Daniel Witwicky (G1)


 * Daniel Witwicky is a human from the Generation 1 continuity family.



Daniel Witwicky is the human son of Spike and Carly Witwicky. He is approximately 12 years of age in 2005, and was presumably born sometime between 1990 and 1993. He is the grandson of Sparkplug Witwicky.

Daniel often gets into trouble, which requires either his father or the Autobots to save him. He is very good friends with the Autobots, particularly Wheelie, Grimlock, and Hot Rod, but the one he's closest to is Arcee, who views him as a surrogate son. Come to think of it, he doesn't seem to have any human friends. What a shock.

Daniel is (sometimes) the Headmaster partner to Arcee.

Generation 1 cartoon

 * Voice actor: David Mendenhall (US), Mayumi Tanaka (the Movie, Japan) → Masumi Gotō (2010, Japan)

In the year 2005, Daniel appeared to be in the care of Hot Rod at Autobot City while his father was preparing for an assault on the Decepticon-held planet Cybertron from Moonbase One.

Following a brutal Decepticon attack on the city (in which he was almost killed), Daniel tearfully witnessed the death of Optimus Prime, sobbing on the fallen commander's hand as the color left his corpse. (Se forgive Daniel's crying on this occasion, as everyone else cried as well.)

Escaping from a second Decepticon attack, Daniel and a group of Autobots were stranded on Junkion, where Daniel donned his father's old exo-suit to weather the harsh environment. He did not get much time to enjoy the suit, as yet another Decepticon assault left Ultra Magnus dead and stirred the native Junkions into violent action. Daniel proved his worth in this battle by smacking Junkion leader Wreck-Gar with an I-beam, saving a prone Springer.

Hostilities with the Junkions were settled with the arrival of Hot Rod and Kup, Ultra Magnus was revived, and a brief and very campy celebration was held wherein Daniel showed he could boogey down.

Daniel joined the combined Autobot-Junkion attack force in the assault on Unicron. He was on the ship that plunged into Unicron's eye, and soon became separated from the main Autobot group. As luck would have it, he ended up in Unicron's acid-based digestion center, where he was able to save his father, Bumblebee, Jazz, and Cliffjumper from certain death.

Daniel and the rest soon met up with the other Autobots inside of Unicron. Everything around them was exploding! And then came this Rodimus Prime guy. Spike and Daniel hopped into his front seat, all of the Autobots drove out of Unicron's undamaged eye, through space (!?), and back to Cybertron as Unicron blew up. Daniel looked on as Rodimus gave a heroic speech.



Daniel would subsequently be around to watch his father get kidnapped by Sharkticons, witness Optimus Prime's revival as a zombie , become the subject of a Quintesson dream/reality experiment , try to determine Ultra Magnus's birthday , bring a mad Quintesson wizard to justice , and steal Trypticon's transforming cog.

Following those adventures, Daniel took on the role of "chew-toy" and was seriously injured in an attack by Snapdragon and required extensive life support. Arcee volunteered her own systems to assist in saving Daniel's life. Her head was reconfigured into an exo-suit, allowing Daniel to become Arcee's Headmaster partner.

The Headmasters cartoon

 * Voice actress: Tomiko Suzuki (Japan)



In 2011, Daniel seemed to be somehow regressing in both age and maturity, looking and acting a good deal younger than in the movie or the previous season of the cartoon. He hung out with Wheelie a whole lot more than was probably healthy, and the two shared constant adventures. In fact, at one point, Daniel and Wheelie defeated Trypticon by tricking him into trying to walk a rope bridge across a deep gorge.

As the series progressed, Daniel changed from a snot-nosed little cry-baby into a responsible young man. These coming-of-age adventures included traveling alone to a robot-killing asteroid, befriending the murderous psychopath, Sixshot, and finally rescuing his Mom from inside a narrow crevice she had tumbled into, injuring herself.

Real men don't cry, Danny.

The Headmasters manga


Shortly after Mega Zarak and the Decepticons were driven from Earth, Soundblaster showed up and took Daniel's family hostage. Not havin' none-a that, Daniel finally snapped. He went insane and took on both Slugfest and Overkill in a bare-knuckle brawl, defeating the pair of Cassette dinosaurs and leaving Soundblaster open to an attack from Chromedome.

Marvel Comics continuity


''In 2009, the Terrorcons and the rest of the Decepticons rampaged across Earth unhindered, and Daniel and his father Spike were rescued from the carnage by Kup. Kup brought them to Autobot City, where Daniel convinced Rodimus Prime that he wasn't devoting enough resources towards defending Earth. ''

Universe: The Wreckers


Daniel detonated an explosive to destroy a legion of Nightbird drones, killing himself and Wheelie in the process. This event caused Arcee to enter a deep depression, setting the stage for her personality change as she became a Wrecker.

Dreamwave comics continuity
"Thanks kiddo. What would I do without you?"

- Spike

"Get your head knocked is what."

- Daniel

A day after a reactivated Megatron attacked and destroyed a South American rebel militia, a young Daniel reminded Spike to wear his hardhat, which he scrawled his father's name on so he wouldn't forget (the hardhat, not his name). Spike told him to go upstairs when General Robert Hallo invited himself into Spike's home. He wears pajamas to bed.

Unreleased


A pink redeco of Chromedome as Headmaster Arcee was considered by Hasbro/Takara at one time. Presumably Daniel would have been the Headmaster partner.

Merchandise
A PVC figure of Daniel in his exo-suit was released in Takara's Super Collection Figure series. It was only available in ACT-4, coming in the same blind-packed box as Arcee (who was unchanged from her ACT-1 release).

Trivia

 * In Japanese continuity, it originally was not explained why Daniel did not seem to age between the animated film, which took place in 2005, and their season three, which took place in 2010. To the contrary, in Headmasters his mental age seemed to regress.  According to the massive timeline featured in Kiss Players, Daniel was in suspended animation in outer space in the interim. As far as retcons go, there have been clunkier.
 * Daniel and Arcee are secret lovers.