Characters / Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015), Bee Team

Bumblebee

Bumblebee

Voiced by: Will Friedle (English), Alfredo Gabriel Basurto (Latin American Spanish), Ryōhei Kimura (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"

"Let's rev up and roll out!"

A former member of Team Prime, Bumblebee was given a low-ranking job as a beat cop following the restoration of Cybertron. Images of his deceased mentor Optimus Prime led him to a space bridge that transported him to Earth alongside rookie cop Strongarm and problem child Sideswipe, where Bee has since grown into a fine leader in his own right.

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• Arbitrary Skepticism: In True Colors, when Grimlock starts attacking the team, Bumblebee seems somewhat dismissive of Russel's theory that Grimlock is being controlled somehow. This takes place in the same continuity where Bumblebee was once possessed by the disembodied Spark of Megatron.
• Berserk Button: Seeing Overload again brings back bad memories. He also got especially furious in the second season finale after Steeljaw defeats Optimus.
• Character Catchphrase: He tries to coin his own rallying cry, but it isn't until the first season finale that he comes up with one that generates inspiration into his team-mates: "Let's rev up and roll out!"
• The Chosen Many: Bumblebee wasn't the only Autobot called to Earth...
• Combining Mecha: In Season 3, he is the torso of Ultra Bee.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Being one of the few lead characters in a Transformers series who isn't a Prime or a recognized leader. It plays a part early in season one where he compares himself to Optimus Prime. Whereas Optimus is stoic, experienced and well respected, Bumblebee is more emotional and unsure while being more of a warrior than a leader.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: Bumblebee was a young scout who was eventually given warrior status by Optimus Prime and has now become an idol to most of the other Autobots on Cybertron.
• The Leader: Bumblebee is given leadership over his own team that he must train to work together and get along with one another.
• Legendary in the Sequel: He's a beloved war hero on Cybertron.
• Line-of-Sight Name: In Suspended, needing to pose as a fire marshal and come up with an alias fast, he uses "Dan Russel"
• Manchild: In Adventures At Bumblebee Sitting Bumblebee's mind is temporarily reduced to that of an immature child, courtesy of Quillfire's toxins.
• Only Sane Man: Between the law-obsessed Strongarm, rebellious Sideswipe, bloodthirsty Grimlock and the Motor Mouth Fixit, Bumblebee easily qualifies as this. This is shared with Drift as well.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Anything he has his own A Day In The Lime Light episodes, Bumblebee is almost guaranteed to kick ass and take names. Anytime it's not his spotlight episode, Bumblebee won't be guaranteed such a sterling portrayal. In fact, his chances of receiving humiliating beatings like he's a redheaded stepchild go up exponentially when the spotlight isn't on him.
• Subverted Catchphrase: Throughout the first season, he tries to come up with his own variation of "Autobots, transform and roll out!" Lampshaded by Sideswipe.
• Super-Senses: Demonstrates telescopic and microscopic vision from time to time. It makes sense since he's a robot, but it seems that none of the other Autobots have this ability.
• Team Dad: There are examples of this in both the show and the comics, particularly towards Strongarm and Sideswipe.
• Took a Level in Badass: He has a much buffer and more powerful looking body in this series, and is now the leader of his own team to boot.
• Your Costume Needs Work: Some museum security guards describe him as a "bad imitation of Bumblebee". This is more due to his odd behavior as he's trying to keep them from patrolling into the room with the space bridge, which he needs to get to Earth, and which Sideswipe and Strongarm are trying to hotwire.

Strongarm

Strongarm

Voiced by: Constance Zimmer (English), Cony Madera (Latin American Spanish), Yui Kondou (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"

A rookie cop assigned to the war hero Bumblebee, Strongarm found herself transported to Earth. She's confident, skilled and well-read, but she is also inflexible (especially in terms to proper procedures and regulations), impatient (especially when dealing with the flippant Sideswipe) and a bit of a glory hound. She also trusts Bumblebee completely and has his back no matter what.

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• Amazonian Beauty: Mecha fans have noticed that for a hulking police-van Transformer, she's actually really pretty.
• Automatic Crossbows: One of her weapons has the appearance of one but has the function of a Ray Gun.
• Berserk Button: Showing signs of disrespect towards Optimus Prime or Bumblebee.
• Breakout Character: Much like Bulkhead from Transformers: Animated she's an original character in a cast largely based on existing characters. Strongarm has proven popular amongst fans and even got adapted into other continuities long after the show concluded.
• By-the-Book Cop: Strongarm is completely obsessed about following rules, laws, and regulations to the point where she often brings up the law book on her wrist.
• Combining Mecha: In Season 3, she is the right arm of Ultra Bee.
• First Girl Wins: Sort of, if her apparent jealousy towards Sideswipe's attraction to Windblade are any indication. Windblade decides to join Ratchet and Optimus Prime on their journey back to Cybertron.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Melancholic
• Hero-Worshipper: Towards Bumblebee, and even more towards Optimus.
• Leeroy Jenkins: For all her obsession with following rules, Strongarm's not above jumping into situations she's not fully prepared for. In the second part of the pilot, she shows signs of this by shooting at one of Underbite's lunches, thus ruining Bumblebee's sneak attack.
• Not So Above It All: In Trust Exercises, she and Sideswipe snigger at the way Grimlock caught Bumblebee in the trust fall exercise.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Sideswipe's red, even their colors match.
• Ship Tease: She gets irritated when Windblade shows up and starts flirting around with Sideswipe, who has a crush on her.
• Squee: She's thrilled to hear war stories from Optimus Prime himself.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Sideswipe, whose frequent rule-breaking and disobedience conflicts with her more ordered, rule-based mindset.
• Territorial Smurfette: She's really not happy when Windblade, another female Autobot, shows up. The newcomer insistently calling Strongarm by a nickname she dislikes doesn't help. (On the other hand, this may be a Love Triangle issue.)

Sideswipe

Sideswipe

Voiced by: Darren Criss (English), Arturo Castañeda (Latin American Spanish), Daiki Hamano (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"

A cocky, confident punk, Sideswipe found himself on Earth when Strongarm dragged him with her in pursuit of Bumblebee. Sideswipe is lazy and a troublemaker with a penchant for shooting his mouth off, but he's loyal to his friends. Bumblebee feels there's a real hero inside him, but getting that hero out is a struggle.

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• Affectionate Nickname: Windblade calls him "Slick."
• Bad "Bad Acting":
  • In Trust Exercises, his acting is rather flimsy when he tries to trick Steeljaw.
  • In As the Kospego Commands, it's enough to fool the humans into believing he and Bumblebee were mythical creatures, but not enough to convince Thunderhoof that he was on his side.
  • Heck this was even shown in the comic when he was practicing as a pretend member of the Cybercomrade Sect.
    Sideswipe: I'm Sideswipe, a—Decepticon who... um... swipes. You've never heard of me because I joined Cybercomrade... recently. Whenever you joined, I joined... after that.
    Grimlock: Should I be buyin' this, Clipshade? How dumb is my character?
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Sideswipe has little to no respect for Strongarm and her by-the-book methods, and Bumblebee himself has trouble keeping him in line. On the other hand, Optimus Prime puts him in his place with a single stern sentence, and Windblade gets irritated enough with him to threaten him when she feels he's being too disrespectful.
• Cool Sword: Has one on his back that he carries with him. Possibly a Mythology Gag to his Movie counterpart.
• Combat Pragmatist: Starts showing shades of this in Sideways, having seen the way Fracture fights in the previous episode. He even Lampshades this in a fight with Fracture.
• Combining Mecha: In Season 3, he is the left arm of Ultra Bee.
• Composite Character: He was conceptualized as a new incarnation of Fastlane before eventually becoming Sideswipe. Thus, a lot of his personality is actually similar to Fastlane, whilst his overall appearance harkens more traditionally to prior versions of Sideswipe.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Sideswipe would generally prefer to slack off then do... well, anything. When Nightstrike steals his body, the criminal manages to use Sideswipe's natural strength and athleticism to hand the rest of the team their acts.
• Decomposite Character: As Grimlock was eventually confirmed to be a different bot to the one from Transformers: Fall of Cybertron albeit, with the same name, the same is presumed to be true for this version of Sideswipe. Rescue Bots Academy would reveal he used to be a Cube player named Steelwall.
• Delinquents: We first meet him doing burnouts at a statue gallery.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine
• Fragile Speedster: Compared to Strongarm, Grimlock and even Bumblebee, Sideswipe's main advantages are his speed and agility.
• Hates Being Alone: It's not his most prominent trait, and he does his best to bury it, but Sideswipe's past as a rootless loner has left him with some clear abandonment issues. Even though he's repeatedly assured that he's part of the team and the other would never leave him behind, it doesn't take a whole lot for him to worry about being abandoned or kicked off the team. These bursts of doubt tend to lead to him acting either extra clingy or extra standoffish — or a combination of the two.
• Hopeless Suitor: Has a crush on Windblade, who seems to be aware of it but just isn't interested.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While Sideswipe may be a troublemaker most of the time, he has a handful of examples where he is not wrong about.
  • In King of the Hill (Part 2), he demonstrates that desperate times do call for desperate measures, after failing to convince the hermit of the nuclear waste disposal site because the man would not leave until he will meet an actual alien, so Sideswipe transforms right in front of him. And it pays off: as a result, with Strongarm's assistance, the hermit thinks he is hallucinating as he finally exits the nuclear site.
  • In Railroad Rage, he argues with Drift while preventing a runaway train from crashing into Crown City, stating that even old mistakes will not define someone for the rest of their lives after Slipstream unintentionally shattered Drift's katana.
  • In Prepare For Departure, Sideswipe gives out helpful information to Grimlock in staying focus.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even Bumblebee states that he's a good bot deep down, he just needs someone to keep him in check.
  • On one note, he rescues Windblade from a rapid-flowing river.
• Literal Split Personality: At the beginning of "The Great Divide," he and his team defused from the Ultra Bee combiner, only for the rest to find out that Sideswipe has been split into double copies of himself: one is a Jerkass, the other a Nice Guy. The two copies eventually became whole again after Fixit found a way to bring Sideswipe as one.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Subverted in King of the Hill (Part 2). See Jerkass Has a Point for more details.
  • Played straight in "Blurred," because his reckless speeding is what caused Sharkticon scientist Ragebyte to be unintentionally released.
• Out of Focus: While the entire stealth team suffers in season 2, Sideswipe's lack of screentime is most noticeable.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Strongarm's blue, even their colors match.
• Robot Hair: It's not hair, but his head design does give the appearance of such.
• Ship Tease: Has a crush on Windblade; meanwhile, he may have Belligerent Sexual Tension with Strongarm, who got pretty riled up seeing him flirt with Windblade.
• Taking the Bullet: He dives in front of Jetstorm and Slipstream just as RoughEdge is about to shoot them, scoring a nasty burn square in the chest.
• The Slacker: He'll take any opportunity to skive off work and foist it onto a teammate.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Both Strongarm and Windblade seem to consider his lack of respect for Optimus Prime as him being this, considering it was Optimus' sacrifice that revitalized Cybertron in the finale of Transformers Prime.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • With Strongarm and, to a lesser extent, Bumblebee. The only reason he's on the team is because they arrested him and brought him along in the pilot two-parter. His carefree attitude towards rules clashes with Strongarm's heavy belief in obedience and Bumblebee's own attempts at projecting authority.
  • When Optimus Prime joins the team, he manages to rub Windblade (who otherwise gets along great with him) the wrong way by making snide or outright insulting comments about him, to the point she threatens him with bodily harm.
• You Fight Like a Cow: Often taunts his opponents, but these tactics fail as often as it succeeds.

Fixit

Fixit

Voiced by: Mitchell Whitfield (English), Miguel Ángel Leal (Latin American Spanish), Yoshiyuki Matsuura (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"

• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Fixit's various eccentricities and faulty wiring hide the fact that he is an incredibly skilled engineer and medic.
• Equippable Ally: Can turn into various Transformer-sized tools and be used by the other Autobots.
• Fanboy: Of Groundpounder the gladiator.
• Fantastic Racism: Initially believes that humans are incapable of understanding Cybertronian technology. Denny proves him wrong and he quickly abandons this line of thinking.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Phlegmatic
• Freudian Slip: A good number of his Verbal Tics seem to be this.
• Full-Name Basis: He always refers to Denny this way for some reason. He simply calls Russell by his first name.
• Hidden Depths: A huge fan of Cybertron's gladiator games and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of their fighting styles.
• I Choose to Stay: At the end of Season 2, he opts to remain with Bumblebee's team on Earth, rather than accompany the rest of the Fixit-type Minicons back to Cybertron on the Alchemor.
• It Has Been an Honor: He says this to Bumblebee in the second season finale, when faced with the possibility that they, Optimus Prime, and the other Fixit-type Minicons might be incapacitated by the cryo-gas bomb.
• Motor Mouth: Sideswipe certainly thinks this of him.
• More Dakka: When his prison guard mode is activated, he gains numerous weapons, including two back-mounted missile launchers and arm-mounted laser cannons.
• Non-Action Guy: When not in prison guard mode.
• Older Than They Look: Fixit is implied to be pretty old by Mini-Con standards (a swarm of similar Mini-Cons were on an ancient crashed ship), though he would prefer the term "seasoned".
• Patrolling Mook: As a prison guard on the Alchemor, this was practically his job.
• Percussive Maintenance: His verbal tic is often corrected by either himself or someone else giving him a solid thump.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In guard mode, he overpowers the combined Team Bee.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As seen in the episode "The Trouble With Fixit".
• The Medic: He's the teams best bet at help when they're injured... usually.
• Mission Control: What he usually is.
• Verbal Tic: Possibly due to his faulty wiring, Fixit often says the wrong word, attempts to correct himself, and then finally spits it out on the third try.

Grimlock

Grimlock

Voiced by: Khary Payton (English), Frank Welker (English; roars), Andrés García (Latin American Spanish), Masaomi Yamahashi (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"

"I hear fighting... who's fighting?! I wanna fight!"

• Absurd Phobia: Kittens.
• Adaptational Heroism: In contrast to his G1 namesake, Grimlock in this series is much more compassionate towards anyone weaker than himself, in spite of his Blood Knight tendencies. His conversation with Russell in More Than Meets The Eye proves this quite nicely.
• Adaptational Intelligence: He's the first example of Grimlock in western animation to be able to speak clearly and normally, and is also far smarter than the almost childlike levels of intelligence those former incarnations displayed.
• Adaptational Wimp: A minor example. Grimlock is still the strongest member of the team, however, compared to his previous incarnations, he's not quite as powerful, given he's usually explicitly stated to be as strong or stronger than Optimus Prime or Megatron themselves. Of course, him being on the team would be fairly pointless if he could take on every enemy by himself. He also seems to no longer have the ability to breathe fire in Dinobot mode. It should be noted however that he was able to hold his own against one of the original thirteen primes without any power-up whatsoever.
• Adaptation Personality Change: This version of Grimlock is notably different compared to his predecessors, being much more friendly and approachable than usual.
• Ass Kicks You: His trademark "Cannon Ball" move, in which he pins down a decepticon.
  • He cheerfully crushes Sideswipe and Spinhead (the former during a training exercise, the latter as part of a team takedown) in issue #1 of the comic book tie-in. Grimlock calls it a "Dinopile".
• Bear Hug: This Grimlock's a hugger, and proud of it, which is a bad thing for whoever it is he feels like hugging.
• The Big Guy: He's the powerhouse on the team.
• Blessed with Suck: Grimlock acquires Super-Speed in The Fastest Bot Alive. The unfortunate weakness is that he has a hard time taking control of it.
• Blood Knight: Picks a fight with Underbite on the grounds that he "picks on things his own size".
• Boisterous Bruiser: He loves a good fight.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Becomes this in True Colors, courtesy of Minitron.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He's the muscle of the team and really enjoys punching stuff, but he's one of the easiest people to get along with. When discussing their favorite vacation spots on Cybertron, Grimlock mentions his was the Acid Wastes, which judging from its name and Sideswipe's reaction, is a horrible place to be. Grimlock just smiles and says the Sunsets are Amazing.
• Character Catchphrase: Whenever he tries to pin down a Decepticon, expect Grimlock to shout: "Cannonball!".
• Combining Mecha: In Season 3, he is the legs of Ultra Bee.
• Composite Character: Grimlock is a combination of Dinobot Grimlock, and his role and color scheme is almost similar to Bulkhead in Transformers: Prime, being the team Big Guy. It can also be seen as a reference to the other Robots In Disguise and it's Grimlock, who while green, transformed into an excavator.
• Decomposite Character: Despite being a robot that can transform into a T-rex, Producer Adam Beechen said this Grimlock isn't the same one who appeared in Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, but a different bot.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Everyone else needs divine infused power to hit Megatronus, Grimlock just needs his two hands.
• The Ditz: Despite being a lot smarter than most other animated Grimlocks, he still ain't too bright.
• Dumb Muscle: Although not to the extent of some of the other incarnations of him, he is the least intelligent Autobot on the team.
• Extreme Doormat: A minor example, but he seems to be so used to being an Unskilled, but Strong Klutz that he will accept blame at the drop of a hat. Once confessed to sneaking up behind and knocking out himself simply because he didn't understand what was going on.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Sanguine (and a little Choleric).
• Heel–Face Turn: After helping to bring down Underbite in the pilot, rather than place him back in his stasis cell, Bumblebee officially puts him on probation. At the end of True Colors Bumblebee formally inducts him back into the Autobots and has his Decepticon logos removed and replaced with Autobrands.
• Hulk Speak: Averted with this version of Grimlock.
• Leeroy Jenkins: He's notoriously impatient and tends to just charge at a problem rather than wait for anyone to develop any kind of strategy.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: During his fight with Scowl, where he uses his jaws in battle for the first time.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: He smacks Terrashock in the rear with his tail near the end of W.W.O.D.?.
• Literal-Minded: Lampshaded in the episode "Defrosted." While being lectured by Drift during training with Jetstorm, he was surprised, asking if there was something behind Jetstorm's moves.
• Malaproper: After learning that Slipstream and Jetstorm learned to fight so well despite their small size by being Drift's pupils, he spends an entire episode trying to convince Drift he would make a good poodle, too.
• Mathematician's Answer: When he challenges Simacore to a battle of wits, he answers the question he receives thusly.
  Simacore: If a Cybertronian unirail leaves Kaon City going east at 1000 mechanometers per orbital cycle, and another unirail leaves Nuon City going west at 63.6, at what point will they meet?
  Grimlock: It's a trick question! Underbite destroyed Nuon City, so it doesn't have a unirail anymore!
• Mighty Glacier: As a T-Rex, Grimlock is the largest member of the team, but as a result is also the slowest.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Fights largely by punching, yet favors using the beast mode with smaller arms for doing so. Granted, his arms in robot mode (which form his beast mode legs) are also very strong.
• Naked Freak-Out: His reaction when his "truck form" parts fall off in Collect 'Em All.
• Secret Stab Wound: Grimlock takes a serious hit while running an obstacle course at the beginning of Deep Trouble but conceals the injury for fear of letting Bee and the team down.
• Shout-Out : One of the moves he uses against Groundpounder in The Champ is a nod to the infamous dropkick scene from Godzilla vs. Megalon.
• Strong as They Need to Be: His strength varies from Worf-level to Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? as the plot requires.
• Tail Slap: In his dinosaur mode.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Subverted. In spite of being a paroled Decepticon pressed onto the team, Grimlock works surprisingly well with everyone right off the bat, and gives Bumblebee the least amount of problems. All Bee has to do to get him to lay off his Leeroy Jenkins behavior is a quick chat, as opposed to Sideswipe and Strongarm, who need an entire episode to have the aesop partially hammered into them.
• Token Evil Teammate: Sort of. Grimlock's the only member of the team with a criminal record, and starts out in the series branded with Deception logos, but he's not actually malicious, he just loves fighting, and tends to cause excessive damage when he does so.
• Token Minority: He's the only member of the team with a beast mode, which have otherwise been exclusive to the Decepticons so far.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Grimlock has been formerly presented in this universe as very brutish, but otherwise far more cunning than he lets on. Here, whilst he does have some genuine moments of intuition, is a fair bit goofier and much less tactically minded — one episode shows he doesn't know the meaning of "perimeter". Granted he's still far smarter than most animated versions of Grimlock. Producer Adam Beechen reveals this Grimlock is an entirely different character.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He doesn't have a keen tactical mind and can be caught off-guard by opponents with strength and training.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: There are few things in Grimlock's perception that can't be solved with proper application of punching.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Grimlock's deathly afraid of kittens, and apparently anything feline. He's also not too wild about crabs. Clamp Down repeatedly freaks him out.
• The Worf Effect: Grimlock is by far the team's strongest member. So he usually tends to be the one taken down to show that the team can't deal with whichever threat they face without working together. In fact, the number of episodes where he doesn't end up suffering from this to some degree is in the distinct minority.
• Would Hit a Girl: Gender is no object when it comes to punching.

Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime

Voiced by: Peter Cullen (English), Blas García (Latin American Spanish), Taiten Kusunoki (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Pilot (Part 1)"

• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: He was described as having become "one with the AllSpark" when he was seen last. He's joined with the Thirteen Original Primes in the afterlife, and can only contact the physical world when the need is absolutely necessary. He eventually descends back to help fight Megatronus.
• Back from the Dead: Bumblebee asks him flat out if he is alive or not. Optimus replies that even he's uncertain which one he is. Later he comes back for good, as with all of his counterparts in other continuities.
• Big Badass Rig: As usual with many of his previous incarnations.
• Big Good: He is one of the most heroic Autobots and is the idol to the Bee team.
• Deus ex Machina: Briefly creates a physical manifestation in Pilot (Part 2) to assist Bumblebee and the others, taking down Underbite with only one hand.
• Came Back Strong: Which is really saying something since he was one of the strongest Autobots alive when he died. Though it is averted in the first episode of the second season, as returning the power of the Primes weakens him to the point he's only at a fraction of his strength. Micronus assures the Bee Team he'll recover, but has no idea how long it will take.
• Combat Pragmatist: Shows shades of this in "Cover Me".
• Cool Old Guy: When he is able to speak to the team, most of them treat him as being one of these. Strongarm and the Minicons in particular can't get enough of his war stories.
• A Father to His Men: As you'd expect of Optimus. Bumblebee, despite being a hero in his own right, still idolises him.
  • When Sideswipe nicknames him "Pops", he quietly but firmly informs him that he can be called "Optimus Prime" or "Optimus", and those are his only options. Sideswipe quickly gives in, looking very much like a child scolded by his dad.
• Flight: One of the few Transformers who can fly in robot mode.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The Council blames him for the war and Cybertron becoming uninhabitable.
• He's Back!: In the season finale, Optimus returns to Earth to aid Bumblebee and his team against Megatronus.
• I Choose to Stay: At the end of season 1, rather than return to the Realm of the Primes to continue his training, he decides to stay as Bumblebee's equal and not resume his place as the Autobot leader.
  • At the end of season 2, he decides to return to Cybertron with the recaptured Decepticons. Part of this is because he wants to personally investigate what state Cybertron is in, and part of it is because he knows that his presence would undermine Bumblebee's.
• Our Founder:
  • Statues of him are present on the restored Cybertron. Sideswipe accidentally levels one when Strongarm attempts to apprehend him in the first episode. As an example of how esteemed he is, Strongarm and the Minicons eagerly get him to tell them war stories, and are horrified when Sideswipe dismissively refers to him as "Pops". When Sideswipe later makes another snarky comment, Windblade (who's been semi-flirting with him since she arrived) is so furious she threatens to snap him in half if he keeps being so disrespectful.
  • Averted when Ratchet encounters the team, as he tells them that the High Council has done its best to ensure Optimus is forgotten.
• Out of Focus: He was a main character in the previous series. This time he only appears to give advice and guidance. The first episode to feature him prominently lampshades this in its title.
• Put Their Heads Together: He defeats Swelter and Glacius in this manner.
• Spirit Advisor: Is this to Bumblebee, briefly appearing through visions.
• The Stoic: He's just as serious as he was in Transformers: Prime
  • Not So Stoic: He allows himself a line of snark at times when younger Autobots annoy or patronize him.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: How he destroys Megatronus' spark fusing device by tossing it like a boomerang.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Warns Bumblebee of an ominous threat that's coming to Earth but does not provide any specifics (mostly because the other Primes also seem to be keeping him in the dark). He spends most of the first season training in the Realm of Primes to help confront it.

Drift

Drift, Slipstream, and Jetstorm

Drift Voiced by: Eric Bauza (English), Jorge Badillo (Latin American Spanish), Tomokazu Sugita (Japanese)

Slipstream Voiced by: Roger Craig Smith (English), Isamu Yūsen (Japanese)

Jetstorm Voiced by: Roger Craig Smith (English), Tasuku Hatanaka (Japanese)

First Appearance: "Hunting Season"

• Berserk Button: Don't harm his students and don't call him Deadlock.
• Bounty Hunter: His occupation when he first meets Bee and the team.
• The Comically Serious: Drift has no real sense of humour, which means he's often irritated or confused by his teammate's quips.
• Combining Mecha: A variant. In Season 3, he is the sword of Ultra Bee.
• Cool Car: He turns into a futuristic Bugatti-like sports car.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His Minicons were once criminals and now regard Drift as their sensei. Drift himself was once homeless, as well, before joining the Decepticons, before becoming a complete Autobot.
• Detachment Combat: His Minicon partners, Jetstorm and Slipstream, serve as a pair of gauntlets that he wears, but can fight on their own volition.
• Fastball Special: The Minicon's are often fired or thrown as projectiles, both in buzzsaw and robot mode.
• Foil: To Fracture. Both are Minicon deployers and bounty hunters. However, whereas Fracture is a Combat Pragmatist, Drift only hunts down criminals and believes in using honorable means to capture them. He's also noticeably more reserved than his Decepticon counterpart.
• Go Through Me: Jetstorm and Slipstream pull this in Outstanding, putting themselves between the injured Drift and Stockade and his Minicon army.
• Good Is Not Nice: Drift is a demanding perfectionist, and pretty rude besides, though he still comes through for Team Bee in the end.
• Heel–Face Turn: The comics show his backstory as a former Decepticon-turned-Autobot, as with most of his incarnations. The episode Out of the Shadows confirms this.
  • The episode Out Of The Shadows further explains his backstory: he was a former student of Decepticon Shadow Raker.
• Hypocrite:
  • In Hunting Season, he claims Denny and Russell Clay have poor manners (when they politely introduce themselves), then continually refers to them as "pets".
  • In Railroad Rage, During an argument about Drift's shattered katana, courtesy of Slipstream, the he adamantly denies that he made mistakes before by saying that was not the point. Sideswipe, however, calls him out on it, pointing that even the troublemaker himself knows Drift had made mistakes before, and mentions that he cannot allow old mistakes to define somebody for the rest of their lives.
• I Owe You My Life: After Bumblebee saves him from a blow from Fracture, Drift claims that he owes Bumblebee a life debt and pays it back by protecting him from Fracture and refusing to collect the bounty placed on his head. Bumblebee releases Drift from said debt at the end of Hunting Season.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: His perfectionist tendencies and strict code of honour causes him to clash head frequently with the other Autobots, but nonetheless he has honour, which is more than can be said for his rival bounty hunter, Fracture. By the end of Hunting Season, he sees Bumblebee for the honourable warrior that he is, and compliments Jetstorm and Slipstream on their performance in the last battle of the episode.
• The Lancer: To Bumblebee.
• Lighter and Softer: The tie-in book Drift's Samurai Showdown includes much of the same backstory given for IDW's Drift, but leaves out much of the non-family friendly aspects. Also, unlike IDW's Drift, this one isn't a Stepford Smiler.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In One of Our Mini-Cons is Missing, Jetstorm accidentally released Quillfire and Springload from stasis after accidentally messing up Drift's sword and running away off without telling his mentor.
  • In Railroad Rage, Slipstream accidentally dismantled Drift's katana while cleaning it with a chemical that shattered it like glass.
• Not So Stoic: In "Ghosts and Impostors", Drift tries to join in on scaring a group of tourists by dressing up in a makeshift ghost costume. A far cry from his usual stern behaviour.
  • Out Of The Shadows takes this a step further: his former teacher Shadow Raker calls him by his former name, to the point where Drift becomes angered by it. He's also visibly worried when Jetstorm and Slipstream are kidnapped.
  • In Two Plus Two Equals More, he greets Jetstorm and Slipstream with a big hug and a smile when they return with the captured Cyclones.
• Only Sane Man: Shared with Bumblebee.
• The Perfectionist: Applies this to himself and everyone around him. He slowly moves away from this over time.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Slipstream and Jetstorm are more than capable of fighting Decepticons three times their size.
• Put on a Bus: Optimus recruits Drift for a secret mission in "Moon Breaker" (with Jetstorm and Slipstream along for the ride, of course), and they're gone until "Enemy of My Enemy".
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Jetstorm's more emotional, impulsive and less serious minded. Slipstream's calmer and more submissive to Drift.
• Ship Tease: Maybe with Windblade during the "Overloaded" episodes.
• Sixth Ranger: Joins Bumblebee's team, though he begins to evolve to become The Lancer of the group.
• Stern Teacher: To Jetstorm and Slipstream.
• The Stoic: Serious and reserved at all times, which sometimes hampers his working relationship with Slipstream and Jetstorm.
• That Man Is Dead: Originally named Deadlock, he no longer goes by that name.
  Shadow Raker: "Don't look to your friends for help, Deadlock."
  Drift: "MY NAME IS DRIFT!"
• Undying Loyalty: Slipstream and Jetstorm have this towards him.

Windblade

Windblade

Voiced by: Kristy Wu (seasons 1-2), Erica Lindbeck (season 3) (English), Jahel Morga (Latin American Spanish), Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese)

First Appearance: "The Buzz on Windblade"

• Adaptation Personality Change: IDW's Windblade is a soft spoken Naïve Newcomer. Here this version of Windblade is a cocky Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Adaptational Badass: In IDW Windblade's biggest physical strength is her above average sword play. Here she's a stronger flier with Super-Senses as well her sword skills. She also has built in guns and the ability to blast Gale-Force Sound whereas the original lacked ranged weaponry.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Attempts to be this for Optimus in Cover Me after seeing the state he's still in.
• Berserk Button: When Sideswipe makes a disrespectful comment about Optimus Prime, she warns him that "I'll snap you in two if you don't stop that kind of talk," and delivers such a ferocious Death Glare Sideswipe takes a few steps back in terror.
• The Chosen Many: Primus summoned her to Earth to help with coming danger.
• Cool Plane: Transforms into a VTOL jet fighter.
• Fembot: Like Strongarm and Arcee before her.
• Gale-Force Sound: She is capable of firing soundwaves from her VTOL fans.
• Mistaken Identity: After knocking out Scratch, she mistakes Sideswipe for a Decepticon when he compliments her on her takedown, resulting in her being ready to blast him.
• Oh, Crap!: Gets this look once she realizes that she's Razorpaw's target instead of Optimus in Cover Me.
• Parody Sue: Provided by Primus enhanced sensors and powers, Windblade is eventually humbled a notch by the end of her introduction episode.
• Mission from God: Primus himself upgraded her and sent her to Earth thousands of years ago.
• The Nicknamer: Comes up with pet names for Bee and most of the team.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Notably the only one based directly on her preexisting IDW comics version, which was already pretty nonstandard with the Japanese styling.
• Sixth Ranger: Joins with Bumblebee's team full-time at the end of the first season.
• Super-Senses: Specially enhanced by Primus.
• Ship Tease: With Sideswipe, whom she took a liking after, even going as far to nickname him "Slick".
• What the Hell, Hero?: Windblade considers taking Zizza down, even with her threatening to kill two humans, rationalizing that stopping the Decepticon was worth more than those two lives. Strongarm's dressing down helps her realize this was wrong.
• Winged Humanoid: Especially noticeable with just how large her jet wings are when she's in robot mode.

Ultra Bee

Ultra Bee

Voiced by: Will Friedle

• Calling Your Attacks: Because he's not a Mental Fusion like most combiners, Bumblebee has to give instructions to the other components.
• Combining Mecha: Made up of Bumblebee (torso), Strongarm (right arm), Sideswipe (left arm), Grimlock (legs), and Drift (sword).
• Cool Sword: Drift is the combiner's weapon.
• Nuclear Mutant: Fixit theorizes that radiation from the site where the team fought Heatseeker is the reason they combined.

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