I is for Injector

The Winning Toy

"He's got a face only a Predacon could love, but according to Injector, the vainest of the Predacons, he is the best thing to happen since Energon. Fused into two beasts - half lionfish, half hornet - he is as dangerous as it gets. He is armed with a massive stinger and thrusting splines that inject his victims with a paralyzing posion; in robot mode he wields a devastating stinger missile. Charismatic, clever, and evil to the core, Injector represents one of the Maximal's greatest threats."

Toyline: Beast Wars

Generation: Beast Era

Size Class: Deluxe Fuzor

Faction: Predacon

Function: Air Commander

Strength: 5

Intelligence: 8

Speed: 8

Endurance: 7

Rank: 7

Courage: 8

Fireblast: 6

Skill: 7


Robot Mode



Injector's robot mode is actually quite nimble, his limbs are pretty thin, and yet sturdy (with his legs fully capable to supporting his giant head, and his arms able to hold up a large gun. All of the articulation joints in his robot mode enable him to be positioned in pretty much any way needed

Injector is mostly black, purple, red and a dark yellow in colour, which works well in both modes (given his alternate mode)

Injector's arms are connected to his torso by a hinge, which enables his arms to be positioned 90 degrees forward or about 45 degrees backwards, the shoulder is connected to the connector by a ball joint, which is connected to his upper arm (that also holds his wing) via a pivot joint. This in turn leads to his elbow, which is connected to the upper arm by a pivot and hinge joint combinator, with the lower arm partially encased by his beast mode's gaster (the bit with the stinger). His hands are sculpted with fingers, but aren't articulated (however they do have peg holes to hold his gun. The wings on his arms can be moved on a hinge to any position desired

Injector's waist is able to rotate on a pivot joint 360 degrees, which connects to the upper legs via ball joints stemming from the groin area, which then leads to a pivot joint for the main portion of the leg. The knees are connected via a hinge joint, enabling a 90 degree bend backwards. The back and front portions of his feet are connected to the main part of the lower leg via hinges

Injector's head is pretty much the entire lionfish part of his alternate mode with his robot mode head slid down from the mouth, this of course means that his head is quite bi, especially compared to the rest of his body. Injector is also able to open and close his mouth, thanks to his transformation and beast mode, which is quite rare for a Beast Era toy (or any really). His face is mostly yellow with some black markings at the top (including a chevron). His eyes are green and he has a set of white teeth (that seem to resemble a zombie's in most comic books for some reason), Injector's rub sign insignia is found when you flip up his head, under the bulk of it. Injector has an organic looking torso, resembling a muscular man's. Four of Injector's beast mode legs are on his back as kibble and can be folded inwards out of the way.


Alternate Mode



Injector's beast mode is a Lionfish-Hornet Fuzor, basically meaning that he's the monstrous result of gene splicing on prehistoric Earth.

Unlike most Fuzors, Injector's alternate mode is actually quite cleanly divided in 2, with the Lionfish as his head, and the Hornet as his torso.

Injector's head is mostly purple and red with dark yellow balls places sporadically down the sides. He's designed with fins, gills and scales across it, giving it a more authentically fish-like feel. He has a large horn on the top of his head that's just for decoration. Injector's mouth is yellow with a purple mouth rim, and white teeth, which of course can be opened and closed, just like in robot mode. His beast mode eyes are green (like his robot mode eyes). Injector's head also has a spring loaded feature that activates by unclasping a hidden hook under the back of the fish head, which deploys his dorsal fin into 4 spikes that can be used as a jabbing weapon.

The torso is mostly yellow and black, like a real hornet's the gaster is black and yellow striped. There's not really much to say about this part of the toy, except that it's limbs are connected with a ball joint to the main torso, which means that they have very limited pose-ability. Although his gaster does hold a single purple missile that can be fired via a small trigger on the top of the weapon. Injector also has the wings from his robot mode on his back too, which can be posed in different angles to show flapping if needed. Injector can also be positioned in a "standing" position in needed by using the gaster as a third leg in a tripod-like system.


Legacy

Injector is one of the weirdest Transformers ever. His alternate mode is bizarre, and yet looks good, and his robot mode is interesting. In a weird way he actually fits the aesthetic of the Animated toyline quite well (despite being made over 10 years earlier)

Despite Injector's toy profile making him seem incredible, he hasn't shown this in any fiction really. He wasn't in the TV series, and his appearances in the IDW Beast Era comics was quite short. The only thing he really did in the comics was helped to subdue Rartorata with his venom (off screen) and then got killed by Shokaract on Cybertron! According to the Sourcebook, Injector had a Sleek Jte mode on Cybertron (and Rartorata's Cybertronian robot mode seems to back this up too)

Injector was only repainted/molded once, into Rartorata, in which he only received a very minor repaint (I can't even tell what the repaint was from images of Rartorata!). Rartorata was a Japanese exclusive figure for the Beast Wars Neo line, who was a Blendtron, a minion of Unicron. He appeared in this capacity in both the Beast Wars Neo cartoon and the IDW comics (where Injector was even asked about the similarities), however in both appearances the poor repaint was killed off. Rartorata was given a slight redesign in The Ascending from IDW, to differentiate himself from Injector.


Is he cool?

I have to say, I don't count Injector in my personal "Top XX" of favourite toys/characters, but I do like him. I'm sure most of you know by now that I love obscure characters, but I never really got into the Fuzors line until much later in my collecting days.

There's something I should note though, people have been moaning about the Movie character's "hideous" appearances etc, yet Injector was around about 10 years before that, gracing us with his giant zombie face and made up alternate mode, yet no one ever mentions it as bad.

Fuzors in general were a good idea, and well implemented, but were sadly far too underused, only appearing in the Beast Wars line really and being ignored in most other lines. The only possible Fuzor I can think of from a recent line is ROTF Voyager class Megatron (who was a combination of Tank and Jet). I mean think about it, wouldn't a car-jet Autobot Fuzor look quite cool?

Overall, although I do like him, and think his gimmick is cool, I won't recommend him as a must have toy, just because he's not the best looking figure, and he has very little fiction to back up buying him (unlike with Beast Wars Silverbolt or Quickstrike for example)