Sentinel Prime (TFA)


 * Sentinel Prime is an Autobot in the Transformers Animated continuity family.



Sentinel Prime is a member of the Cybertron Elite Guard under the command of Ultra Magnus. Sentinel has a history of rivalry with Optimus Prime, who attended the Autobot Academy with him. In his academy days, he was somewhat of a maverick, leading the more responsible Optimus to refer to him as a "walking malfunction." Of course, he's the one that ended up on the Elite Guard while Optimus was sent off to repair space bridges, of which fact he's all too fond of reminding his former classmate, and a bit of a superiority complex toward non-guardsmen Autobots.

All things considered, he's kind of a jerk.

His alt-mode is a snow plow truck. He possesses an arm-mounted shield which can be expanded into a force-field, as well as tossed about as a weapon.

"But Sentinel..." "...is a glitch-head. All due respect."

- Jazz and Bumblebee sum up Sentinel Prime

Animated

 * Voice actor: Townsend Coleman (English), Peter Reinhardt (German)



Sentinel Prime took Optimus and Elita-1 on a mission looking for an old Decepticon warship, hoping to get all the energon stored within. However, they ran into a pack of massive arachnids. Sentinel Prime tried to hold them off long enough for Optimus and Elita to escape. When he came across a ship that Optimus and Elita had found, Optimus had to drag him away from the exploding energon, forcing them to leave Elita-1 behind. Optimus Prime's radar couldn't find Elita's energy signature, and he assumed that she was dead. A furious Sentinel blamed Optimus Prime for what happened, even though this whole disaster had been his idea. Jerk.

Years later, he was still a jerk. When Optimus Prime rang up the Cybertron Elite Guard to tell them of the Decepticons in pursuit, he sneered that a screw-up like Optimus wasn't worth the attention of Ultra Magnus. Piping through a visual of the AllSpark from the cargo hold of the Ark shut him up quickly enough.

Later, the Elite Guard visited Earth to take the Allspark. When Jazz decided to take a closer look at the humans, Sentinel warned that they could spew out slime that melts through armor plating, deliberately goading Optimus Prime with memories Elita One's fate. He decontaminated Optimus Prime's crew after setting a force field around the ship. When he heard that they'd defeated the Decepticons, he didn't believe Optimus, almost causing a fight between him and Bulkhead. Sentinel boasted to Ultra Magnus that he had taken the initiative and scanned some "typical" Earth vehicles so they would not draw undue attention. He had, in fact, scanned massive, destructive vehicles for them both.

En route to Dinobot Island, Sentinel further evidenced how subtlety obviously isn't his strong point by driving through a blockade and off an overpass still under construction. When he, Optimus and Magnus arrived, they encountered the Dinobots, and Sentinel began to attack, believing their technology was primitive. Grimlock's subsequent transformation caught him off-guard. They then went back to the city to take care of malfunctioning police drones. Sentinel started to act all high and mighty again, but Optimus ignored it, saying that Sentinel was on his turf now. Even when shown proof of the AllSpark not being destroyed, Sentinel's attitude did not change. He was thus rather surprised when Ultra Magnus said that Optimus had characteristics that Sentinel himself could stand to learn.

Ha ha.

Trivia

 * Sentinel Prime's shield-tossing fighting style is a fairly direct reference to Captain America. One of Captain America's many sobriquets is the "Sentinel of Liberty."
 * In "The Elite Guard", it is revealed that the "Prime" in his and Optimus's name is a designation of rank, so despite Optimus being an academy washout, he's still Sentinel's equal. This no doubt irritates Sentinel quite a bit.
 * Sentinel Prime's blue coloration and especially pronounced chin (even by normal Animated standards!) really make him look like The Tick. He's even voiced by Townsend Coleman, who provided the voice of the Tick in his 1990s animated series. At the minute, we don't know if the character was designed to look like the Tick and the casting was done based on that, or if the casting of Coleman prompted the Tick-style design, or some other combination of factors, but it's pretty evident that the writers are working with it, having him utter silly Tick-esque lines like "Energon-y goodness!"
 * This is the first time the name "Sentinel Prime" has been used outside the comics.
 * If he doesn't get a toy, there will be much sadness.