Finback
From Transformers Wiki
- Finback is a Decepticon Pretender from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Finback is the sickliest and crustiest ol' sailor you'll ever meet. Through pained gasps and wheezes, Finback will sputter out grand old tales of his adventures as a youth. Once, he'll tell you, he was a spry young Decepticon naval officer, before a failed raid on a chemical-polluted world left him with a metal-wasting disease. It's been eating away at him slowly ever since! Only Pretender technology arrested the spread of the disease.
Cackling, he'll tell you he no longer fears death, and that his only remaining goal is to make the Autobots suffer as much as he has. His Pretender shell may help treat his disease, but every moment away from it is one moment closer to permanent shutdown.
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Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
Marvel The Transformers comics
After commandeering a genetics research lab on Earth, Scorponok was able to recreate and perfect the science of Pretender shells using synthoplasmic chambers constructed by him and Vorath. Finback was one of six Decepticon volunteers transformed by the process into new Pretenders. After the process was completed, the Decepticons detected a digital eavesdropper. Finback and the other Pretenders were ordered to the source of the disturbance, the office buildings of Alternate Reality, Inc. Here they met the newly-created Autobot Pretenders in battle, who were being led by a digital copy of Optimus Prime. Prime's strategic prowess tipped the battle in the Autobots' favor, and the Decepticon Pretenders were forced to withdraw. Pretender to the Throne!
Soon, Scorponok's Decepticons met with the other group of Decepticons on Earth, led by Ratbat. When it was discovered that Ratbat's Decepticons had withheld information about pursuing the legendary database, the Underbase, Scorponok became enraged. Finback and the rest of Scorponok's troops were called out of their ship, and the two Decepticon factions fought bitterly. Cold War! This halted only when both sides realized they'd been duped by Starscream, who had pitted the factions against each other while leaving to take the Underbase for himself. But the Decepticons were distracted again when Autobots were detected nearby, and Finback and his teammates were ordered by Scorponok to "crush every spark from their bodies."
In the aftermath, Scorponok took command of the surviving Decepticons and moved them to an underground base within a New Jersey swamp facing New York City. The base would be powered by a massive machine that would convert energy into energon, and Scorponok ordered Finback and Submarauder to lay a cable from the machine across the Hudson River into the city. After evading the Micromaster Off Road Patrol, the Decepticon Pretenders reached the other side of the river, where Iguanus ordered Finback and Submarauder to guard the end of the cable. Unfortunately, Iguanus was damaged by lightning, ending their mission. King Con!
During the battle with Unicron, Finback was manning an artillery station on Cybertron. The power core overloaded when he pushed it to full power, though, and the resulting explosion apparently killed him and Misfire. On the Edge of Extinction!
Transformers Comic-Magazin
Funback[1] was present when the Decepticons unleashed a robotic hell-beast known as 'King Con' on New York; however Optimus Prime rented a helicopter to fly a banner announcing huge raw oil deposit finds in the Rocky Mountains. After a short hesitation, the Decepticons retreated to pursue these findings. New York — A City Sinking in Terror
2005 IDW continuity
- First appearance: Stormbringer #1
Finback was recruited by Bludgeon over 20 years ago to bring back the bio-mechanical grafting process designed by Thunderwing. Spotlight: Soundwave Using Shockwave's Regenesis program, they acquired enough raw Ore-13 from Earth to successfully revive Thunderwing as an awesomely powerful automaton, and begin constructing bio-mechanical carapaces for themselves. Unfortunately, an Autobot survey team stumbled across their activities on Cybertron. Stormbringer #1 He maliciously punished Jetfire with his electro prod when the Autobot tried to escape. Stormbringer #2 Finback was shot to pieces when the Wreckers raided the facility and put a stop to Bludgeon's plans. Stormbringer #3
Finback survived the encounter and was taken to Garrus-9. After Overlord took control of the prison, he freed Shockwave, who selected certain Decepticons to take with him. Like the rest of Shockwave's companions, he was on The List, and had been intended to be handed over to the Decepticon Justice Division in exchange for the former Senator being allowed to go free, a deal Tarn rejected. The Ties That Bind
Precursor World
Finback, or a creature that looked like his Pretender shell, was part of Purple Wicked Convoy's collection of monsters. God Neptune comic 1
Toys
The Transformers
- Finback (Pretender, 1988)
- Accessories: "Jet-propelled, armor-piercing harpoon gun", "metal-corroding stun rifle", belt
- Known designers: Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)
- Released in the fifth year of the original The Transformers toyline (fourth in European markets), Finback transforms into a stingray-shaped "high-speed hovercraft", with his robot arms rather obviously jutting out of the top of the vehicle. His large white "metal-corroding stun rifle" can be mounted on top.
- Finback's outer Pretender shell is a, erm, weird walking fish monster thingy that is possibly some sort of sea creature–his head shows a small similarity to that of a sea turtle, or maybe a coelacanth. It has a clawed left arm that can hold his "harpoon gun" and a sort of flipper/blade right arm which can hold the inner robot's gun with a weird sideways post-hole.
- No version of this mold or character was released in Japan.
Notes
- Splashdown's More than Meets the Eye profile states: "His upbeat attitude and lively speech make him a distorted mirror image of the Decepticons' Finback, whom Splashdown describes as a 'filthy pirate I wouldn't mind sending to the ocean floor permanently.'" Nowhere has Finback ever been described as having pirated anything, versus being a mere sailor or naval officer, so it's possible Splashdown's just being insulting. Or Finback's a pirate. Who knows.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Finback (フィンバック Finbakku)
- Italian: Razzak
References
- ↑ The spelling "Funback" is most likely the result of Condor Verlag receiving a poor-quality fax with the text "Finback" not entirely legible.
