Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Kid Prime's room!

It's time for this thread to be back in business.

Move the party here, people. If KP can't go to SD, SD will go to KP!

Hey, I just found this thread, and read the first few posts---can someone find or upload some new AFOB avatars? I mean Curt Swan was great, but...y'know.
P.S. I didn't get to go to SD either, so I'm bringing Marzallian Meatballs. It's a 200 year old recipe. Or maybe 400.

Greetings, all.

I, Prince Legolas, have taken temporary possession of six Legion World properties.

In each of those six you will find a form that looks, acts and talk like me. In all ways of perceiving, whether scientific, magickal or psionic, all six will seem equally identical. All your detection techniques will identify all of them as me - or none of them.

Of these six, five are elaborate simulacrums, constructs that will totally suck the life (and other) energies of any who interfere with them, whether by touch, distance attack or even a simple mind probe. These are based on the magickal technologies of the Z'xyc'hians, and you may recall the spatio-temperal implosions of their own doings that ended their very existence.

Tamper with me at your own peril.

this is the second of the six.

KICKING LEGOLAS OUT MY ROOM!!! BOO YAH!!!

Hello Kid Prime! I don't think we met yet (unless you are Justin Byrd).

Kippers!

Nice to see you old bean. I came back just a few days ago, we do need to catch up.

Love what you've done with the place. Nice colour scheme.

So Lunch and a chat some time?

Great googily moogily! Kippers!

Hi, Kid Prime. Good to see you again.

I think you might find this thread interesting.

OK, here goes nothing...

...firstly, I really and truly hope that KP doesn't mind me bumping this thread, nor my plans for the immediate future which I am about to elaborate on. KP, if you're reading this, I never got to know you that well, but any friend of the G1 original Transformers, and of their stone-cold classic of a cartoon in particular, is a friend of mine. So please be assured that I have no intention of stealing your thunder, much less of ruining your own special Legion World thread.

Secondly, I have come to firmly believe that, although KP is no longer a regular poster at Legion World -- though he does still make brief visits every once in a great while -- the Transformers profiles should continue. And, in a nice cosmic convergence of the stars or what have you (just don't call it a coincidence, because there is no such thing), it just so happens that KP had come within only 7 Transformers characters of covering the entire 1984 wave of toys. Only one Insecticon, Kickback (Hi, EDE), and all six of the Constructicons remained. And the Constructicons just so happen to be my favorite of what is known in fandom as the Transformers gestalt teams (groups of five to six robots who periodically merged into one giant, super-powerful robot.) The first may not always necessarily be the best, but when it comes to the Constructicons, it is the indisputable truth.

Point being, I would like to pick up where KP left off. But it so happens that this thread is called "Kid Prime's Room", and not "Fanfic Lady's Room" (any requests for my toilet-humor parody of Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner?" Oh, hang on a minute, I didn't mean that kind of ladies room. Never mind that filthy mind of mine. )

Back to the point -- I would not feel comfortable continuing the Transformers profiles in this thread which is so very much KP's, and KP's alone. So what I've decided to do, and I have already cleared it with some of my fellow LW moderators, is to post the Kickback profile here, sometime this week, in order to give closure to what we might call the 1st Wave of Legion World TF Profiles (and, of course, it goes without saying that KP can keep posting whatever he wants in this thread, whenever he wants.)

Then I will begin the 2nd Wave of Legion World TF Profiles in this thread, beginning with the Constructicons, and continuing with at least the majority of the 1985 wave of TF toys, possibly even the whole thing (I do have mixed feelings about the final bunch of 1985 toys, being as they are the second, third, fourth, and fifth gestalt teams, none of whom can hold a candle to the Constructicons IMHO, not as characters, and *definitely* not as toys -- in fact, I consider those teams to be the shark-jump point for TF toys quality control...I mean, why did they all have to be one big, clunky robot making up the gestalt body, and four tiny, fragile robots making up the arms and legs?? Even as a tween, I could see that for what it was, namely unsatisfying and lopsided.)

But I digress. Most of the 1985 TF wave (all of whom were showcased in Season 2 of the cartoon) are my absolute favorites, as both TF characters and toys -- including my personal Number 1 Autobot, Tracks, who is arguably the Ziggy Stardust of Autobots. So continuing the TF profiles will definitely start out as a labor of love for me. If and when it starts to feel like a grind and it's not fun anymore, I'll simply stop and let someone else take over.

In summary, I hope KP will approve, and I consider it a pleasure and a privilege to follow in the footsteps of Legion World's first and most fervent Transformers fan. I just hope to do it right.

And in klosing, konsider the Kickback profile, koming sometime later this week, a sure thing, and a fresh start.

As I said before, I can only hope to do justice to what KP started. It will be immediately obvious that I have a slightly more...digressive and light-hearted approach to TF profiles than KP.

And also, I wanted to remind everyone that after this one, the Transformers profiles will continue in the thread linked to below:

http://www.legionworld.net/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=832858#Post832858




37. Kickback



Function: Espionage

I believe that if Teeds were a Transformers fan, Kickback would be her favorite. Why? Because kicks are his specialty. Swift, vicious kicks that can make enormous holes in walls, or destroy the base of a tower and cause it to fall, or leave Autobot warriors laying flat on their backs with sore chests. I can't confirm that Kickback has ever kicked an Autobot in the shins for taking a discussion off-topic, *but you never know.* Point being, Kickback gets all of his kicks from kicks. (I have to wonder: Is his favorite 80s hair-metal band Kix? If so, I *sincerely* commend him for his good taste. Kix were awesome, and didn't deserve to get lumped in with the bands who were *only* in it for the sex and the party favors. But I digress.)

At this point, you may be asking, why is she going on ad nauseam about Kickback's kicks? Because, sad to say, the painful truth is that Kickback is strictly a one-trick 'bot. Between the three Insecticons, Shrapnel and Bombshell got not only the lion's share of the dialogue divided evenly between each other, with Kickback barely getting a word in edgewise (and Sharpnel tended to repeat things, which made him even more of a dialogue-hog), but also the vast majority of the creepiest and most bad-ass moments. Kickback ended up, unfairly IMHO, coming off kind of as the Ringo of the Insecticons, just along for the ride, only doing it for the kicks. Oddly, even though Snarl, the Dinobots' own Ringo, was left out of the TF animated movie, it was Bombshell, not Kickback, who was neglected there (poor Bombshell's bad fortunes with the movie didn't end there -- he actually does appear briefly, but only *after* the Insecticons are deemed by the usurper Starscream to be so badly damaged that they're nothing but deadweight to be tossed out the airlock into deep space.) And it's not like Kickback lacked potential to be just as cool as the other two Insecticons. His original Tech Specs bio, which painted his personality as that of the ultimate manipulator and fake friend, might have paid off in spades. Except that, while the TF cartoon was finding its footing through trial-and-error during Season 1, a *lot* of the characters ended up being underexposed and underdeveloped in lopsided comparison to other characters (Windcharger?? What in the Matrix of Creation's name could they have been thinking??? No offense, Windcharger fans, but I'm unshakeable in my conviction that he was the Matthew McConnaughey of TF, a star in no one's eyes but those of misguided TV animation writers. Just my opinion.)

In summary, Kickback could have been a contender (which hopefully doesn't mean that he followed in Marlon Brando's dubious Real Life footsteps by filling up shelves with individual jars containing samples of different sentients' excrement) but for the capricious whims of the TV series' writing and production staff (OK, and just mmmmmaaaayyyybe the TF's toy company, Hasbro, as well.)

Kickback's voice actor: CLIVE REVILL (other notable cartoon voice roles: Sorceror Blowfish, "The Little Mermaid", Shedlock Jones, "DuckTales" (Revill also has the dubious distinction of getting shafted by the showrunners of "Batman: The Animated Series", when he was fired from the role of Alfred Pennyworth after recording only three episodes, because one of the showrunners desperately wanted Efrem Zimbalist Junior for Alfred from the start, and when Zimbalist unexpectedly became available, Revill was callously canned. This, IMHO, was *the* event that set the negative precedent for casting celebrities rather than seasoned voice actors in animated cartoon roles, and I'm very bitter about that.)