BIG BANG
Appearances
Japanese Transformers
Technically, none.
His conceptual drawing appeared in Million Publishing's Transformers Generations Deluxe, published in 2004.
Quote
None, but if given the chance to speak I would assume it would be in Japanese and have something to do with justice.
Alt-Mode
Unknown. Possibly a space-truck; he has three wheels per leg, and what seems to be a cockpit or cab behind his head. Considering the theme of the line he was going to be in, he probably could have triple-changed into a Micromaster base in addition to his standard alt-mode.
Description
Big Bang, like Giant Decepticon Warrior, is a character who came to my attention through the excellent Transformers Generations book. And his tale is about as convoluted.
Unlike the original Transformers Generations book, I had bought Generations Deluxe from an online store, and brought it with me to the 2004 Official Transformers Collectors' Convention to show to friends. It was there I was first informed about Big Bang's existence - I hadn't looked at the book too thoroughly before, to be honest. Amy Lipkowitz, a friend, translated the Japanese text accompanying his image as thus:
Star Convoy's preparatory documentation (on the right) and his previous form, Supreme Commander Big Bang. According to the attached explanation, Sky Garry was originally to be called Star Garry, and Grandus was to be called Iron Baron.
(The conceptual drawing of Star Convoy is not included on this webpage.)
What did "previous form" mean, I wondered? Was Big Bang meant to be a previous evolution of Star Convoy... who was the same character as Generation One Optimus Prime? This was quite puzzling to me.
As luck would have it, I was informed by premiere Transformers translator Doug Dlin that one of the dealers at the show, Fumihiko Akiyama, had in fact helped put the Generations book together! I was able to catch up to him in a hallway, explained my curiosity, and showed him the page in question. The explanation I received, allowing for lapses in my memory, was as follows:
When Takara was planning the post-Zone line that would become Return of Convoy, the lead character group was originally going to consist of Iron Baron (later Grandus), Star Garry (later Sky Garry), and this new Supreme Commander of the Cybertrons (nee Autobots), Big Bang. However, they opted to revive the original Convoy as Star Convoy to be the leader figure instead, abandoning the Big Bang concept.
And that is the long and short of Big Bang.
Biography
Well, if he had been produced, he presumably would have led the Battlestars to defeat a great evil - possibly even Dark Nova, the nebulous evil entity featured in the Return of Convoy storyline. However, the main villain for much of the story was a reborn Generation One Megatron... whose return, I think, would be precipitated on Convoy/Optimus Prime's own. That makes speculation beyond this loose framework essentially impossible.
Tech Specs/TFU
Being as he was meant to be a Supreme Commander, definitely very high stats. Maybe one or two token 9s in, say, Skill or Speed, but otherwise all 10s. He probably wouldn't have had a supplementary Tech Spec card like the Masterforce through Zone toys had, as they were eliminated for Return of Convoy.
Toy
If one assumes the play pattern Star Convoy embodies was more-or-less unchanged from its earliest stages, Big Bang likely would have been a nice toy in a late G1 kind of way. He probably would have turned into both a vehicle and a battery-powered Micromaster base, and come with his own Micromaster sidekick. He may have connected with Star Garry and Iron Baron in similar ways that Sky Garry and Grandus combine with Star Convoy - creating either a Cybertronian super-train or a massive, motorized Micromaster base.
Unfortunately, the alternate mode kibble on his robot form is minimal at best, so it's difficult to determine what he would turn into. A recolor of Star Convoy as Big Bang would be appropriate, but probably impossible... while colors could be created from scratch for him, the Star Convoy toy is rather large, so I don't know if Takara would be willing to take the financial risk on something as left-field as this. If a smaller incarnation of Star Convoy existed besides the PVC (whose parent line is dead), such as a Robot Master, it would be more worthwhile, though probably still unlikely.
Over All
If Alpha Trion nearly skirts the "obscure" definition by being extremely well-known, Big Bang is his exact opposite: I doubt many people in the whole Western hemisphere have even the foggiest idea of who this guy is.
In a way, it's interesting to examine the circumstances that led to Big Bang's dismissal. The popularity of Transformers was on a steady decline in Japan following the end of Victory, with the direct-to-video Zone series being scrapped after the first episode. The revival of Optimus Prime/Convoy, the "original Autobot hero", was surely a desperate effort to regain some of the line's former glory. A tactic which ultimately failed - the following years' line, called Operation Combination by most, was filled with repackaged European Transformers and two five-year-old recolored combiners. Them's death throes, kids. Ain't pretty.
In final analysis, Big Bang is little more than an interesting footnote in the saga of the Transformers. If Zone had done better, he might have seen the light of day... but as history records it, he never got out of the dark.