Bulkhead

Status: Released

Release Date: June 2008 (June 2008)

Wave: Animated Voyager Wave 1

MSRP: $19.99

Size Class: Voyager

Suggested Age: 5+

Assortment Number: 83463

Product Number: 83471

UPC/Barcode Number: 653569293712

DPCI Number: 087-06-0087

Recolors/Reuses: Animated Voyager Mudbuster Bulkhead

Vehicle Mode

The vehicle mode is a six wheeled military hauler/personel carrier. Good rounded form, looks to be rather true to the animated look. Great amount of detail where it can go, though in actual color pics I think some of it gets covered with paint apps. He's good and bulky too. He really has a solid feeling to him. The only bot mode carry-over is the enclosure for his head, and the gap in the top of his back area.

Transformation

His transformation is simple, once you know what you're doing. My package came without instructions so I had to take a blind leap or two.

First you fold down the back ramp area.

Then you rotate his legs down from under his cab area.

A little twist folds his front two wheels into heels.

Next step you unfold his top area with the light bars down to the side.

Here his first Automorphish gimmick kicks in and his arms spring forward.

You just need to push his shoulders a bit to lock it in to his body. Then you have to push up and back on the front cab area to put his body into place. This activates his second automorph and flips his head around.

Finally you separate his back ramp and it can click out a touch to give it the bended look.

Robot Mode

Awesome. Purely awesome. Really. He's a stout Mo-Fo with a wrecking ball. He's rather articulated despite the stubby legs and stout arms. Bending knees and full motion hips, and maybe even a bit of ankle motion if you want to count his wheel heel a bit. Full motion shoulder, rotating bicep, elbows, and three fingered hands on his arms. His head had two joints, and it works well. At the bottom of his neck he has what must be a rather flat ball joint, and at the top of his neck is a swivel joint so that he can turn his head all the way upside-down, while looking forward. And his head is pretty good, even in just red. The big unibrow and jaw give him a cavemanish expression, but for his body size its what's right.

The only "problem" with him is no hip/waist movement, but if I was that bulky I probably wouldn't twist around much either. The only kibble is the remnants of his shell on his sides, and maybe the bit over his head, but that's represented in his animation model so it doesn't count, right? He's rather agile as well, despite all of the bulk.

Other Gimmicks

His two gimmicks pop up in his arm. The first, and most drastic is his left arm wrecking ball. I darn near put my eye out the first time I discovered it. It is a gumball type of launcher without springs, the only thing that saved my vision was a tether that goes back into the arm. It is activated by pulling back the orange (on the proto) tab, until it fires. The second arm gimmick is kind of odd. When his right arm is straight if you pull back on the blue (again just on my proto) tab, his arm bends back. It seems to be more tedious to bend his arm that way, than just to bend it, but maybe I'm missing something here.

Overall

If you like the Animated feel, buy this guy. He's solid, and in a good way. Even though he's not human proportioned, he's got a setup that's fitting. Heck, all of his lines are very smooth, and bits that end up meeting up from across the alt mode end up lining up very smoothly in the 'bot mode.

Voice Actor: Bill Fagerbakke

Cartoon Overview
Every team needs its “muscle” and BULKHEAD is it. Designed primarily for demolition, BULKHEAD is a bull in a china shop, whether he wants to be or not. In battle, he’s your greatest weapon. Everywhere else… well, hide the breakables. He’s not overly clumsy, but he’s like a big overly enthusiastic dog who doesn’t know his own size or strength. BULKHEAD has a natural curiosity about humans and their culture. He’s especially interested in art, something that doesn’t exist on Cybertron. On some level the creative urge is an attempt to compensate for all the destruction—deliberate or inadvertent – that he causes. Problem is, most of his “creations” either fall apart, don’t look a thing like what he says they are, or are just plain ugly. Not that anyone would ever tell BULKHEAD that to his face.

Bulkhead finds his new "superhero" status on Earth slightly frustrating, since people see him as the big brute of the group and only want to see him smash stuff up, not realizing he has a "sensitive side". He's also extremely clumsy and heavy footed, and this frustrates him greatly. At Sari's suggestion he took up art and even got his own exhibition.

Prowl once tried to teach Bulkhead how to move more gracefully, although the result was Bulkhead would slow down to think about things, hampering his effectiveness. One of his biggest flaws is that he tries to please everyone, even when it means being someone he is not. He's also very sensitive and gets jealous easily, like when Sari got a new music playing robot (Soundwave). In "Survival of the Fittest", Bulkhead took a critical injury from Meltdown and would have died if Prowl had not found Sari and used her key to repair his wounds.

During Megatron Rising, Bulkhead went one on one with Lugnut. While his strength paled in comparison to Lugnut's, Bulkhead was able to defeat Lugnut by outsmarting him and setting off Lugnut's explosive punch with his mace before Lugnut was ready. The resulting explosion KO'ed Lugnut.

When Sari moved in with the Autobots in Return of the Headmaster, Bulkhead did his best with Bumblebee to help Sari settle in, but in his usual clumsy way didn't quite understand what Sari was going through, and ended up making things worse.

Bulkhead's the more mature of the "fun bot" duo, and in Velocity he takes to sneaking around after Bumblebee, trying to keep Bumblebee out of trouble when he keeps insisting on bending - and breaking - the rules. He very much plays the sensible "straight man" to Bumblebee's comedian.

Bulkhead hates to think badly of others, and when the other Autobots think the Constructicons are dangerous and should be treated with caution, Bulkhead takes them in and tries to make them a part of the team (Rise of the Constructicons). Unfortunately the Constructicons are swayed into joining the Decepticons, which greatly upsets Bulkhead, and he nearly pounds them into dust after feeding them tainted oil that disables them. He took their betrayal extremely personally.

In Autoboot Camp, we learn that Bulkhead "grew up" on an Energon Farm, causing him to be seen as a "mudflap" by the other cadets at the Autobot Academy. He was named Bulkhead by Sentinel Prime (then Sentinel Minor) because he was "all bulk and no brains" after accidentally KO'ing Sentinel with his wrecking ball. Back then, Bulkhead's ambition was to be a Spacebridge Engineer, an ambition he realised, although his lack of ambition was something that Bumblebee criticised him for.

It turns out that Bulkhead is by far Cybertron's best Spacebridge Engineer (He apparently had a lot of time to read up on it while he was on the Energon farm he grew up on). This attracted the attention of Megatron, who kidnapped and threatened Bulkhead until Bulkhead cooperated and completed Megatron's Spacebridge (much to the amazement of Isaac Sumdac, but Bulkhead was so fed up of people assuming he was good at nothing that he decided to show the otherwise - at quite possibly the worst moment imaginable. Nice going, Bulkhead).

When the Spacebridge went out of control, Bulkhead raced to try to get the system back under control, but such a feat was beyond even his talents by that time, and in the end, it took Omega Supreme, the Autobot Last Line of Defense sacrificing himself to save the day.

In the aftermath of "A Bridge Too Close" Bulkhead was tasked with rebuilding Megatron's Spacebridge in order to contact Cybertron and warn the Autobots about Shockwave / Longarm Prime. His expertise in Spacebridge components proved invaluable in bringing Bumblebee back to Earth after he was accidentally zapped across the galaxy, and then in stopping Bumblebee from being teleported a second time. With Ratchet, Bulkhead is resolved to finding a way to get in touch with Cybertron somehow.

Working with Isaac Sumdac, Bulkhead tries to get the Spacebridge working, but he turns out to be pretty demanding to work with. After he accidentally wrecks part of Sumdac tower, he decides to enlist the help of the Constructicons to fix the damage, and although they are easily convinced to help, the appearance of Dirt Boss - a new Construction who was created as a result of Bulkhead's accident bringing a Forklift, an Allspark fragment and the Headmaster unit together - wrecked things. For a while, Bulkhead lacked the strength to stand up to the bully-boy Dirt Boss and the other Constructicons, but eventually Bulkhead found the courage to stand up to them. Unfortunately for him, Dirt Boss was able to take control of him using his mind probe, and he forced Bulkhead to assist in wrecking the Fossil Fuel refinery. Ratchet was later able to remove Dirt Boss' probe, and Bulkhead reprogrammed the Spacebridge component that Isaac Sumdac had been working on to send Dirt Boss, Mixmaster, Scrapper, and the explosive main tank of the refinery to a safe distance before it blew apart.

Bulkhead's time at Autoboot camp proved vital to proving Bumblebee's identity in "Where is Thy Sting?". When Wasp, deranged and seeking revenge on "Bumble-Bot" switched places with Bumblebee, it was only because Bumblebee reminded Bulkhead of how he took the fall for him to stop Sentinel Prime kicking Bulkhead out of boot camp that Bulkhead realized that the Wasp-colored Bumblebee was the real deal. Bulkhead returned the favor, by suggesting the two Bumblebees play each other at Ninja Gladiator - Bumblebee himself is one of the best players around after all, so the real one would have to be the one who won. This made Wasp crack, and run away, and although he got away, Bulkhead's friendship with Bumblebee saved his friend.

Bulkhead and the other Autobots gained an insight into what it meant to be human in "Human Error". One Christmas morning, after drinking some bad “oil nog” tainted by Soundwave, Bulkhead and the other Autobots awakened to find that they had become 100% human. Bulkhead took advantage of his new humanity, and did something he'd always wanted to do - chow down! This did not last for long, though, because the Decepticons attacked in force. After realising that they were in a virtual reality created by Soundwave, Bulkhead helped to defeat Blitzwing - by punching a hole through his leg! When the Autobots then reassumed their robotic forms, Bulkhead had a little trouble, and had to "make the transforming sound" to ease things along. However, this did not last, as Soundwave soon regained control of the virtual reality and forced all of the Autobots back into their "Automen" forms. Soundwave then took control of the Autobots, and forced them to attack Sari, who had gathered a group of "substitute Autobots" - Wreck-Gar, Scrapper and Snarl. Bulkhead initially fought Snarl and Scrapper, and was eventually defeated when Scrapper broke open a fire hydrant and froze Bulkhead solid. Once Soundwave was finally defeated, Bulkhead returned to his old self. The whole experience taught Bulkhead and the other Autobots about what it was to be human, and indeed, about what Christmas truly means.

"Decepticon Air" once again proved that when it comes to Spacebridge science, Bulkhead does not work well with others, as he continuously argued with Isaac Sumdac at the beginning of the episode over who got the settings for the Spacebridge wrong.

In "Endgame" Bulkhead along with Bumblebee, Ratchet and Sari journeys to the moon to recover Omega Supreme and shut down Megatron's Omega Supreme clones. On the moon, Bulkhead faces off against and defeats Shockwave. He also finds the long-missing Protoforms (from "Five Servos of Doom").

With the other Autobots, Bulkhead returns to Cybertron a hero for his part in defeating Megatron and recovering the lost Protoforms.

Small noises, like dripping, annoy the heck out of Bulkhead. Apparently, according to Ratchet, Bulkhead's handwriting is terrible, although this is attributed to Bulkhead's hands (three fingered claws) moreso than anything else.

Powers and Abilities

Bulkhead has by far the greatest physical strength of all the Autobots, and he is pretty resistant to damage, too, able to shrug off attacks that would knock down the other Autobots (for example, he easily takes a blast from Professor Princess and Powdered Sugar when Bumblebee is floored by a similar attack).

Bulkhead can also retract both of his arms to form his signature mace weapons. He usually favors his right arm but can also transform his left into a smashing mace. The maces can also be used as melee weapons without launching them.

Bulkhead is also Cybertron's greatest Spacebridge engineer (he had a lot of time to read up on them while he was on the farm).

Vehicle Mode Appearance: S.W.A.T. Assault Vehicle.

IDW Overview The Arrival #1 fills in some of Bulkhead's inner thoughts during his first few weeks on Earth. He was amazed at the hero's reception he and the other Autobots were receiving (he compared the kind of respect to what the Elite Guard would get on Cybertron). Bulkhead was really enjoying his time on Earth, right up until Starscream showed up to bring things back to reality. The Arrival #4 features a Bulkhead-centric story. When Porter C. Powell releases a new line of megavans based on Bulkhead's design - which Powell Motorworks built in the first place - Bulkhead was outraged and crashed the press conference. Bulkhead only got more angry when Powell edited his rant to make it sound as though he was supporting the Bulkhead vans. Things turned from bad to worse when everyone in the city - from Spike and Carly to the Angry Archer - owned a Bulkhead. However, after Bulkhead stopped the Angry Archer's getaway van (with some help from Professor Princess) Ratchet discovered the vans were poorly designed. Bulkhead then went undercover with Sari to get a full video confession from Powell at a "Pimp my Bulkhead" event. Bulkhead was overjoyed when Powell was then forced to withdraw the whole line of Bulkhead megavans, with Bumblebee only slightly ruining the mood with his own custom paint job.

IDW Appearances Animated The Arrival Part 1 Animated The Arrival Part 2 Animated The Arrival Part 3 Animated The Arrival Part 4

Notes
Hasbro's Transformers Animated site posted a slightly different version of Bulkhead's bio:

Every team needs its "muscle" and BULKHEAD is it, designed primarily for demolition in battle he is your greatest weapon. In everyday situations, hide your breakables. He's not overly clumsy but he doesn't know his own size or strength. At first, BULKHEAD comes off as a dumb jock, but scratch the surface and you will realize that he is a softy at heart.

ROBOT MODE POWER: "Wrecking Ball"
A massive wrecking ball comes out in place of BULKHEAD'S right hand. It is tethered to his arm by high-tensile cording. He can send it flying for a long distance. He uses his wrecking ball for hitting, crushing, baiting, ensnaring, and over-all DECEPTICON bashing.


Official Cartoon Network Press Release Bio

Every team needs its “muscle” and BULKHEAD is it. Designed primarily for demolition, BULKHEAD is a bull in a china shop, whether he wants to be or not. In battle, he’s your greatest weapon. Everywhere else… well, hide the breakables. He’s not overly clumsy, but he’s like a big overly enthusiastic dog who doesn’t know his own size or strength. BULKHEAD has a natural curiosity about humans and their culture. He’s especially interested in art, something that doesn’t exist on Cybertron. On some level the creative urge is an attempt to compensate for all the destruction—deliberate or inadvertent – that he causes. Problem is, most of his “creations” either fall apart, don’t look a thing like what he says they are, or are just plain ugly. Not that anyone would ever tell BULKHEAD that to his face.

Robot Mode Power: BULKHEAD is easily the strongest of the AUTOBOTS. That combined with battering ram arms make him the ultimate “Demolition Bot.”
Bulkhead's hands can retract into his arms and form massive mace weapons, although in swinging these around, Bulkhead can often cause more damage than his target.


Other Comic Information

Titan UK

Even Bulkhead was unable to stop Starscream overrunning the Autobot base in Transformers #17. With the other Autobots, he had to be rescued by the Dinobots.

In issue #3 of the short-lived Titan UK Transformers Animated comic, Bulkhead attended a basketball game with Sari, Prowl and Afterburn. Naturally Bulkhead got the wrong idea of "learning from the game" instead picking up bad habits from the crowd such as shouting at the players and honking airhorns.
His naivete also showed when he assumed the people of New Detroit would not turn against the Autobots just because Crossroad told them to hand themselves over or the people would suffer the consequences - seconds later, an angry crowd appeared and the Autobots had to run for it.

Appearances


Titan UK Transformers #17
Titan UK Transformers Animated Comic #1 - Burnout
Titan UK Transformers Animated Comic #3 - Crossroads

Contributors: Tony_Bacala, aksmth, Tim Formas

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