Dreadwing (Energon)

The name or term "Dreadwing" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Dreadwing (disambiguation).

Dreadwing is a Decepticon from the Energon portion of the Unicron Trilogy continuity family.

"Must... reach... remote... without getting up... from couch..."

Dreadwing is an emotionless clone of Mirage who is noted as a creature of pure evil even amongst his fellow Decepticons, bringing a chill to all who encounter him. Unleashed like a plague upon the Autobots, he fights artistically in pursuit of the systematic termination of his enemies. Caring nothing for the Decepticon cause, his only purpose in life is the destruction of anyone who stands in his path. A path marked by the footsteps of doom!

Fiction

Timelines

Dreadwing attacked the Iron Hope with Sharkticon. Force of Habit

Toys

Energon

Vehicle mode leaves behind the displacement wake of doom.

• Dreadwing (Mega Class, 2004)

• Accessories: 4 missiles

Released in the "wave 3.5" of Energon Mega Class toys, Dreadwing is a redeco of Mirage, transforming into a Cybertronic speedboat/hydrofoil. He features a spark crystal on his chest/wheelhouse to affix an energon chip onto. Pressing a button on his deck causes a pair of spring-loaded missile launchers to pop up; this assembly forms a backpack for robot mode that turns them into over-shoulder cannons. The boat's rear section features another pair of spring-loaded missile launchers, plus fold-down wings for his "Hyper Power Mode". These form forearm-mounted weapons in robot mode. Due possibly to the plastics used, he is more stable than Mirage, and less apt to pop apart when you bend his joints. In particular, his knees hold together better.

Much like Mirage, the instructions show that Dreadwing's feet are supposed to fold all the way up inside his boat mode, however, when doing this, his forearms don't sit flush on the top due to the raised edges of his feet occupying the same space that the elbow joints need to sit in, causing collisions. This doesn't affect the tabbing of any of the parts, it just causes his forearms to stick out, which can be annoying. Seemingly, the designers of Mirage's character model for the Energon cartoon caught onto this, and opted to design his boat mode model with only his heels folded inside the boat mode, with his toes just folded up onto the back. Like Mirage, this can be replicated on the toy and looks objectively cleaner overall.

Hasbro's stock photo shows him primarily in silver, but the final toy is colored very differently, being primarily baby blue instead.

This mold was also used to make BotCon 2009 Banzai-Tron.

• More information on Dreadwing at TFU.info

Notes

• Aaron Archer states that the Mirage/Dreadwing design's alternate mode was inspired by the G.I. Joe Cobra Moray hydrofoil. The general "form" of the robot mode, meanwhile, was inspired by a fan-painted Gundam Archer saw in Hobby Japan magazine, which also served as reference for Dreadwing's colour scheme.