From time to time Outright Geekery brings you a slanted and biased opinion on some trivially specific topic of geekery. We call it Outright Geekery’s Top o’ the Lot.

I’ll make this short and sweet. As we continue through our series of Tops o’ the Lots revolving around my personal favorite ’80’s cartoons, I ran through my fav Autobots last time, so this time it’s all about the bad guys. The energon hungry, power striving nemeses of Optimus and the gang were by far the better group of toys, and made for some really good love-to-hate villains. So, without further ado, we attack Autobot City on Earth, steal the Matrix of Leadership (despite us having no idea how the hell to use the thing), and hate our own teammates just as much as we hate the “other guys”, as we round out another biased and skewed list in the Top o’ the Lot: Decepticons.

Honorable Mention: Reflector

Because he’s not a single robot, and that’s the only reason he gets honorable mention. I could have went all sort of ways with this one – the Insecticons or even one of the Combiner teams would have worked here – I really liked the 3 Amigos of Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder because they were really cool toys (that will be a recurring theme on this Lot). They may not have had much going on in either the comic OR the cartoon, but they were there, and the sheer creativity that went into this toy gives him, um, them a mention in the Top.

5. Tyrypticon

Just like most of my other favorite Decepticons, Trypticon makes the list simply because he was really fun to play with. His three modes included a city, a mobile battle-station, and, the freakin’ coolest, a robot version of Godzilla that could even walk thanks to a battery-powered motor. Ahh, the ’80’s had the best toys! Although he was created to match the Autobot city, Metroplex, and it was awesome to see him fight the Dinobots, under the monster was layers of subtle story-telling depicting a torn and questioning character. That was deep for weekday after- school TV in the 1980’s, I assure you. My favorite moment, however, was when Starscream stole his eye, and it’s priceless moments like that, and just a whole lot of coolness, that put Trypticon on this list. Speaking of Starscream…

4. Starscream

Starscream wasn’t a very cool toy to play with as far as Transformers go. He basically had the same recognizable style as all the other Decepticon jets – like, Thundercracker and Skywarp – but Starscream had something those other wannabes didn’t have: Initiative! If he wasn’t outright trying to ruin Megatron’s attempts to get ahead, he was talking trash on the plan the entire time; and usually right to Megatron’s face in front of the other Decepticons. That takes balls bigger than Devastator’s from that one movie I swore I wasn’t going to mention. Forget about THAT version of the robot known as Devastator forever, and know the TRUE Constructicon Amalgam.

3. Devastator

Almost as much as kids love dinosaurs, leading to the creation of the Dinobots, kids just can’t get enough of heavy construction equipment. It’s weird as hell, but it’s an undeniable truth. So, it only makes sense that the Constructicons would be such a popular series of Transformers. It doesn’t hurt that the entire group of Transformers ALSO transforms into a giant uber-robot called Devastator. Again, this was simply and beautifully a very, very cool toy. Robots that changed into things were great, but give kids a bunch of robots that change into things AND make it so those robots also change into another robot and you’ve got something special. He may have begun a whole series of Combiners to come down the road after him, but Devastator paved the way. You got to respect the original, but I have a real problem with originality in the next entry in this Lot.

2. Megatron/Galvatron

I know there are huge distinctions between these two characters, but it’s really hard for me to put one above the other. Attitude: Draw; Alternate Mode: Has to go to Megatron, his gun mode is just cooler than Galvatron‘s and his tank mode is barely worth mentioning; Voiceover: Leonard Nimoy inches Galvatron over the legend Frank Welker’s work on Megatron. It’s too damned close to call! Megatron put it to Optimus Prime in ways Galvatron was never able to, but Galvatron caused trouble for the Autobots in ways Megatron could have only dreamed. Megatron may have had the classic lineup of Decepticon cohorts, but Galvatron had Cyclonus, Scourge and his team The Sweeps. I refuse to make any distinction whatsoever when it comes to rating these two characters. It would just be unfair to both characters. What’s really unfair is my Number 1 slanted and biased choice for this Lot.

1. Soundwave

I just can’t help it. I love Soundwave! He was a robot that changed into an audio cassette recorder (for you kids, that was like an iPod that only worked with weird plastic things called cassettes. Soundwave had (kind of) working buttons, and a belt clip that came off where the batteries were supposed to be, but, NO, there weren’t batteries in there, it was lazer cannons…he was the bee knees! I still have my G1 version despite him being well worn from playing with him in my youth. Now, Soundwave was cool in his own right – impersonal, loyal, logical, mysterious – but that’s not why he makes the Top. Maybe I’m being just as cheap with this choice as I was the Honorable Mention pick, but the tape deck makes the Top Spot o’ the Lot because of the tapes. Little tapes that went INSIDE Soundwave and ejected just like the show?! O.M.G. It was awesome! His own little personal army tucked inside his chest cavity. When I hear it out loud it sounds really lame, but it sure wasn’t lame at the time, and it’s still awesome enough to put the “uncrasimatic bore” in the tippy Top o’ this Lot.

See a mistake? Disagree with the choices? Tell us what you think about this installment of Top o’ Lot, join in the discussion and share your opinion.