Hound

Hound is the Autobot scout who fell in love with the assignment. His tech spec says he prefers Earth to Cybertron and secretly wishes he were human, and the cartoon plays that straight: he takes on extra patrol duty in "S.O.S. Dinobots" purely because it gives him an excuse to do some Earth-style sightseeing. He is brave, loyal and, by his own comrades' standards, remarkably gentle, which makes him one of the few Autobots who can work alongside a hothead like Cliffjumper without friction.

His kit is reconnaissance rather than firepower. The turret gun doubles as a radar scope and infrared collector, he can track machines and humans alike, and his hologram gun projects three-dimensional laser-light maps. In practice the holograms end up being the Autobots' most flexible weapon. He conjures an army of duplicate Megatrons in "Roll for It" so Bumblebee and Spike can pull Chip Chase out of the antimatter lab; he fakes his own team's destruction in "Fire in the Sky" to survive a Decepticon execution order; and in "Heavy Metal War" he throws up a colossal projected Autobot to hold Devastator's attention long enough for Optimus Prime to win.

His single biggest contribution is accidental. In "S.O.S. Dinobots" he takes Spike to a museum and scans three dinosaur skeletons with his hologram gun, and the resulting simulation is what gives Wheeljack and Ratchet the idea to build the Dinobots. His first mission, in "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1", ends with him in a ravine after Cliffjumper blows their cover, too damaged to transform and needing Hauler to lift him out. He holds no grudge, which is entirely in character.

Hound's turret gun works as a radar scope and infrared radiation collector, letting him track machines and humans alike, and his hologram gun projects three-dimensional grid laser-light topographical maps and convincing full-size illusions used for decoys, fake casualties and long-range messages. He is a competent but unexceptional combatant; his own tech spec lists him as vulnerable to thermal and electromagnetic interference, which undercuts the sensor work that is his entire function. He is also physically fragile relative to the front-liners, taking heavy damage on his very first mission, and his powers depend on his gun, which Soundwave blasts out of his hands in "The Autobot Run".

• Spike Witwicky: his usual human companion on scouting trips and museum visits, and the clearest expression of his fascination with humanity.
• Mirage: his standing infiltration partner, pairing holograms with invisibility for the antimatter lab break-in and the New York sewer rescue.
• Cliffjumper: gets along with one of the most trigger-happy Autobots on the roster and refuses to hold his first-mission recklessness against him.
• Skyfire: argues for repairing the Decepticon-aligned flyer, a call vindicated when Skyfire defects rather than execute him.

Both versions keep him as the Earth-loving scout whose holograms solve problems firepower cannot, and Marvel opens with him marvelling at the planet's lifeforms while Optimus Prime reminds him they are here to work. The difference is tone: Marvel's Hound is more of a working soldier who leads convoys and takes down Ravage, while the cartoon leans harder on his sightseeing and his role as the Dinobots' accidental inventor.

He survives the whole Earth war and is still serving in 2005, stationed at Autobot City and placing roadblocks on the Lookout Mountain trail as part of Kup's detail before the Decepticon attack; he lives through the Battle of Autobot City but is quietly phased out of the cartoon afterwards along with the rest of the 1984 cast.

• The toy began life as the Diaclone "J59 Jeep", a Mitsubishi Jeep J59 that shipped with a blue-and-white pilot figure and several trademark-infringing decals.
• Because Hasbro reused existing Diaclone package art, Hound's animation model was drawn from the packaging rather than the toy. The artist misread the foreshortening on his enormous holographic rifle and gave the cartoon character a small pistol, a mistake later baked into the 2004 Alternators figure's weapon.
• Early bio material lists three nicknames that were never used: Sarge, Nose and Sniffer.
• Ken Sansom's performance is widely noted for sounding like James Stewart.
• The same package-art confusion left his helmet permanently disputed, with comic artists mostly following the animation model's indented centre section while the toys kept the original raised ridge.

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.

• His weapon's scale: the toy's rifle is enormous, the animation model's is a small pistol, and the two have never been reconciled across later toys and comics.
• Whether Hound or Mirage is the hologram specialist. Both bios originally gave the power to both, and the cartoon resolved it by handing holograms to Hound and invisibility to Mirage.
• His helmet design alternates between the toy's raised central ridge and the animation model's indented version depending on the artist.