Buster Witwicky

Buster Witwicky is a fictional character in the Transformers universes.

Transformers: Generation 1

Buster Witwicky was the first Witwicky depicted in fiction, and filled a similar role in the early comics that Spike filled in the animated series.

Marvel Comics

Events exclusive to the Marvel U.K. Transformers comics are in italics.

While at a drive-in movie with his girlfriend Jessie and best friend "O", Buster suddenly found his life in danger when the parking lot became a battleground in the first major Earth-based clash between the Autobots and Decepticons. Coming across the wounded vehicle-mode Bumblebee, he brought the car back to his father's workshop, and attempted to fix it, until his father stepped in and completed the job.

Before long, however, Buster had a much more pivotal role to play in the war, when the powerful Decepticon, Shockwave defeated and deactivated all the Autobots, save medical officer Ratchet, and planned to create new troops using the power of the Creation Matrix within Optimus Prime's mind. Sneaking into the Ark, Buster discovered Prime's disembodied head, and Prime transferred the Matrix into Buster's mind, keeping it from Shockwave. Buster soon found that the Matrix gave him the ability to manipulate metal and circuitry, and he used it to disassemble, rebuild and reprogram Shockwave's lifeless drone, Jetfire, and employed him to rescue Optimus Prime, who took the Matrix back into his own body.

A story called "The Gift" in issue #93 of the Marvel U.K. comics explored Jetfire's problems fitting in with the other Autobots. Jetfire then visited Buster Witwicky on Christmas Eve and tell him of his troubles of not fitting in with the Cybertronian-made Autobots. Buster encouraged the young Autobot by telling him he's the first of a new generation of Earth-made Autobots and he should be proud of what he is.

In the U.K. comics, the boy appeared in some further stories starting withRobot Buster'', where - worried AbOUT the danger he kept being in - Wheeljack and Ratchet built a robot battle-suit for him. Optimus ordered it scrapped and Buster stole it to prove he could handle himself in battle, only to be nearly killed in battle against Frenzy and pursued relentlessly by Shockwave, who later sent the Constructicons out to [...] the boy. The stress of these events combined with residual Matrix energy caused Buster to have visions of a strange new generation of Transformers. In order to decipher these visions and cure Buster of them, he and Optimus mind-linked (with the Decepticons spying) and the visions were revealed to be details for producing new "Special Teams" of combiners, which would lead to the development of the Aerialbots and Protectobots.

Angered and afraid for his safety, Sparkplug forbade Buster from seeing the Autobots any further. Outside of helping Jetfire through some morale issues on Christmas Eve, the boy was not seen again for some time, until Sparkplug himself fell victim to a trap laid by Decepticon local commander, Ratbat, which Buster foiled by breaking the hypnotic trance he and the other human victims had been placed under. After a fracas involving the Intelligence and Information Institute and the Predacons, Buster and Goldbug (a recreated version of Bumblebee), whose mind was trapped in a toy car, headed for the Ark, only to find that it had blasted off. At the abandoned site, Buster was attacked by a vengeful Ratbat and whisked away to the Decepticons' island base where he was initially used as a hostage to deter the United States navy from attacking. Buster was employed as part of an overly complex plan to acquire important data - appointing Buster "king" of the island to publicly dissuade human investigation, the Decepticons operated under the cover of a faux holiday resort while they searched for a sunken pirate vessel, which contained two stasis-locked Autobot messengers sent to Earth thousands of years before, containing information on the coming of the almighty Cybertronian data bank, the Underbase. Starscream proceeded to turn the tables on everyone by releasing Buster into the Arctic tundra, where he was forced to summon the Autobots or perish - an action which in turn resulted in the arriving Autobots being overwhelmed by the combined forces of Ratbat and Scorponok's Decepticons, while Starscream used the distraction to steal the power of the Underbase for himself. Buster's last appearance was in U.S. #51, finally back home with his family.

Books

Buster is featured in the 1985 Find Your Fate Junior book called Battle Drive by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel.

Buster appears in the 1986 story and coloring book The Lost Treasure of Cybertron by Marvel Books. In this story, he is the father of Daniel.

Dreamwave Productions

Buster did not make any clearly defined appearances in Dreamwave Productions' re-imagined Generation 1 universe, but he did exist, and was referred to as having taken the death of his father particularly badly, turning to alcohol and running up particularly large gambling debts. Straightening out his act, Buster was said to have joined the military; a high-ranking official with the surname of Witwicky was later seen addressing Marissa Faireborn, and although it was not stated, it can be assumed this was intended to be Buster. However, Dreamwave's bankruptcy and subsequent closure left the story untold.

Shattered Glass

In the Shattered Glass universe, Buster Witwicky is an evil mirror-verse version of the Generation 1 character.

Fun Publications

In the "Shattered Glass" storyline, four Witwicky brothers, Spike, Buster, Butch and Bruce "Buzz" Witwicky, appeared evil mirror universe counterparts of the Witwickys. Spike was leader of the group, who allied themselves with Rodimus and the evil Autobots, guiding them on Earth and aiding them in taking temporary control of Burbleson Airforce base and the GODS satellite system.

Behind the scenes

Butch Witwicky appeared in the 1985 Forest Rescue Mission coloring book published by Marvel Books.

Butch Witwicky is the younger brother of both Buster and Spike, and Sparkplug's youngest son who appeared only in the "Forest Rescue Misson" coloring book. The behind the scenes reasons for not appearing in any other media is because "Butch" is the mostly abandoned name for Sparkplug's son in Transformers media.

At OTFCC 2004, Bob Budiansky stated that the story treatment he received from Hasbro used the name Spike. However, his copy of the treatment has the name crossed out and replaced with Buster in his own writing. Budiansky could not recall the details, but speculated at the convention that Hasbro had asked for the name to be changed.

The new name may have been Budiansky's choice, or may have been told to him by somebody at Hasbro. Nevertheless, the name was changed to "Buster" only for the comics series. In the cartoon and most other associated products, Sparkplug's son remained "Spike". The comic series would later see a second son called "Spike" be introduced because of the need to promote the Fortress Maximus toy, which came with "Spike" as a Headmaster unit.

What this implies for "Butch" is that it was probably a very early name for the character, perhaps sent out with the first version of the story treatment that went to licensors for use in their products. The one example of a licensed product which uses the name is the coloring book Forest Rescue Mission. Somewhat surprisingly, this book is published with a copyright of 1985. Most errors such as name mistakes and off-model drawings are found in 1984 products which, presumably, were prepared while the names and models were still in development.

In the Shattered Glass storyline, the evil version of Butch Witwicky is the youngest son of the Witwicky's. Raised as a car thief, Butch sees himself as the brains, while Spike and Buster are just the dumb muscle, he's not old enough to drive, but that won't stop him from stealing cars.

In Eye in the Sky, Butch, and the rest of his group, allied themselves with Rodimus and the evil Autobots, guiding them on Earth and aiding them in taking temporary control of Burbleson Airforce base and the GODS satellite system.

In Transhuman, Butch brought the Autobot Tailgate with him to school to terrorize the students, only to be stopped by the Emulator.

Unlike the other characters in the "Shattered Glass" storyline, Bruce "Buzz" Witwicky is the only character to have no counterpart at all. He is a Shattered Glass original character. In this universe, Bruce is the Witwicky's second youngest son and the only one with a legitimate job as a military sergeant.

See also

• Witwicky family