No just one.

Prime dies, and a new body is built for the copied digital personality that is downloaded into it. His original body is completely destroyed.
The comic ref's this prime is a backup of the original, although it could be argued an A.I. has a digital "soul" if you like, so you can say that it still is the same prime. However he also loses all his memories and starts over with a blank slate. So it's a bit confusing.

This story happens after a gap of several months in the comics where he [prime] and Megatron are not in it at all and Grimlock is leading the autobots and keeps ordering them to kill humans, but the Autobots don't want to and get fed up with Grimlock as in incompetent leader. Blaster challenges Grimlock to a fight to the death (well Grimlock does really) but they get interrupted by a massive invading force of Decepticons.



Reminds me of the Royal Rumble in WWE where they get in as many characters as they can.

Fortress Maximus is at a laughable size, at only a little taller than Prime and Grimlock. And then those stupid Nebulons turn into headmasters, YOW! Talk about back pain. Idiots keep volunteering like they are doing the robots a favor. As pilots they make some kind of sense, but as ENGINES? WTF!

 

Nice pickup I hadn't noticed that before. So we have 3 confirmed deaths based on the definition + Ironhide.

Also in Dark Awakening we have Ratchet and Huffer confirmed dead.

 

He also didn't actually die - the idea is his spark has an anomaly which allows his consciousness via his spark to be a kind of semi-corperal ghost that can actively possess other Transformers. In fact the truth is he's technically immortal given his last appearance in the G1 cartoon is him spinning uncontrolably into deep space while Galvatron tries to shoot his ghost (dude's insane after all)...and somehow he's drifted for god only knows how long and also back in time when he shows up on prehistoric Earth to possess Waspinator. Of note, in Beast Wars, Starscream makes mention of Unicron and while his glorious story of selfless sacrifice to save Megatron is of course absoutely nonsensical, the implication is Starscream knows of Unicron's full planet form - which means he'd have to have seen it after his body is reduced to dust by Galvatron because at that point, only the reformatted Decepticons have seen Unicron's planet mode.

I think the simple solution is to simply retcon every instance in G1 where a specific, vital component being damaged/lost/destroyed results in a transformer's death to being what would have been a spark had the term existed from the start of G1.

Except the plot of B.O.T. Both because it's funnier that Brawl's brain is necessary for Bruticus combination when he's literally one of the stupidest INT rated Decepticons in all of G1, as well as the fact it is B.O.T. and the less brain power lost on trying to fix that chernobyl-grade disaster of an episode, the better.

Because dying in the shuttle later when it inevitably crashes into the ground because nobody's piloting it after the Decepticons jump out to attack the city isn't also a possibility?

Earlier than Animated - Armada Prime essentially does the whole 'fade to monochrome' death, followed up by actually crumbling into dust too.

Except so was Optimus Prime, post-movie. First time the Quints basically exhumed and desecrated his body from a mausoleum of long dead Autobots so they could turn it into a zombie puppet - then after the Matrix purged the quint control over him, Prime basically came back to life long enough to order the Autobots off his ship so he could sacrifice himself by piloting said ship into a quint boobytrap, supposedly consuming him in an exploding sun. He was noticeably not gray despite explicitly being a robot zombie and in worse condition than when he actually died in TFTM.


And then later in the Return of OP episode 1, the lifeless but still not gray corpse of Prime is recovered because somehow that whole nuclear sun trap didn't destroy him or the ship.


And when he's still dead later toward the end of that first episode, he's still not gray.

How in the world are you equating Starscream crumbling like a rock as being the same as basically an internal detonation throwing debris everywhere?

So these two are not clearly dead because they're not gray either?

Do you even know what 'incineration' actually means? Because that isn't how Unicron died, nor Starscream because he died by disintegration.

Because they aren't actually physically mounted on the body, unlike those giant shoulderpads. And the crown bouncing down the stairs to be crushed under Galvatron's foot is frankly one of the more iconic moments of the film.

Also his eyes are still red too while his head starts falling to pieces.

Just rewatched Galvatron killing Starscream and the fact this is debate over a toy-shilling movie from the 80s aside and not really planned so elaborately to the degree you're taking it, Galvatron merely fires ONE burst at Starscream's chest, which makes him glow purple for a few moments, then purple lightning is flashing all around him (he's still not gray though) and Screamer leans back dramatically halfway through with what looks like a red cone of light shooting out from his forehead while the cape is visibly being torn into shreds from the outer edges, then the lightning fades at the same time Screamer himself fades to gray and immediately disintegrates into dust.

Because Galvatron was not firing a continuous beam, that precludes the idea that he simply overheated Starscream (as does the fact you're implying Starscream being made of metal does not somehow imply he'd melt before reaching disintegration level heat, given generic robots are melted later in the film), as does the purple lightning laser show that seems to be the means of what actually caused Starscream's body to crumble. Likewise, at this point, Galvatron has been infused with power from Unicron so any concept of physics doesn't even need to apply to rationalizing how Galvy's cannon actually works.

 

You forget one very important key regarding all of this. Marvel/Sunbow has been extremely inconsistent concerning practically anything. From using mechanics that outright defy any laws of physics, to seeing 2 Cyclonus and 3 Sweeps then 1 Cyclonus and 4 sweeps (also, Bruticus fighting along side, and same size as, his component bots <-- one of my all time favorites  ) and many more.

I wouldn't put that much weight into him dying in the movie as they pulled a Marvel and brought him "back to life" later on in the series. It really was a convoluted mess.

 

I assume that Wheeljack and Windcharger were right about to die, and ended up dying off screen.

 

In G1/BW/Animated continuity it seems that they're extremely durable and can survive pretty much anything that isn't spark damage/extreme energy loss. I think they're most fragile in the Bay movies.

 

Yes it could have happened when Arcee puts her hand to her chest when they turned grey.

 

Actually both Prowl and Ratchet were the first to fade to "grey-ish" when they were killed...........its harder to see but if you look at Ratchets hand and the red parts of Prowls helmit you see both fade to grey/black

 

actually if you slow down the play back you will see he was shot in the chest area

Actually the concepts of sparks were created in the early scripts for the 86 film

sure it is
just as its a possibility he also survived the crash

clearly damaged yes

clearly dead, not so much

 

If it didn't make it into the final script, it doesn't count. If you want to play that card, put Autobot symbols on your Predacons.

 

sorry buudy but it does count to the post im replying to.
the post i replied to was not about when it was introduced into the fiction but when the concept was invented

Nevermore said.........

which is not true because the concept of a spark was invented with the early scripts of the film

 

These days, all you have to do is be in a Bay movie.  

 

And the sparks that are mentioned in the draft script, are they anything like what Sparks we were given in BW? No. So while the naming convention, "life spark" actually, was used in a disposed of script, the Spark as it is currently known didn't hit until BW.

 

Yea the G1 movie (and the rest of the cartoon) is pretty inconsistent.

 

Well I assumed he was already dead because Brawn would have at least tried to get back up and fight much like Ironhide was trying his best to fight back despite his wounds which resulted in a blast to the face.

Really? Well there goes all my jokes.

 

I always thought the only criteria needed for a transformers to die was Hasbro wanted you to buy new toys.

Just imagine if the GI Joe movie was made 1st. I think both Duke and Optimus would be dead but because Optimus died 1st; he saved Duke. If Duke had died 1st I don't think kids would have reacted the same way as to Optimus and thus both would have died.

 

I'm not a Transformist. I hate all versions of Starscream equally.

Thanks for the cool post and nice pics!

Dude, you just killed over 30 years of toys in ONE post. You're more evil than Shockwave's mirror universe brother spliced with the DNA of Unicron, Overlord and Megatron!

 

I have been told I can have a morbid since of humor.

But what said about Duke and Optimus is true, just watch the documentary stuff on the 25th Anniversary edition of the Transformers Movie. Optimus's death saved Duke. All GI Joe fans owe us a debt of gratitude.
I watched the movie a bunch on the way to botcon 2009 and just pulled it out again and watched the other day with my two year when he wouldn't go to sleep. Knowing now the whole point was to get us to buy more toys made all the transformers deaths seem so much more brutal. In addition, Megatron scared my two year old as he ran behind me when he finished off Ironhide.

 

I always thought that turning gray upon death depended on the amount of damage and/or energon loss.

 

according to the earlier scripts for the film,the concept of the "Life Spark" was described as a life-force/soul , a physical and visable aspect that exited a dieing transformer body and resembled asmall, glowing form of energy

Yep, the sparks mentioned in the early scripts are like those we got in BW......at least in concept in my opinion.

and again i remind you, its the "concept" of a spark i am replying to,
not what and how the Spark as it is currently known to be