Bulkhead

Bulkhead is Team Prime's heavy, and the show is careful to make that a description of his history rather than his intellect. He is a former Wrecker, part of the Autobot special-operations unit whose approach to any problem was to demolish it, and he carries the reputation into a war that has become small, covert and defensive. Kevin Michael Richardson plays him warm and slightly gravelly, and the character's default mode is enthusiasm rather than menace.

His anchor is Miko Nakadai, the loudest and most reckless of the three human children, and the pairing is the best relationship in Transformers: Prime. Bulkhead is the guardian who does not tell her to stay in the car; he takes her to the fight, which is both why she loves him and why he is repeatedly in the wrong. The show tests that in "T.M.I.", where a Cybertronian data cylinder downloads the Synthetic Energon formula directly into his brain and his personality begins dissolving under it. Miko watching her friend disappear into equations is the most upsetting thing the series does with either of them.

His near-death is worse. In "Toxicity" he is sent to retrieve an Iacon relic that turns out to be Tox-En, energon lethal to Transformers, and he tries to dispose of it while it eats him from the inside, then fights Hardshell's Insecticons in that state. "Hurt" leaves him critically damaged and takes several episodes to recover from, and the recovery is genuinely slow.

By season three, with Ultra Magnus arrived and the Wreckers effectively reformed, Bulkhead is a senior soldier rather than the muscle. He is one of the few Autobots to end the series exactly where he wanted to be.

SUV alt mode; the physically strongest Autobot on Team Prime after Optimus, capable of transforming his hands into a wrecking ball and a cannon. Wrecker training makes him the team's demolitions and breaching specialist. Limits: slow, poor at stealth, and repeatedly outmanoeuvred by faster opponents. His durability is high but not unlimited, and Tox-En exposure nearly kills him.

• Miko Nakadai: guardian and best friend, an indulgent relationship that repeatedly puts her in danger and is the emotional core of both characters.
• Wheeljack: fellow Wrecker and oldest friend, a bond that survives Wheeljack's refusal to take orders from anyone.
• Breakdown: his opposite number among the Decepticons, a personal rivalry with real history behind it.
• Ultra Magnus: a commanding officer whose insistence on protocol grates against everything Wrecker doctrine taught him.

IDW's Transformers Prime tie-in comics and the Prime: Rage of the Dinobots material stay close to the show. Transformers: Animated's Bulkhead is a separate and much broader character, a naive artist rather than a veteran soldier, and shares only the name and silhouette.

Survives the series and the Predacons Rising finale, returning to a restored Cybertron with the other Autobots.

• Voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, an extremely prolific voice actor who also played Predaking in the same series.
• Bulkhead originated in Transformers: Animated, voiced by Bill Fagerbakke, as a much broader comic character; Prime's version keeps the name and the bulk and discards nearly everything else.
• The Wreckers are a concept imported from Marvel UK's Transformers comics of the 1980s, and Prime's use of them is one of several deliberate nods to British-era continuity.
• Prime was produced in CGI by Polygon Pictures under Hasbro Studios, and the character models were built to a far higher polygon count than any previous Transformers television series.
• His alt mode is a deliberately non-specific SUV rather than a licensed vehicle, a choice made across most of Team Prime to avoid the licensing constraints the live-action films operate under.