[All evil leaders must learn how to point insistently and intently]I would guess that being a Go-Bot must have sucked: for one thing, you're currently discontinued, and for another, you'd be constantly over-shadowed by those dastardly Transformers and their rampant public relations campaigns that bordered on presidential election proportions.
Retro-fans would well remember the era of the Go-Bots (although in snippets) - 1984 was the period when Go-Bots were released along side their Transformers counterparts.
Ages ago Classic Articulation did a character focus piece on the goodies leader, Leader-1. Today, right now, we should pay homage to Cy-Kill - the proverbial Megatron in the Go-Bots universe.
In Challenge of the Gobots, Cy-Kill was the leader of the evil Renegades. Cy-Kill was originally a member of the Guardians and friend of Leader-1. Through wanting to be the sole ruler of Gobotron and because he felt he was the mightiest guardian, this ideology came into complete conflict with the thoughts of Leader-1's democratic rule. This led Cy-Kill to break away from the Guardians and become the leader of the Renegades. Thus started the never ending desire to conquer the Gobot homeworld.
[Switches in wall always means trouble - or art deco]Cy-Kill attempted to invade Earth with the help of crooked scientist Doctor Braxis, but his plans were thwarted by the Guardians. The Guardians were able to eventually capture him.
Through the aid of Fitor (one of Cy-Kill's lieutenants and also a former Guardian), Cy-Kill was able to escape and threaten Gobotron once again.
Notable appearances in the series were in episodes: "It's The Thought That Counts" , "Doppleganger" and "Battle of the Rock Lords" - the penultimate episode.
Cy-Kill was one of the earliest transforming figure ever manufactured in 1983. The toy mold of Cy-Kill was originally Bandai's Bike Robo from their Machine Robo toyline. Bike Robo was a heroic character in red, white, and blue colors. The Tonka company, however, decided to make this character a villain.
[Comes with leather jacket and Village People CD]The Tonka version was originally released in the red, white, and blue, but in the final year of the toy line this was changed to a more black and green color scheme - reflecting the villainous nature of the character. The animated version, however, had already been drawn in the original colors and so he stayed that way on TV.
In facts that are of purely sidelining nature, back in 1984, when the Go-Bots were in their prime, Tonka Toys reported well over $100 million worth of orders for Cy-Kill and 29 other GoBots since they were introduced in January 1984. However, those days are long gone and we are left with these humble typed words of mine, and pictures.
[Remember how instructional packaging was back in the day?]