XR

“I came, I saw... I interfaced.”
—{{{2}}}

XR is a robotic Space Ranger who was originally created by the LGMs to be Buzz Lightyear's new partner, but wound up becoming a member of Team Lightyear and the first official robot Ranger in Star Command.

Physical Appearance

XR is a robot that sports Star Command's colors (purple, green, white) and logo on his chassis. He has a disembodied gold/bronze-colored head with yellow optics, encased purple circles and green eyelids. However, sometimes the optics appear green or red depending on his mood. He possesses short arms and legs which can stretch out to any length he wants. He also possesses continuous treads encased in green for feet and purple hands. His head is surrounded by an oval glass dome.

History

The Xperimental Ranger, or XR for short, was created by the LGMs as the second robot Space Ranger, following the failure of the original XL model, programmed to learn from one of the best Rangers, Buzz Lightyear. The Little Green Men went behind Commander Nebula's jurisdiction and Star Command recruitment protocols when they inducted XR as a ranger, defending that the commander authorized it, unwittingly, after signing the LGMs vacation request through which they apparently slipped XR's acceptance form (and apparently, they do this kind of thing a lot, with Commander Nebula being none the wiser). On his first mission, he imitated Buzz repeatedly during their attempt to save the LGM homeworld from the Evil Emperor Zurg's dark forces, and was destroyed by Buzz's old partner in Zurg's employment, Warp Darkmatter (now Agent Z). The LGMs attempted to rebuild him, but the loss of their Uni-Mind to Zurg left them off their game, leading them to rebuild him with improper parts. This gave him a human, less professional personality, and he was temporarily reassigned as a janitor alongside Booster Munchapper until he eventually joined Buzz's team after helping him save the galaxy from Zurg's Uni-Mind powered mind control machine.

Personality

Originally XR was obedient, imitating all Buzz's actions to learn how to act as a ranger. However, after his reprogramming he developed a huge ego and sarcastic sense of humour.

Despite having great intelligence, XR's personality is deeply selfish and self-serving, frequently looking out for his own self-interests rather than the good of the universe. Should an opportunity for money, women or fame present itself, XR's priorities are known to flip in an instant. He is as childish as Booster, and will openly tease and taunt those around him for his own amusement. He also gets cocky after a single success, yet fearful after he can't repeat the same success twice. Despite his numerous personality flaws, XR is genuinely loyal to his friends and team, and at his core is a dedicated Space Ranger.

Despite being created by the LGMs, XR views Commander Nebula as his father, due to the fact that it was his (unknowing) signature that approved XR's creation in the first place. Nebula, who openly dislikes machines, is quick to become agitated when XR expresses this familial love, though deep down he does indeed care for the mechanical ranger and recognizes his efforts.

XR possesses deep hatred and anger for Vulturans, due to their scavenging behavior upon spaceships, space stations and, most disturbingly, robots. In the presence of Vulturans, XR will usually descend into a violent rage, attacking with wild abandon.

Abilities

Robot Physiology: XR has extendable arms and legs, many pop-out gadgets and a chest cavity where he can store several objects. He is also easily rebuilt if destroyed. XR's head is not attached to his body, floating freely inside his space helmet. He also has two extra, retractable arms. XR is able to shed tears and spit non-toxic fluids of unknown composition. While damaged by Shriekers, XR burped a small electric bolt. Despite his immature and irresponsible behavior, XR possesses Supernatural Intelligence and has knowledge of all the Space Ranger rules. This is also common because he is a robot.
- Body Storage: As a robot, XR has many abilities. To serve in his job as a Space Ranger, he has at least two versions of the standard Star Command jetpack built into his chassis. He can pull out multiple guns from his back and hands, and also has one big gun in his chest. His chest compartment can hold a wide variety of items, some of them nonsensical. He has many other features such as a built-in stove, a jamming signal emitter, and others. He has the ability to be rebuilt after any damage he receives, either by the LGMs that built him or via self-repair systems, depending on severity. Though XR is known to fall apart without much effort, his parts in themselves are highly durable, allowing him to survive many instances that would be otherwise fatal to a Space Ranger.
- Jetpacks: As mentioned above, XR has been equipped with and used at least 2 different Star Command issue Jetpacks during his time as a rookie Space Ranger. The model he most commonly uses has the appearance of a small stereotypical rocket complete with little swept fins attached near the bottom half of the unit. This metallic-white colored jetpack is powerful enough to propel XR to superluminal velocities in the vacuum of space and also allows him to fly in planetary atmospheres comfortably, being easily capable of propelling XR from the surface of a planet to orbit without any issue. The rocket shaped jetpack is shown to be capable of being overclocked with a simple flip of a switch normally stored inside XR's chest cavity, when this is done the jetpack can propel targets with much larger masses to their destinations but at the cost of the ride being highly uncomfortable as the overboosted jetpack and its guidance systems repeatedly perform random maneuvers as they try to compensate for the dramatic increase in performance. XR's other option is a small standard Star Command jetpack built into his body, which also includes retractable wings to help him glide. This Standard Issue jetpack proved instrumental in the removal of a Karnian Slime-Beast from Star Cruiser 42's bridge when XR remote controlled the jetpack wirelessly and forced the creature through the bridge's open airlock and into the brig during the events of The Beasts of Karn.
- High Repairability: XR was originally reactivated and prepped by the LGMs as Buzz's new partner after they saw the space ranger brooding over the loss of his last partner, Warp Darkmatter. The Little Green Men "solved" the problem by arranging for Buzz to have a new partner that was not only artificial (and therefore was never alive and thus also cannot be "killed"), but also an extremely repairable robotic unit, regardless of how much damage XR sustains in battle. And true enough, the LGMs demonstrated to Buzz the robot's amendable construction by first blasting XR apart with weaponry and crushing what was left of his body with heavy industrial equipment, only to completely repair XR immediately afterwards and in record time. XR himself has been known to conduct repairs or improvements on his own body after receiving harm or alteration from unfriendly parties, and could even control detached appendages after he was literally blasted apart by enemy fire.

Inventory

XR's internal storage system contains many different items, some of which have included:

Star Command Issue Throwable Mortar Shells
Gum
Mints
Blaster pistols
Cologne
An icepack
A magnet grenade
A clock
A yellow shirt
An iron and ironing board
A metal safe
Money (including metallic loose change)
Ramway products
A mixing bowl
Egg beaters
A small bleached-white horned animal skull
A green-blue sock
A wooden back scrubbing brush
A fresh looking carrot
A pink rubber eraser
A traditional human style baseball/softball
A double headed wrench
A pencil
An American-style football

Quotes

The Adventure Begins

"XR, reporting for duty."

"You know, the guy's supposed to be some kind of evil genius, and the best he can come up with is a ventriloquist act. What's next, evil juggling?"

Stress Test

"Yeah, Zurg's probably going, (imitates Zurg) 'How can I destroy the universe without my pen?!'"

The Slayer

"One thing I can't stand is gambling! I'll lay you seven to one odds there's no more poker after tonight."

The Shape Stealer

"As you know, normally I'm not one to panic, primarily because Buzz always comes to the rescue. But we're currently fighting Buzz, so who's coming to the rescue?"

Eye of the Tempest

"Yeah, but, it's dangerous out there. One false move and someone could be blown to bits - maybe me!"

Trivia

XR was mentioned in a 2010 "Free Comic Book Day" Toy Story comic, "The Return of Buzz Lightyear: Part One".
According to XR, he failed to pass a certification test for the laser drill aboard Team Lightyear's ship due to spelling errors and neatness in "Sunquake", and in "Gravitina", Buzz is annoyed that XR sent Gravitina the love letter without letting him proofread it. This may prove that XR is not the best at spelling, especially as in "The Return of XL", he misspells "au revoir" as "au revior".
XR is the only character other than Buzz Lightyear to appear in every episode of the series.
A running gag in the series involves XR being constantly blown up, but this proves to be little more than an inconvenience than a serious problem.
XR is primarily voiced by Larry Miller, but in select episodes is instead voiced by Neil Flynn. The reason for the change in voices is unknown, as the replacement was sporadic throughout the episode order.

Appearances

Episodes

Books

Comics

Video Games

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

References