Wingthing (G1)

Wingthing is a Decepticon Action Master partner or Mini-Cassette from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Soundwave and his bat partner. No, the other bat partner.

Wingthing is one of the many, many animal-friends of Soundwave. Via a high-precision "personality emulator", Wingthing is programmed to share his master's penchant for cruelty, and gleefully follows his every command, indulging Soundwave's manipulative desires. And much like his master, Wingthing is hated by pretty much every other Decepticon for it.^[1]

Fiction

Regeneration One

Soundwave dispatched Wingthing to alert the other Decepticon cells on Cybertron that the time to begin the next phase of their plan had come. Destiny, Part Three He and Soundwave watched as the Autobots deployed Omega Supreme against Bludgeon's Blitz Engines with satisfaction, knowing that they had a counter ready to be deployed. Destiny, Part Four

Following Soundwave's defeat and the Dark Matrix creature's rise, Wingthing was converted into a shadow-leech alongside Soundwave, Howlback, Slugfest, Squawktalk, Beastbox, and Overkill. Their combined form menaced Ravage before he was rescued by Shockwave and Starscream. King of Shadows The shadow-leeches ceased to be a threat once Rodimus Prime defeated the Dark Matrix creature. The War to End All Wars, Part 5

2005 IDW continuity

Are you looking for an orange bat?

After the Simanzi Massacre, Wingthing was part of a Decepticon hygiene team that picked up prisoners for Grindcore. He perched on Skyquake's forearm. Speak, Memory: Part 1

Legends comic

With Soundwave and the other Decepticon cassettes, Wingthing was part of an attack on the Ark to steal the new Transform Super Cog in the late 1980s. Slugslinger's Ambition

Games

Angry Birds Transformers

He's a thing that has wings.

Wingthing is an "Accessory" character, giving Deceptihogs he's attached to more explosive punch to their primary weapon, dealing more "splash" damage in a wider radius as well as pushing away targets not yet destroyed. This bonus can be increased with upgrades won from random-prize Crates or in the "Shockwave's Tower" mini-game.

He can be unlocked by purchasing him with Gems in the Barracks, with Tokens during specific Challenge Events, or won from Crates and Shockwave's Tower. Angry Birds Transformers

Transformers Roleplaying Game

Wingthing was created using a "personality emulator" used to bring drones to life, creating a self-righteous little warrior with the disposition and temperament of his template, Soundwave. Decepticon Directive

Toys

The Transformers

Someday he hopes he can trade in that dumb cannon mode for a sweet rectangle mode!

• Soundwave with Wingthing (Action Master, 1990)

• Known designers: Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)

Part of the first assortment of individually-carded Action Masters, released in the seventh and final year of The Transformers in the US, Wingthing is a robotic bat. Pushing down on his tail flips his head and a chunk of his inner body around via a spring-loaded mechanism, revealing a (non-firing) blaster. Folding his wings up forms his concussion cannon mode, which can be used by any regular Action Master figure. His gun barrel can be extended by attaching the handgun from any carded Action Master.

He was only available packed in with his larger partner Soundwave.

Soundwave's instructions inaccurately show him with Treadshot's "pulse demagnetizer" rifle, which resulted in quite a few mix-ups on toy information websites and in identification guides, including Transformers Generations, and, unfortunately, the photo at right. (Treadshot's instructions, however, do not have Soundwave's "photon negator" gun, but a totally different gun that no Action Master came with.)

• More information on Wingthing at TFU.info

Encore

His dream has come true.

• Soundblaster (2012)

• ID number: 21
• Reelase date: February ??, 2012
• Accessories: 2 "concussion cannons", clear cassette case

Encore Wingthing is an orange, yellow, and black redeco of Ratbat, transforming from robot bat into a microcassette that can fit in the tape compartments of the Soundwave and Blaster molds. Wingthing sports a sticker in the place where a cassette spool image would be, showing a "scan" of Fortress Maximus which reveals the city-bot's weak spots when viewed through Soundblaster's clear-red chest door (in the same way Tech Spec decoders work).

Unlike the majority of Decepticon Mini-Cassettes, doesn't feature silver or gold weapons, but instead, has them in a shiny gunmetal. Like most of the reissue-line cassettes, he comes with a clear cassette case for "storage" in tape mode.

He was only available packed in with Encore Soundblaster and Enemy.

Masterpiece

Still does not convert into a weapon.

• Cassettbot VS Cassettron (Multi-pack, 2017)

• ID number: MP-15/16E
• Release date: December 23, 2017
• Accessories: Cassette case

Masterpiece Wingthing, is, naturally, a redeco of Masterpiece Ratbat. His formerly-separated "backpack" accessories are now integrated into the transformation, and separation is not possible.

Due to the modified transformation scheme compared to the original toy, the cassette mode details are visible on the front of his wings. The line art of these details were actually part of Ratbat's original character model, although in most depictions of this model in fiction the wings remained solid purple.

He was only available in a limited-edition TakaraTomy Mall "Encore" set, packed in with Stripes, Nightstalker, and Enemy. If purchased from a seller supplied by Hasbro Asia, the set includes a collector coin, featuring Enemy's face on one side and the Autobot logo and names of all the included characters on the opposite side. The coin is mounted in a card resembling a cassette, similar to the cards housing the coins for MP-15 and MP-16, but styled like Enemy's cassette mode on the "A" side, while the "B" side resembles Stripes's cassette mode.^[2]

Generations Selects

He's now the Buzzsaw to Ratbat's Laserbeak.

• Soundwave Spy Patrol 3rd Unit (Deluxe Class multi-pack, 2020)

• Series: War for Cybertron: Earthrise
• ID number: WFC-GS10
• Known designers: AJ Piejko-Brown (packaging)

A Generations Selects add-on to Earthrise, "Decepticon Wingthing" is a redeco of Siege Ratbat, transforming into a flattened box that is theoretically compatible with Siege Voyager Class Soundwave, but in practice it's slightly too large to fit into his chest compartment. He can however fit into the retooled Soundblaster, or attach to Soundwave and other figures as some sort of shield.

Curiously, Legacy Thundertron, a toy released five years later, has two slots on his right shoulder in robot mode for Wingthing, or his redecoes, to securely perch on him.

Wingthing was released in a four-pack with fellow cassette-bot Frenzy, mold-mate Skar, and Powermaster Knok.

Notes

Should probably see a dermatologist.

• In Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye profile series, every Action Master partner robot profiled was retroactively given the "Targetmaster" classification, though the partners to characters who had previous, non-Action Master toys (like Soundwave) were omitted from the books' lineup. However, the across-the-board application of the Targetmaster term for those that did appear makes a pretty clear implication that all of the Action Master partner-bots are Targetmasters... at least, as far as the Dreamwave universe is concerned.
• An early photo as well as the packaging art of Encore Wingthing was more brown in color and had an entirely black head (with gold eyes in the art) and ears. The change to an orange head may be based on the strong similarity to a strangely orange Ratbat featured on the "Destron Heroes" poster included with 1986's Good Bye Megatron set.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Wingthing (ウィングシング Wingushingu)

References