Snarl (BW)

Snarl is a Maximal from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Just what the hell do I turn into?

Snarl (aka Diablo) is an expert at surprise attack. Using a cloaking field, similar to the one employed by Beast Era Ravage, he can vanish at will and infiltrate Predacon strongholds. Snarl enjoys reappearing in a dramatic fashion to startle foe or friend alike. He is a cool and confident warrior, sure of his own abilities and with an independent streak a sector wide.

Snarl is also young and a little impatient. Even when working as part of a group he has the tendency to cloak himself and wander off to pursue their goals in his own fashion. This occasionally annoys his comrades, but usually his impressive results speak for themselves.

Fiction

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

Snarl was one of the protoforms left behind by the crew of the Axalon on prehistoric Earth. He was activated and put in chronal phase by Razorbeast at Magmatron's request, but was protected from Magmatron's Predacon shell program by a viral code Razorbeast inserted. Coming online in a swampy area, he was one of the first Maximals to hear and respond to Razorbeast's signal. The Gathering #1

If you're so smart, then what the hell is your beast mode?

After joining up with Razorbeast and several others, the situation was explained and Razorbeast concluded that they needed to find a way to contact Cybertron before the Predacons found them. Snarl participated in the search to find the Tri-Predacus Agent's crashed ship, in order to scavenge its Transwarp signal amplifier. Snarl engaged his cloak and wandered off by himself, locating the crashed vessel just in time to save Optimus Minor from Drill Bit. The two Maximals returned to the others with the signal amplifier, but it required repairs. The Gathering #2

Snarl accompanied Razorbeast, Optimus Minor, and Bonecrusher on an excursion to the Ark to obtain spare parts for the signal amplifier. Snarl brought up the point that salvaging parts from the remains of the Axalon would probably be a better choice, but Razorbeast feared that Optimus Primal's group would notice or that it would inflict further damage on the timestream. Once inside the Ark, Snarl wandered off again, booting up a high-altitude sensor drone and attempting to get an update on Magmatron's activities. After bringing it to Razorbeast's attention, they caught wind of Magmatron's intended destination, and the group split in two after departing the Ark. Razorbeast and Optimus Minor headed off to attempt to interfere with Magmatron's plans and Snarl and Bonecrusher returned to their temporary lair to affect repairs on the transwarp signal booster. The Gathering #3

Snarl managed to cobble together a mishmashed communications rig capable of sending a message to Cybertron, but admitted that they'd probably only get one shot before the entire thing fell apart. He attempted a dry run, needing B'Boom and Wolfang's help in finessing the fragile power assembly. But before they could get it right, the Predacons attacked the lair. Snarl told the group to buy him time as he attempted to send the message himself, and the other Maximals exited the lair to engage the superior enemy force. In the end, Snarl did manage to get the message sent, and Maximal reinforcements arrived to beat back the Predacons. The transwarp signal booster was destroyed in the process, and the Maximals prepared themselves for an extended stay on Earth. The Gathering #4

At least we no longer have to care who the hell he is.

Weeks later the Predacons, now led by Ravage, launched a full-scale assault on the Maximals. The goal was to obtain the armbands that would allow Ravage to sync-up with the other Beast Wars' chronal stream. Snarl aided in the counterattack and later helped Razorbeast foil Ravage when the former Decepticon infiltrated the Maximal base, attempting to steal the armbands during the battle. The Ascending #1

Snarl and Razorbeast returned to the battle, which was turning against the Maximals until the sudden arrival of Lio Convoy and the Pack. The battle was further interrupted when Ravage, having been warned of a threat on Cybertron, called for a ceasefire. Before anyone could process this, Rartorata appeared in the sky above. Snarl attempted to fire on this new enemy, but Rartorarta swooped down and impaled Razorbeast on his Angolmois-tipped stinger, causing the warthog to mutate into a hideous and uncontrollable beast. The Ascending #2

Both Rartorarta and the mutated Razorbeast were eventually subdued, but when Drancron and Elephorca appeared, things took a turn for the worse. Snarl chose to accompany Lio Convoy back to Cybertron, to help combat the menace of Shokaract. The Ascending #3 Once there, Snarl was a key part of the plan to defeat the mad demi-god. Riding on Prowl and cloaking the two of them, Snarl managed to get close enough to place a chronal phase facilitator on Shokaract. It snared the Predacon into limbo, where his threat was finally ended. The Ascending #4

Beast Wars: Uprising

Diablo was a member of Steel Jaw's Pack who participated in the battle for Tesarus during the Grand Uprising. In the final push against the Micromaster Builders, he felled Erector, commander of the 74th Division, while cloaked. Derailment

2005 IDW continuity

Snarl was one of Onyx Prime's Maximals. During Onyx's invasion of Iacon, he was one of the many Maximals who battled Arcee and lost; Jetfire and Aileron came across his remains shortly afterwards. Endless Forever

Another Maximal of Snarl's body-type^[1] took part in the invasion of Earth, and was shot by a motorbike-riding Cover Girl in Toronto. Ceremony

2021 Beast Wars comic

The Cybertronian who would become Snarl was one of the many Maximal protoforms aboard the Axalon. To eliminate the Maximals and Predacons, Tarantulas and the Vok brought every crashed stasis pod they could find online and reprogrammed the protoforms within into loyal "Children of the Vok". Together, they attacked the crashed Darksyde in an attempt to take out the Maximal-Predacon alliance; when the Maximals and Predacons destroyed the Vok themselves, however, their remaining followers agreed to a truce and left to live peacefully in the wilderness. The End

Toys

Beast Wars

Spring-loaded ass, my ass.

• Snarl (Basic, 1997)

• Accessories: Tail/blaster
• Known designers: Yuichiro Hira (Takara), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)

Part of the fourth wave of year-two Beast Wars Basics, Snarl transforms into a large "Tasmanian devil". By holding the toy by its tail in beast mode and pulling the trigger, his body leaps forward in a spring-loaded lunging attack. Or at least, it's supposed to; the spring is so weak that on any surface other than a smooth table or counter-top, you're lucky if the figure even clears the end of the launcher. Also in beast mode, his tooth-shaped robot mode heels can also be flipped out of his beast mode mouth as fang weapons. In robot mode, the tail becomes an arm-mounted (non-firing) blaster.

Oddly, an extra hole molded in a similar shape to that of the spring-loaded one is located underneath the robot mode crotch and can also have the tail inserted into it.

This toy was released in Japan as an import in Hasbro packaging with a Takara-applied sticker. Later, it was released without changes to the toy proper as Beast Wars II Tasmania Kid. This mold was also used to make Robotmasters Bound Rogue.

• More information on Snarl at TFU.info

Legacy

Yeah, sure, I was totally in that Japanese cartoon. Really.

Main article: Tasmania Kid#Legacy

The 2024 Legacy: United "Beast Wars II Universe Tasmania Kid" is an updated version of Tasmania Kid's original Beast Wars II design... which also, functionally, makes him an updated version of Beast Wars Snarl.^[2]

Notes

• As alluded to in other parts of this entry, Snarl does not actually closely resemble a Tasmanian devil. In fact there is some fan speculation that he is actually based on the Tasmanian spotted quoll (the world's second-largest marsupial predator, after the Tasmanian devil), sharing as he does their bushy tail and brown coloration. There are problems with this identification as well, most obviously that Snarl is striped instead of spotted.
• The profile on Snarl's toy packaging merely describes him as having "camouflage colouring," evidently referring only to the colour of his fur. IDW's Beast Wars comics interpreted this as him having full-blown cloaking technology that renders him invisible to the naked eye.
• In Germany, Snarl's toy was released under a special promotion of Hasbro products; each of Hasbro's toy lines had a toy only available under this promotion for the bargain price of 5 Deutsche Mark (half of what a basic cost back then). Unsurprisingly, he flew off the shelves.
• Snarl's 2006 IDW Beast Wars comic appearances neglect the ability the toy has for his hind-legs to be folded away in robot mode, instead the legs hang right off of his hips (The Gathering), or off his back-kibble panels (The Ascending). Whether this was purely a design aesthetic for the comic or just the artists designing the characters not knowing fully how the toys work, is unknown.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Snarl (スナール Sunāru)
• French: Grondeur (Canada, "Growler")
• Italian: Diablo^[3]
• Spanish: Gruñón (America, "Growler")

References

1. ↑ "As far as the battle yeah that's full of nods to certain characters. Some of the BW characters I used for reference in panel 1 are BW Snarl (foreground), Transquito (center left), Soundwave (bat), and Skydive (mid-right.)"—Andrew Griffith, Twitter, 2018/11/15
2. ↑ "Tasmania Kid, or Snarl if you collected the original Beast Wars toy. We wanted to make sure to get him in there because we're trying to go out of our way to represent as many of the animated continuities as we can." - Legacy Tasmania Kid's designer Evan Brooks during the Transformers panel with Ben MacCrae, Mark Maher Takio Ejima and Thew Adams at Hasbro Pulse Con 2023.
3. ↑ For some reason, Hasbro/GiG failed to add Italian names to the English/Spanish/Italian Biocombat packaging for most 1997 Basic and Delxue figures. As a result, Snarl's Italian name only appears in the cross-sell on the back of the English/Spanish/Italian Biocombat "video-pack" releases of Airazor and Razorclaw.