Sunstreaker (G1)


 * Sunstreaker is an Autobot in the Generation 1 continuity family.



Sunstreaker knows to his core of his spark that he is better than any other Autobot, and he makes sure everyone else knows it, too. His sociopathic tendencies, combined with his incredible vanity and arrogance, usually result in tension between himself and the other Autobots. He is generally unwilling to help those who are having trouble keeping up, and is quite audible when it comes to complaining about the shortcomings of everyone else. The only Autobot he truly gets along with is his twin brother, Sideswipe, and even that can seem strained at times.

The main reason Optimus Prime keeps him around is most likely Sunstreaker's effectiveness in the battlefield. Ruthless and skilled in all forms of combat, there is not much Sunstreaker cannot handle. As a front-line warrior, Sunstreaker is a great asset for the Autobot army. If a rather scary one.


 * Italian name: Lince
 * French-Canadian name: Solo
 * Preliminary name: Spinout

Marvel Comics continuity
(Note: Events from the UK-only comic stories are in italics.)

''Prior to the outbreak of Cybertron's planet-wide civil war, Sunstreaker was a gladiator in the State Games.

Sunstreaker was among the crew of the Ark that crashed 4 million years ago and woke up in 1984.

''In the first few days on Earth, Sunstreaker diverted an attack by Thundercracker and Skywarp towards a human civilization so as to keep himself from harm.

When Shockwave took control over the Decepticons and possession of the Ark, he destroyed Sunstreaker's body as a demonstration and warning to the deposed Megatron. Because of this, Sunstreaker's body was in disrepair for a very long time, and at one point (issue 10, to be specific), when G.B. Blackrock asks about him in the med bay, Jazz tells him Ratchet isn't even sure if Sunstreaker will ever be operational again. (This appears to have occurred in a panel on page 9 of US issue #5, but the coloring is completely wrong for Sunstreaker. However, given Sunstreaker's absence in the scene on page 4 of US issue #9, which is meant to include all the Autobots, and Yomtov's penchant for completely messing up the colors, it seems reasonable that Sunstreaker is the Autobot Shockwave destroyed. Issue 10 shows him still in repair. The 1986 Marvel UK annual also listed his status as 'injured; little possibility of revival.')

Sunstreaker was fully repaired in time to view the duel between Blaster and Grimlock on the moon. The massive battle with the Decepticons which ensued apparently left him badly damaged once more, as he wound up in stasis aboard the Ark again, to be revived by Nucleon in 1990, when he and the other newly revived Autobots joined the attack on Unicron.

Earthforce
(Note: These stories do not fit into the normal Marvel UK continuity. See Earthforce for details.)

''Early into the Autobot-Decepticon war, Sunstreaker was a member of the Magnificent Six. While they were on a mission to the Stanix region of Cybertron, he made a remarkably callous joke that convinced their allies to turn them over to the Decepticons. The entire unit was tortured for a week, and one of them was killed. Nice.

''An injured Sunstreaker, along with several other Autobots, was awakened not by Nucleon, but by Galvatron's Dream-Inducing Bug. Galvatron had studied their dreams in the aim of finding dissenting members of the Autobots that he hoped to put into his own employ, but after a short skirmish, Galvatron's device was placed on himself.

''Later, Sunstreaker was sent on a new mission to the Stanix region of Cybertron with Silverbolt, Prowl, Wheeljack, Jazz, and Inferno by Optimus Prime. While there, he overcame the ghosts of the past and helped defeat the mad Decepticon Megadeath. Of course, he was the only member of the team that didn't seen particularly haunted by those events in the first place, but the others overcame them, and wasn't that nice for them?

Animated continuity

 * Voice Actor: Corey Burton (US), Kenyu Horiuchi (Japan)

Sunstreaker was part of the original crew of Autobots aboard the Ark that crashlanded on Earth four million years ago. When reawakened in 1984, he and his brother Sidesewipe were reformatted into Lamborghini sports cars.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker often operated together. When antimatter-fueled Decepticons attacked the Ark on one occasion, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker took to the air to battle with the incoming seeker jets, in a rambunctious -- if ultimately ineffective -- display of "jet judo."

Sunstreaker was one of several Autobots who glommed onto Hoist's job as a Hollywood extra in the hopes of becoming a movie star. This mainly resulted in him wearing a ridiculous alien mask and spouting out stilted, wooden dialogue.

Before the Decepticon attack on Autobot City, Sunstreaker was helping Kup move a roadblock. He was knocked over when Hot Rod and Daniel Witwicky drove through it.

Meanwhile, he was also on Moon Base One and helped pilot the shuttle that flew Optimus Prime and the Dinobots to Autobot City.

Universe comics


After the Pax Cybertronia, Sunstreaker left Cybertron with five other survivors of the Great War (Sideswipe, Roulette, Shadow Striker, and Trailbreaker). One year after Cybertron was reformatted into a technorganic planet, they returned. They were greeted by many of the Maximal and Predacon inhabitants and with vast media coverage.

However, what appeared to be celebratory fireworks struck the five Autobots and also the Maximals Silverbolt and Blackarachnia. They were transported to a fiery cauldron deep within Unicron, where all but Trailbreaker were rebuilt painfully into new bodies.

Seeing an arena up ahead, the seven moved towards it, only to be attacked by a swarm of shape-shifting lava-like creatures. Sunstreaker and the others were overwhelmed and taken into the arena (or, the Cauldron), where they were caged along with a multitude of Transformers kidnapped from across the multiverse.

The Unicron-influenced ambiance of the place was slowly driving the more violent of the group mad. This, of course, included Sunstreaker. He and Sideswipe were forced into combat in the arena(each wielding spiffy Energon weapons), but were rescued by a reborn Optimus Primal. The group, sans a corrupted Blackarachnia and Shadow Striker, fled back to Cybertron.

Binaltech Asterisk


Sunstreaker is a member of the Cybertron (Autobot) Race Team, which may or may not have any other Transformers on it. He's sort of a mascot for them, and the team doesn't actually use him in races. He resents that people pay more attention to him as a promotional image than as a racecar.

Sunstreaker is partnered with - for unknown reasons - the human "race queen" model Junko Shiragami, and acts as her car. Once, Sunstreaker got in a race with a human-driven sports car, much to Junko's dismay. He used his transformation ability to take a particularly sharp curve, destroying a road sign in the process, for which Junko chewed him out.

It is said that Sunstreaker drives faster when he smells Junko's marigold-scented hair.

Dreamwave comics continuity
When Ultra Magnus arrived on Earth to enforce Shockwave's edict that the Earth-bound Autobots surrender themselves to the Cybertronian alliance, Optimus Prime ordered a portion of his troops into hiding in Portland, Oregon. This group, led by Jazz, included Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Ratchet, Brawn, Wheeljack, and Windcharger. However, Starscream, Soundwave, and his cassettes soon escaped to Earth with Bruticus. Attacking the Ark, they destroyed all of Jazz's group minus Ratchet and Brawn. Sunstreaker and the others were left in a swamp, deactivated.

A ship crewed by Minibots (led by Bumblebee) arrived on Earth with supplies, and Warpath and Bumper pulled the deactivated from their would-be swampy grave. They were promptly arrested by Commander Marissa Faireborn of the Earth Defense Command and her armored troops. The damaged were repaired.

Commander Faireborn came to Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Jazz with a mission. The American city of San Desto was under attack by Cybertronian creatures.

(Note: Long after Dreamwave closed, Matt Moylan revealed that their version of Sunstreaker was intended to be gay, though this specific facet of his character didn't seem to be made apparent in any fiction.)

IDW comics continuity
Sunstreaker was one of many Autobots trained by Kup and is part of a detachment of Autobots that has operated covertly on Earth for at least four years, attempting to foil a Decepticon insurgency. His attitude is about as superior as his original incarnation, dismissing the three humans Ratchet saves as "noisy creatures".

Sunstreaker, along with Ironhide was assigned the task of escorting the noisy creatures back to the big wild world, Tulsa, Oklahoma. On a road in the vicinity of Lebanon, Missouri, Sunstreaker and company were ambushed by the Machination. He and his passenger Hunter O'Nion became seperated from Ironhide and seemingly destroyed. It was soon revealed that it was not the case, the debris recovered by Optimus Prime was revealed by Ratchet to be an elaborate fake.

After re-awakening in a Machination stronghold, Hunter was horrified to find an unidentified being, possibly Cybertronian, had been creating a series of Sunstreaker "clones."

Generation 1

 * Sunstreaker (Autobot, 1984)


 * Sunstreaker was released as part of the first year of the Transformers line in the US. He is a yellow version of the Diaclone Lamborghini Countach LP500S "Super Tuning" toy. The Diaclone version came only in red or police deco; this is one of several items that have led to the fan speculation that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's coloration and bio text were swapped around before final release. The statistics, however, are correct.


 * In 1986, he was made available as a mail-away item (as he was no longer shipping to retail shelves) several different promotions, among them Digital Doom on the Highway to Destruction flier packed with most boxed Transformers toys. He cost $8 and two robot points.




 * Sunstreaker is generally considered to be one of the harder early Generation 1 toys to get complete and unbroken. There also appears to be little chance of a reissue of the toy, as this mold has been stated by Hasbro and Takara representatives to be one of several toys whose original molding has been either lost or in a state of disrepair too extensive to justify the cost of re-casting.


 * Sunstreaker's only release in Japan was in the VS-Z set, along with Buzzsaw and Skids.

Universe

 * Sunstreaker (Deluxe, 2003)


 * A retool of the Robots in Disguise Prowl mold, Sunstreaker was the "hotel exclusive" toy from OTFCC 2003, available only to those who booked their room at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare at the convention rate, the official hotel for the convention.


 * It is notable that the part that connects the toy's windshield to the main body uses a yellow decal rather than paint, as that part is made out of unpaintable plastic. The police lights from the original mold were removed, leaving this area bare.


 * This mold is also used by Sideswipe and Inferno.

Alternators/Binaltech Asterisk

 * Sunstreaker (Autobot, 2005)
 * Alternator ID number: 18


 * Sunstreaker meets Junko (Autobot, 2005)
 * Japanese ID number: BTA-02




 * Sunstreaker was planned as an early retool of the Alternators Sideswipe Dodge Viper toy, but for reasons unknown, the toy was released instead as the Decepticon Dead End. The mold would not be used as Sunstreaker proper until 2005, when both Hasbro and Takara revealed two different takes on the toy.




 * The first to market was the Binaltech Asterisk version of the toy, coming with a PVC driver figurine, a girl named Junko. A few months later, the Hasbro Alternators version was released as part of the standard Alternators line, in the redesigned "bubble" packaging (the third version of Alternators packaging). Though both are yellow redecos of the mold, the detailing between the two is very different, with the Hasbro version adding red to the robot-mode parts as well as a pair of black racing stripes in car mode. Drastically put, the only two details virtually identical on both versions at first sight are the paint mask for the head and the license plate layout.

Trivia
In the Transformers series bible entry for his brother Sideswipe. Sunstreaker is referred to by a different name, Spinout. "Nearly the equal of his twin brother, Spinout, in combat, but less cold-blooded."