AFTERBURNER

Allegiance: Autobot
Sub-Group: Technobot
Function: Gunner
First Cartoon Appearance: 
Grimlock’s New Brain
First Comics Appearance: Headmasters #1

“Following leaders leads nowhere.”

Profile: Quick to anger and even quicker to attack, Afterburner isn’t one to wait around for orders.  Confident his heavy armor protects him, he likes to turn up his speed an burst through enemy lines, firing away as he plunges through.  But his defiance doesn’t stop there.  He’s generally uncooperative in every way and his nasty temper only makes things worse.  He’s a decidedly disruptive machine.  Technobot Leader Scattershot is often compelled to take disciplinary measures and forcibly confine Afterburner for periods of time.  This only intensifies Afterburner’s hatred of authority and of Scattershot in particular.  Afterburner often takes off on his own, and invariably gets into some kind of trouble unrelated to the Autobots’s war with the Decepticons.  Afterburner is a rebel with a cause but one that he all too often chooses to ignore. 

Abilities: In his vehicle mode, Afterburner uses solid rocket fuel packs to boost his speed up to 450 mph for several minutes at a time.  A special adhesive substance secreted by his tires allows him to drive up all but the most slippery walls.  He carries two laser-guided incendiary missiles and a rapid-fire plasma pulse cannon, which shoots discrete packets of energy that explode on contact.  In robot mode, he uses a semi-automatic sonic blaster pistol with infrared sight.  He combines with his fellow Technobots to form the giant robot known as Computron.

Weaknesses:  Afterburner’s impetuous, defiant nature usually works to his disadvantage.  He often winds up in situations where he is clearly over-matched by his enemies.  He occasionally runs out of fuel, a result of his careless nature.  He sometimes goes on uncontrolled shooting binges that wind up harming him (from the powerful recoil of his weapons) more than his enemies.

Other Appearances: The Technobot Afterburner has not appeared again in any other generation of the Transformers Universe.  There was however another character with the same name, a G2 Decepticon Jet released in 1993.