High Beam (G2)

High Beam is an Autobot and later Maximal from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Behind you. Yes, YOU.

High Beam is a tracker who always means business. He never backs down from a challenge or shirks his responsibilities. Although his fellow Autobots tend to think of him as more of a thinker than a fighter, he'll eagerly engage in a firefight if he feels it is his duty to do so. This sense of duty is what drives him on his mission to find and destroy Decepticons. High Beam is more than ready to "get busy" with his latest targets, those feisty Combaticons.^[1]

Fiction

Theft of the Golden Disk

High Beam underwent the Maximal upgrade at the end of the Great War and joined the Maximal Command Security Force, a group of highly trained individuals who uphold the Pax Cybertronia on Maximal-controlled Cybertron. Due to his brash and over-eager disposition, High Beam often found himself getting demoted... nearly as often as he got promoted up again. High Beam's profile High Beam was very surprised to see that his teammate Getout modeled himself after a lesser known Autobot named Skram whom High Beam had known personally. Getout's profile

High Beam, along with Switchblade, was shot by a Predacon with an energy ray. Theft of the Golden Disk

Wings Universe

High Beam and the Go-Bots were brought to life on Earth using a combination of human and Nebulan science, becoming part of the "second generation" of Transformers. When the new 'bots started picking sides just like their predecessors, High Beam joined the Autobots under the overall command of Pyro and Rapido. He brought his Go-Bots to assist his commanders at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland when it was raided by Clench and his Decepticon Syndicate. The Go-Bots helped Scorch bring down the colossal Double Punch. Generation 2: Redux

Unite Warriors

High Beam, with other Autobots, oversaw an attempt to wipe the Combatrons' Destronger programming. However, before they could be reprogrammed, Unicron interrupted the process and whisked away the Combatrons. Ruination Chapter, Part One

Toys

Generation 2

Mattel, please look the other way.

• High Beam (Go-Bot, 1995)

• Accessories: Rifle
• Known designers: Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)

Part of the first wave of Generation 2 Go-Bots, High Beam transforms into a "concept car" with an exposed rear engine that looks exactly like the Speed Blaster car from Mattel's Hot Wheels line that was first released in 1991 under the names "Back Burner" and "Sonic Special". At 1:64 scale and using through-axle wheels for speedy rolling on smooth surfaces, High Beam is compatible with many Hot Wheels and Matchbox-brand playsets and tracks.

The same mold was redecoed in Generation 2 for the Go-Bots version of Bumblebee, as well as for the BotCon 1995 exclusive toy, Nightracer. It was later used for the 2001 Robots in Disguise Spychanger Crosswise.

• More information on High Beam at TFU.info

Notes

• High Beam's card-art mistakenly gives him Gearhead's rifle.
• Though most of the Go-Bots were never released in Japan, High Beam did gain a Japanese name via a BotCon Japan 1997 exclusive poster, which featured bios for all of the new Generation 2 characters released in the U.S. who weren't part of the Japanese line: the Axelerators, the Skyscorchers, Rotor Force, four of the Go-Bots, and the Color Changers.
• As with the rest of Security Force, High Beam's Maximal body is modeled on that of Cybertron Clocker.
• According to an interview with Bob Budiansky in a 2018 episode of the Netflix series The Toys That Made Us, "High Beams" was a rejected name for one of the original 28 Transformers from the 1984 toy line. Budiansky stated that Hasbro declined the name for being a slang term for erect nipples. The same fate presumably befell the 1987 Throttlebot ultimately named "Searchlight".

Foreign names

• Japanese: High Beam (ハイビーム Hai Bīmu)
• French: Turbo-Libero (France/Belgium), Lumen (Canada)
• Italian: Puma

References