Captain Fanzone


 * Captain Fanzone is a human from the Transformers Animated continuity family.



Captain Fanzone is the apparent head of the Detroit police department. He hates machines, but in an "I'm old" sort of way rather than being evil or anything. However, despite his oft-repeated mantra of "This is why I hate machines" whenever some device in his vicinity goes on the fritz (often with comedic, embarrassing results), he's pragmatic enough to make use of technology when needed. For example, he's a world champion at yelling at subordinates through megaphones for added effect. And firing heavy weaponry at rampaging robots.

Despite his endless battle with the march of progress and general poor luck, Fanzone is a good cop, dedicated to protecting the people of his city. He's also not a bad guy to have in a brawl. He doesn't completely trust the Autobots, but he's at least assured that they mean well and, like him, are here to protect and serve the city.

Along with machines, he also hates lawyers.

"A technophobe is someone who fears technology. Does this look like fear to you?!"

- Captain Fanzone smashes a phone to define his worldview to Prowl

Transformers Animated cartoon

 * Voice actor: Jeff Glen Bennett

It was the beginning of a bad day when Captain Fanzone got a call for all units to respond to Sumdac Systems down by Lake Erie. (It was in the middle of his lunch break.) Taking command of the assembled emergency units, Fanzone quickly realized that they were in over their heads fighting a rampaging cybernetic bug-slug, and he ordered all humans to fall back and allow the drones to deal with the creature. When he noticed four cars refusing to fall back, he demanded to know who they were...at which point he realized a cop bike had no driver, and his own car was among the group. It got even weirder when it turned out they were alien robots, but some little girl managed to talk the cops down from shooting at the invaders.

Several days later, Fanzone, the Mayor, Isaac Sumdac, and that robot that looks like his car were taken hostage by an evil jet, but were saved by the aforementioned little girl and the cop bike. As the cop bike took him down, Fanzone declared that this is why he hates machines. Thankless primate.

Fanzone was courted by Prometheus Black, who hoped to use the Captain's mistrust of machines in general and Sumdac products in specific to win his company a contract with the Detroit police department. However, once he saw the berserk rage that Colossus Rhodes displayed when smashing up the parking lot of an arena, he decided he didn't much like Black's biotechnology either. Not long after, he presided over a demonstration of new Sumdac models which proved to still have a few bugs in the system. Sumdac mentioned that these models had much better recognition systems, thus avoiding the unfortunate incident with the Captain's wife. However, sabotage courtesy of the newly minted supervillain Meltdown ensured that the new robots were still far from ready for prime-time.

When police responded to the rampage of the Dinobots, Captain Fanzone arrived and asked how bad it was into his megaphone...to an officer who was standing right next to him. The officer pointed at the rampaging robots, as a mechanical triceratops sent a car flying through the air, which hit Fanzone's car, crushing it. Captain Fanzone remained completely unmoved, then grabbed a bazooka from a nearby officer and fired at the triceratops...which promptly ate the projectile. Fanzone again proclaimed his dislike of machines.

After Nanosec's defeat by the Autobots, Fanzone took the suddenly elderly supervillain into custody.

Captain Fanzone accompanied a number of DPD officers to a military base where the Decepticons Blitzwing and Lugnut had been sighted. He was quite miffed to find that the two giant alien robots had apparently vanished into thin air, unaware that the two had adopted Earth modes and were hiding in plain sight.

Captain Fanzone was brought in to lead the investigation regarding Sari Sumdac's disappearance and probable kidnapping. In questioning the Autobots, he was somewhat dubious as to the merits of teaching a little girl "ninja nerve blows." After noticing suspicious behavior from Prowl and Bulkhead, he resolved to follow the two Autobots and pursued them in a (increasingly leaking) submersible. Nature proved almost more hostile to the Captain than technology, ultimately resulting in him getting trapped in quicksand and requiring rescue from the very individuals he was shadowing. Grudgingly going along with them, he uncovered Prometheus Black's plan to genetically alter Sari into a biotechnological shapeshifter. His outrage was brief however as the mad scientist dropped him into a gladiatorial arena and sicced his failed experiments on the Captain and Prowl. Forced to team up to survive, the Autobot earned the Captain's respect and trust as they fought their way out of the research facility.

Trivia

 * Captain Fanzone is so slow to adopt new technology that he has a rotary dial cell phone...and he even has problems with that.
 * With his "why can't things be as they were" attitude and dislike for anything new, Fanzone could well be a tongue-in-cheek parody of the most homicidally conservative members of the Transformers fanbase. His surname seems to confirm thisheck, it could only be more blatant if his first name was Geewun.
 * Hey, what is his first name, anyway?