Sling (BW)

This article is about the Beast Wars Neo Predacon. For the Age of Extinction Mini-Con, see Sling (AOE).

Sling is a Predacon from the Beast Wars Neo portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

For crying out loud! I'm not a dinosaur! I'm not even an actual reptile! I'm a mammal ancestor. Damn it, why does no one read the literature!?

Nobody likes Sling (スリング Suringu). Nobody. Sling is what you would call a dork or a geek or a dweeb or a loser. Take your pick; he's all that and more. His high-pitched, cackling voice is often cited as a reason so many Predacons find him painfully obnoxious to be around, but the well runs deeper than that. Sling can't do anything right and he's utilized in the most limited capacity by his commanding officers. The other Predacons take any opportunity they can get to mock and deride the scrawny dimetrodon, especially Saberback (who bullies him relentlessly) and DNAVI (who tries repeatedly to abandon him on alien planets).

Sling takes all this abuse like a whiney middle schooler. "Come on, guys!" "Stop it!" "That isn't funny!" "I'm telling Guiledart!" There's a chance Sling may snap someday, but considering his ultimate special attack involves disguising himself as a flower in an attempt to ambush anybody who comes along to sniff him... Yeah, nobody's very concerned about that.

Fiction

Beast Wars Neo cartoon

See? I look like a chimpanzee.

Voice actor: Monster Maezuka (Japanese)

TransTech

Sling was killed with a pipe in a skirmish with Bulletbike after the latter woke up in an Offworld zone. I, Lowtech

Beast Wars: Uprising

Sling was a member of the Resistance assigned to work with Magmatron and the crew of the Dinosaur after they returned from space and declared for the Resistance. He and the new second-in-command Archadis still remained outsiders among Magmatron's close knit unit, however. When Magmatron and the others chose to abandon the Resistance and join the Ex-Bots in Proximax, Sling and Archadis returned to the Resistance. Cultural Appropriation

Legends comic

A host at a show, Sling, seeing a familiar truck appear, announced to the audience that Optimus Prime had come to visit, unaware that it was actually Ginrai. Bonus Edition Vol. 35

Toys

Beast Wars

I am a pretty pretty flower.

• Sling (Basic, January 1999)
  • ID number: D-31

Part of the first wave of Beast Wars Neo products in the Japanese Beast Wars toyline, Sling is a Basic-sized figure that transforms into an organic Dimetrodon, with an opening/closing mouth. In robot mode, his back-sail (now located on his left forearm) can open to form his "Sling Shield", while his tail ends up on his right forearm to form his "Tail Bunker"; a non-firing gun that also doubles as a whip (in-universe, of course). His Predacon spark crystal is located on his robot mode abdomen, underneath his beast mode head.

Sling also features a third "Trap Mode", where his back-sail can open up while he is in his beast mode to form a foreign-world flower, equipped with a spring-loaded pressure-fire trigger/flower stem in the middle—made to be activated when placing another figure's foot on it like a bear-trap. The instructions also suggest rotating all of his beast mode legs upside down and splaying them wide open; leaving him on his belly, while also spreading his robot mode feet out to become two smaller "flowers"...riiight... (his cartoon character model sheet suggests these are meant to be flowers, so let's just go with it).

This mold was later used to make the Walmart-exclusive Dinobots Sludge.

• More information on Sling at TFU.info

 

Left: Takara packaging pictured
Right: Sonokong packaging pictured

• Prairie Showdown: Stampy VS Sling (Multi-pack, January 1999)
  • Takara ID number: VS-31
  • Sonokong ID number: DX-03

Sling was also available in the "Prairie Showdown" (草原の対決 sōgen no taiketsu) two-pack with the Maximal Stampy. Both toys are identical to their individual releases.

Sonokong also released this vs-pack in Korean Beast-War Neo markets. "Dimetron" features no differences with the Takara releases of Sling, other than the packaging and Tech Spec cards.

Notes

• The animators of Beast Wars Neo seemed to have misinterpreted Sling's beast mode as some kind of cartoonish dinosaur, depicting him as being able to walk on two legs. It should be reiterated, however, that Dimetrodon isn't a dinosaur, and in all likelihood was strictly quadrupedal, similar to an alligator or Komodo dragon.
• His name is a reuse of G1 Slingshot's Japanese name.

Foreign names

• Korean: Dimetron (디메트론 Dimeteuron)