Spittor (BW)

Spittor is a Predacon from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Lick me!

Spittor is a typical Predacon toady, full of arrogance, overconfidence, and, most of all, stupidity. His arsenal of poisons more deadly than a Cybertron razor snake, however, make him a force to be reckoned with when he can focus his anger. One touch of his membranous skin can pump enough toxins into a Maximal to drive them to dementia, and then he can head-butt them into submission with his tongue.

Yes, "toady". We went there.

Fiction

Toy bios

Spittor served under Megatron as a devoted and loyal, albeit unrefined, soldier. He harbored a lot of repressed anger and hated everything, but didn't let that get in the way of his seamless professionalism when on the job. For some reason, it was believed that rubbing his back would bring luck. The truth was it only brought about several Predacons' slipping into severe and extended dementia, due to the venomous nature of his skin. Transmetal 2 Spittor bio

3H comics

Put that tongue away.

In the wake of the Beast Wars, Tarantulas sought the power of the Matrix to destroy the Vok. Tarantulas's recruits, a rebuilt Ravage, plus Iguanus and Razorclaw, found Spittor's stasis pod and reprogrammed his Maximal protoform with a Predacon shell program. But the Vok had created a team of their own Transformers, Airazor and Tigatron, led by Primal Prime, to counter Tarantulas's efforts. At his pod's location, Spittor and the Predacons attacked them, as well as the newborn Maximal Ramulus. Tigatron and Spittor faced off, but Spittor was knocked away by Airazor, who had detected that the Predacon was soaked in deadly cyber venom. While Spittor was engaged in battle, Tarantulas fought Primal Prime, subdued him, and ripped the Matrix of Leadership from his chest. Primeval Dawn Part 2

I'm not very liked.

Now that the Predacons had their prize, they returned to Tarantulas's lair, where they helped construct a transwarp portal so that Tarantulas could bring the Matrix to Unicron. But Spittor was being difficult. He thought that they should have killed the Maximals while they were down, instead of leaving them. Ravage, who was immune to Spittor's cyber-venom coating, angrily tackled Spittor for his insolence. Tarantulas, taking appraisal of his troops' bloodthirstiness, promised them that they could kill the Maximals once they finished the portal's construction.

And so they did. While Tarantulas stayed with the portal, Ravage led Spittor and the others in an attack on the Ark. Primeval Dawn Part 3

Man, I hope I'm treated better in the next continuity!

Shortly after the Wreckers rescued Optimus Primal and Nightscream from some Tank Drones, they were assigned a vague mission by the Oracle. Spittor, Primal Prime, and Fractyl met up with Rodimus and Arcee (Spittor playfully annoying Fractyl along the way). They then rendezvoused with the others. After a fierce battle with some Vehicons, the group boards an Autobot shuttle. Departure

Shortly after takeoff, however, Spittor and some others were ambushed by Devcon. Rodimus convinced the former peace marshal to calm down, and Spittor went off to recuperate. Not long after the scuffle, the section of the ship holding Spittor, Sonar, and the Deployers suffered an explosion. Packrat chose to detonate that section rather than risk the whole ship's destruction. Thus, Spittor's life was cut short. Betrayal

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Spittor was brought to prehistoric Earth by Magmatron in order to raise an army out of the stasis pods left there after the departure of Optimus Primal's team. He was sent out into the field, and witnessed Polar Claw emerge from his pod as all protoforms were brought online. To Spittor's bewilderment, Polar Claw had not been reprogrammed into a Predacon, and attacked him. Shell Game #1

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

Nevermind.

Magmatron recruited Spittor, along with Transquito, Drill Bit, Iguanus, Manterror, and Razorbeast to journey through time and use the abandoned stasis pods on prehistoric Earth to build an army and take over Cybertron. Upon arrival, Magmatron sent the others to watch over the stasis pods as they were activated. While the rest of his teammates witnessed the births of new Predacons, Spittor did not. He got to greet Polar Claw, a Maximal, who summarily squashed Spittor. The Gathering #1

Because of this, Razorbeast, who had activated the pods, was revealed as a Maximal spy. More Maximals spilled forth, and a new Beast War was at hand. While the rest of the new Predacon army sought to quell the new Maximal army, Drill Bit and Spittor, along with Magmatron, hunted down Razorbeast. Spittor got the drop on Ramulus, using his poison tongue to knock the mountain-dwelling Maximal off a cliff. The Gathering #2

If I was in World War 2 they'd call me SPITTOR!

Later, when the Predacons located the Maximal base, Spittor was among the attackers. He and his cohorts had their enemies outnumbered, but a new squad of Maximals arrived just in time. Spittor was easily thwarted by a sweep of Torca's tusks. The Gathering #4

Some time later, Spittor participated in an all-out assault on the Maximal base with his fellow Earthbound Predacons, now led by Ravage. Sadly, Spittor once again fell victim to the terrible tusks of Torca. The Ascending #1 As the tide began to turn in the Predacons' favor, Spittor managed to taste the sweetness of victory at long last. It was a small taste, however, as he was summarily stomped on by Grimlock. The Ascending #2

He managed to remain in the fight, but after the Pack arrived, he was stomped on by Stampy. The Ascending #3

While Ravage departed for Cybertron with a number of Maximal and Predacon troops to battle Shokaract, Spittor remained on Earth, watching the Angolmois-infected Razorbeast battle the Blendtrons Elephorca and Drancron. When Ramulus tried to rally the Maximals and Predacons into battle, Spittor was apathetic, but ended up participating anyway. At first tackling Elephorca, he moved on to team up with Lazorbeak to knock Drancron onto Rartorata's deadly stinger. Spittor's finest hour was brief, alas, as the resulting explosion consumed the Blendtrons, Lazorbeak, and himself. The Ascending #4

He survived, and an experiment aimed at improving his prowess converted Spittor into a deadly Transmetal 2. Beast Wars Sourcebook #4

Ask Sideways

Known liar Sideways claimed to have multiple Wrecker cranial units, including Spittor's, on his trophy wall. Ask Sideways, 2015/07/02

Beast Wars: Uprising

Spittor was a member of the Resistance, bunkered down with Coelagon's unit in Lower Petrohex. They faced the Vehicon scourge escaping from devastated Protihex, but were quickly overwhelmed by the vast numbers of the enemy. Rather than be turned into one of the enemy, Spittor's partner Twinstrike ignited his phlogiston reservoir and destroyed the both of them. Derailment

Precursor World

A Warrior of the Seven Lights resembling Spittor was a member of the Blue Order of the Primus Vanguard. When the traitorous Straxus twins unleashed a rage virus to destroy the corps from within, he was slain in the ensuing brawl. Vanguard supreme leader Primus later loaded the Warrior's lingering spark into his Golden Noah in an attempt to ferry his soul to the next world. God Neptune comic 1 Unfortunately, this did not work. Finale

2021 Beast Wars comic

I'm Mr. Frog. This is my show. I eat the bug. I ate the bug. This is the end. I love you.

The Cybertronian who would become Spittor was one of the many Maximal protoforms aboard the Axalon. To eliminate the Maximals and Predacons, Tarantulas and the Vok brought every crashed stasis pod they could find online and reprogrammed the protoforms within into loyal "Children of the Vok". This new army attacked the crashed Darksyde in an attempt to take out the Maximal-Predacon alliance, but Spittor fell early in the battle. The End

Toys

Beast Wars

• Spittor (Basic, 1997)

• Known designers: Yuichiro Hira (TakaraTomy), Masakatsu Saito (concept art)

Part of the fourth wave of year-two Beast Wars Basics, Spittor transforms into an organic "poison arrow" frog. The frog form can launch the spring-loaded robot mode head from its mouth as a disquieting "tongue-ram" attack. This gimmick is also available in robot mode, which is somewhat less creepy.

This sculpt was also used to make Beast Wars II Diver and Transmetal Spittor (see below).

Why did the frog leap to the other side?

In Europe, Spittor's original toy was sold as a Maximal rather than a Predacon. This applies to both the English/Spanish/Italian and the French/Dutch/German trilingual packaging variants, as well as the included instructions sheets. However, the "energon chip" on the actual toy remained that of a Predacon.

In Japan, Spittor was available as an import in Hasbro packaging with a Takara-applied sticker, and later as part of a 1998 mail order catalog theater-goers could buy from. Specifically, the import came in trilingual English/Spanish/Italian European Beast Wars/Biocombat packaging.

• More information on Spittor at TFU.info

"She's a monster!"

• Spittor (Basic w/ video, 1998)

A European-market-only release, the original Spittor toy was redecoed in red and black, with gold "mechanical" detailing to make it—according to its packaging—a Transmetal. This time, he was properly sold as a Predacon.

Together with the equally Europe-only "Transmetal" redeco of Claw Jaw he was released alongside, this version of Spittor came in unique trilingual packaging that sported texts in English, German, and Italian (see above for regular European language combinations at the time).

The VHS tape included with the UK release contained the Beast Wars episode "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)", whereas the tape included with the German release contained a dubbed version of the episode "Beast Wars (Part 2)".

• More information on Transmetal Spittor at TFU.info

He'd get along well with Alice.

• Spittor (Basic, 1999)

• Accessories: Tongue-mace
• Known designers: Yuichiro Hira (TakaraTomy), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist}

Part of the second wave of Transmetal 2 Basics, Spittor transforms into a techno-organic "monstrous" poison arrow frog. The beast mode tongue acts as a hand-held flail weapon for robot mode. It also has a flip-up claw on his toad back, ending up on his left shoulder in robot mode. His spark crystal is located on the roof of his frog mode's mouth.

There is a running change variant that exists, where the robot mode's chin was resculpted to be rounder, whereas the original features a pointed chin.^[1]

The resculpted chin variant of this mold was also used to make 2001's Robots in Disguise Slapper.

• More information on Transmetal 2 Spittor at TFU.info

Notes

Lucky for him Jetfire's not around anymore...

• Spittor is unique in that he is the only non-show Beast Wars character to be released as an organic beast, a Transmetal (sort of), and a Transmetal 2.
• Spittor was not originally going to be part of the 3H Wreckers team. His place was intended for "Goosher", the Japanese Car Robots character who uses the Transmetal 2 Spittor mold. However, when Car Robots was sold by Hasbro as Robots in Disguise and Goosher renamed "Slapper", 3H replaced him with Spittor.
• Concept art for IDW's Beast Wars: The Gathering comics reveal that Spittor's Cybertronian alt mode is a bipedal walker mechanoid of some type (somewhat reminiscent of a Zentraedi Regult from Macross) with an acid-shooting gun. This was the inspiration for his Animated counterpart.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Spittor (スピッター Supittā)
• French: Krachin (Canada)^[2]
• Italian: Anfibius^[3]
• Spanish: Batracian (Latin America, Basic), Batraciox (Latin America, Transmetal 2)^[4]

References