Tigerhawk

Tigerhawk is a Maximal from the Beast Era of the Generation 1 continuity family.

800-Ton Jesus.

In the fires of an unknown place between time and space, the Vok removed the sparks of Tigatron and Airazor and fused their bodies together to form Tigerhawk, a Vok-controlled super warrior intended to bring justice to the time-disrupting Transformers on prehistoric Earth. But when the two extracted sparks united and re-entered Tigerhawk's body, a different personality and purpose emerged.

Tigerhawk is by far the most powerful Transformer in the Beast Wars. His mighty wings grant him flight in either form and can deploy missile launchers, gatling guns or serve as defensive shields. In beast mode, he bares razor-sharp claws and teeth, but all of these devastating weapons are nothing compared to his uncanny shamanic abilities to control the weather and terrain of Earth at will.

Fiction

Beast Wars cartoon continuity

Beast Wars cartoon

Voice actor: Blu Mankuma (English), Kōichi Tōchika (Japanese), Xue Weigang (Chinese), Alvaro Tarcicio (Latin American Spanish), Giorgio Bonino (Italian)

You see, when two Vok love each other very much...

Concerned with Megatron's constant futzing with the timestream, the Vok extracted the Sparks of the inert, captive Maximals Tigatron and Airazor. Their bodies were merged together to form the staggeringly powerful Tigerhawk. Inhabited by two members of the Vok species, Tigerhawk travelled to Earth as a blindingly powerful energy comet.

is this loss

Tigerhawk's energy-ball plunged to Earth, impacting and utterly destroying the Darksyde. Declaring himself the emissary of the Vok, he charged Megatron with "the willful disruption of time and space", and demanded Megatron's immediate surrender. Megatron was not so keen on this idea, and ordered a Predacon attack instead. Tigerhawk engaged and defeated the entire Predacon force, then shot down Megatron. Optimus Primal arrived at that point, concerned that if Megatron was killed, the Spark of the original Megatron would also be destroyed, thus worsening the damage to the time stream. Tigerhawk dismissed Primal's concerns as intolerable interference, and buried him in the ground with a wave of his hand. Tigerhawk was seconds away from executing the unconscious Predacon leader when Tarantulas disabled him with specialized versions of his arachnoid helper-drones.

Tigerhawk awoke to find himself a captive in Tarantulas's lair. The spider attempted to destroy Tigerhawk's mind by forcefully removing the Vok presence inhabiting it. Due to a fluke coincidence, Tarantulas only succeeded in destroying himself, alongside the Vok who had controlled Tigerhawk. The Sparks of Airazor and Tigatron, which followed Tigerhawk to Earth, merged to become one and entered Tigerhawk's body.

Tigerhawk's memories appeared vague—at first he seemed not to remember being Tigatron or Airazor, yet after a moment he recognized Earth as "home". He remembered enough specifics of the Beast Wars to find surprising the appearance of Cheetor as a Transmetal 2 and Optimus Primal in his "Optimal" form. Other Victories

Pretty sure flapping your wings slowly doesn't let you hover in place, Tigerhawk.

The Maximals were pretty impressed to have Tigerhawk around, with Optimus Primal quoting scripture from the Covenant of Primus about a "mighty warrior" from "the heavens". The Predacons, for their part, were scared oilless and Rampage told Megatron that there was nothing he could find that could work against Tigerhawk. Unfortunately, that wasn't true: Megatron discovered the Decepticon warship Nemesis! Tigerhawk and Optimus raced against time to back up Depth Charge and stop the Nemesis from being activated, but to no avail. Nemesis Part 1 After a brief fight, Tigerhawk offered to hold the line while Optimus went back and warned the others.

Tigerhawk summoned a tornado and a lightning barrage to pummel the Nemesis, holding his own for quite some time against the legendary warship and draining its power cells, though he was eventually killed by its main fusion cannon. Dinobot respected his actions as "a brave stand, and noble", while Optimus swore that no more of his friends were going to die because of Megatron's ambitions. Nemesis Part 2

3H comics

Razorclaw was an alternate version of Tigerhawk, among the differences being that he was alive and that he was in league with Unicron. Those who had known Tigerhawk all mistook Razorclaw for him until he cleared up on his identity. Abduction Optimus Primal sarcastically berated himself for the mistake, claiming that even Tigerhawk's nano-fleas were far above the likes of Razorclaw. Escape

Beast Wars Metals comic

Four katanas, 'cuz godlike elemental powers just aren't enough.

When the dead Tigatron was resurrected due to the machinations of Megatron, his lover, Airazor was also revived, but as a mindless zombie. The zombie Airazor battled Tigatron, although Tigatron could not bring himself to hurt Airazor. Desiring another death over harming her, Tigatron gave her one of his katana and knelt down.

As Airazor struck his neck with the blade, her spark traveled through the katana and into Tigatron's body. Inside cyberspace, the two reunited Maximals embraced, vowing never to be apart again. As their sparks joined, Tigatron and Airazor were reborn as the powerful Tigerhawk!

Tigerhawk used his elemental powers, channeled through his four katana, to dispatch hordes of zombie Predacon troopers with tornadoes and earthquakes. He then gathered up all the Maximals who had been separated from the team and returned them to Optimus Primal. Beast Wars Metals #6

The AllSpark Almanac

For ALTernity Today's crossword puzzle, "Silverbolt and Tigerhawk" was the clue to the answer for 145 across: "Fuzor". The AllSpark Almanac II

Ask Vector Prime

Vector Prime stated that the Tigerhawk of Primax 496.22 Alpha was a Cybertronian that had "gender that does not conform to a binary male/female state", along with the Overlord of Primax 488.12 Alpha. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/5/23

Last Bot Standing

Tigerhawk was among the many Autobots who fought against the Decepticons as both sides drained the universe of its resources. Last Bot Standing #2

Games

Transformers: Battle Tactics

Tigerhawk Fuzor participated in battles against a variety of opponents, both Autobots and Decepticons. Sometimes there were many of him! He was an Epic character who first appeared in the "Transmetals: Episode 3" mini events, and could be recruited by collecting 650 units of Cybermetal, 350 units of Transmetal, 150 exclusive cores, and 50 cores of this character. Transformers: Battle Tactics

Transformers: Earth Wars

• Class: Air
• Lowest Star Rating: 2 star
• Ability: Blizzard: Create a blizzard in the area that deals 52.0 damage and slows enemy attacks by 25%, and call lightning strikes up to 8 times for 58.9 damage each.

• Tigerhawk at Transformers: Earth Wars Wiki

Toys

Beast Wars

Fly, my kitty! Fly!

• Tigerhawk (Ultra Transmetal 2, 1999)

• Takara name: Metals Tigerfalcon (メタルスタイガーファルコン)
• Takara ID number: C-50
• Accessories: 2 missiles, 2 wingtip missiles, 2 launchers
• Known designers: Yuichiro Hira (Takara), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)

Sold in the second wave of fourth-year Beast Wars Ultra toys, Transmetal 2 Tigerhawk transforms into a cybernetic tiger-falcon hybrid. In beast mode, he is armed with "Hidden wing-tipped missiles", feather projectiles very similar to the Fuzor Silverbolt's, with spring-loaded switches to flip the wings forward, and flip-out missile launchers which activate when a lever on Tigerhawk's back is pulled (which also moves the wings). The white launchers on his wings are removable and can be held in his left fist. Under his beast head is a small cockpit with a pilot's chair.

Similar to Transmetal 2 Megatron, Tigerhawk features an aborted and undocumented vehicular "third mode", which involves flipping him over to utilize the otherwise unexplained wheels on top of his wings and facing his cannon arm forward. The box and instructions opt to call the deployment of his vacuum-metalized bird helmet (or "Targeting Computer Battle Visor") over his beast tiger head a third mode instead.

Originally, Tigerhawk, along with Optimal Optimus and Transmetal 2 Megatron were to have small driver-like figures sitting on control chairs located in cockpits on their bodies. These drivers were meant to represent their sparks. But Hasbro later realized that kids might confuse these spark representations as drivers controlling the robots,^{[citation needed]} so they were abandoned, but the cockpits remained. The spark pilot was eventually used in the Japanese release of Cryotek.

Judging from his packaging art, it seems that along with Optimus Minor, Sonar, and Scarem, Tigerhawk was amongst the few Transmetals 2 that was intended to have the strange feature of having access to multiple limbs in robot mode... In this case, a second pair of arms formed by his rear beast mode legs.

A back-of-the-box graph for Tigerhawk gives technical designations to some of his robot mode parts. In addition to the already-mentioned "hidden wing-tip missiles" and "targeting computer battle visor," they include "Blast-open thunder torpedoes," "Ion-charged talons," an "Accelerator beam-turret cannon" and "Multi-stage deployment wings."

Know also that this mold was later used to make 2003 Universe Razorclaw. It was also repurposed as a future body of Shattered Glass Ravage in Recordicons #20.

• More information on Tigerhawk at TFU.info

Legacy

The second coming of Robot Jesus.

• Beast Wars Universe Tigerhawk (Leader Class, 2024)

• TakaraTomy name: Tigerhawk (タイガーホーク)
• TakaraTomy ID number: TL-64
• TakaraTomy release date: 27 April 2024
• Accessories: 2 Feather Blades, 2 Blasters, 1 arm-mounted double blaster
• Known designers: Mark Maher (Hasbro), Shuhei Umezu (TakaraTomy), Dennis Chan (sculptor, archival)^[1]

Released in the seventh wave of Legacy Leader class figures, Legacy: United "Beast Wars Universe Tigerhawk" is based on his Beast Wars design, now featuring show-accurate purple and copper colors. As per his Hasbro designer Mark Maher, he also features beast mode sculptwork pulled directly from the previously released Kingdom Tigatron and Airazor molds, carried over for obvious reasons.^[1] The original toy's spring-loaded launching feathers are now hand-wielded feather swords, while the original toy's spring-loaded missile launchers are now merely hand-held 5 mm-compatible nonworking cannons. The double-barreled weapon sculpted into the original toy's right forearm is now a separate 5 mm-compatible accessory. This Tigerhawk lacks the original's falcon mask as it was not shown on the show model, though one was likely planned given the unused slot on the tiger forehead and matching unused storage slot under the tail feathers.

Tigerhawk was revealed at PulseCon 2023, and was first seen at retail in Australia just before the end of the year.

• Designer commentary on Legacy Tigerhawk from Mark Maher on Instagram

Notes

• The extremely short duration of Tigerhawk's appearance on the show (a mere three episodes) was the result of a strange confluence of factors. At the time, it was not at all certain that the Beast Wars franchise would be ending. However, at one point, after Tigerhawk had already been written into the show at Hasbro's explicit request,^[2] the company considered not releasing his toy at all. Thus he was ordered killed off immediately, and was. Hasbro eventually decided to release the toy, but by that point it was too late to change the scripts or animation.^[3] Tigerhawk's toy did not appear on shelves until well after his death on the show.
• Bob Forward credits Asaph Fipke for coming up with the idea of Tigerhawk.
  • Bob Forward ultimately though is not a fan of Tigerhawk.
• In the Beast Wars Metals comic, Tigatron was interpreted as a samurai; the katana being their weapon of choice. Hence the whole samurai motif for Tigerhawk.
• His motto is "Violence will not be tolerated--surrender or be destroyed." Poor copy-editing or delicious irony? You be the judge!
• An unrealized Fun Publications BotCon exclusive was a redeco of Tigerhawk into a non-combiner Beast Wars-themed version of Generation 1 Predaking.^[4]

Foreign names

• Japanese: Tigerfalcon (タイガーファルコン Taigāfarukon), Tigerhawk (タイガーホーク Taigāhōku)
• French: Tigre Ailé (Canada toy, "Winged Tiger")
• Italian: Tigre Alata (toy, "Winged Tiger")
• Mandarin: Hǔ Yīng (虎鹰, "Tiger Hawk")
• Polish: Jastrząb ("Hawk")
• Spanish: Tigralcón (Latin America toy, "Tigralcon"), Tigrehalcón (Latin America cartoon, "Tigerfalcon")

Gallery

• 

  Original Beast Wars concept art

• 

  Beast Wars cartoon character model

• 

  Beast Wars Metals manga character model

• 

  Diagram of the sculpting from Kingdom Airazor and Tigatron recycled into Legacy Tigerhawk

References