Is Airazor still alive?

[WorpeX]

So all these years I have always been under the impression that Airazor (one of my favorite characters, her sense of humor is so bad I just can't help but laugh!) was killed when Tiger Hawk was decimated. However, after a little bit of research, I have yet to come across any website which states that she has died. In fact, I've only found mention that her spark (somehow) survived and she was resurrected in later comics. The only problem I have is that every transformers website is absolutely horribly organized and uses lingo that I don't understand so I have trouble understanding what its trying to tell me. So as a result, I really have no idea which comics they are referring to exactly. I did see that apparently they have backstory on her life before the Beast Wars series, which is also pretty cool, although I have no idea where to find this to read it.

So if anyone has any information, i'd love to hear it! Also if you can keep it light on the transformers lingo, I only know Beast Wars and the horrible atrocity that the movies with Megan Fox are. xD

I guess this could apply to Tigatron too, although I really don't care about him that much. xD

[Alak]

Feel free to disagree, but I always had a feeling that Tigatron and Airazor were both kept in a state of limbo after their abduction by the Vok. They were brought back as Tigerhawk, and then they were for sure killed off by Megatron in Season 3. I'm not too familiar with the post-Beast Wars comic books, but I believe Tigatron was resurrected from pieces of Ravage's old body and Airazor was also brought back to life.

As for the backstory, the comic is known as "Primeval Dawn", but I can't find it at any Barnes & Nobles, Borders, or even the local comic book shop that JazZeke introduced me to. I can't find it on Amazon either.

[GoktimusPrime]

These comics were BotCon exclusives, so they're not easy to come by. I only have one of them (which happens to be the same issue where Wheelie and Daniel die, ehehehehehehmuahahahahahahahahakekekekekekeke ) *ahem*

Anyway, basically after the Beast Wars ended Tarantulas arose in his undead form. In the cartoon we see him absorbing two Vok entities before his demise; those two Vok have become corrupted and are the source of Undead Tarantulas' powers. To counter this threat, other Vok create Primal Prime and ressurect Tigatron and Airazor as Transmetals. As Alak said, Ravage's remains were used to create Tigatron's new body, thus Tarantulas resurrected Ravage with a new Transmetal 2 body (Tripredacus Agent), as well as creating Iguanus and Razorclaw. Airazor was wounded during her battle against Tarantulas' forces, but unfortunately 3H lost the convention licence and Airazor's ultimate fate was never explicitly explained. Some fans theorise that Airazor probably died from her wounds as in "Wreckers: Finale Part II" Tigatron awkwardly declined from answering Rattrap's question about Airazor's whereabouts.

[WorpeX]

Oh wow. I was so happy that she might be alive still and you completely ruin that by saying its likely shes dead. haha. At least its not know, still so many different possibilities! Thanks for the explanation! Hopefully someday new content will be released for BW explaining what happened.

Also sucks that these comics aren't publicly available. : /

[GoktimusPrime]

Some of the comics published by Fun Publications were later made publicly available in regular comic stores, but the 3H ones were strictly convention exclusives. You have to remember that 3H (the 2 Hartman brothers + Glen Hallit) were the original founding organisers of BotCon and printed those comics to provide a background story for the BotCon exclusive toys, in this case, Tigatron. I don't want to dig up old fandom politics, but basically the fall of 3H wasn't pretty... and then Hasbro formed OTFCC (gotta love how they formed an official Transformers club pronounced as "Ott-F@ck") and the Hartman brothers then went and made Fun Publications - but of course, they lost the rights to the old stories from 3H. I only own two 3H comics, both of which I obtained from contacts who went to BotCon. But FB comics on the other hand I have quite a few... I just get them from my local comic shop (I recently picked up this year's comic with the "G2 redux")

Technically Airazor's fate was never conclusively explained... while some fans might believe she's likely dead, perhaps something else happened. All we know is that Tigatron declined from answering Rattrap's question about her whereabouts... we don't actually know what happened to her. All we know is that she didn't return to Cybertron with Tigatron and Primal Prime. Feel free to make up your own alternative explanation that doesn't involve her being dead, cos there's nothing in official canon that would contradict you.

[BiffyPrimal]

Some of the old BotCon comics are still available online in the BotCon archives. Unfortunately, only part 1 of "Primeval Dawn" is available online (parts 2 and 3 were created, but the Primeval Dawn story was never finished).

You can read some more stuff about these "expanded universe" comics here on the TFWiki. In short, here is a time-placement summary:
Primeval Dawn - After Beast Wars (on prehistoric Earth)
Wreckers - During Beast Machines/After Beast Machines
Universe - After Beast Machines/After Wreckers

As far as Airazor's "backstory" before she emerged on prehistoric Earth, you may want to look into the BotCon 2006 comic Dawn of Future's Past.

[WorpeX]

Thanks for the link Biffy!

Why does Airazor always get the slag end of the stick? She gets treated almost as badly as some Predicons do. -.-

[Alak]

Thanks for the link! I'm reading the first part of Primeval Dawn and it says:

But there were two unique souls among them - twin hearts brought to life by the hands [...]

I think it's talking about Tigatron and Airazor, which would mean that they died after their abduction. I guess there goes my limbo theory...

***EDIT***

Oh, and the comic about their backgrounds is actually "Dawn of Future's Part". My bad on the misinformation earlier.

[Blazemane]

I think that sentence is speaking of the Maximals' successfully getting them out of their stasis pods.

"But there were two unique souls among them - twin hearts brought to life by the hands of their robotic companions, and yet still children of their newfound home."