Bristleback
From Transformers Wiki
- Bristleback is a Decepticon from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Bristleback hates being a Pretender. He was forced into undergoing the process when he discovered, to his great dismay, that his steel skin was somehow inferior to other Transformers', corroding and rusting upon contact with Earth's atmosphere. Worse yet, his bulky and cumbersome Pretender shell has transformed him from a once-quick-footed fighter to one of the slowest movers in the Decepticon ranks. A ceaselessly foul-mouthed, bullying malcontent before these indignities, Bristleback has only become meaner since. His Pretender shell's one redeeming feature is the spikes on its back, which secrete a powerful corrosive acid upon contact. Bristleback dreams of being assigned to space missions, where his rust condition will no longer be an issue.
He can combine with his fellow Pretender Monsters to form Monstructor, curiously without any rust problems of note.
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Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
Marvel The Transformers comics
In an alternate future where the Decepticons had conquered much of Earth, Bristleback and his fellow Pretender Monsters were led by Galvatron to the remains of New York City in an attempt to root out the last remaining vestiges of Autobot and human resistance. All they managed to find, however, was a human-made booby trap that buried Icepick under tons of debris.
Not long later, he and the others rejoined the Decepticons to defend the Decepticon Powerbase against an Autobot attack. Rhythms of Darkness!
Transformers '84
In the early days of the war on Cybertron, Bristleback was part of Straxus's forces assaulting an Autobot fort in Iacon's Border Regions. When Autobots led by Ultra Magnus arrived to defend the fort, Straxus ordered his troops to seize as many prisoners as they could and retreat. Secrets & Lies #2
G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers
Bristleback was among a group of Decepticons who made a deal with Cobra-La, receiving power-enhancing organic shells in exchange for defending Cobra-La's underground kingdom. During Cobra-La's scheme to summon Unicron to Earth, the Pretender Monsters were sent to attack a trio of Autobots aboard the submerged Arc II. Black Horizon, Part 1 of 2 Later, they combined into Monstructor to defend Cobra-La's kingdom against surface attack by G.I. Joe. Monstructor used his life-draining aura to take out Windmill and just generally stomped all over the rest of the attackers. However, the overconfident bot was felled by a long-range attack by Joe's Laser Squad, who targeted his head with high-intensity beams until it blew up, forcing the monster to disassemble. Whether or not Bristleback and the other components survived this trauma is unknown. Black Horizon, Part 2 of 2
2005 IDW continuity
- First appearance: Spotlight: Optimus Prime
Millions of years ago, Bristleback and five others volunteered for Jhiaxus to merge them into the first combiner, becoming known as the "Monstructor Six". Created under the direction of Nova Prime, they were intended to be the ultimate fusion of mind and body, a vast amount of intellect combined with unparalleled strength. Unfortunately, they were driven into insanity by the merging process and became monsters. Primus: All Good Things After Nova Prime departed Cybertron aboard the Ark, Omega Supreme locked them in a dimensionally-displaced prison to live out the rest of their horrid existence. Eventually, they escaped and tracked down and attacked Omega Supreme, but were defeated by Optimus Prime and split apart into their individual bodies. Despite Omega Supreme's protestations about the dangers of gestalt technology falling into Decepticon hands, Prime had them taken into custody in an attempt to repair their shattered minds. Spotlight: Optimus Prime
Bristleback and his comrades were incarcerated at the Garrus-9 penitentiary where Jetfire attempted to carry out Optimus Prime's orders despite Fortress Maximus's misgivings about the whole endeavour. Thanks to a tip-off from the double-agent Dealer, Banzai-Tron's Decepticon Secret Service attacked the facility and absconded with the monsters. Spotlight: Arcee
The breakout of the "Monstructor Six" eventually made its way to the Autobot Orbital Command Hub, and from there to Optimus Prime. Although Earth was currently facing the threat of Megatron and Sixshot, Prime decided that they couldn't risk allow the Decepticons to gain gestalt technology, and ordered Prowl's team to abandon Earth and head to Garrus-9. Devastation
However, the Decepticons were later attacked in turn by the minions of Jhiaxus and Nova Prime (now Nemesis Prime), who took the gestalt Transformers for the purpose of making Monstructor a guardian of a Nega-Core, a device crucial to Nemesis Prime's grand plans. The Autobot Arcee and the Decepticon survivors struck a deal to capture Monstructor. Spotlight: Hardhead They engaged Monstructor on Rotan, but Arcee left mid-battle to confront Jhiaxus. Spotlight: Sideswipe
Falling back into the hands of the Decepticons, Bristleback and the others came under the command of Bludgeon. While hunting down Hot Rod, they were confronted by Kup's elite Autobot team, and combined into Monstructor to do battle with them. After Monstructor was downed by a precise shot from Perceptor, his components fled the scene with Bludgeon. Lost & Found
Bludgeon later patched up Monstructor's weak spot and, after learning of Jhiaxus's capture, traveled to Arduria where he used Monstructor to distract the Autobots while personally freeing Jhiaxus. The plan worked and they retreated in their separate components to continue Jhiaxus's mission of finding Regenesis missiles for Shockwave. Syndromica (1) Ending up on Gorlam Prime in search of a dormant Titan, Bristleback and the others lured the Autobots out by attacking Waspinator, then formed Monstructor to force Orion Pax's hand so that he'd reawaken the Titan. Homecoming The Monstructor Six then followed their masters to Cybertron as they reunited with Shockwave to enact his master plan. The Dead Are Not Enough The plan ultimately failed and Monstructor was defeated by Devastator and the Lost Light, but the Monstructor Six evaded captivity and remained at large. The World of Tomorrow
Years later, the Monstructor Six resurfaced as Bludgeon's minions once more, joining their master during Unicron's attack on Cybertron. Though they were able to combine and overpower Victorion during the battle in Cybertron's upper atmosphere, Our Finest when the battle moved to Earth, Monstructor was tag-teamed and destroyed by Victorion and Superion, killing Bristleback and the other members of the team. Ceremony
Ask Vector Prime
Bristleback was presumably present as part of Monstructor when the combiner became one of Bio Ranger Iga's Thirteen Great Demon Generals. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/27
Precursor World
Bristleback was among Purple Wicked Convoy's collection of monsters. When Megatron Omega and the Blue Order's Straxus twins came to the Purple Planet in an attempt to take the power of the Purple Matrix, the monsters attacked them before their master decided to ally with the three instead. God Neptune comic 1
Toys
The Transformers
- Bristleback (Pretender Monster, 1989)
- Team ID number: PM2
- Accessories: electrostatic pulse rifle, monster shell, shell backing, right Monstructor fist
- Known designers: Kōjin Ōno (TakaraTomy), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist, robot), Keita Amemiya (monster shell)
- Released in the penultimate year of the original The Transformers toyline, Pretender Monster Bristleback transforms into a horn-backed, quadrupedal land-shark kinda thing. He can also can form either arm to Monstructor, but his nominal placement is as the right arm.
- His Pretender shell is a monstrous, turtle-like creature, with the inner robot's horn/wing things sticking out. His shell backing can store his rifle and Monstructor fist as weapons. This shell, like all the Pretender Monster shells, has a nasty tendency to "sweat" an oily residue over time, plus it is possible for them to develop spotty miscoloration. While some water and a little bit of hand-soap should take care of the slime, there's not much to be done about the spots should they appear.
- He is one of the Generation 1 toys most susceptible to Gold Plastic Syndrome... appropriate given his bio. It's most likely a complete coincidence, of course, but still simultaneously funny and distressing. His hands are particularly fragile, but the beast-mode legs are also attached so tight that it's possible to snap them off at the joint by trying to turn them. And the Monstructor fist attachment slot is susceptible. Overall, he's a nightmare best left alone and looked at but not touched, and not looked at very hard at that. In a second, less horrible design flaw, the stickers on his robot legs are prone to being scraped off by his creature-mode legs.
Notes
Foreign names
- French: Épinox (Canada, "Spikey")
- Hungarian: Tüskés ("Thorny")
- Italian: Spettro ("Specter")
