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G1 Character Profiles
Kickback
Personal Profile: Kickback is the grasshopper Insecticon. Kickback has the special ability to knock out anything he sees fit with his powerful grasshopper hind legs. He is also believed to be able to kick a hole through quarter-inch steel. The Insecticons usually work for themselves, unless Megatron offers them a great ammount of energon cubes to carry out a task for him. And even then, their loyalty is questionable. The Insecticons also have the power to make an unlimited number of duplicates of themselves, so that they have a better chance of fighting Transformers, instead of it just being the 3 of them. Like real insects, the Insecticons love to nest and snack on trees. The other Insecticons are Bombshell, the beetle, and Shrapnel, the stag beetle.
Episodes appeared in: A Plauge Of Insecticons, Traitor, The Insecticon
Syndrome, Quest For Survival, The Revenge Of Bruticus, and Transformers: The
Movie
Cartoon
Bio: Kickback and the other Insecticons crash landed on Earth
seperate from the Autobots and Decepticons who crashed in the ark in
3,998,016 B.C. Their identity computers adapted them for life on Earth by
turning them into insects, so they could blend in with their surroundings in
the watery jungle they lived in, known as Demon Swamp. Megatron and the
Decepticons later found the Insecticons in 1984 while they were engaged in a
fight with Skyfire, Bumblebee, and Brawn. The Insecticons agreed to join
Megatron's forces and they all went to attack an oil refinery. After The
Decepticons and Insecticons took over the oil refinery, they were attacked
by the Autobots. The Inecticons, seeing that they and their new allies were
about to be defeated, decided to take the Decepticons' energon cubes for
themselves. Megatron noticed this and sent the Decepticons to chase after
the Insecticons and punish them for their treachery. This retreat allowed
the Autobots to liberate the oil refinery that the 'Cons were occupying. At
one point, the Autobot Cliffjumper accused his fellow Autobot, Mirage of
being a traitor. Cliffjumper's accusations stemmed from the fact that Mirage
stole energon cubes from the Insecticons and took them to a Decepticon land
base, where Megatron and the others had stolen electro-cels and were working
on harnessing the energy from them. However, Mirage only did this to start
another battle between the Insecticons and Decepticons, since the
Insecticons would think that Megatron and his bunch had robbed them. While
the Decepticons and Insecticons were fighting, Bombshell caught Mirage
spying on the battle and implanted a cerebro-shell in his head, making
Mirage an Insecticon slave. The Insecticons and Decepticons then realized
that Mirage was the cause of their fighting and they agreed to stop, so that
they could use their new slave to destroy the Autobots. Mirage, now under
Bombshell's control, led Optimus Prime, Cliffjumper, and Ratchet into an
ambush. However, the Autobots were able to extract the cerebro-shell from
Mirage and make him an Autobot again. The Autobots were able to defeat the
Decepticons and Insecticons, but the electro-cels were destroyed. The
Insecticons then went with the Decepticons to attack the Nova Power Plant.
There, the Insecticons ate the Nova power core, which made them triple in
size and strength, making them more powerful than ever before. The
Insecticons then discovered Soundwave spying on them and listening to their
plans of once again betraying the Decepticons. So, to prevent him from
blowing their plans, Bombshell used a cerebro-shell on him to make him serve
the Insecticons. Even though the Insecticons now seemed to be all-powerful,
the Nova power core the 3 of them ate was incompatible with their stomachs,
which made them suffer symptoms similar to a human stomach-ache. The
Autobots then learned that if they didn't stop the Insecticons while they
were making their next attack, this time on Iron Mountain, a defense
astablishment, that their bodies would explode inside Iron Mountain and
destroy it, along with all the human scientists within. The Autobots then
had to form an alliance with Megatron and the Decepticons to stop the
Insecticons with an antidote that Wheeljack and Ratchet invented. With the
Decepticons' help, the Autobots were able to shrink the Insecticons back to
their usual small size, and Soundwave was cured of being Bombshell's slave.
After they were defeated, the Insecticons retreated, with the Decepticons
following close behind, seeking vengeance. In the movie, the Insecticons
were a part of the attack on Autobot City. Shrapnel and Kickback were run
over at the opening gate by Hot Rod and Kup. When the Decepticons retreated
to return to Cybertron aboard Astrotrain, it was decided that there was too
much wait and that the badly injured Decepticons had to be sacrificed for
the others. The Insecticons were thrown out along with Megatron, Skywarp,
and Thundercracker. It is unclear however whether the 3 Insecticons thrown
out of Astrotrain were the real ones, or just clone duplicates. The 6
injured Decepticons were found by Unicron, who reformatted Megatron into
Galvatron, Thundercracker into Cyclonus, Skywarp into Scourge, and the 3
Insecticons, whether the real ones, or just clones, were changed into
Scourge's clone henchmen, the Sweeps.
Kickback; Quotes:
"In that case, I better hop to it!"
"To the farm, and more food!"
"In that case, let's make him OUR spy."
"Delicious, eh Shrapnel?"