Tankor (BM)
| The name or term "Tankor" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Tankor (disambiguation). |
- Tankor is a Vehicon from the Beast Machines portion of the Generation 1 /Beast Era continuity family.
Tankor SMAAAAAASHHH! Tankor PULLLVERIZZZZEEE! Tankor SLAG BEAST BOTS! Tankor is the brute force part of Megatron's first trio of Vehicon generals and commander of the powerful Tank Drones. He's slow, simple-minded and immensely powerful. Lovably dim, his limited intelligence can be a drawback; he can easily be confused, misled, or even turned against Megatron, though temporarily. However, this is balanced out by his natural state of blind frustration and destuctive rage, which makes getting him to listen to any cajoling a less than simple task.
Tankor is in actuality a programmed shell personality given life by the spark of the Maximal Rhinox.
Outside of normal space and time, an alternate-universe incarnation of Tankor serves the will of Unicron.
Fiction
Beast Machines cartoon
- Voice actor: Paul Dobson, Richard Newman (as Rhinox, later Tankor) (English), Daiki Nakamura (Japanese), Maurício Berger (Portuguese)
When the Maximals returning to Cybertron from the Beast Wars were infected with Megatron's virus, Rhinox was not as lucky as most of his comrades. While the Transmetals were able to stay mobile for a time, Rhinox was immediately paralyzed and overtaken by Tank Drones. His spark was forcibly removed and stored in a canister in Megatron's citadel.
When Megatron found that he needed underlings to properly control his Vehicon armies in battle, he used Rhinox's spark to power his tank general Tankor. He reasoned that if the Maximals discovered their new enemy had once been their close friend, they would be less willing to fight him. Unfortunately for Megatron, Tankor was only marginally more intelligent than the mindless drones he was created to lead. Meanwhile, Rhinox's spark/consciousness remained intact inside Tankor, albeit unable to act.
True to Megatron's expectations, the Maximals did attempt to reach Tankor's spark, and they discovered his true nature. They woke his spark, but the Rhinox they got was not the Rhinox they expected. Tainted and embittered by his time inside Tankor, Rhinox rejected the Maximals and embraced Megatron's plan for a "peaceful", technologically-pure Cybertron, only with himself at its head instead of Megatron.
Tankor-Rhinox immediately began plotting against both Megatron and the Maximals. He caught and reprogrammed one of Megatron's Diagnostic Drones, forcing it to work for him. He found the Oracle and, using the Diagnostic Drone, retrieved the Key to Vector Sigma from within. He then faked his own death and attempted to manipulate Megatron into firing the key on a planetary scale. This would have killed all the organics, including the Maximals and Megatron, leaving Tankor to rule a pure mechanical world. Tankor's manipulations failed when he tried to attack Megatron, and a provision against doing so, hard-wired into his programming, shut him down. Due to Tankor's manipulations, however, Primal opened the Plasma Energy Chamber and Megatron fired the Key. The ensuing clash of energies destroyed Tankor's body, and his spark joined the Matrix.
Primal met Rhinox's spark one last time within the Matrix, where Rhinox expressed regret over his recent actions.
Toys
Beast Machines
- Tankor (Mega, 1999)
- Part of the first wave of Beast Machines product, Tankor transforms into a large Cybertronic tank. Aside from a spring-loaded missile launcher, he also features a light-piped "scanner eye" on his turret, and twin sawblades that spin via gear-wheel system when his tank mode is pushed along. In robot mode, all of these gimmicks are retained, though the "scanner eye" is this time in his robot head.
- Despite all of these features, the toy and its transformation scheme bear very little resemblance to the show's CG model.
- This toy was redecoed into Universe Tankor. The toy's likeness was also used for the non-toy Beast Era incarnation of Quake and his drones.
- Tankor (Happy Meal Toy, 2000)
- One of nine Beast Machines Happy Meal toys from McDonald's resturants, Tankor transforms into a small Cybertronic tank based a bit more on the show's CGI model. This toy features a fair bit of articulation (about 8 points in robot mode), though some points are more useful than others. His head articulation, for example, is quite nice. The toy also has lightpiping through the spark and missile rack on his belly.
- Tankor (Little Red Rooster Meal, 2000)
- The Happy Meal toy was retooled and redecoed for release in Australia, through the Red Rooster fast food chain. Aside from the original coloration, this mold was also cast in the colors of the other three molds used by Red Rooster: Jetstorm, Megatron and Rattrap. The retooling involved removing (and plugging up) Tankor's light piping, meaning that his neck is no longer translucent plastic. Due to the softer plastic used to construct him it can be difficult to get Red Rooster Tankor's arms to come out.
- Tankor (Basic, 2005)
- Japanese ID number: BR-06
- Released in the second wave of the Japanese Toys "R" Us exclusive Beast Wars Returns line (the Japanese name for Beast Machines), Tankor is a redeco of the Basic Tank Drone, transforming into a Cybertronic four-tracked tank. Pressing the spark crystal on his cannon fires a spring-loaded "energy blast" missile. A gear-wheel system on the underside of his tank mode also activates this attack, while spinning his tank barrel in the process.
- It is highly (in fact, almost perfectly) show-accurate, although woefully out of scale with the other BM toys. Like the rest of the line, actually...
- This mold was also used to make Stockade.
