Transformers: Generation 1
“Dreadwing” is the name of the combined form of the two Decepticon Powermasters, Dreadwind and Darkwing, released separately in 1988.
The two Decepticons had very distinct personalities. Dreadwind was a pessimist, constantly taking the "glass is half empty" view (somewhat reminiscent of the Stunticon Dead End). The other Decepticons, bar Darkwing, avoid him, as they know he'll only depress them more. While Dreadwind does inspire dread on the battlefield, this only gets him even further down. Dreadwind transforms into an F-16 Fighting Falcon jet. His partner is the Nebulan Hi-Test. Hi-Test is the polar opposite of Dreadwind, who enjoys danger, and tries to get his partner to cheer up.
Dreadwind may be an eternal pessimist, but his partner Darkwing is actually worse - a manic-depressive who believes that life is just one long road of suffering and pain. While Dreadwind accepts his lot in life, Darkwing wants to make others feel worse than he does - via his electro-kinetic blasters if at all possible. He use these to inflict unspeakable agonies upon his victims, considering that they at least can die and be done with it, while he still has to suffer. Darkwing transforms into a Tornado jet. Darkwing is partnered with the Nebulan Throttle. Throttle is a thief and a general crook. However, he is extremely honest, making it easier for Darkwing to get along with him.
Although one would think that the two would be perfect partners, the two despise each other, and especially detest merging into their combined mode of Dreadwing, where they bicker and continually try to depress each other further.
Marvel Comics
The peaceful planet of Nebulos had earlier been visited by the Autobots and Decepticons in Marvel Comics’ Transformers series, and when they departed, only ruin was left in their wake. To prevent such horrors from occurring again, Nebulan scientist Hi-Q detonated a bomb in the planet’s atmosphere which “poisoned” the planet’s various fuel supplies and resources – although harmless to Nebulans, the “poison” was toxic to Transformers. This was the fate which befell Dreadwind and Darkwing when they came to the planet looking for the departed Scorponok, and refuelled from Nebulan resources, causing their bodies to cease functioning. Their rotting, immobile hulks soon became tourist attractions.
Meanwhile, Hi-Q’s jealous partner, Hi-Test, had vowed to outdo his contemporary, and hired criminal Throttle to steal Hi-Q’s latest fuel conversion theories, which he had dubbed the “Powermaster Process.” Using this data, Hi-Test bio-engineered his and Throttle’s bodies, and offered partnership to Dreadwind and Darkwing, who accepted; the two Nebulans transformed into engines and connected to them, supplying them with untainted energy direct from their own bodies. The Powermasters ran roughshod over the planet, but were eventually defeated by a new team of Powermasters, including Hi-Q himself, bonded with Optimus Prime, and exiled from Nebulos.
Dreadwind and Darkwing soon entered into a partnership with the robot-eating Mecannibals, hiding their own robot nature by dealing through Hi-Test and Throttle, whose job it was to find other robots for the Mecannibals to feast upon. Setting their sights upon Autobot Pretenders Landmine and Cloudburst, the Decepticons lured them into the Mecannibals clutches, but in a strange twist of fate, the Pretenders were sent to gather spices to improve their flavour. Dreadwind and Darkwing pursued them to make things difficult, but when the fact that they were robots was revealed to the Mecannibals, Landmine and Cloudburst departed while Dreadwing and Darkwind fled.
The Mecannibals pursued the two Powermasters to Cybertron, where they took an assignment from Megatron to acquire the body of the deceased Decepticon, Starscream, hoping it would allow them to shake off their pursuers. Heading to Earth, they discovered that the energies of the Underbase that had destroyed Starscream continued to animate his corpse, but when Throttle and Hi-Test drained them away, they took the body back to Megatron for revival as a Pretender. Megatron’s subsequent apparent death put the duo out of work, however, and they drowned their sorrows at Maccadam’s Old Oil House, where they remained drunkenly unaware of some Mecannibals that had picked up their trail being dispatched by the Autobot Quickswitch. Dreadwind and Darkwing participated in the attack on Unicron when the chaos-bringer assaulted Cybertron, and survived to serve under Bludgeon’s leadership, aiding in the raid on planet Klo, where they killed the Autobot Getaway.
Of the two, Dreadwind was a particular favorite character of series writer Simon Furman, and served a long stint as the character who answered reader’s queries on the letters page of the UK’s exclusive Transformers title.
Transformers: Generation 2
In a few years' time Hasbro would revamp the TF toy line under the working title Generation 2, thus again licensing Marvel the rights to publish a TF comics series and thereby relaunch the old Transformers title as Transformers: Generation 2. Marvel in turn hired former TF writer Simon Furman to compose the new issue installments which would serve as engaging newsstand advertisements for Hasbro's reintroduced product. Furman's approach was to begin a fresh start although attempting to continue the previous TF storyline which he'd left off on, and it was in this way that the character of Darkwing would undergo a startling transformation. In #5 when an upgraded Megatron returned in super-power to reclaim leadership of the Decepticons from Bludgeon, Darkwing would attempt a sneak aerial attack on Megatron that resulted in his destruction by Megatron's enhanced offensive systems. Oddly enough, the aircraft depicted seemed to more resemble Dreadwind than Darkwing, although the design did not actually fit either Decepticon's jetmode nor their combined aeroform Dreadwing.
The following issue would see a deactivated Darkwing being repaired by Frenzy & Rumble, and #7 presented the new Darkwing in jetmode (a stealth bomber) attacking a mining operation on the planet Tykos in a move by the Decepticons to pirate the metal-strengthening gas Rheanimum. Beyond this point, Darkwing did not appear again in the G2 comic series, to say nothing of Dreadwind. The character was portrayed in issues 4 through 7, each time merely to be found on only but a single page of the given comic book; and in these few appearances, Darkwing never had one line assigned in the script.
The toy which "Darkwing" was based on was released to mass-market as Dreadwing (the first usage of the name for a singular TF character) & Smokescreen (a name previously assigned to a certain Autobot); note that in European markets the toy was packaged as Ace\Evader and Stealth\Assault. These molds were eventually recolored as a new G2 version of Megatron & Starscream, though this concept was abandoned and the product never received a mass release. In the G2 comic book storyline, writer Furman ever-so briefly depicted this prominent action figure duo (Dreadwing\Smokescreen) as the wrong character altogether, and allowing no character development at that. (Interestingly though this treatment was more than most other G2 jet-based Decepticon toys received.) This in itself did not serve Hasbro's marketing interests.
The smaller Smokescreen stealth aircraft, a Northrop MRF "Switchblade" developmental concept, is designed to lock into the mid-rear of the larger Dreadwing, a Northrop Grumman ATB-2 conceptual jet. When Smokescreen is disengaged, Dreadwing can additionally transform into a missile tank. The MRF [Multi-Role Fighter] is outfitted with two wing-mounted long-range missile launchers, while the stealth flying wing\tank is equipped with a massive six-shooting anti-tank missile gatling-launcher (comparable to the Soviet Штурм anti-tank missile system used in aircraft produced by Московский вертолетный завод им.М.Л.Миля of Russia). The launcher is fixed to Dreadwing's shoulder when in robotic mode, much like as with the 1984 Soundwave toy.
IDW Publishing
Darkwing & Dreadwind appeared under Simon Furman again, making their IDW Publishing debut in the The Transformers: Stormbringer miniseries. Darkwing commands the Decepticon cell operating on Nebulos and when Thunderwing attacked the planet, Darkwing made the call to assist the Nebulans in an attempt to stop Thunderwing before he destroyed them along with the rest of the planet. Though showing a degree of leadership skill in this continuity, Darkwing also displays an amount of cowardice when both he and Dreadwind abandoned the battle at the earliest opportunity when Thunderwing's power was made evident.
Transformers: Super God Masterforce
The American Transformers series ended in 1987, one year before Dreadwind and Darkwing were released. As the Transformers were originally manufactured in Japan by Takara, Takara produced their own spin-offs to the original series. Transformers: Super God Masterforce was the second of these and featured characters produced for 1988. As part of a different storyline, Dreadwing and Darkwing were recolored slightly (dark blue pieces of both Transformers were molded in red) and reinvented as the mighty Godmaster brothers, Buster and Hydra. They were also referred to as the Darkwings (perhaps as a nod to their American counterparts).
The lifeless mechanoid bodies known as "Transtectors" which would come to be owned by Buster and Hydra were stolen from a region of space called the G Nebula by the evil energy entity and self-styled "Decepticon God," Devil Z. Some years after the Decepticons were banished from Earth by the Autobots in 2011, Devil Z recruited two human beings, Lord Giga and Lady Mega, to find human partners for the Transtectors. A pair of brothers from Germany were soon found and bonded to two jet Transtectors, given the power to summon the Masterforce and transform into engines that allowed the jets to assume robot mode; Hydra, a master disguise artist and actor who plied his trade in the deadliest way as an assassin for the American criminal underworld; and the younger Buster, as cool as his elder brother, but more suave and amiable, and with a love of birds. Able to wield the power of lightning and wind, respectively, and to heal from any damage almost instantaneously, the two brothers can merge their Transtectors into the giant jet, Darkwings.
A string of defeats from the Autobot Godmaster Ginrai throughout their time serving as Decepticons eventually prompted Buster and Hydra to seek new ways to increase their power. Whereas Giga and Mega embraced the human aspect of their nature as Godmasters, Buster and Hydra rejected it, feeling that it was this which made them weak, and requested that Devil Z transform them permanently into entirely robotic beings. The villain did so, and Buster and Hydra were fused with their Transtectors as true robots, but even with this power, they proved unable to best Ginrai, and when Devil Z was destroyed, they fled into space with the other Transtectors that he had brought to life.
Toys
Generation 1 Dreadwing
This toy was designed by Kouzin Ohno, and is filed under U.S. parent D306,616.
Invisible Combat Plane (2007)
An unofficial Chinese remake of Generation 2 Dreadwing by MYM. This figure is redecoed in red, grey, yellow and black.
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