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There were three big properties in the '80s: He-Man, GIJoe and the Transformers. While Eternia faded away and the Joes got decommissioned, those robots in disguise kept rolling along. Maybe it was because you were really getting two toys in one. Maybe it was because robots were the future. Or maybe it was just because they had those cool combiners.
Everybody loved the combiners. While one big robot is cool, five big robots that make one gigantic robot are even cooler. The intricate geometry that went into the toys' engineering was a sight to behold. The first combiner, the granddaddy of them all, was Devastator.
Devastator was the Decepticons' big muscle. Comprised of the six Constructicons, Devastator was a green and purple beast, big enough to kick even Optimus Prime over the horizon. Not that he did, but he could have. Well, he could have if Megatron weren't subconsciously self-defeating.
Awesome and terrifying, this Decepticon is a bizarre combination of six Constructicons: Scrapper, Scavenger, Bonecrusher, Hook, Long Haul, and Mixmaster. He is pure brutality as his sole purpose is to crush all in his path. His mind is a melding together of his six parts, but he is limited by their competing thoughts. He possesses enormous height and incredible strength - can knock down a bridge with one punch. He carries a 10,000 degrees Celsius solar energy beam rifle. Devastator is slow, awkward, and not too bright.
The Constructicons were the first toys that I think I actually collected. While I had plenty of toys by that point and wanted many others (I was a kid, after all), these were the first specific group of figures that I set out to acquire. I knew that I had to get them all if I wanted to build the combiner.
Mixmaster is the cement mixer, and the first Constructicon I got. He's the mad scientist of the group, using his mixing drum like a chemistry set on wheels.
Anything dropped in there, from chunks of ore to his still-living enemies, is melted down to be raw materials for the team. Mixmaster's gleeful cackling as he uses his various acids and agents in an unholy alchemy makes the other Decepticons a bit wary, but they can't argue with the results.
He's got a pretty easy transformation: pull his rear wheels out to the side, rotate the cab down and you're finished. He's a very blocky robot, but that didn't matter in 1985. By pulling the cab upward, Mixmaster becomes Devastator's left foot.
Scrapper, the front-end loader, is even simpler: flip down the legs and pull up his head. Other than the giant wheels and the shovel hanging off his back, the 'bot looks pretty good. He turns into Devastator's right leg by raising his arms and shovel.
He's the leader of the Constructicons, if such a thing exists. While the others built the structures
that were commissioned, Scrapper was the one who designed them. Half architect, half engineer, he's one of the greatest designers in Cybertronian history, but is modest enough to wave off the praise he receives. However, he also has a few loose wires in his personality circuits: one of his favorite things is to include defeated Autobots' bodies in his masterpieces, a quirk that Megatron loves to encourage.
Bonecrusher was the demolition-crazy bulldozer. He loves nothing more than a rubble-strewn wasteland, and is happy to turn any location into one...
as long as he has an audience. He tends to be a showoff around the other Decepticons, something they don't really mind too much. Except when he starts destroying their own buildings.
He had a fairly complex transformation (for a Constructicon): flip the canopy back, twist the arms out to the side, move the shovel up to be his chest, fold out his head, and swing the treads down to be the legs and feet. He becomes Devastator's left arm simply by plugging the giant purple forearm to his underside.
Hook, obviously, is the crane. His transformation is the same as Mixmaster's, though you have to pull his head up.
To transform him into Devastator's shoulders, pull the front and back halves of the vehicle apart and rotate them to the right.
In terms of personality, the Constructicons' second-in-command, Hook, is exactly the opposite of their leader, Scrapper. He's an arrogant glory-hound and a snob, and considers most of the other Decepticons to be beneath him. His ego is at least somewhat warranted, though, because he's a master craftsman and something of a perfectionist - which often causes frustrating delays for the projects he's working on. He's also something of a surgeon, making repairs on damaged Decepticons.
Scavenger the backhoe is rather unpopular with his comrades, who only put up with him because of his advanced sensors. He's a pathetic tagalong who's desperate to be liked and appreciated. He's got low self-esteem and is willing to do almost anything to get the approval of others - which is part of why they all hate him so much. If he didn't have the ability to sniff out materials the Decepticons needed, they probably would have scrapped him long ago.
His treads swing down to become legs, his head folds up, and his arms pull out to the sides. Like Bonecrusher, Scavenger's transformation to Devastator's right arm is ridiculously... non-existent. He was originally going to be called "Scrounge," a name that accidentally made its way into the Constructicons cartoon debut.
Long Haul was the last Constructicon I got, after a long wait.
I can't recount how happy I was to unwrap that present. The dump truck's cab folds down to become his chest,
the rear turns into his legs, and his arms pull out of the wheel-wells. He becomes Devastator's torso, and comes with several of the pieces needed to combine the 'bots, so without him I couldn't even pretend that the big guy was battle-damaged.
Like most people, Long Haul is unhappy with his job. He's the transport, ferrying materials back and forth between job sites. While he recognizes that this is a fundamentally indispensible role, he feels that he's doing all the work while everyone else gets all the glory. He'd rather be fighting on the front lines of battle than driving around at the rear. However, he never tells anybody this, because Megatron would probably slag him.
Transformers combiners have really gone downhill since Devastator.
The other G1 gestalts were built from five robots, and now the Robots in Disguise and Armada lines have shrunk that to three or four. Energon is going to drop it down to two. Devastator was the first, and he's still the best.
The vac-metalized sections of the Constructicons are wearing away, revealing the purple plastic beneath. I'd love to see Devastator re-released the way other G1 'bots have been. Put all six Constructicons in one package and print their file cards on the back. And as a bonus, include the Devastator action master figure from 1990. While MOC Constructicons can be found on eBay for less than $20 each, that's still more than $100 for the set.
Interestingly, the Constructicons were not originally intended to combine. As one of our readers reports, their earliest Diaclone counterparts didn't have all the proper pieces needed to plug together, though subsequent editions swiftly fixed that.
Five of the Constructicons are shown in that picture up above. Who's missing? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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