Scorponok (BW)
| The name or term "Scorponok" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Scorponok (disambiguation). |
- Scorponok is a Predacon from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Scorponok's personality seems to have two main features: He's dumb, and he's loyal to Megatron (surprisingly so, considering Megatron's other crew members), and of those two features, only the loyalty seems to be consistent. He tries to serve Megatron to the best of his abilities, but when Waspinator is able to outwit you, there's only so much you have to offer.
Scorponok begins as Megatron's second-in-command on the Darksyde, though he is insecure about the title and constantly tries to assert himself among the other Predacons who, aware of his shortcomings, generally dismiss or ignore him.
Scorponok's only other real contribution to Megatron's cause is in developing cyber-viruses that he delivers with his cyberbee drone. (This is impressive, actually, given his otherwise limited mentality.) However, these generally don't work out as he hoped, and so they've done little to increase his standing in the eyes of the other Predacons.
- Italian name: Scorpionok
- Japanese name: Scorpos
Fiction
Animated continuity
Timelines: Dawn of Future's Past
The Predacon that would be called Scorponok, his commander Megatron, and his commander's lieutenant stole the sacred Maximal relic, the Golden Disk. After fighting their way through the relic's guards, the thieves were picked up by their other comrades in a stolen ship, newly christened the Darksyde.
Soon after leaving Cybertron, the Darksyde was in involved in a space battle with the Maximal vessels Axalon and Chromia 10 and an unidentified Predacon ship. At its conclusion, only the Axalon and the Darksyde survived, and both ships passed through a transwarp portal to an unknown destination. Dawn of Future's Past
Beast Wars
- Voice actor: Don Brown (US) Masashi Endō (Japan)
Crash-landing on an unknown planet, Scorponok and his peers were forced to take on organic beast modes to shield themselves from the planet's dangerous levels of raw energon. Scorponok now transformed into an organic scorpion. When Dinobot furiously berated Megatron for foolishly marooning them on the wrong planet and attempted to attack his leader, Scorponok stood behind Megatron and waited for his cue to fire on Dinobot, sending the traitor far into the distance. Later, Scorponok participated in the first battle between the Maximal and Predacon factions and managed to trap Cheetor's leg under a boulder. However, the Predacons soon succumbed to energon overload. Beast Wars, Part 1
After recovering in beast mode, Scorponok and the lower-ranking Predacons were wagering who would win the battle between Optimus Primal and Dinobot until Megatron ordered them to fire on the unwitting combatants. After their shots failed to destroy the Maximals but instead revealed a massive energon cache buried inside a mountain, the Predacons moved out, followed by the Maximals. The two parties confronted each other at the energon cache, and Scorponok fought Dinobot in the one-on-one clashes that ensued. Beast Wars, Part 2
Later, Megatron tasked Scorponok with a mission to create a virus for his cyberbee that would turn Optimus Primal into a coward. Ambushing the Maximal leader and Dinobot as they were on a botanical study near a waterfall, Scorponok managed to have his cyberbee latch onto Optimus when he attempted to help the traitor. Unfortunately, Optimus Primal fired off a shot before going down, dislodging the log Scorponok was sitting upon and sending him over the edge of the waterfall. To greater misfortune, Scorponok had botched the virus, turning Optimus Primal not into a coward, but a fearless, ultra-aggressive beserker. Both Scorponok and Megatron were blown up with the cyberbee when Primal ripped it off and chucked it at Megatron's back. Gorilla Warfare Other than this, Scorponok's major contributions to the Predacons were all related to the fact that he possessed nothing but heavy artillery for weapons. Sadly for Scorponok, the actual value of any shots he fired was limited with more or less a single exception: when he blinded the Maximals by detonating an energon deposit. Dark Voyage
Although he rarely did anything of importance, Scorponok once fought Dinobot one-on-one and gave a very good account of himself. When the Maximals invaded the Darksyde to retrieve their comrade Rhinox, Scorponok not only held his own, but dominated the fight, up until the point where Dinobot uses his rotary blade weapon to win. This is even more impressive when one takes into account he'd already gone a few rounds with the smirker Terrorsaur just prior. Dark Designs
After learning of Optimus Primal's destruction, Scorponok laughed along with his fellow Predacons, then congratulated Megatron, but was pushed away by his leader. Scorponok died along with Terrorsaur when the two, affected by the transwarp wave that turned Megatron into Transmetal, crashed their hover platforms into each other and tumbled into the lava beneath the Predacon base during the explosion of the Vok's artificial moon. No one much noticed. Aftermath
Toys
Beast Wars
- Scorponok (Mega, 1996)
- Japanese ID number: D-2
- Scorponok transforms into a fairly organic but highly inaccurate black scorpion. The right pincer contains a small, spring-loaded bee drone-type gimmick which can be launched, while his left pincer has a firing missile launcher. He also features exactly the same transformation as pretty much every Scorponok toy ever, transforming into a robot with his pincers serving as his arms and his tail hiding behind him. Owing to his design's extensive usage of ball joints, he has a high range of articulation
- The Japanese release of Scorponok has a slightly more 'show-accurate' paint scheme. But not by much.
- Scorponok (Transmetal, Happy Meal, 1998)
- Since Scorponok got killed off in order to introduce new prod—er, CHARACTERS, he was granted a "Transmetal" toy as a Happy Meal premium. He transforms like every other Scorponok, except his shoulders can't go lower than a few degrees from pointing up, meaning all he can do is "raise the roof." It's cast mostly in gauche magenta and "metallic" gold.
Trivia
- Scorponok was first advertised on the back of the Optimus Primal versus Megatron two-pack at the start of the Beast Wars line with a completely different color scheme. The toy itself was cast completely in transparent orange and blue plastic, which would have made it remarkably fragile at the joints. Another version cast in pink translucent plastic and having the final claw coloration surfaced in 2006, although this could likely be explained by the random plastics used in test shots.
- He's also the only Maximal or Predacon to not use the toy's robot or mutant head as his animated head. Although, his robot head closely resembles his animated head.
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