Road Ranger
From MediaWiki
- Road Ranger is a Guardian posing as an Autobot from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Road Ranger is a traveler from another dimension, who has taken the form of an Autobot and infiltrated their ranks in the hopes of finding the solution to a problem that plagues his home.
Fiction
Fun Publications comic
Road Ranger, along with other displaced GoBots, somehow ends up at Axiom Nexus and is "processed". Transcendent: Part 1 Withered Hope
Toys
Generation 1
- G1 GoBots (Multi-pack, 2004)
- Japanese ID number: 84
- Road Ranger is a redeco of the Mini Vehicle Huffer, transforming into a cabover-syle semi truck of indeterminate model. He was only available in an e-Hobby-exclusive 6-pack with Bad Boy, Bug Bite, Path Finder, Small Foot and Treds.
Trivia
- Road Ranger is clearly intended to be the character from the Tonka GoBots line. His name does not appear in any of the final product material; it only appeared in an early Photoshopped promotional image on the e-Hobby website. The individual toys' names were dropped when Takara's legal department became concerned at how Bandai—the company that made the toys that would become the Tonka GoBots—would react to the names being used, despite the minimal chance of provable trademark infringement on Takara's part.
- Of course, this all became moot once Fun Publications took the ball and ran with it, re-establishing explicit ties between the two formerly-rival franchises.
- Unlike the Transformers, the GoBots were originally a race of organic humanoids who replaced much, but not all, of their bodies with machinery. Thus, Road Ranger is a cyborg and not a true robot.
- Road Ranger's Transformers color scheme was devised by Hirofumi Ichikawa. It bears a passing resemblance to the various Nemesis Primes, but how intentional a nod this was on Ichikawa's part is uncertain, particularly given all the orange in Road Ranger's robot mode.
- The Ladybird book Autobots' Lightning Strike features miscolored versions of Huffer and Gears that somewhat resemble the colorations given to Road Ranger and Small Foot. Whether or not the GoBots' similarities are intentional or not is debatable.
