Injector (Beast Wars Transformers)

For beauty is power, and am I not the pinnacle of beauty?

Name: Injector
Aliases: Aquasting
Allegiance: Predacons
Function: Aerial Assault
Sub-group: Fuzor
Timeline: Generation 1 (Beast Era)

Toyline: Beast Wars

Profile:

Injector considers himself to be the most beautiful of the Predacons - the most perfect thing in creation. Why, he feels beauty such as his could only have been carefully sculpted by the tender hands of Solus Prime and blessed by the touch of Primus himself while the rest of the thirteen knelt in awe. To say Injector has an issue with vanity is an understatement. He's completely self-obsessed and acts like he's the pinnacle of all creation. In truth, he's ugly - and when other Predacons see him preening, they laugh behind his back and insult him. But Injector takes this as jealousy - after all, if you had to measure yourself against this kind of perfection, wouldn’t you be jealous too?

Abilities:

Although Injector is vain beyond measure, Maximals underestimate him at their peril - he's a phenomenally cunning opponent who is a master at improvising battle tactics on the fly. Injector's hornet / lionfish Fuzor form enables Injector to be adept at combat in both the air and in the water. In Fuzor mode, Injector's jaws are strong enough to snap most smaller Maximals in two. Injector is capable of limited flight in robot mode.

Injector's deadliest weapon is his wide variety of poisons and cybervenom. In beast mode, Injector coats his many splines and his stinger with a variety of toxins, varying the exact mix of poisons and venom to inflict the greatest harm on his victims. Often even the slightest scratch from one of Injector's splines can prove completely debilitating; a sting is often lethal unless the unlucky individual is immediately taken to a CR chamber for treatment. In robot mode, Injector can administer his poisons via toxic darts launched from his arm cannon; his arm cannon also possesses a secondary fire mode which allows Injector to launch his toxins in the form of gas grenades.

Weaknesses:

While adept at combat in both the air and the water, Injector is frequently outperformed by those Maximals who specialise either in flight or aquatic combat exclusively. His beast form is not particularly effective on the ground. In robot mode, Injector's scrawny body is not particularly effective in close quarters combat; although frequently the challenge for Injector's opponents is evading his barrages of toxins to get close enough to exploit this weakness.

However Injector's greatest weakness is his vanity. He tries to avoid combat at all costs, and has been known to flee the battlefield rather than stand and fight. Beauty as perfect as his, after all, would be horrifically marred if he got dirty - or worse, wounded.

Hornet / lionfish Fuzor mode:

More information on Injector at TFW2005

Author notes:

Injector is one of those legendarily bad toys. There was a period of about five years when he sat on store shelves, unloved, as successive waves of Transformers came and went.

It's a reputation that's deserved, sadly. This is one ugly toy. The beast mode is okay, nothing amazing, it looks sort of cool in that way the Fuzors do although it's the weakest of the Deluxe class Fuzors. The robot mode is really weak, though. His body really does look scrawny and undersized compared to his head. I tend to forget just how off the whole thing looks when Injector is boxed away.

What rescues Injector for me is the on-packaging bio. The toy is ugly, so the character is ugly - but he believes he's beautiful! That's such a cool little twist in the backstory. IDW's profile broke off from this when they did the Beast Wars sourcebook, but I feel that was a real mistake. So for my version I went back to having the super vain Injector we all know and ignored on store shelves.

Hey, at least Transquito was there to keep him company.