Decepticharge

Decepticharge is a Decepticon from the cartoon portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Don't let me die before I know who I am.

Decepticharge is the product of a dark fusion between a Binaltech body created for Windcharger and an evil laser core. A new individual, he possesses all of Windcharger's abilities and a deep loyalty to his creator, Unicron.

Fiction

Story of Binaltech

After the Prowl debacle, it was determined that the Binaltech GT remote-linking system required further testing before being used for any other Autobots. An Earth Defense Command shuttle was dispatched into space with three empty Binaltech units on board: a pair of BT-16 Honda S-2000 Aero Style bodies intended for Windcharger, and the blue BT-15 GHS (Generic Host Shell) built for Prowl. As it traveled outside of Earth's solar system, the shuttle disappeared with the bodies on board.

Through an outside force, the silver BT-16 Beta Unit was fused with the spark of a Transformer from the future. The yellow Delta Unit retained Windcharger's pre-programmed abilities, but was implanted with an evil laser core to become a new being called Decepticharge.

Two days after the shuttle's disappearance, the pair materialized before Shockwave and his Decepticons in the midst of a Starscream-led coup d'état. Decepticharge quelled the uprising with his powerful electromagnetic abilities and the Decepticons were informed that Unicron was angry at them for their petty schemes to use his power. To escape his revenge, they were commanded to defeat Optimus Prime and destroy the Matrix. Widow's Edge Ask Vector Prime, 2015/08/08

Decepticharge and Blackarachnia followed up on their master's wishes, attacking Autobot City in search of the Matrix. Decepticharge and Windcharger faced off against each other and the battle ended when Windcharger used his own electromagnetic abilities to end the both of them in an explosion. Outlier

TransTech

Decepticharge was one of countless offworlders in Axiom Nexus's Under City. Cybertron's Most Wanted

Games

Honda Binaltech Online Game

I'm HUGE.

Despite not being part of the Binaltech line, Decepticharge appears as the enemy in Honda's online Flash-animated Binaltech fighting game, as a yellow recolor of Overdrive. He is not given a specific name in this game, only the title of yokozuna ("sumo champion").

He has a wide variety of very strange powers with which to really beat the snot out of his opponents. These include growing to giant size or shrinking his opponents to tinyness then jumping up and down on them, and any number of blaster-rifle effects.

Toys

Alternators

Drunk on Dinotron.

• Decepticharge (Alternator, 2005)

• Alternator ID number: 14
• Accessories: Hardtop roof, "folded" convertible roof, engine weapon
• Known designers: Mark McCall (Hasbro), Marcelo Matere (packaging artist)

Released in the twelfth wave of Alternators, Decepticharge is a retool of Alternators Windcharger/Binaltech Overdrive with a new head (based on Windcharger's animation model), transforming into a licensed "street performance" Honda S2000 with a new spoiler. As is standard for Alternators toys, Decepticharge features rubber tires, opening doors, hood and trunk, a detailed driver/passenger compartment complete with seats, dashboard and steering wheel and a working "steering" mechanism (though not connected to the steering wheel). His hardtop roof, which doubles as a shield in robot mode, can be removed and replaced with a "folded down" roof piece. As with Windcharger, Decepticharge's engine block rifle weapon deliberately omits its barrel.

He is covered in fake sponsor decals, advertising such products as "Energon Power", "Dinotron Racing Fuel", "Dualor Exhaust", "Hyperlinq Racing", "Destron Oil", "Thrust Power", "Cybertronian Radials" (with a plural-"s") and "Sporal Plugs" (possibly a misspelling of Spiral).

Decepticharge suffered from some distribution woes: while the original wave containing the toy was released in Hasbro's Asian markets and Australia, there was only a lone sighting of the toy at US retail for a long time, even though several US-based online retailers eventually stocked the figure. Decepticharge ultimately didn't see a wide release at US retail until he was shipped in a second wave several months later, this time alongside the new figure Prowl. According to unconfirmed rumors, Hasbro had delayed the toy's mass release after discovering quality control problems with the pencil neck which was prone to breaking.

In Japan, Decepticharge was only released as a prize in a contest from Takara's The Transformers: Binaltech & TF Collection Complete Guide book; 100 Decepticharges (in US Alternators packaging) were awarded to the winners. The Decepticharge tooling would eventually see wider release in Japan redecoed as Binaltech Arcee; prospective releases as Paradron Medic and Blackwidow were canceled. In addition, this sculpt served as the model for the non-toy Flamewar and car-form Legion.

• More information on Decepticharge at TFU.info

Notes

• The retool of Alternators Grimlock was originally planned to be Windcharger (presumably in red), but ultimately ended up as Wheeljack instead, with a new head sculpt. Meanwhile, the head sculpt originally intended for Ford-Windcharger ended up being used for the retool of Windcharger (the Honda S2000 mold) instead, which ultimately became Decepticharge.
• Considering the toy's convoluted development history, it's likely that his name was really just intended as a working name—"Decepticon redeco of Windcharger"—but then either all proposed names turned out to be unavailable as trademarks, or Hasbro simply realized that he didn't actually resemble any existing character anymore, so they decided to use the working name and call it a day.
• In 2005, the Decepticharge mold was presented as an upcoming release for the Japanese Binaltech line. Originally, Takara intended to name their version of the toy "Wildrider", but they ultimately had to abandon that idea because they couldn't get the trademark. Instead, they decided to give the toy an entirely new deco, as the Hasbro toy's deco didn't appeal to their ideal of "real-life accuracy". In robot mode, the toy was given a color scheme based on the Transmetal 2 incarnation of Beast Wars Blackarachnia, with the toy's name being changed to "Blackwidow", Takara's name for the character. Ultimately, however, Takara decided to cancel the toy altogether, as they feared that another redeco (in addition to the upcoming Binaltech Asterisk toys) would be too repetitive. Plans to release the toy were eventually picked up three years later as Binaltech Arcee.
• Decepticharge's package art is mirrored and photoshopped from Windcharger's package art, which was drawn by Marcelo Matere.
• The Decepticharge mold is also used as the basis for a Decepticon Legion from the first installment of the Kiss Players manga in Dengeki Diaoh magazine.
• Character and fiction information for Decepticharge was finally provided in late 2007 with the release of The Transformers: Binaltech Stories, an unofficial publication by Binaltech story writer Hirofumi Ichikawa that compiled all then-current Binaltech information as well as that of the cancelled Binaltech releases of Blackwidow and Ginrai—the former also including an origin and story for Decepticharge. In 2015, Ask Vector Prime would canonize this information, via an answer guest-written by Ichikawa and the original story would later be published in Transformers Generations 2019.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Decepticharge (ディセプティチャージ Diseputichāji)