Astrotrain

Astrotrain is the Decepticon army's bus driver, and he has never stopped resenting it. As one of the two original Triple Changers introduced in 1985, he can shift between robot, space shuttle and steam locomotive almost instantly, and his tech spec bio makes clear he loves the confusion this causes: nothing pleases him more than cornering an Autobot in a dark place and leaving him unsure whether he is fighting one Decepticon or two. But confusion is a small consolation prize. His actual job is haulage. As he complains in "The Gambler": "It's always the same thing. I fly them to points unknown, exhaust all my fuel, and they get to have all the fun."

That grievance drives most of his notable moments. In "The God Gambit" he shoots down Cosmos, cons the moon-people of Titan into worshipping him as one of their Sky Gods, and uses the fanatic priest Jero to make them mine energy crystals for him. When Omega Supreme refuels and the plan collapses, Astrotrain spitefully destroys the crystals and abandons Jero to die. Having tasted command, he teams with Blitzwing in "Triple Takeover" to freeze Megatron and Starscream in a sewer and seize the Decepticons for himself, building an army of train drones and hoarding energon cubes before bursting a water main and flooding the city. Megatron thaws out, and Astrotrain slinks back into the ranks at fusion cannon point.

He is more easy-going and less cruel than most of his faction, which is exactly why he stays a beast of burden. His compensations are small: crowning Starscream in The Transformers: The Movie, and later, on Chaar, handing his last energon over to Cyclonus and getting an inspirational speech in return.

Triple Changer: robot, space shuttle and JNR Class D51 steam locomotive, switching between them near-instantly to disorient enemies. He is a genuine spacecraft, hauling Megatron to the Moon in "Blaster Blues" and running Decepticon strike teams to Titan, Monacus and the lost colony of Antilla. His cargo hold is enormous and cartoon-elastic: in The Transformers: The Movie the Constructicons merge into Devastator inside him, and Rumble and Frenzy run their piledrivers off his deck plating. He carries an ionic displacer rifle. His documented weakness is fuel: shuttle mode burns so much energy ferrying the army that he is routinely too drained to fight when he arrives, which is the whole source of his grudge. He is also structurally vulnerable in flight, as "Cosmic Rust" shows when asteroid shrapnel punches straight through his hull.

• Blitzwing: his fellow Triple Changer and closest running mate, with whom he froze Megatron and Starscream in a sewer system to seize control of the Decepticons in "Triple Takeover" - Astrotrain went off to build an army of train drones while Blitzwing kidnapped a football coach, and both crept back into the ranks at fusion cannon point once Megatron thawed; they also teamed up at Lord Chumley's castle in "Prime Target", where Astrotrain could not believe the messes Blitzwing got himself into.
• Megatron: his commander and his burden - Astrotrain spends most of his service ferrying Megatron and the troops to the Moon, Antilla, Monacus and back from Autobot City, resenting it openly, and his one attempt to escape that role, the Triple Takeover coup, ended with Megatron beating him and Blitzwing so easily it was embarrassing.
• Cyclonus: on Chaar in "Five Faces of Darkness", Cyclonus shot Astrotrain for trying to grab an energon cube from the starving army, but when Cyclonus explained the energon was needed to revive Galvatron, Astrotrain handed over the rest of his own supply and got an inspirational speech in return - the same scene where Astrotrain pointedly noted he knew Galvatron and Megatron were the same guy.
• Starscream: Astrotrain is the Decepticon who places the crown on Starscream's head at his coronation in The Transformers: The Movie, only for Galvatron to vaporise him moments later; later, in "Ghost in the Machine", Starscream's ghost possesses Astrotrain specifically for his useful cargo space, flies his body toward Unicron's head and abandons it near Cybertron, leaving Astrotrain to be shot down by the Protectobots and interrogated by the Autobots while as confused as they were.

Marvel's Astrotrain is a competent, unsentimental soldier rather than a put-upon complainer. He begins as one of Lord Straxus's warriors at Darkmount in "Target 2006", then works for Ratbat on Earth alongside Blitzwing and Octane, and in "The Cure!" it is Astrotrain who shows the quick thinking to hypnotically seize control of industrialist G.B. Blackrock. The comics also lean into his cargo role as a tactical asset rather than a humiliation, notably in Marvel UK's "Space Pirates!" where he leads the air force and carries Soundwave's ground legion. IDW's version is different again: a by-the-book staff officer who thinks Megatron has lost his grip and deliberately reactivates Starscream to say so for him.

In the cartoon he survives the entire run, still hauling Decepticons through season three and reappearing in the Japanese Headmasters series. In Marvel continuity he is destroyed in Buenos Aires alongside the other Triple Changers by the Underbase-empowered Starscream in "Dark Star!".

• No Diaclone origin: Astrotrain was created for the Transformers line rather than converted from an existing toy. Blitzwing is documented as the only Transformers Triple Changer who had a previous Diaclone release, while Astrotrain and Octane appear to have been in development as the brand changed over.
• Voiced by Jack Angel in the English cartoon and Takuro Kitagawa in Japanese. Astrotrain was one of three space-faring characters added to the show in 1985 alongside Cosmos and Omega Supreme, and all three had an echoing reverberation layered over the usual robotic voice flanging to play up the outer-space angle.
• The 1985 toy transforms into a grey space shuttle and a purple tenderless JNR Class D51 steam locomotive, the classic Japanese National Railways engine. Decos varied by market: the US release was grey and purple, while the Japanese release used realistic colours with a white shuttle and a black locomotive. Takara reissued the white Japanese scheme in 2004 with the NASA stickers changed to ASTR, and a separate 2004 e-Hobby "Proto Color Version" used the cartoon-model colours.
• The infamous scale problem: in The Transformers: The Movie, Astrotrain carries the entire retreating Decepticon army back toward Cybertron, and the Constructicons merge into Devastator inside his shuttle mode while Rumble and Frenzy work their piledrivers on his interior - all without him bursting. Blitzwing got the same treatment on a smaller scale in "Cosmic Rust", where several Stunticons fit inside his jet mode.
• Animation and design errors abound. His cartoon model has the shuttle tailfin visibly folded and slid into the torso, yet another mystery tailfin juts straight out of his back. The original box art and instructions show the fin folded open as a chestplate shield, but the animation model tucks it away, so every fictional appearance follows the model instead. The toy also gave him a visor, while the animation model and nearly all later depictions give him two eyes.
• The character model was based on an unreleased prototype: 1985 Hasbro catalogues show a grey-and-purple resin hard copy with slide-joint arms, different feet and a different head sculpt, posed holding Blitzwing's weapons. Those prototypes could not actually transform, and the final retail toy does not match the catalogue photography.

Where the cartoon, the Marvel comics and the toy bios disagree, or where a popular claim does not hold up. We record these rather than smoothing them over.

• "Cosmic Rust" leaves it unexplained why Astrotrain, whose hull is physically pierced by the rust-spore shrapnel, never contracts Cosmic Rust while Megatron does.
• Toy versus animation: the toy has a visor and a chestplate formed from the folded shuttle tailfin, while the animation model gives him two eyes and hides the fin, and later merchandise follows the animation.