Wreck-Gar (G1)
| This article is about the Junkion from Generation 1. For the garbage truck from Transformers Animated, see Wreck-Gar (Animated). |
- Wreck-Gar is an Autobot-allied Junkion from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Wreck-Gar is the leader of the Junkions, a tribe (or possibly race) of junk-robot Transformers who call the planet Junkion "home sweet home". Like all Junkions, Wreck-Gar's speech is a hodge-podge mish-mash of phrases taken from Earth broadcasting, especially television, which has become the focal point of Junkion culture. He is generally suspicious of strangers, but once he considers you a friend, he's a steadfast and selfless individual. He oversees his people's daily activities of "sorting" through their planet's collection of scrap, though what basis they use to sort the material has yet to be identified. He seems to have some sort of relationship with a Junkion lady named Nancy.
In battle, Wreck-Gar is easy to knock down, but near-impossible to keep down, thanks to the very unique physiology of the Junkions. He tends to lose pieces easily when he takes damage, but he can repair that damage with lightning speed, and it's possible that even if he's reduced to a pile of parts it's only a short time before he's back on his feet again swinging his axe. This rapid-healing ability reaches almost instantaneous speed on his home planet of Junk, or anywhere he can get his hands on scrap metal. Many would-be conquerors have mistaken the Junkions for harmless idiots. Most of them are currently scattered across the rusted surface of Junk.
- Italian name: Chopper
- French-Canadian name: Ferraille (Scrap)
Fiction
American cartoon continuity
- Voice actors: Eric Idle, Tony Pope (English); Toshio Ishii (Japanese)
At first, Wreck-Gar viewed the Autobots as thieves and enemies. Attacking without warning after Ultra Magnus's apparent death (rumors of which were greatly exaggerated), Wreck-Gar and his fellow Junkions soon learned that they were wrong. Wreck-Gar fought Springer for a while before Daniel took him down with an I-beam to the back of the head.
Following their defeat and the arrival of Hot Rod, Kup, Wheelie and the Dinobots—and subsequent pacification with the Universal Greeting—Wreck-Gar had the Junkions rebuild Ultra Magnus, like new with 90 day warranty, and dance with the Autobots to "Weird Al" Yankovic until they decided maybe they should protect Cybertron from Unicron after all.
After boogieing down for an unspecified amount of time, the Junkions revealed their rather cruddy-looking ship to the Autobots and prepared to "destroy Unicron, kill the Grand Poobah, and eliminate even the toughest stains."
The Junkions, like pretty much everyone else, didn't fare well against Unicron. Their ship managed to last longer than most in the battle, proving to be highly resistant to Unicron's fire-breath (due in part certainly to the Junkions' rapid-repair skills), but was ultimately crushed by Unicron's hand... though its passengers apparently lived (or at least got their money back).
Wreck-Gar survived, as did Perceptor, appearing with the rest of Rodimus Prime's Autobot team on Cybertron. Though he returned to Junkion after Unicron's defeat, he remained a reliable ally for the Autobots afterwards, trying to ensure that they were neither canceled nor lost their license. The Transformers: The Movie
Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4
Tricked into boarding a Quintesson scientist's ship (disguised as a junky television shuttle), Wreck-Gar was placed into a completely sterile room. The Quintesson speculated that being removed from the messiest place in the universe and put in a clean room would send Wreck-Gar into a fetal position of shock and despair; instead, Wreck-Gar tore the room apart until it resembled the surface of Junk, then sat down on a large chunk of metal, happily proclaiming "Home sweet home!" He then met his fellow study subjects: Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, and Marissa Faireborn. When the ship was caught in an electron storm, Wreck-Gar fired his detachable hand at the cell controls, disabling the bars, then battled the Quintessons' bodyguard, losing his weapon-arm in the process (which he easily fixed). However, the ship was caught in the grip of a black hole, and Wreck-Gar was part of an escape pod scuffle that left everyone stranded on the ship as it was pulled into a negative universe. He then used some of his components, along with ones from the other Transformers, to fix the ship and allow them to escape the black hole.
He is one of the few beings in the galaxy who likes clowns. The Killing Jar
Joining Blaster, Rewind, Ramhorn, and Perceptor on a mission to examine strange chronal energy readings in an asteroid belt, Wreck-Gar got more than he bargained for when they were attacked by a legion of Sharkticons. After chopping apart his fair share of the brutes, he was accidentally sent back in time nine million years along with everyone except Perceptor, to when the Quintessons ruled Cybertron. After fleeing from a guardian robot and teaming up with a rebel Autobot group, Wreck-Gar aided the others in their attack on the Quintessons' base, which would have ended in their untimely demise if A-3 had not returned to the past and deactivated the Guardians, forcing the Quintessons to flee. The time-displaced Autobots then returned to their proper era. Forever Is a Long Time Coming
During the outbreak of the Hate Plague, Rodimus Prime summoned Wreck-Gar to attempt to repair Optimus Prime, but unfortunately, he was dead, Jim. Wreck-Gar remained on Earth to assist in trying to stop the hate plague, showing up later to rescue Rodimus from the infected Ultra Magnus, but this quickly proved unsuccessful as Ultra Magnus escaped Wreck-Gar's lasso and infected him. In turn, Wreck-Gar infected Rodimus Prime The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 1. His warehouses were overstocked with hate plague priced to move, for a limited time only.
Japanese cartoon continuity
Headmasters cartoon
Wreck-Gar was hanging out at Autobot headquarters during the first attack by Galvatron and his new Headmaster warriors. He merely pointed out the Decepticons' attack being shown on the telly and (successfully) bossed Grimlock around before running off to try to help anyone who might've fallen and been unable to get up. While Kup and Spike were debating the weakness in Vector Sigma, he told them to make sure operators were standing by and darted back off into the hallway, never to be seen again. Four Warriors Come out of the Sky.
Marvel Comics continuity
In a strange alternate future, Wreck-Gar and his lady were interrupted in their television watching by a Sharkticon attack. Wreck-Gar rallied his fellow Junkions to repel the invaders. He didn't know that the Sharkticons were sent by the Quintessons to look for their data canisters which, during the fight, was hopelessly lost amongst all the junk. The Quintessons then initiated a new plan which involved beaming a hypnotic signal through the Junkions' televisions. The signal made the Junkions extremely hostile to any foreigners as well as compelling them to meticulously organize their junk. In this way the Quintessons would find the data canister for them. In an encounter with the Aerialbots, the hypnotic signal was momentarily altered to compel Wreck-Gar to bounce the signal throughout the galaxy, causing television watchers everywhere to attack their neighbors and travel to Junkion.
The Autobots also arrived and successfully disrupted the hypnosis signal. Once freed, Wreck-Gar and his Junkions joined the Autobots in driving the Decepticons off the planet. The Big Broadcast of 2006 (US)
Marvel UK future timelines
After the destruction of Unicron, Wreck-Gar remained on Cybertron for a time and helped the Autobots regain control of the planet while attempting to fend off Decepticon attacks under the new command of Shockwave. Wanted:Galvatron — Dead or Alive! When Rodimus Prime planned a time-travel adventure to end the threat posed by former Decepticon commander, Galvatron, Wreck-Gar decided to come along and leapt into the time-jump effect at the last second, causing his landing vector to be significantly displaced away from his fellow traveler's. Burning Sky! Stumbling across the deactivated body of Bumblebee by chance, Wreck-Gar put his considerable mechanical talents to work and rebuilt the scrapped Autobot into a new form as Goldbug. The two then joined Wreck-Gar's allies and the present-day Ultra Magnus in an attempt to stop Galvatron's schemes. Hunters Wreck-Gar managed to get a hold of Galvatron's time jump trigger device, and planned to jerry-rig the device to send all the time-travelers permanently back to 2007. His recalibrations failed, though, and the Autobots returned to the future while Galvatron remained in the past. Fire on High!
Still, Wreck-Gar had proven himself a worthy ally, and Rodimus gave him an official escort back to the planet of Junk and his people. Upon arriving home, however, Wreck-Gar stumbled into a plot by the Dark God himself, Unicron, to co-opt the planet Junk as a new body. It seems Unicron's head had blown free when his original body was destroyed by the Matrix and had drifted into range of the planetoid. Unicron's vast mental powers had enabled him to enslave the entire Junkion people, and Wreck-Gar was forced to "cancel" one of his fellow Junkions while making his escape, an act for which he swore Unicron would pay dearly. After escaping another of Unicron's mind-pawns, named Death's Head, Wreck-Gar gathered a large quantity of explosives directly underneath Unicron's head and set them to blow. He managed to destroy what was left of Unicron's body just as Rodimus Prime contained the Chaos-Bringer's living essence within the confines of the Matrix, ending his threat for the moment. The Legacy of Unicron!
Sometime later, by sheer cosmic chance, Wreck-Gar came into possession of a Quintesson journal, a message cannister containing details of their plans to leave the dying planet Quintessa and colonize other mechanical worlds, including Cybertron. When he attempted to bring this information to Rodimus Prime and the Autobots, Wreck-Gar was intercepted en route by the Quintessons and taken captive. They tried to torture the location of the cannister out of him, but all they got was total nonsense. Managing to escape, Wreck-Gar hooked up with an Autobot spy named Wheelie, and the two of them blasted off from Quintessa. After eluding his pursuers, Wreck-Gar met up with some of his fellow Junkions and rigged the message cannister so that its contents were broadcast across the universe. Instantly, all the potential colony worlds were alerted and forewarned of the possibility of a Quintesson invasion, and overnight the Quints became one of the most hated and hunted races in all the galaxies, throwing all their future plans into turmoil. Space Pirates!
Sticker Adventures
When an Autobot shuttle was forced to land on The Junk Planet for repairs, Blurr caught the attention of Wreck-Gar. Wreck-Gar was impressed by Blurr's powerful engine...and decided he wanted it! He attacked the Autobots with a horde of Junkions, intent on hacking the still-sputtering engine from Blurr's body, and fought Springer in the process.
The misunderstanding came to an end when Kup, an old hand at negotiating with natives, located their missing shuttle and instead engaged the Junkions in a barter session, trading weapons and energon. The Junkions waved as their new friends departed with all their parts intact. Battle on the Junk Planet
Blackthorn Comics continuity
Dreamwave comics continuity
Wreck-Gar found the chassis of the near-dead Megatron floating in space, where he had been abandoned by Starscream, while on a supply run. Revelation Wreck-Gar brought Megatron back on-line and even salvaged several Aerospace Extermination Squadron drone bodies from the surface of Junk for him so he could reclaim his position as leader of the Decepticons. For Wreck-Gar's efforts, Megatron stabbed him through the chest. Runnin' with the Devil
Transformers Legends anthology
When the Recyclons arrived on Junk, intending to convert the planet into energon for their overseers, the Harvest Lords of Sigrath, Wreck-Gar approached the leader, Salvage, and got two blaster bolts in the chest. After a near-instantaneous repair job, Wreck-Gar called out his fellows and swarmed the Recyclons, severely damaging them and forcing them to retreat to their ship, the Reclamation, and lift off.
Salvage returned to the planet's surface, leaving the Reclamation in orbit, in order to make peace with Wreck-Gar. But it was all a ruse; Salvage slapped a device on Wreck-Gar, a more powerful version of the Junkion leader's own decelerator laser, preventing him from attacking or calling his people while the orbiting Recyclons fired a beam from the Prime Processing Unit to convert the planet to energon from space. However, Wreck-Gar proved even stronger than Salvage expected, and he called the Junkions to fire a tractor beam at the Reclamation, sending it crashing into Junk seconds before the Prime Processing Unit activated, causing the ship to explode. Salvage himself lived only a few seconds more than his fellows, as the Junkions closed in on him immediately afterwards. Collect and Save
Toys
Generation 1
- Wreck-Gar (Autobot Hero, 1986)
- Japanese ID number: C-81
- Accessories: "Decelerator Laser" gun, "Armor Axe"
- Wreck-Gar's only toy transforms into a Cybertronic "junk" motorcycle, and is noteworthy for being one of the earliest uses of ball-and-socket joints in the Transformers toy line. As his fists become the axle for his front wheel, his two weapons can be mounted there in motorcycle mode.
- Unfortunately, two Wreck-Gar toys are completely incapable of riding one another, unlike the action depicted in the movie.
MyClone
- Wreck-Gar (MyClone, 2003)
- A "super deformed" mini-figure of Wreck-Gar was created as part of the second wave of MyClone Transformers in Japan. These toys could be disassembled and their parts mixed-and-matched thanks to a generic base body. In Wreck-Gar's case, this is especially appropriate.
Notes
- The original commercial for the Wreck-Gar toy portrayed him as a Decepticon, presumably to keep with the theme of the movie and not spoil a surprise... even though the toy was always labeled and packaged as an Autobot. He was also voiced by Frank Welker rather than either Eric Idle or Tony Pope.
- For some reason, the Marvel UK comics rather consistently portrayed Wreck-Gar with one strand of his mustache on fire.
- For nearly 20 years, Wreck-Gar was the only Junkion toy, until the creation of the e-Hobby exclusive Detritus.
- A motorcycle based on Wreck-Gar makes a brief easter egg appearance in the Transformers Animated episode "Garbage In, Garbage Out". Wreck-Gar's Animated counterpart throws it at Bumblebee in a fit of misguided helpfulness.
