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#transformers #ratchetCheetimus painted me a Lady Ratchet!
So what’s Voyager Class Lady Ratchet like? Well, here’s Bob Budiansky’s original Ratchet profile from 1984, before Hasbro insisted that Ratchet be a boy:
That’s it. That’s exactly Voyager Class Ratchet’s profile. Though maybe it shouldn’t end in a comma, I dunno.
Anyway, she’s awesome.
(they combine into Physicion)
Cheetimus painted me a Lady Ratchet!
So what’s Voyager Class Lady Ratchet like? Well, here’s Bob Budiansky’s original Ratchet profile from 1984, before Hasbro insisted that Ratchet be a boy:
That’s it. That’s exactly Voyager Class Ratchet’s profile. Though maybe it shouldn’t end in a comma, I dunno.
Anyway, she’s awesome.
So what’s her name?
Ratchet.
for less than what the unpainted botcon ratchet is going for on ebay
plus 4 other guys
Ratchet and conflict de-escalation. I was surprised to notice how often he does this even just in the first two volumes - it’s almost always his first solution to potential violence.
Ratchet continues to be excellent at de-escalating potentially violent situations.
March 8 is International Women’s Day, so we’re going to count down our top ten landmark moments in the history of Female Transformers!
1) 1985 - “THE SEARCH FOR ALPHA TRION”
There were efforts to include female characters in the Transformers brand from its outset - Ratchet, believe it or not, was originally intended by Bob Budiansky to be a female character, which is why he’s named after Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest! Likewise, during the very early development of the Generation 1 cartoon, writer Jeffrey Scott produced a pitch that included newly-invented female characters who weren’t part of the toyline. But Hasbro didn’t go for either writer’s suggestions, and it took until November 12, 1985, and the broadcast of the seminal Generation 1 episode “The Search for Alpha Trion,” before the female Cybertronians would take their first bow. This episode introduces Elita One, Chromia, Moonracer, and Firestar, who have all inspired action figures, and starred in IDW Publishing’s current run of comic books!
2) 1986 - INTRODUCING ARCEE
While Elita and her crew were only one-episode guest stars, the August 8, 1986 release of The Transformers: The Movie introduced audiences to Arcee, who would go on to become part of the cartoon’s core cast, and the go-to female Autobot character in future series like Energon, Animated, and Prime. Arcee was created for the movie by writer Ron Friedman, who insisted on her inclusion when others were hesitant, citing his own daughter’s love for the robots as proof that there were a female audience to be tapped. In fact, Friedman’s believes it was this insistence that inspired the production of “The Search for Alpha Trion,” and given that Arcee existed in drafts of the film as early as March 1985, he might just be right!
3) 1988 - THE FIRST FEMALE TRANSFORMER TOY
Although a prototype design exists that proves Arcee was considered for release as a toy in 1986, this ultimately did not come to pass. It would take until 1988 before a female Transformers toy existed, and it came in the form of Minerva. A redeco of Nightbeat available as part of the Japanese Transformers: Super-God Masterforce toyline, this young medic was one the main characters in the accompanying animated series.
4) 1990 - DECEPTICON LADIES
As few female Transformers as there were by this stage, they were still all Autobots! That changed in January 1990, when the final issue of the Transformers: Victory manga introduced Esmeral, wife of Deathsaurus, and Lyzack, sister of Leozack - the first ever female Decepticons!
5) 1995 - BOTCON’S BAD GIRL
While Minerva brought a little diversity to Japanese toy store shelves, in America, there were no ladies to be seen until BotCon 1995, which offered as its exclusive toy the first female Transformer available in North America, a redeco of Generation 2 Autobot High Beam as the Decepticon sharpshooter Nightracer!
6) 1997-1998 - BEASTIE GIRLS
Female Transformers finally made it to American shelves in 1997 when the Beast Wars series brought us Airazor and Blackarachnia, the latter of whom was the first evil female Transformer to appear in animation. There was just one trick - their toys weren’t designed with them being female characters in mind! Like Minerva and Nightracer before her, Blackarachnia was just a redeco of a male ‘bot (Tarantulas, in her case), and Airazor’s pronouns were only changed to female when Beast Wars cartoon writers Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio requested it, so they could have a bigger female presence in the series. But this change paved the way for 1998′s big moment - the release of Transmetal Airazor, the very first Transformers toy that was designed to be a female character from the outset!
7) 2000 - DOUBLING UP
While Airazor was phased out of the Beast Wars cartoon during its second season, Blackarachnia remained a major character throughout the show, and on into its sequel, Beast Machines. It was in the second season of Beast Machines in 2000 that another benchmark was finally reached with embarrassing lateness - with the introduction of “plantformer” Botanica, a Transformers animated series how had two female heroes as part of its regular cast, a feat that would not be repeated until 2016′s Robots in Disguise!
8) 2005 - GENDER OVERRIDEN
Female Transformers were in short supply during the “anime” years of Transformers, and it was Cartoon Network’s demand for some representation that saw “Nitro Convoy,” a male character in the Transformers: Galaxy Force anime, gender-flipped to become the female Override, leader of Velocitron, the Speed Planet, when the series was dubbed into English as Transformers: Cybetron!
9) 2013 - THE FANS HAVE SPOKEN
April 2013 saw the launch of Hasbro’s first “Fan-Built Bot” poll, in which fans would be able to vote on the attributes of a brand new Transformers character that would be come a new toy. The character’s gender was not one of the original choices on the poll, but the fan’s voices were loud and clear on the matter - when a second set of questions were added in May, a choice of gender was one of them, and the votes started pouring in for the new ‘bot to be female. The end result was the Autobot Windblade, who went on to become a major player in IDW Publishing’s comics, and eventually headlined her own self-titled mini-series, created by the first ever all-female creative team in Transformers comics, Mairghread Scott and Sarah Stone! From there, she made the leap to television, and now stars as a regular cast member in the second season of Robots in Disguise!
10) 2015 - SIX FEMMES ARE BETTER THAN ONE
The fans’ desire for more female ‘bots didn’t diminish when it came time for the second Fan-Built Poll poll in 2015, which offered the chance to create not just a single Transformer, but an entire six-strong Combiner team! The winner of this poll was Victorion, the first ever female “Scramble City” combiner, made up of Pyra Magna, Rust Dust, Jumpstream, Dustup, Skyburst, and Stormclash! Like Windblade before them, this new team also appear in IDW’s comic, and the giftset of their toys is set for release soon!
That’s OUR top ten - what are some of YOUR favourite Female Transformer moments?
This hotly-demanded episode is the longest one of the series so far! From “Nurse Ratchet” to Solus Prime, this history of the way gender had been handled in Transformers media is now available on early access for Patreon supporters - watch now for as little as $2!
Oh hey, my Ratchet paints beat me home!
Ratchet would’ve solved every conflict in two minutes.
Please don’t take this too seriously, I’m just fucking around. I personally really liked the issue.
I will be so mad if this arc doesn’t go exactly like this.
Masterpiece Ratchet: Nightssss
unpretty
