Biography[]
Tonka
Tonka is a mammoth builder and wrecker who serves as an antagonist in the Astrosaurs series. He is slippery and greedy to the point that even many mammoths are reluctant to deal with him (including his own mother!), as he is a frequent liar. This got him the nickname "Tonka the Traitor" among his own kind. He likes money, often coming up with get-rich-quick schemes while having no regard for others or the environmental consequences of his actions. He was fairly wealthy, as he was able to afford and use an expensive Dungdozer Prime. Tonka appears to be skilled with machinery and engineering.
The Planet of Peril[]
Tonka first appeared in The Planet of Peril as the leader of an entire crew of mammoths. They wanted the slodge on Aggadon, a planet in the Tri System, so they removed their tusks, shaved their tummies, and attached these things to a group of kidnapped giraffes from a circus that they had recently demolished. Tonka and his workers then dropped the giraffes on Aggadon and placed record players and space fleas on their backs to make them roar like monsters. While they did this, they used a smokescreen to cover their ship while they destroyed Aggadon's single moon. The final part of Tonka's plan was to use the giraffes to scare the triceratops away, and to use a moon-sized wrecking ball to destroy Aggadon so that he could get at the slodge.
When Teggs and his crew tried to investigate the fake moon, the mammoths attacked the Sauropod with their Dungdozer Prime and came aboard. They roughed up the security crew with cement shooters and challenged Teggs and Iggy on Level Nine, near the engine room. Tonka took them to the engine room, where he and a worker named Marvin explained the details of their plan. Sprite and the dimorphodon attacked Tonka and his wrecking crew, and Tonka left with a final warning. However, Marvin and a companion had set a gravel grenade in the room, and the engines were ruined in the resulting explosion, forcing the Sauropod to crash-land. Back on Aggadon, Tonka appeared on the ship's scanner to taunt Teggs and his crew.
Chas the triceratops, however, directed the remote-controlled wrecking ball away from his planet and it exploded. As Tonka flew his ship over to attack, a chunk of it hit him and knocked him out of control. Some time after that, Tonka was captured by the DSS and sent to jail.
Revenge of the FANG[]
However, Tonka returned in Revenge of the FANG as the first FANG member to confront Teggs directly. When Teggs was being tailed by pursuit probes, Tonka showed up again, destroying the probes and pulling Teggs into his ship. The DSS Herbivore confronted them, and Tonka faked a surrender- then opened fire on the ship! Teggs and the mammoth fought in Tonka's control room while the Herbivore counterattacked with dung torpedoes. Teggs lay stunned on the floor while Tonka fled the scene, leaving his space phone behind.
Some time after this drama, the Sauropod came across what was left of Tonka's ship, and Tonka himself appeared on board, demanding to be taken to the flight deck. He ordered Arx to take him to Tartara, but divulged some secret FANG information concerning Attila's involvement in the affair and the organization's very existence. Iggy and Gipsy noticed that Tonka was covered in oil, and he began stuttering and twitching. On Tartara, Dasta, Attila, and King Albu showed Teggs that the mammoth had broken into the Sauropod, captured her crew, and forced Damona to hand over her Mega-Spray Y. Teggs confronted the FANG with a ray gun, telling them that he'd blast them to pieces unless Tonka gave up.
When Albu and Dasta's eyes turned red and began to spin, he realized that the FANG members were really Attila's dino-droids, including Tonka, who burst in with his friends in chains. The fake mammoth spurted Mega-Spray Y all over the room, demolishing his dino-droid comrades. Iggy had rewired him during the fight on the Sauropod, and he had been tamed. However, the Tonka-droid was melted down with the other robots. As of now, the real Tonka remains in space prison.
Trivia[]
- In The Dreams of Dread, a flock of flying mini-mammoths appear, having been dreamed up by one of the crew. One of these dreamed about, could have been from memory of Tonka.