Inferno (1997)

Height: 15cm (robot mode); 19cm (overall length, beast mode)

Articulation: Ball joint neck; ball joint shoulder, ball joint elbow; swivel waist; ball joint hip, ball joint knee; double-jointed abdomen/flight unit.

Colors: Molded red, translucent metal-flake red, black, grey; Painted light green, dark blue, silver, light blue, white. 

Accessories: Missile launcher, Mandible Claw, missiles x2.

Gallery: 24 images.

Author: ExVee

Predacons do not come more loyal than Inferno - it's in his most basic programming. Even Cybertronian science seems unable to override nature's strongest instinctive drives. While Inferno's protoform was possibly in the best condition of any to awaken during the Beast Wars, the colony of fire ants whose DNA was scanned to form his beast mode were overpowering. Inferno's motivations generally switch between serving his queen and setting things on fire. Often these interests overlap.

Inferno either has no concept of, or no concern for his personal well-being. The only motivation he knows is to carry out the Royalty's orders in whatever way possible, usually involving fire somewhere in the process. This unwavering devotion and loyalty has given him considerable value in Megatron's eyes. After the loss of Scorponok, Inferno would quickly take up the role of Predacon butt-kisser second in command, though he got about as much respect as Scorponok ever did.

As time went by, Inferno's place at Megatron's side would be continually challenged by some of the more interesting new faces among the Predacon ranks. This would lead him to occasionally "plot", in whatever limited capacity he was capable, of getting back in Megatron's good graces. It would also result in Inferno, Waspinator, and Quickstrike forming a loose team to do whatever menial task was left once Megatron's important soldiers were sent on the real missions. Eventually, this tendency would put Inferno on the wrong end of a very large fusion cannon...

"FOOL! Pain is my friend! Allow me to introduce you to it!"

Beast Mode

Inferno isn't just a fire ant, he's a solider-caste fire ant. He's the larger, giant-headed ant that works to kill anything that's not supposed to be around the colony. Even non-fire ant soliders have a venomous bite and really hurt when they clamp down on you. Good choice here. Oh, and did you know that almost all ants, soldiers included, are actually female? The Preds are a little stuck since in nature it's often the female of a species that has all the fancy fighting bits.

Though he may not be quite on the level of an anatomical model, Inferno is a pretty effective ant. He's also flipping huge in beast mode. That can be a problem. Large insectoid or arachnid Transformers notoriously suffer from the same problem real bugs would if inflated to such sizes, in that they can't really support their own weight. In the case of the Transformers, it's usually a matter of ball joints not tight enough to support the rest of the toy, or sometimes a lack of traction. In real bugs, it's more like they'd crush their own legs.

In my experience, it is possible to get Inferno reliably standing on his own six feet, it just takes a little work and figuring out where the joints have their most friction. When it works, it's really good. The rest of the time it's pretty sad, though.

Inferno is a very red ant. Some attempt is made to break this up a little with green splotches along the thorax and abdomen, but mostly it's just red. It's not so bad for the beast mode, though. You kind of expect a fire ant to be pretty red. The only place I have a problem with it is the legs. The front and rearmost pairs are about two-thirds red and only get black along the last segment. In my opinion, it's the thing that most screams "toy" in the beast mode. Had the legs been entirely red or (preferably) entirely black, it seems like it would have been more credible and realistic. ...as realistic as a giant ant can be, I guess...

One gimmick in this mode is that you can make the mandibles move by sliding a little lever in the middle of the head. It's kind of an all-or-nothing move, no real stopping point in between. If you load a missile, you can also make it launch out the mouth in this mode.

Transformation

Another in the camp of limbs mapping directly to limbs. As should be obvious from looking at the beast mode, the front and rear most legs become the arms and legs of the robot. The only tricky bit here is really getting the robot head in place, since it seems to want to hang somewhere in the middle.

Robot Mode

One thing you can say here. It's red. Boy oh boy is it red. With but a few small exceptions, practically the entire body is red. While this was acknowledged in beast mode, I feel like it's more of an issue in the robot mode. Had the limbs all been made of black plastic, it would have really helped the color balance for both modes. Though I'm not sure a red ant's legs would automatically be black... The CGI model for Inferno improved on this by adding more silvery blue parts to the robot mode.

Being part of the 1997 breed of Beast Wars Mega, Inferno has neither Mutant Head nor a little robot animal buddy hidden somewhere on his body. However, his robot head is freaky enough that it probably would have been a Mutant Head had that design feature been retained in the second year toys. The head has good range of motion, although the decorative mandibles along the chin will tend to hang on some edges inside the collar area. Best part is the giant, toothy grin, though. The show didn't have to make it up - dude LOOKS nuts.

The arms are a little disappointing for this level of toy. Only articulating at shoulder and elbow might not be a huge problem, except for Inferno not having functional hands. The arms end with two large clawed digits, and back toward what would be the wrist is a tiny, pointed nub that would otherwise be a thumb except it's immobile and lies against the arm. Yeah. To allow Inferno use of his weapons, both arms have a peg hole on the back of the hands. Instead of a handgun or anything of the sort, it becomes a cannon strapped to the wrist. And the articulation of the arm prevents it being used credibly in anything but an arm fully outstretched pose.

The torso has the toy's best feature. A precursor of the next thing in Mega development, Inferno has almost a third mode. Logic and intent kind of differ here, so...

In either version, Inferno's ant-abdomen opens up to reveal a rocket engine. The abdomen panels are attached to a geared ring, and when you push in a button on the engine they spin, much like Dinobot's tail spinner. Yeah, Inferno has a propeller up his butt. Moving right along... The advertised way to use this is to split Inferno's legs apart, move the engine between the legs, and call that the flight mode. Sounds a bit uncomfortable to me. Logic on the other hand says to leave everything where it already is and have the engine facing out behind Inferno. The modelers for the show seemed to take this road since we were thankfully never treated to Inferno splitting his crotch and putting a thruster there. *cough* The abdomen is made of the same metal-flaked clear red plastic that about half the toy is made from. Combine that with the interior of the panels being painted silver, and you have a really impressive effect of being able to see mechanical bits through the simulated chitin. If you can say they did one thing exactly right in the robot mode, this is it.

The legs come off about as well as the arms. Though in this case you're suffering for materials over engineering choices. The knee joints seem particularly susceptible to loosening. I bought this Inferno brand new from an actual store, and after relatively little transforming and posing, the knees quickly began to lose their ability to hold the weight of the toy. Using the typical solutions I corrected the issue, but it's not setting a good precedent - especially since I'm noticing the hips beginning to follow suit. While the knees still are properly tight, balance isn't a big issue. The feet are pretty good sized and have adequate heel spurs to make sure the abdomen's mass is accounted for. In one of the weirder moves, Inferno's missiles are stored in the feet. Except they're stored upright along the lower leg. I guess it makes them easy to grab and reload.

Accessories

-Missile launcher

As noted above, the weapons can only plug into what would be the backs of the hands or wrists. The missile launcher is a small, grey bit that hides inside the ant mouth in beast mode. It's usable in beast mode, though you'd have to tear off one of Inferno's back legs to actually have something to fire... The launcher gets pretty good range, so you'll want to be careful where you point it when you decide to fire it off. Send one of those missiles into the wrong pile of clutter and your Inferno will probably be permanently hobbled.

-Mandible Claw

Plugs into the wrists just as the launcher. This is a hollow tube with the ant's giant pincer jaws fixed to the end. The mouthparts are on springs, so you can open them and they'll spring closed. They're limited in strength, and probably wouldn't even really hold up a basic very well. Though come to think of it Inferno's joints probably wouldn't take the strain either.

The more important part here is that these two pieces can be put together to form a single, more impressive looking weapon. Inferno's flamethrower cannon in the show was based on this configuration. Like in beast mode, the lever action for the mandibles works again, and now a missile would fire by sliding the lever all the way forward instead of simply pressing on the launcher's trigger.

Things to Look For When Buying Loose

Inferno is among the ranks of Beast Wars toys with an expiration date. The metal-flaked clear plastic is something of a double-whammy as goes material failures. The flecks of metal already weaken the structure of any plastic they're added to and make breakage more common, but clear plastic has brittleness to contend with. Infernos have been known to crumble virtually into dust. The more stress applied to these parts, the more likely failure will be, so be mindful when purchasing a loose example. Buying boxed won't necessarily prevent this from ever happening, but you may get a longer lifespan.

That aside, Inferno is commonly missing various parts. The two missiles form part of the rearmost ant legs, the middle pair of legs is easily removed and not integral to robot mode, and the end segments of the front legs are ball jointed and also easily removed. Lack of any of these parts may not be immediately obvious but will cripple the toy's beast mode. Additionally since the mouthparts form weapons, they're easily lost as well. Be really careful before choosing an Inferno to buy. This toy is very bad about its removable parts being absolutely required for beast mode, and there are many more dismembered examples floating around than whole pieces. Get sealed box if you at all can.

Closing Remarks

Inferno is actually a fairly lackluster toy. It's only desired because the character is a very memorable and enjoyable part of the show, partly brought to life by the talent of Jim Byrnes. When it was new, Inferno was a terrible shelfwarmer, a mantle quickly inherited by Transmetal Scavenger. Kids seem to not like ants...

The mass of solid red in robot mode is much less acceptable or appealing than in beast mode, and the limited articulation for a toy of this size can be slightly off-putting. As noted, about the best thing it does in robot mode is the propeller butt. That flight mode really is ultra-gear.

On the other hand, the beast mode is really, really nice. It's a huge, imposing ant. If you can actually get it to stand on its legs, it's a pretty good display piece just for the beast mode. One of the better crafted beast forms to come along. Whatever Kenner's motivations for so many bug toys might have been, you have to admit they usually turned out nicely.

But that's not quite enough to save this. Inferno Could Have Been Better no matter how good the beast mode looks.

-ExVee