Hot Rod

Hot Rod is the Autobot Cavalier, a young hot-rodder introduced in The Transformers: The Movie and the character the 1986 continuity reboot is built around. He is first seen fishing with Daniel Witwicky and smashing through a security cordon Kup is setting up, which is the whole character in one scene. When he spots the hole in the incoming Autobot shuttle through his telescopic visor and opens fire, he exposes the Decepticon hijacking and buys Autobot City the seconds it needs to raise its defences.

The same impulse then costs everything. During Optimus Prime's duel with Megatron, Hot Rod sees Megatron feigning defeat and tackles him, only to be caught and used as a shield while Megatron delivers the wounds that kill Prime. He runs to the dying Prime begging forgiveness, and when Prime's strength fails and the Matrix of Leadership slips from his hand, it is Hot Rod who catches it, and it glows.

Shot down over Quintessa, he cuts himself free of mechanical vines with his buzzsaw hand, repairs a badly damaged Kup, and is captured and thrown to the Sharkticons before the Dinobots and Wheelie intervene. Inside Unicron he is throttled by Galvatron, seizes the Matrix hanging at the Decepticon's throat, and is transformed into Rodimus Prime, hurling Galvatron into space and opening the Matrix to destroy Unicron.

As Rodimus he is a markedly less confident figure, second-guessing himself constantly against Optimus Prime's memory. "Dark Awakening" has him hand the Matrix straight back to a resurrected Prime who turns out to be a Quintesson puppet; in "The Burden Hardest to Bear" the Stunticons knock the Matrix loose and he is in no hurry to get it back.

Fast, agile futuristic sports car mode; a retractable buzzsaw hand, a built-in telescopic visor, and a photon laser rifle. As Rodimus Prime he is larger, stronger and carries the Matrix of Leadership, which he can consult for Transformer history and guidance. His weaknesses are entirely temperamental: impulsiveness, an unwillingness to wait or to delegate, and, in the Rodimus persona, a chronic lack of confidence that leaves him second-guessing his own orders.

• Kup: mentor and advisor, forever offering wisdom Hot Rod does not think he needs.
• Arcee: an antagonistic but friendly relationship, she alternately worries about him and needles him; how far it goes is never stated on screen.
• Optimus Prime: the source of his guilt and, as Rodimus, of his inadequacy, since he blames himself for Prime's death.
• Galvatron: personal nemesis from their fight inside Unicron onward.

In Marvel's main continuity Hot Rod never becomes Rodimus Prime at all: he serves under Fortress Maximus, becomes a Targetmaster on Nebulos, is killed in Bludgeon's ambush on Klo and revived by the Last Autobot. Rodimus Prime appears only in the Marvel UK future timelines and the movie adaptation.

Leads the Autobots as Rodimus Prime from 2005 until "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 2," when Optimus takes the Matrix back and Hot Rod reverts permanently. He continues serving under Prime and is still active in "The Rebirth."

• His preliminary name was "Hot Rodimus," which became his name in Japan.
• Like the other 1986 movie characters he was designed by Floro Dery first, with the animation models drawn from the finished toys afterwards; the earlier pre-final models are what appear in the Marvel Transformers Universe profiles.
• The 1987 Targetmaster reissue paired him with Firebolt and retooled his fists and engine block with larger pegholes; early packaging carried the erroneous blurb "Firebolt transforms into Misfire's weapon," corrected first by a sticker and then by a reprint.
• Rodimus Prime's toy trailer, the "Mobile Defense Bay," never made it into fiction; the cartoon simply folded the trailer into his body instead.

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.

• Whether the Matrix genuinely chose him or merely responded to proximity is left open by the movie and argued over in later fiction.
• Marvel and the cartoon disagree outright on whether he ever becomes Rodimus Prime in the primary timeline.
• The nature of his relationship with Arcee is never resolved on screen; tfwiki notes only that how deep his feelings run is unknown.