Finback (Transformers)

Finback is a fictional character from the Transformers series. He is a Decepticon Pretender.

Transformers: Generation 1
Finback is Decepticon Pretender, released as a toy in 1988. His tech-spec profile describes him as a "wheezing, wretched, wreck-in-the-making" who enjoys making his enemies feel worse than he does. His Pretender shell serves as container for his loose components, and is pressure-sensitive, enabling him to dive to a depth of 30,000 feet. The shell is covered with scale armor composed of "living" mecha-organisms that regenerate spontaneously to protect inner circuitry. Finback is armed with metal-corroding stun rifle and harpoon gun. The inner robot transforms into a high-speed hovercraft equipped with long range sonar and scanners.

Reception
Finback's alternate tech spec biography is considered endearing.

Marvel Comics
Finback and the other Decepticon Pretenders were presumably with the Scorponok's Decepticons through The Transformers: Headmasters series, but were not depicted. His first appearance was in issue 40 of the U.S. comic in a story called "Pretender to the Throne", where Scorponok created the first six Decepticon Pretenders.

Finback appeared in issue #54, "King Con!" In this story the Decepticon Pretenders were assigned to protect a power converter Scorponok was building in the meadowlands of New Jersey.

Finback continued to appear after this as one of Scorponok's troops, and last appeared in issue 75 "On the Edge of Extinction." While manning a gun platform during Unicron's attack on Cybertron, the weapon overloaded and exploded, killing him.

Dreamwave Productions
Although Finback never appeared in the fiction from Dreamwave Productions before it closed, he did get a two-page biography in its More Than Meets The Eye series.

IDW Publishing
Finback appeared amongst Bludgeon's acolytes The Transformers: Stormbringer, as he and his followers kidnapped Jetfire and the Technobots, hoping to dissect them and use their parts to replicate the same grafting process that created Thunderwing, giving them their own Pretender shells. Hacking into the monster's mind Bludgeon implanted a subconscious suggestion for Thunderwing to seek out and destroy entire planets, believing their sacrifice would enable Cybertron to be reborn, before unleashing the monster on Nebulos. However, their plans were stopped by the Wreckers, who took out his cult. Finback was the first to be deactivated by barrage of weapon blasts. In desperation, Bludgeon underwent the grafting process only to find out, far too late, that the shell hadn't been neuro-aligned; the psychic backlash destroyed his mind.

Finback and the Decepticon Pretenders seen here have completely different robot forms to their toys and bear resemblance to the original toys' Pretender shells.

Toys

 * Generation 1 Pretender Finback (1988)
 * This Decepticon Pretender came with a shell shaped like a shark-like humanoid.