CANON NAMES

[Murat Sarar]

We have two names for Brawl. One is, of course, Brawl and one is Devastator. The one used in the movie was Devastator. My question is, which one is canon? Did Hasbro retcon his name to Brawl? Can they do such a thing?

What about Skullitron? Is it really his canon name for the movie universe?

[New and Improved Zobovor]

On Sunday, October 8, 2017 at 6:13:20 AM UTC-6, Murat Sarar wrote:

> We have two names for Brawl. One is, of course, Brawl and one is Devastator.
> The one used in the movie was Devastator. My question is, which one is canon?
> Did Hasbro retcon his name to Brawl? Can they do such a thing?

There are quite a few movie characters whose toys were assigned completely different names. Rampage is "Skipjack," Demolishor is "Wheelbot," etc. Brawl is a bit more problematic, since there are now two completely different Decepticons named Devastator (the tank from the 2007 film and the Constructicon combiner from the 2009 film).

Given how many of their troops seem to be clones of each other, though, I'm thinking they just start to run out of names after a while. In addition to helicopters named Blackout and Grindor and Chopter, there's probably a Devastator helicopter, a Ravage helicopter, a Soundwave one...


Zob ("STARSCREAM rolling out!")

[David Connell]

On Sunday, October 8, 2017 at 8:13:20 AM UTC-4, Murat Sarar wrote:
> We have two names for Brawl. One is, of course, Brawl and one is Devastator. The one used in the movie was Devastator. My question is, which one is canon? Did Hasbro retcon his name to Brawl? Can they do such a thing?
>
> What about Skullitron? Is it really his canon name for the movie universe?

Why couldn't Hasbro retcon the name? They're ultimately the owners of the franchise and can call the toys whatever they think will sell the toys.

As for the two Devastator "problem" ... Why can't there be two Devastators? The G1 continuity has two Megatrons (G1 and BWZ), two Optimi (Prime and Primal), two Scorponoks, two Rampages, multiple Silverbolts and a few other shared names. Divebomb had to change his name to Swoop to distance himself from the Predacon who stole his name. There's plenty of duplication among human names (I'm not even the only Dave in my house!) so why wouldn't the same be true for Transformers?

[Gustavo Wombat, of the Seattle Wombats]

On Sunday, October 8, 2017 at 5:13:20 AM UTC-7, Murat Sarar wrote:
> We have two names for Brawl. One is, of course, Brawl and one is Devastator. The one used in the movie was Devastator. My question is, which one is canon? Did Hasbro retcon his name to Brawl? Can they do such a thing?

In TF:Armada, Optimus Prime referred to nearly every minicon as Leader-1. Some form of Cybertronian Alzheimers. Was Sparkplug's name retconned to Leader-1, or was Optimus just unable or unwilling to remember the name of his minicon?

Of course, in the first movie, most of the Decepticons spoke in gibbers and squeaks, so we are really relying on the subtitles to verify names. I suspect they are unreliable narrators.

> What about Skullitron? Is it really his canon name for the movie universe?

That's totally his name.

Now, did he pry his face off to match his name, or did he adopt the name after his face fell off. Or was he renamed after his face fell off by his leader, just like Bumblebee was renamed Goldbug.