Lugnut (TFA)


 * Lugnut is a Decepticon from the Transformers Animated continuity family.



If mighty Megatron were to command Lugnut to jump, the powerful Decepticon would be in the upper atmosphere long before his master could specify how high. In Lugnut's optic, bold, heroic Megatron embodies the Decepticon cause, and his devotion is total. It's easy to misinterpret Lugnut’s blind zeal for a lack of overall processing power, but this is not the case. Although he isn't much of a thinker or planner, Lugnut does not care, for wise Megatron is brilliant enough for a thousand Decepticons. His master makes the plans, and Lugnut carries them out. However, that blind loyalty is his weakness. Although innovative on the battle field, he does little thinking about anything else.

Besides his compulsion to serve Megatron, the only other driving force in his programming is to destroy the Autobots. Renowned throughout Cybertron as one of the most destructive fighters for the Decepticon cause, Lugnut has no time or patience for contemplation or strategy when he could just as easily level an entire Autobot battalion with a single explosive punch. He knows that his unparalleled strength, endurance, and seemingly limitless missile payload is enough to serve glorious, bold, fresh-scented, bright and shiny MEGATRON! Autobots that know him know the only way to survive a fight with him is to stay clear of his path.

He will only keep company with Decepticons who are as loyal to the grand and imperious Megatron as he is. Traitors and disgraces such as Starscream and Lockdown are not worthy of mention, let alone being in the presence of the glorious Megatron. Granted, even magnanimous Megatron himself can get a little tired of Lugnut's praises, but he keeps it to himself, lest Lugnut should lose faith in mighty Megatron.

"I believe only two things: The Decepticons will rule Cybertron, and Megatron will rule the Decepticons!"

- Lugnut, Megatron loyalist

Animated cartoon

 * Voice actor: David Kaye (English), Uwe Jellinek (German)

Lugnut was on board the Nemesis with Megatron, Starscream, Blitzwing and Blackarachnia when they discovered the AllSpark. Doubting that it was near, Starscream insulted Megatron (out of the latter's presence, of course) as a fool who was chasing a ghost. Furious, Lugnut leapt in and roared at the "traitor" about how Megatron would lead the Decepticons to a new age. Blackarachnia mocked him, asking if the speech was memorized or just hardwired into his one-track processor. Blitzwing indirectly defended Lugnut by insulting Blackarachnia, but soon burst into song, prompting all the Decepticons to argue until the entry of Megatron silenced them. Later, when it became clear the Nemesis was going to crash into an exploding space bridge, Lugnut showed uncharacteristic intelligence by fleeing in an escape pod.

After arriving on Earth's Moon, Lugnut and Blitzwing discovered the Nemesis, near where Blitzwing mentioned that Lockdown had last reported. Lugnut did not care for the bounty hunter or his mission, for he still believed that Megatron was alive. Heading to Earth, the two crash landed at a construction site, where Lugnut interrogated a crane on Megatron's whereabouts with little success. After randomly destroying everything in sight, Lugnut and Blitzwing had a battle with the Autobots. Lugnut easily outgunned the Autobots himself, and was able to throw Bulkhead around like he was nothing. When he demanded to know where Megatron was, Bumblebee mentioned that he was reduced to a "fireball somewhere over Cleveland". Screaming "Megatron lives", Lugnut knocked out the Autobots with his devastating punch (which Blitzwing says he told him "a thousand times" to warn him before using), which convinced Megatron that Lugnut could be trusted. He contacted only Lugnut, who, in his eagerness, dragged Blitzwing away from the fight. Blitzwing thought that Lugnut had finally overheated his motherboard and headbutted him, causing Blitzwing to fall straight smack dab in the middle of a military base. When they heard police cars approaching, Blitzwing suggested that they lay low to determine their strengths, but Lugnut planned to slaughter them en masse. An annoyed Megatron told him to shut up and get a disguise.

That evening, Megatron contacted Lugnut, uploading a sample of the Key's energy signature, and instructed him to use it to find the AllSpark itself, which would restore Megatron. Heading for Lake Erie, the two Decepticons tracked down the Autobots' ship. Once they'd followed the Autobots below its surface, Lugnut showed remarkable intelligence by being reluctant to enter the underwater smokescreen Optimus Prime had created, although he still entered to follow Blitzwing. Obscured by kicked-up dust, his targeting systems still found a body in the haze. Pleased that his targeting sensors had not failed him, he firedon Blitzwing. The Autobots seemed to have the upper hand when Lugnut again displayed unexpected smarts by transforming and using his jet thrusters to blow away the obscuring dirt. Unfortunately for him and Blitzwing, just as they were going destroy the Autobots, Ratchet and Sari Sumdac brought the weapon systems of the Autobots' ship online. The two Decepticons were blasted to the shores of Lake Erie in several pieces, severing Megatron's radio link with Lugnut and thus leaving the poor lunk to believe that his master had forsaken him. The next morning, Starscream appeared and promised to repair them—if they swore loyalty to him.

For reasons beyond understanding, Lugnut agreed to Starscream's request, but was quick to remind the upstart that they served not by choice. However, when Megatron contacted him, Lugnut immediately repledged himself to Megatron. The Decepticon leader told Lugnut to locate the Key and bring it to him. Taking it from Ratchet, they flew to Sumdac Tower, where Lugnut blabbed the whole Decepticon thing to Isaac Sumdac, forcing him to kneel to Megatron. Now that he knew Lugnut wasn't totally bonkers (like him), Blitzwing used the Key to help Megatron repair his body and restore him.

As Megatron proceeded to beat up the Autobots, Blitzwing and Lugnut decided not to intervene, but to keep an eye on Professor Sumdac. As Megatron called his loyal troops to him, Lugnut briefly found himself humiliated by Starscream, but then got to look on as Megatron made an example of the schemer. The Decepticons took to the air, locating and attacking the Autobots' ship as it travelled from the lake to the Tower, then from the Tower to Dinobot Island, where it was shot down. Bulkhead leapt into the air and Jet-Judo'd Lugnut, and the two landed in the forest. Although Lugnut was the physically stronger of the pair and tossed Bulkhead around like a beach ball, his zeal let him down. He prepared to use his powerful punch...and Bulkhead slammed the ignition point with his wrecking ball, causing a powerful explosion that defeated the brute.

After the battle with Bulkhead, Lugnut helped the Decepticons set up a base in a mine, even though his left arm kept falling off. Not realizing that the mine's carbon deposits shielded their energy signatures from Autobot detection, Lugnut did not understand why they had to hide. He was even more confused by Megatron's plan to conquer Cybertron, but this didn't prevent him from hitting a doubting Blitzwing. Things became clearer to Lugnut when Megatron said that they would use space bridge technology, one of the two reasons they lost the Great War, to reach and conquer Cybertron. First, they needed Isaac Sumdac, who had been captured by Megatron, in order to reverse-engineer the missing pieces of the space bridge data Megatron had copied. When a servant-bot in Sumdac's enclosure malfunctioned, Lugnut accused the professor of sabotaging Megatron's plans. However, he backed down at the behest of Megatron, who learned the servant-bot had acted as it did because it had a fragment of the AllSpark in its circuits.

Lugnut and Blitzwing were sent by Megatron to steal a tachyon generator from the Elite Guard's ship. Lugnut was able to acquire the generator, when Starscream appeared and tried to destroy Megatron. After the Decepticon leader offlined him, Lugnut confirmed that Starscream was dead. After all, there was no spark in his spark chamber, so he had to be dead. Despite this, Starscream kept coming back and trying to kill Megatron, and Lugnut spent the rest of the night repeatedly throwing his corpse into a river.

When Lugnut later detected an AllSpark fragment, Megatron sent him to retrieve it, partially to be rid of his sycophantic subject for a while. Discovering it in a garbage truck, Lugnut believed it was being transported by a human. He was thus surprised when the truck transformed into a robot named Wreck-Gar. The simple-minded robot soon confused poor Lugnut with his habit of mirroring what was being said to him, so Lugnut came to believe that Wreck-Gar was a Decepticon like him. Pleased that the new Transformer was a Decepticon, Lugnut celebrated the discovery with a resounding cry of "All hail Megatron!" Wreck-Gar followed suit...then asked who Megatron was.

When the Autobots arrived and verbally accosted Wreck-Gar, Lugnut came out of hiding and prepared to use his bomb punch on Ratchet. Wreck-Gar then responded to the threatened use of the Punch of Kill Everything with the universal greeting...and a high-five. Despite the premature detonation, Lugnut was left unharmed, but grew increasingly impatient with Wreck-Gar's lack of comprehension. Attempting to attack the Autobots, he took off in plane mode with Wreck-Gar still on his back. However, when Wreck-Gar caused his tail/mace to become infected with matter-eating microbots, Lugnut panicked and demanded that Wreck-Gar get the microbots off him. The obliging robot responded by simply unscrewing Lugnut's tail assembly, leaving Lugnut rather unsteady in the air.

Later on, Lugnut was sent with Blitzwing to recover parts for Megatron's new space bridge, and the two began stealing caches of construction materials. During one such raid, the Autobots became involved, and Lugnut's singlemindedness meant that he practically ignored Bumblebee's stinger attack, not even slowing down until a pipe fell in his path and sent him falling. He then departed in his bomber mode to unload the material. Sometime later, he and Blitzwing began moving two huge containers of heavy supplies, and Lugnut was most offended when Blitzwing noted how Megatron was curiously absent when they were moving such heavy equipment. Soon afterward, they encountered the Constructicons. Lugnut was suspicious of these newly created machines, but Blitzwing convinced him to allow them to do the heavy lifting until they reached base, at which point they would eliminate the two newcomers. At base, Blitzwing kept them distracted so Lugnut could activate his rocket punch, but at the last second, Megatron told him to stop. Unfortunately, this caused poor Lugnut to lose balance, fall into a cave and detonate his weapon in his own face. Ever the trooper, he tersely acknowledged he was still all right.

Soon after the space bridge was near completion, the Autobots find their hideout and attempt to stop them. He and Blitzwing attack the Autobots invading their underground base, but they end up getting stasis cuffed by Blurr.

However he is freed by the Constructicons and cheers when Megatron announces they be invading Cybertron via space bridge, but was interrupted by the invading Autobot shiip. When given the task to stop Omega Supreme, he makes a remark that the large Autobot's size was no match for their leader's glory. This gave the female Starscream clone an idea to attack Omegas's legs. Lugnut attempts to stop Omega Supreme by firing his entire missile supply at him. Instead, he was blown away by Omega's lasers.

Animated

 * Lugnut (Voyager, 2008)


 * Luggy transforms into a big ol' retro-futuristic bomber plane with a nose of a Heinkel He 111. He also suffers from Bulkhead syndrome, as his robot mode is  tiny  compared to most Voyagers. A good portion of his vehicle mode transforms into a big-ass mace, almost as big as Lugnut himself (who isn't all that much bigger than Bumblebee). He features three autotransform gimmicks in his head, mace, and hands. The mace connects with a special tab into Lugnut's hand and activates its gimmick: Tapping the bottom of the mace on the ground while he holds it causes the engine pods to pop open. Pushing down the area on his back where the mace is stored flips his head up and splits his cockpit halves to the sides of his chest. The small purple tabs on his lower arms open and close his claws in unison. Pushing the mace into one of the hands causes it to close around the mace. Oddly enough, the "fingers" on his toy are not in the same position as his animated model, most likely to aid in the holding of the toy's mace.


 * There have been reports of his cockpit halves not closing properly in vehicle mode due to an overly tightened screw inside his torso. It cannot be corrected without dismantling the figure. The head automorph area also tends to flop slightly, not staying in place in vehicle mode. It is unknown if future releases will remedy this.


 * Lugnut (McDonald's Happy Meal Toy)


 * A simple version of Lugnut with a very simple transformation sequence. You transform him by flipping his back to reveal the head, bringing down the missiles/arms and flipping the tail to reveal his legs. This makes him stand very tall. Like most of the McDonald's Animated toys, he gave up a show-accurate robot mode for a show-accurate vehicle mode.

Trivia

 * At BotCon 2008, it was revealed that Lugnut's name derives from an earlier stage in his development; at one point he was going to be more Frankenstein's Monster-esque, with giant bolts (or "nuts") sticking out from his neck. While this concept was effectively discarded, the character kept "Lugnut" for his final name... but it works well enough on its own, as he is a big lug and a bit of a nut.
 * Derrick Wyatt and Marty Isenberg admitted at BotCon 2008 that they didn't know that Lugnut's toy had the battle mace, as it was a Hasbro creation. Once they learned of its existence, they slipped it into season 2, and it makes its first appearance in "Garbage In, Garbage Out."