Please list characters by the media/incarnation that the darkhorse is most associated with. And let it be known, these characters have The Touch.
This page is for the Ensemble Darkhorse characters spanning all Transformers, Beast Wars, etc. media. Listed first are the characters who won fan voting in the Hall of Fame.
Hall of Fame selection process: Each year, starting in 2010, several characters and real life humans associated with the series are inducted into the Transformers Hall of Fame. One additional character is inducted, based on fan voting, out of 5 characters as choices. As the main characters are automatically inducted, and most of the choices are already on this page, this makes the winner a Breakout Character among the Ensemble Darkhorse characters. For 2010 and 2011, the choices were four G1 characters (each lumped with their other incarnations, if any) and one Beast Wars character.
2010 winner: Beast Wars' Dinobot, beating other characters Soundwave, Grimlock, Shockwave and Jazz.
Dinobot is renowned for being one of the most complete and complex characters in all of Transformers history, from his Vitriolic Best Buds fights with Rattrap, to his Proud Warrior Race Guy and Honor Before Reason conflicts, to his Shout Out To Shakespeare tendencies. His death episode "Code of Hero" is one of the most well received episodes ever, cementing this.
2011 winner: Beast Wars' Waspinator, beating other characters Grimlock, Shockwave, Jazz and Erector.*
Soundwave, the only voting option to not return, was automatically inducted
Chew Toy, and didn't take over the show. He was slated to be killed off at the start of the second season, but due to the unlucky Predacon's popularity among fans, he was spared. Waspinator continued as a supporting character, played for increasingly painful and humiliating comic relief, and his personality continued to develop. He also became just the third character outside of G1 to get an alternate version into another continuity (Wasp in Animated).
Although it is connected to the various animated shows, most of the characters from the original G1 Transformers have been brought back in some form or another. Most notably are the "Seekers", Thundercracker and Skywarp in particular. Part of the reason for their popularity is the fact that they can be easily churned out via simply repainting a line's Starscream (which often leads to the awkward event where a line will feature all three of the original Seekers even when only Starscream appears in the actual cartoon being made to promote the line.
The popularity of the Seekers came out at it's clearest when Hasbro, having killed the popular Transformers Classic line to focus solely on the Broken Base Transformers live action movie, dumped the remaining Seeker figures (the second wave of Seekers and Thundercracker) into an ultra-rare 2006 Botcon set. Needless to say, Transformer fans shat bricks over the fact that they were denied a chance to all the Classic versions of the Seekers, since Botcon sets are made in ultra-low quantity and the massive desire for the figures ensuring that the few that made it to the secondary market would sell for $100 and up PER FIGURE.
Of Thundercracker, Dirge, and Thrust. Skywarp is still rare and expensive.
Sideswipe is another example; he very rarely did more than be in the background or get any starring appearances in the cartoon or comics, but he's still one of the most popular characters. A likely factor is that he's a Cool Car (a Lamborghini), so his toys tend to be the best. Particularly, in his Revenge of The Fallen appearance, he was a One-Scene Wonder and fans clamoured for more.
Try playing the game, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Sideswipe is only playable in the second Autobot chapter, but damn is he entertaining to play. not because of any specific gameplay but his dialog and personality during the level make it extremely funny.
Erector. Only ever had one toy, and never appeared in fiction save for a Japanese magazine story, but he recently experienced such a rise in popularity that the fans voted him into the final nominees for the Transformers: Hall of Fame, competing with such insanely popular and famous characters as Grimlock, Jazz, Shockwave and Waspinator. Hasbro even wrote a completely new character bio for him, semingly having embraced his sudden importance, but handled him as more than a simple dick joke. Considering his reputation started because of his name, this can fully well be seen as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the character.
Soundwave, who eventually became one of the few Transformers to survive all the way from "More Than Meets The Eye" to "The Rebirth" unchanged. His robotic but pretty vocoder-altered voice, his faceless look, the fact that he had a pretty dang articulate toy... Call him a snitch and the fanbase will eviscerate you.
His cassettes are sort of mini-Darkhorses as well, especially Ravage, who made it into both Beast Wars and the Transformers Film Series.
Nightbeat's an Autobot detective. And he is AWESOME.
Despite most Pretenders being obscure, there are two that stand out.
Bludgeon is aSamurai Skeleton Tank Robot who, like most Decepticon leaders in the comics, was far more effective than Megatron. This popularity landed him a brand new Voyager class toy that skips the inner robot and goes straight from tank to skeletal samurai!
Straxus was a character created specifically for the Marvel Comics, a deranged tyrant who basically existed to be killed off by Blaster after he killed Blaster's best buddy. However, Simon Furman revived him and had him retroactively hijack a lot of badass Megatron moments. He eventually got a rather awesome Deluxe class toy in Generations.
And in yet another case of "Decepticon leader who's better than Megatron," we have Shockwave. In the cartoon, he was just a dull Yes Man, essentially a poor man's Soundwave. In the comics, he was the Big Bad for most of Budiansky's run, and his reason for constantly and successfully usurping Megatron? It's because he simly deems it logical, whilst also averting the Straw Vulcan trope in actually BEING logical.
MeGrimlock! It helps that he is reguarded as Simon Furman's signature character in the comics.
Swerve is quickly turning into this in the fandom thanks to Roberts' portrayal of him in More Than Meets the Eye. He's gone from being used in past continuities as a filler character with no real distinct personality, to being a very chatty mischievous smartass with a Boisterous Bruiser personality packed into a minibot body.
Roberts' original character Rung, the Autobot psychologist, is also gaining a fangirl posse, due mainly to his adorkably gangly and goggle-eyed design and his equally adorkable Butt Monkey and slightly naive personality.
Heh heh, the Battlechargers, Runabout and Runamuck, have a decent fan following due to being some of the only Decepticons who are genuine friends. Not to mention the fandom meme that has them associated with Beavis And Butthead. Uh huh huh huh.
Even those who didn't much care for Mike Costa's run on IDW's Transformers ongoing seemed to like one character: Bob the Insecticon, a spiky yet adorable abomination of science who becomes Sunstreaker's pet. When Bob showed up in the fourth issue of James Roberts' ongoing, which followed Costa's, a number of fans were rather excited to see that he was still around.
The Beast Warsseries, considering it resurrected Transformers as a franchise, introduced sparks and other concepts, and more. Take a look at who the Hall of Fame winners are.
Megatron's Rubber Ducky. No lines, not interaction with anyone else, but one of the 3 fully loyal Predacons. And the only one of those three (the others being Inferno and Scorponok) to get transmetallized.
Blackarachnia, who by the end became a Breakout Character, and was one of the two characters (the other being Waspinator) to get an Expy in Transformers Animated.
In Beast Machines, this role was taken by Jetstorm due to his gleefully evil, sarcastic, arrogant personality. A keen sense of wit and the fact that his voice actor played him as a Large Ham didn't hurt, either.
Rampage and Depth Charge. The former for being an immortal psychopath, the latter for being the only one badass enough to take him on. They are drawn to each other like matter and antimatter, and are about as safe to be around when it happens. Put them in a scene together and watch the awesome.
Who became one of the most popular Transformers Animated characters after his ten second appearance in the pilot episode? Not The Stoic Prowl, not Leeroy Jenkins Bumblebee, not Big Bad Megatron... it's the wacky, Split Personality second string baddie Blitzwing. The fact that he's made appearances in almost every one of the The Arrival tie-in comics may show that the writers are listening to the fandom.
Despite being an intentional attempt at The Scrappy, Sentinel Prime got a lot of fans due to him being such an amusing Jerkass. Oh, and he's voiced by The Tick.
Ratchet's pretty popular for getting some of the best character development.
Dispensor, the Mountain Dew vending machine turned into a homicidal robot by the power of the Allspark, despite being Product Placement, not being named, and barely appearing for more than a few seconds. Dispensor eventually got his own (short flash) game, where he infiltrates human facilities Looney Tunes style and takes over the world in the name of Mountain Dew. He also got a toy, although, tragically, it doesn't transform and isn't poseable. .
And let's not forget that crazy bastard, Jerry Wang.
Flatline quickly became this. Essentially a Decepticon Josef Mengele, he's arguably more vile than his universe's Megatron - Which is saying something. A LOT of fans want to see a toy of him that turns into a hearse.
Barricade, the police car Decepticon. It doesn't hurt that in the video game adaptations, he's voiced by Keith David.
Ravage is one of the biggest examples of this. He was originally just a joke in Shortpacked! about how a Mirror Universe Ravage would be a Motor MouthKeet instead of a silent assassin. Then his creator started up a Twitter feed in which he was portrayed as the living incarnation of LOLCats. Eventually, the little guy became so popular, he was made canon and received a toy at Botcon 2010!
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This page is for the Ensemble Darkhorse characters spanning all Transformers, Beast Wars, etc. media. Listed first are the characters who won fan voting in the Hall of Fame.
Hall of Fame selection process: Each year, starting in 2010, several characters and real life humans associated with the series are inducted into the Transformers Hall of Fame. One additional character is inducted, based on fan voting, out of 5 characters as choices. As the main characters are automatically inducted, and most of the choices are already on this page, this makes the winner a Breakout Character among the Ensemble Darkhorse characters. For 2010 and 2011, the choices were four G1 characters (each lumped with their other incarnations, if any) and one Beast Wars character.
