| “ | Cheetor: This is a dumb plan, webface. I don't have any real blood, just mech fluid. Tarantulas: Oh, my filters will adjust. It is the act I enjoy more than the nourishment. |
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| ~ Tarantulas admitting to Cheetor that he eats multiple innocent creatures for pleasure, and also admitting he will resort to cannibalism if he wants to. |
| “ | Tigerhawk: I will never serve one as evil as you. Tarantulas: You have little choice. While you deal with the Maximals, I will complete the destruction of the Ark. Tigerhawk: You can't. The timestorm of such an action will wipe out your entire race. Tarantulas: Only those descended from Autobot and Decepticon. But I and the Tripredacus Council have different origins. Under our rule, Cybertron will conquer the universe. And your precious Vok. Tigerhawk: You're insane. Tarantulas: So they saa-aay! Wbrrwbrrbbppth! |
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| ~ Tarantulas announcing his intentions to wipe out most of Cybertronian kind to conquer the universe, downright proud that his actions make others fear and be revolted by him as a result |
Tarantulas is a major antagonist of the Beast Era of the Transformers franchise, serving as the secondary antagonist of the 1996 TV series Beast Wars: Transformers and the overarching antagonist of it's 1999 sequel Beast Machines: Transformers.
He is Megatron's cowardly and treacherous head scientist and a notorious cannibalistic serial killer who has attempted to backstab his leader multiple times, having been planted as a mole by the Tripredacus Council in his team, the Darksyders. It is later revealed he was descended from neither Autobots or Decepticons, and is even implied to be a spawn of Unicron.
He was voiced by Alec Willows.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Unlike most of Megatron's soldiers, Tarnatulas has no redeeming qualities, no loyalty to Megatron, no sympathetic backstory, no friendship with his fellow Predacon members, too bloodthirsty, treating others only as pawns including his fellow Predacon members, and while having many moments comedic defeats and humiliations, Tarantulas' vile crimes have been portrayed with as much horror and have not been joked with to the point where final death was by far the most horrifying in the series, and the most deserved.
- Tarantulas mostly stands out due to his low resources, as while he doesn't have the scale of Megatron or even Tankor's crimes, his actions have been more personally cruel and visceral as well as that the scale of his crimes has actually even come close to them that makes him stand out.
- Tarantulas is so vile that all Maximals and even every other Predacon has a huge distaste for him, as shown when Tigerhawk called him insane for his scheme to wipe out Cybertroian kind, he basically reveals that he outright revels on the fact that he disgusts his own teammates and other villains.
Season 1[]
- One of his most notable crimes was that he was a full-blown cannibalistic serial killer before the series. When seemingly killed, Dinobot gives him a eulogy dripping with revulsion on how Tarantulas had stalked and captured so many victims that he would drag to his webs, draining their mech fluid slowly to make them tastier before drinking that and eating their flesh. This is not offscreen villainy as this is why Tarantulas' filters got used to mech fluid when he attempted to make Cheetor one of his many victims of his cannibalistic serial killing spree, and the previous episode didn't care on who will die in a battle between Dinobot and Optimus Primal, just their remains to dine. And the reason why this is one Tarantulas' vilest crimes is that he doesn't even need to eat, he does this for the pleasure of doing the act rather than the nourishment.
- He has done the same to countless more animals in the series, having straight up attempted to kill a rat and a deer when it was caught on its web and then devoured a rat onscreen, having the distinction of being the first onscreen murderer in the series.
- He is the one that brainwashes the Maximal protoforms inside the stasis pods to become Predacon soldiers, having chosen their beast forms for his own gains in betraying Megatron. He even attempted to steal the stasis pods in secret for his own gains, leading to Blackarachnia and Inferno's creation.
- He even adds "safeguards" to their programming which would kill them if there were an attempt to remove it. Tarantulas would use this to disrupt power from the Maximal base, temporarily killing Blackarachnia.
- Due to his programming for Inferno ending up faulty, Tarantulas is the reason why Inferno's mental state is unstable, and Tarantulas is aware of how insane he is and shows no remorse for it.
- He then sought to use Inferno's stasis pod to create a ship so he can escape the planet before the Vok arrive to destroy it without warning anyone, leaving everyone to die.
- When Optimus Primal instead takes his place and Megatron traps him in the Stasis Pod to have him killed from the explosion, Tarantulas sadistically mocks him and laughs as he ends up killing himself.
Season 2[]
- After Blackarachnia enters Tarantulas' mind to gain the information on how to activate the Stasis Pod, Tarantulas establishes a permanent neurological link, having psychically tortured Blackarachnia multiple times to submission so Tarantulas can use her as a slave, to the point where she even tries breaking an entire Energon cube and risk killing herself to threaten Tarantulas, who would end up being killed by the instability, to remove the link.
- If his lack of loyalty towards Megatron wasn't clear enough already, Tarantulas abandons the Predacons, and was only willing to ally Megatron for his plan to wipe out the Vok, a race of aliens.
- Although he helps the Maximals rescue Optimus Primal from Megatron (who is holding Primal captive inside of a Vok spaceship), he does so only out of revenge for Megatron betraying him, and it's also possible that he would have tried to kill or discard Optimus Primal if he succeded on his goals.
- When Dinobot has a deer trapped on one of his webs, Tarantulas attempts to eat it out of sadism as usual, before being threatened by the latter to aid him.
- Betrays Dinobot after he learns of Megatron's genocidal plans against the proto-humans and the humans themselves, actively preventing Dinobot in saving them.
Season 3[]
- Gleefully attempts to shoot two anthropoid kids dead, aware of their sapience.
- In a later episode, he suggests to Megatron to have either of them kidnapped so the shields for their disruptor cannon could be installed. When Megatron announces the girl, Una, has outlived her usefulness and is now obsolete, Tarantulas gleefully attempts to shoot her.
- Builds a device to hijack Optimus' spark, having Quickstrike control him to gain access to the Ark. Optimus was aware of what all was happening when enslaved by Megatron and Tarantulas.
- Tarantulas abandons any loyalties to the Tripredacus Council, who were his real masters, by rejoining Megatron to gain access to the Ark, planning to cause the ship's core to overload and kill every Autobot and Decepticon present from the explosion, which in turn would bring forth the nigh-end of his own kind and wipe out every Maximal and Predacon in existence, all barring himself and the Tripredacus Council as they are descended from neither Autobot or Decepticon, and he knows the Tripredacus Council wouldn't approve of this and calling them fools.
- Tarantulas then plans to tortuously extract the Vok from Tigerhawk, planning to make him his slave and destroy the Vok before trying to make another attempt on the Ark.
Trivia[]
- He and Megatron are the only villains from the Beast Era to be Pure Evil. This is also the only incarnation of Tarantulas to be Pure Evil.
- While Tarantulas is Pure Evil in the original English dub, in the Japanese dub, he, like the rest of the show, is played for laughs, and thus doesn't count in that version.
- In the 3H Comics it is also later revealed he is an Agent of Unicron which if counted would make him even worse.
External Links[]
- Tarantulas on the Villains Wiki
- Tarantulas on TFWiki.net
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 Generation One Pure Evils
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