation' of Cybertronians, would react, in order to overcome arising divisions. The cloned Nightracer firmly believes in Jhiaxus' goals of recreating the Cybertronian Empire. At least, that's what she tells herself, since the original Nightracer's aversion to social interaction and bonds still shows through.
Her knowledge that she is a clone of the original Nightracer gives her serious doubts, often causing her to wonder whether the original Nightracer was faster, a better shot, or stronger. Poor self-doubting clone.[1]
Fiction
The Allspark Almanac
Readers of Venus, a trans-dimensional magazine for Decepti-femmes, were invited to decide who was deadlier, Nightracer or Flamewar. The Allspark Almanac
Wings Universe
Nightracer was created as one of Jhiaxus's "Second Generation" warriors. A Flash Forward, Part 3 After Pyro and his team of Autobots were captured, Jhiaxus showed him Nightracer and five other clones as an example of his work. Realizing that one Autobot was unaccounted for, Jhiaxus instructed Nightracer to go look for him. As she did so, Side Burn offered to watch her rear, to which she responded that he was a little young for her and raced off. A Flash Forward, Part 5
Side Burn caught up with Nightracer on a cliff overlooking the rest of her clone brethren clashing with Pyro's Autobots. When sight of the battle below restored Side Burn's memories of the war, Nightracer pleaded for him to stay with her and the other Decepticons. Side Burn reminded her that she and the other clones were intended by Jhiaxus to rise up above their factions, and noted that by coming with him to join the Autobots, she could fulfill that mission. Apparently persuaded, she returned to Earth with the Autobots, where she helped Side Burn debrief Ultra Magnus on what had happened and advocated pardoning the Battlechargers for their kidnapping charges. A Flash Forward, Part 6
Nightracer later acquired a new body, and was present for the signing of the Pax Cybertronia at Autobot City. A Common Foe
Toys
Generation 2
- Nightracer (BotCon 1995)
- Accessories: Rifle
- Nightracer was a BotCon 1995 exclusive toy, with a confirmed at-convention run of only 298 pieces. A redeco of the Generation 2 Go-Bot High Beam, Nightracer uses the same base plastic colors and mold as the Go-Bots version of Bumblebee, but lacks the gold overcoat paint layer, and has silver paint on her face and engine as opposed to Bumblebee's black. She also uses a different wheel mold than Bumblebee. Each toy given at the convention was further modified with hand-painted blue stripes on the sides of the hood, and a custom-made Decepticon sigil sticker on the center of the hood.
- Several years later, a large batch of Nightracer figures were sold through WhizBang Toys, both on eBay and through WhizBang's toy shows, presumably Hasbro overstock. This version of the toy lacks the hand-painted details and Decepticon sigil sticker, obviously.
- Aside from being the first toy specifically redecoed for use as a convention exclusive, Nightracer was also thought to be the first female Transformers toy to see North American release, however limited (though that title would be retroactively sort-of usurped by Freezon, released in 1985, who was retconned to be female in 2009).
- This mold was also used to make 2001 Robots in Disguise Crosswise.
Timelines
- Nightracer (2015)
- Timelines Nightracer is a redeco of the Generations Tailgate mold, using the blues requested (but not used) for her original BotCon toy. She shipped as the "freebie" figure in Version 3.0 of the Transformers Figure Subscription Service, in the same box as Krok, the 6th and final paid figure in the service. She came packed with a similarly recolored version of Groundbuster, named Shakar, an anagram of Nightracer's creator, Raksha, who also contributed the text for Nightracer's packed-in bio card.
- This toy doubles as the original Nightracer. This mold was retooled into Windcharger. It also served as the basis of the non-toy Shattered Glass incarnation of Tailgate.
Notes
- The original Nightracer's name, character, and biography never went through the Hasbro approval process—they were created by Raksha, host of the 1995 BotCon convention, who maintains that Hasbro has no legal claim on the character. The claim is shaky at best, due to the nature of derivative works, but Hasbro has yet to pursue the issue.
- Nightracer's colors weren't quite what Raksha had asked for: the lime-ish yellow plastic parts were supposed to be blue, but Hasbro had presumably told Raksha that the colors couldn't be changed.[2] A possible reason for this is that, due to the Generation 2 Go-Bots' gang-molded nature, Nightracer was actually made from spare parts that were left over from the production run of the Japanese releases of Go-Bots Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Soundwave: Nightracer's "godawful yellow" is also the color of Soundwave's car shell. This would also explain the different wheels, which originally belonged to the Double Clutch/Mirage mold.
- Nightracer's profile in the Hasbro Transformers Collectors Club #46 explains that the Nightracer making her pictorial debut in the accompanying storyline (and thus Transformers canon) is a clone of an unseen "original Nightracer." The cloned Nightracer in this story is depicted as having Raksha's intended blues instead of the toy's bright yellow.
