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)

Sling was among the Predacons stationed on Gaia, along with his commander Magmatron. When they noticed five new Maximal recruits landing on the planet’s surface, he was ordered, along with the others, to deal with them. While the others fired on the inbound Maximals, Sling hid in a patch of nearby brush in flower mode, eventually capturing Stampy unawares, and holding him hostage. When the Maximals tried to rescue their teammate, Sling, along with his teammates, confronted them, but were suddenly frozen in place by Heinrad’s freezing of time. Held still for long enough for Heinrad to take back Stampy, once things returned to normal, he was left stunned by the events that had just unfolded. Once Magmatron and Big Convoy began to duke it out, Guiledart took precautionary measures and demanded that DNAVI teleport them back to HQ before things got messy, taking all Predacons away from combat, bar Sling, who was almost forgotten about by his own team. Bummer. After begging, DNAVI begrudgingly teleported him, too, though. Sling, along with the other Predacons, was lectured by DNAVI for their failure in combat. Big Convoy, Move Out

Sling was with the other Predacons when they listened to Saberback, via transmission, detail his magical powers. Sling was in awe, shocked that he had never known that Saberback had power over wizardry, but Guiledart called Saberback out on not possessing any real special abilities, other than being able to transform into a flower. Sling later came to Saberback’s aid when he was being pursued by Longrack and Colada. When Guiledart and Saberback began to bicker, Sling called attention to the fact that the more important situation was retrieving the Angolmois, before firing on the two Maximals. Later on, when Maximal reinforcements arrived, chaos broke out, and at one point, the Angolmois capsule was thrown in Sling’s direction. Guiledart screamed at Sling to catch it, but the Predacon wasn’t all too coordinated, and it instead fell into the hands of Heinrad. After the Maximals had taken off with the Angolmois, Guiledart blamed the loss on Sling, but Saberback came to his defense. When DNAVI was ordered by Magmatron to transport the Predacons back to the ship, Sling was forgotten about once more, having to beg her to teleport him back, too. Chase the Mysterious Capsule

Sling was on the Dinosaur, and was on board with Guiledart’s plan to retrieve the Angolmois capsule located on the frozen planet Solid. His first move upon arrival was to bury the main Maximal group underneath snow with Saberback. The two Predacons then rendezvoused with Dead End while the Predacon fretted about potentially damaging the Angolmois capsule by losing it underwater. When Sling called him unreliable, and asked if he needed any help, Dead End dove under the water and told them he’d do it himself. When the ice Sling and Saberback were standing on began to melt, they requested DNAVI teleport them off-world, but the AI demanded they call her “Anastasia” before she assisted them. They reluctantly agreed, and were transported back to the Dinosaur. Burning Heart Below Freezing

Sling participated in Guiledart's plan to attack the Maximals on Maderan so that they could have more time to locate the Angolmois there at their own pace. Sling was teamed with Guiledart himself, and they focused their efforts on disabling Stampy, Longrack, and Break. They succeeded in capturing the latter two with an electric trap, but Stampy himself was able to escape, much to Sling's chagrin. Guiledart wasn't too concerned, though, telling Sling that he'd be destroyed one way or another. They both found themselves shocked when Stampy showed back up to free the prisoners... temporarily. Magmatron swiftly arrived and recaptured them, watching in glee as his Predacon troops tortured the Maximals. Sling in particular reveled in poking them with his "Tail Bunker". Big Convoy then arrived and prepared to fire on the group with his "Big Cannon" in order to free his soldiers, to which Magmatron responded by teleporting the Predacons away from the battlefield and back to the Dinosaur. Hang in There, Stampy

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

• Known designers: Takashi Kunihiro (TakaraTomy)

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.

Foreign names

• Korean: Dimetron (디메트론 Dimeteuron)