Tarantulas's History
Tarantulas was a Predacon scientist that worked for Megatron during the Beast Wars.
Lieutenant Tarantulas of the Predacon Secret Police was one of Megatron's original crew, a mole inside his organization feeding information back to the Tripredacus Council without his knowledge. More than that, he was a direct agent of the Council and shared their origins that existed outside of Autobot and Decepticon, with an overall agenda to alter the timeline by going back to prehistoric Earth and completely destroying the Ark and the Transformers within. The plan was initially foiled though, as Megatron's Darksyde warship ended up crashing on an unidentified planet and contact with Cybertron was lost. Tarantulas carried on as normal despite this setback.
As Megatron's technical leader, he manned the scanners to appropriate beast forms based on the most powerful local creatures, choosing the form of an over-sized spider for himself. He cheerfully took part in the first battle of the Beast Wars, only to succumb to energon buildup while the Maximals were escaping. The Predacons uncovered a stash of energon crystals atop a mountain, but were forced to fight in their beast modes. Tarantulas and Rattrap fought in this manner until Megatron triggered a chain reaction which caused the energon to explode.
It wasn't long before Tarantulas had set up his own underground lair to keep his experiments away from Megatron's prying eyes. After helping Scorponok recover a mega-cannon, Tarantulas managed to capture Cheetor, trapping the young Maximal in a web in his lair with the intent of feeding later. Rattrap mounted a rescue, during which the cavern caved in on Tarantulas. Tarantulas was blasted by Rattrap during the battle at the Standing Stones, and later accompanied Megatron and Terrorsaur to attack the Axalon after it appeared that Optimus Primal had perished. After the Maximals got the ship's shields back up, he suggested to Megatron that they return to the Standing Stones. Unfortunately once there, the Maximals managed to retrieve Primal from the alien probe at the site, and Tarantulas was one of the first victims of the restored Maximal commander.
Terrorsaur, his power boosted, defeated Megatron in combat before leaving Tarantulas in charge of the other Predacons. Tarantulas promptly followed Terrorsaur to find out what his new power source was, and discovered it was a flying mountain topped with a cache of super energon. Before he could do anything with the knowledge, he encountered Rattrap, who had come to destroy the mountain. Their fight ended with Tarantulas falling from the side of the mountain. He subsequently took part in an attack on the Maximal base after a stasis pod crashed. While Megatron kept Dinobot distracted, Tarantulas and Scorponok ambushed the Maximal from behind. Unfortunately for them, Dinobot had time to activate the base defenses, and Tarantulas was blasted into the distance by the auto-guns.
When the Predacons finally captured a stasis pod, Tarantulas made sure that the protoform was given a spider beast mode, creating Blackarachnia. Megatron suspected he had ulterior motives, but was nonetheless pleased by the new soldier. Tarantulas seemed happy to follow Terrorsaur when the Predacon mounted another takeover attempt with the aid of Rattrap, but spent most of his time skulking around the Darksyde in search of rats to eat. He spotted Rattrap sneaking around, but the Maximal blasted him before he could do anything. He subsequently limped back to the others to find that Megatron had reasserted his leadership. After one of Scorponok's viruses turned Primal into a berserker, the Maximal leader broke into the Predacon base and, completely ignoring Tarantulas's attempts to stop him, pinned the spider to a wall using Tarantulas's own weapon.
One of Tarantulas's many inventions, the transformation lock lens, was instrumental in preventing the Maximals from contacting a temporal probe doing a flyby of the planet. He used it to ensnare Tigatron and Cheetor, then wreaked havoc with the Maximals' attempts to build a communications array, before he was finally defeated by Primal. Although his new toy was destroyed by the recovered Cheetor and Tigatron, the damage was already done, and the probe flew by uncontacted. After the Predacons discovered a Maximal spy camera in their base, they faked a mutiny and hid in a crevice. Tarantulas spent his nights being hugged like a stuffed toy by Waspinator, and his days eating stray rats. While the Maximals repaired the Axalon, the Predacons were discovered by Dinobot, and gave chase. Though they attacked the Maximal ship in an attempt to capture it, the affair ended with the Axalon crashing back to the ground. After a Maximal victory, largely due to the efforts of Rhinox, Tarantulas captured the rhino in a web on Megatron's orders, so that he could be converted into a Predacon by the Transmuter. In return, the new Predacon poisoned him and Blackarachnia.
Tarantulas detected another stasis pod landing in Grid Scavos, but Megatron refused to let him go and assist in the recovery, much to his disgust. The next time a stasis pod crashed, Tarantulas was more prepared. From his lair, he used a magna pulse to disable both the Darksyde and Axalon to allow him to investigate without interference. Unfortunately for him, Blackarachnia had found his lair, and insisted on coming along to help. At the pod, Tarantulas reprogrammed the new arrival into a Predacon, but was disappointed that a beast mode had already been chosen, and Inferno would not be another spider. In the confusion that followed, he made off with the real prize—the stasis pod itself. Unfortunately for him, Tigatron destroyed the pod before he could get very far, and he was forced to retreat when Megatron arrived. Later, in his lair, he inadvertently told Blackarachnia that the planet was doomed, and she realized he was intending to build an escape ship, however he threw her out before she could work out any more of his plans.
arantulas took part in a diversionary attack while Waspinator and Terrorsaur stole the Maximals' rectifier coil. After the Maximals went feral, the Predacons mounted a hunting expedition, though Tarantulas was stuck supporting the back end of Megatron's chair. On another occasion, Tarantulas detected what appeared to be walking energon. Megatron realized that an earlier battle had left four of the Maximals contaminated and blinded, and ordered Tarantulas to send Terrorsaur to investigate. fter Waspinator was possessed by the ghost of Starscream, Tarantulas took part in the attack on the Axalon, and pointed out once they'd conquered it that their own base was now undefended. Megatron's answer was to leave Starscream in charge of the Axalon, a decision which would come back to bite him later.
During an attack on the Maximal base, Tarantulas was able to infect Rhinox with an energon discharge virus, though he himself was injured by Dinobot during the retreat. He was tracked by Dinobot and Rattrap, but eventually turned the tables by getting the drop on them, only to be flattened by a huge boulder. After recovering, he took advantage of their incessant arguing by trying to get the drop on them again, only to be knocked unconscious by a double punch. Finally, Dinobot attempted to use Tarantulas's body as a hostage, only for Megatron to blast it aside. Perhaps his only consolation was that he avoided the indignity of the fate that befell the rest of the Predacons.
With the return of the aliens a certainty, Tarantulas stole a transwarp cell from the Darksyde, slagging Waspinator in the process. Megatron detected the theft and used Blackarachnia as a distraction while he remotely inserted his own programming into the cell. The two spiders later took part in an attempt to prevent Tigatron from escaping the Predacon base, and were squished by a boulder Dinobot had set up. They were relatively uninjured and able to haul their damaged comrades back to the ship. The two spiders teamed up again, infiltrating the Maximal base and disabling Rhinox and Dinobot while the other Maximals were busy with the latest alien construct to appear. They became aware that the planet's second moon had just been revealed as an artificial, alien doomsday weapon in disguise, with Tarantulas remarking it was the beginning of the end for the planet. In the cargo hold, Tarantulas used the transwarp cell and a stasis pod to construct a ship, but was interrupted by Inferno, who torched the spider. Fortunately, Blackarachnia entered Tarantulas's mind to obtain the information to complete the escape ship, and he was able to set up a permanent neural link between the two Predacons.
When the quantum surge caused by the "second moon's" destruction knocked out all of the Transformers on the planet, Tarantulas's body was upgraded to a Transmetal form, and he forced Blackarachnia to drag it from the Maximal base, even getting her to ignore Megatron's command to stay and fight the Maximals.
