| “ | What matter where the death comes from in front or behind? Death is death! | „ |
| ~ Dead End. |
Dead End is a minor antagonist in the Transformers franchise. The original version of the character was one of the Stunticons. A pessimist and fatalist, he can hardly be motivated to fight in the Autobot-Decepticon war, which he believes is pointless since every Transformer ultimately gets deactivated anyway. However, he is also vain, and constantly polishing himself.
Biography[]
Generation One[]
Cartoon[]
Dead End debuted in the two-part second season story "The Key to Vector Sigma", where he was constructed from a car stolen by Rumble. Megatron took the newly-created Stunticons to Cybertron and gave them personalities with the Vector Sigma computer. Their first mission was to steal a new experimental fuel, with their car modes causing the humans to believe they were Autobots. Hopefully, they were eventually defeated by the Aerialbots and Omega Supreme.
During the episode "Masquerade", Dead End was captured after a battle with Tracks, along with the other Stunticons. A group of Autobots impersonated the quintet in order to infiltrate the Decepticons, with Jazz taking on the role of Dead End. Dead End and the others eventually escape but were unable to stop the Autobots destroying the Decepticons' new weapon.
In the aftermath of The Transformers: The Movie, Dead End was among the Decepticons who went into exile on Chaar and ended up working for the Quintessons for a time, with Dead End being the first to approach them when they turned up. In "The Burden Hardest to Bear", Dead End and Wildrider ambushed Rodimus Prime and took the Matrix from him. He was last seen in "The Return of Optimus Prime" among those infected with the Hate Plague and was one of the infected Transformers arrived at Metroplex to destroy Optimus Prime until got cured by the Matrix of Leadership.
He was voiced by Phillip Clarke.
Marvel Comics[]
Dead End was first seen in the Marvel UK story "Second Generation", as part of a vision Optimus Prime and Buster Witwicky received of the future of the Transformers. The vision was intercepted by Shockwave, who quickly began construction of the Stunticons.
Dead End was brought online in US Issue #22, where he and the other Stunticons were sent by Megatron to spoil the Autobots' recent good publicity by causing havoc on a motorway and then pretending the Autobot Skids was working with them. This caused them to combat first Circuit Breaker and the anti-robot organisation RAAT and then the Aerialbots.
Dead End was part of the convoy of Decepticons moving to their new base in Issue #25, being the one to transport Megatron. After a lengthy absence, he made his last Marvel US appearance in Issue #41 as one of the army of Decepticons sent by Ratbat to attack the Autobots on the moon and may have been one of the casualties of the battle.
In Marvel UK's Earthforce storyline, Dead End operated alongside Drag Strip as one of Megatron's main henchmen in his attempt to destroy Earth's ozone layer and later fought with Runabout & Runamuck to recover Megatron's satellite, unaware it had been disabled by Prowl. In the storyline's last arc, he and the other Stunticons acted as back-up for Motormaster when he kidnapped journalist Irwin Spoon, battling against a group of Autobots on the freeway. It came down to Dead End and Drag Strip being the only ones left to pursue remaining Autobots Bumblebee and Tracks, who tricked them into crashing into Motormaster's cab.
The post-movie version of the character appeared in "The Legacy of Unicron", preparing to execute Cyclonus and Scourge before Death's Head intervened.
Transformers: Cyberverse[]
Dead End was briefly seen in the third season's opening story "War for Cybertron", among the Cybertron-based Decepticons battling Optimus Prime's newly returned Autobots. Thereafter, he was among the Transformers enslaved by the Quintessons but managed to break free and accompany Megatron into an alternate reality where the Decepticons had won the war in order to gain a weapon to defeat the Quintessons.
Afterwards, with Cybertron divided between the Autobots and Decepticons, Dead End helped capture Bumblebee and Whirl in "Enemy Line", but Optimus Prime negotiated their release. In the show's final episode, "The Other One", Dead End and the other Decepticons witnessed the arrival of the Megatron from the alternate timeline, who was eventually defeated by the Autobots and taken away by Astrotrain.
He was voiced by Xavier Paul.
