Wheeljack (Prime)

Wheeljack in Transformers: Prime is not the affable inventor of the 1984 cartoon. He is a Wrecker who has spent the war operating alone in deep space, and he arrives in "Con Job" as a friend of Bulkhead's whose signal the Decepticons intercept first, replacing him with the shapeshifting spy Makeshift. James Horan voices him low and clipped, and the character's defining quality is that he does not take orders and does not pretend he intends to.

The show is unusually honest about what that costs. In "Loose Cannons" he returns hunting Dreadwing, who killed the Wrecker Seaspray, and Optimus is openly disturbed by his disregard for collateral damage and civilian risk. He is not a rogue with a heart of gold; he is a soldier whose war has no rules in it, dropped into a team that has spent years being careful. Bulkhead loves him and Optimus does not trust him, and both are right.

His most consequential act is also his most compromised. In "Hurt", with Bulkhead critically injured by Hardshell's Insecticons, Miko goes after revenge and Wheeljack takes her, and it is Miko who fires the shot that kills Hardshell from the Jackhammer's gun. Wheeljack lets a child commit a killing, and the show does not absolve him for it.

Season three pairs him with Ultra Magnus, which is the best possible antagonist for him: a commander who insists on protocol against a soldier who regards protocol as the reason the Autobots are losing. "Chain of Command" is essentially an argument between two valid doctrines. Wheeljack survives the war without ever really joining the team.

White sports car alt mode; carries twin katana-style blades and paired hand cannons, and is one of the best close-quarters fighters in the series. He pilots his own starship, the Jackhammer, giving him independent mobility no other Autobot has, and he is a competent demolitions engineer in the Wrecker tradition. Limits: refuses to coordinate, takes risks that endanger civilians and teammates, and has been captured more than once because he operates without backup.

• Bulkhead: the oldest and closest bond either has, two Wreckers who took opposite paths after the unit broke up.
• Miko Nakadai: he indulges her recklessness further than Bulkhead ever would, with consequences the show refuses to gloss.
• Ultra Magnus: an irreconcilable conflict of doctrine that season three treats as a genuine argument rather than a joke.
• Dreadwing: a blood feud over Seaspray that neither gets to finish personally.

IDW's mainline Transformers comics feature a very different Wheeljack, closer to the G1 engineer with a darker wartime history. The Prime tie-in comics keep him as the show has him. The two should not be conflated.

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

• Voiced by James Horan, whose gravel-toned delivery was a deliberate break from the original 1984 Wheeljack's lighter, inventor-ish characterisation by Chris Latta.
• G1 Wheeljack was an engineer who built the Dinobots; Prime's version keeps only the name, the white-and-red colour scheme and the distinctive face-panel design.
• His ship, the Jackhammer, gives him the only independent interstellar mobility on the Autobot side and was created for the show rather than adapted from earlier fiction.
• The Wreckers concept comes from Marvel UK's 1980s Transformers comics, where they were a deliberately expendable commando unit, and Prime's characterisation of Wheeljack draws directly on that tone.
• He is one of the few Prime characters to survive from his introduction through Predacons Rising without ever formally accepting a place in the chain of command.