The Energon Pub

Although a scene with a Wheeljack that is heavily damaged and incapacitated is shown, there are numerous indicators that he is not dead:

-Unlike most of the other deaths in TF:TM, Wheeljack is not grey in the scene where he is depicted as heavily damaged.

-One of the other robots (Arcee?) is dragging him to safety. Why bother dragging a corpse to safety when the base is under full siege?

-On the storyboards, Smokescreen is depicted to be dead rather than Wheeljack.

-He appears later on in Transformers: Victory.

Wouldn't it make more sense for Wheeljack to have just been badly injured and taken out of the action for an extended amount of time while recovering?

No, there's no evidence. It's Transformers. G1 Transformers, no less! People die, come back to life, appear out of nowhere, exist when they don't exist, and sometimes wear the wrong colours.

His optics look black, but that's about it. Maybe he lived on in the Energon cellar of Metroplex, conceiving of some crazy invention.

Yes there is! During the battle for Autobot City you can see Whelljack's body being placed near Windcharger's body. This is seen just before or after the all-night-battle scene where shots are going off through the night.

Looks pretty dead to me.

Interesting. I never thought of this. I guess I thought he was dead because his eyes were dark. Also, I think only Prime turned gray when dead (and Starscream did too, but then again, he was totally burnt, AND he wasn't truly, completely dead). I think Arcee would drag dead 'bots around just for the sake of compassion, but you make some good points!

What about Sidewsipe, Sunstreaker, Bluestreak and all those guys? Swipy wasn't even in the movie, was he?

That's Sideswipe? I thought that poor soul was a miscoloured Wheeljack.

Blades wrote:What about Sidewsipe, Sunstreaker, Bluestreak and all those guys? Swipy wasn't even in the movie, was he?

from what i could make out of it from this one deleted scene(it was technically a storyboard) that ultra magnus brings in a few autobots, and the constructicons just open fire, and some of the bots got hit.

I think I saw something like that too. And it had Inferno getting shot in the back by Megatron. Or something like that.

Darth Bombshell wrote:

Looks pretty dead to me.

Yep, I think that as well. Plus even if he was not dead, Devestator threw that large section of metal wall at the rocket launcher building, and that place crumbled, so if he was not dead before, he is now.

For all we know, Wheeljack could have probably killed himself by one of his inventions blowing up in his face, taking Windcharge along with him.

wheeljack's dead, so beachcomber becuase daniel was too slow.

There is no deny that Wheeljack made appearances in Victory.

However, the Japanese shows were out of sync with our's.

Wheeljack is dead. The gaping hole in his chest and lack of light in his optics says "Dead, dead, dead."

And the fact that Devastator destroyed the building (as mentioned before)...

Let him rest.

...or will we see a "Wheeljack's Alive!" promotion like the Brawn thing a few years back? (Oh please, oh please no...)

He'll be back. Sparks go all reincarnatey, right?

There really isn't much at all to indicate that he's dead, besides one scene with a damaged Transformer who was intended to be Smokescreen.

The official story is Wheeljack (and Windcharger) are both dead. However:

In my twisted mind, neither are dead. Just in Stasis Lock (eyes go dark in Stasis Lock). Windcharger appears briefly in CotP and Wheeljack in Victory, although his personality is different.

I think 'Jack survived and spent series 3, headmasters and Masterforce in the depths of Autobot City, almost as a 'Phantom of the Opera' type character due to the massive trauma he suffered to his brain. Also explaining his change in personality in Victory. But thats just me.

How did he change?

wheeljack is dead, offically! the reason you see him in victory, is that the japanese didnt get the movie for years after the rest of us, by which time they had already done headmasters, masterforce and victory.
Basically they didnt know!

I think Wheeljack and Windcharger were both intended to have died in TF:TM, though the exact cause of death is unclear. That's the impression I was always left with. Windcharger's brief appearance in CotP was probably a mistake, and I suspect it may have been intended to be Cliffjumper. (I'm not even going to touch on Brawn and Huffer in "Carnage in C-Minor!") As far as Wheeljack in Victory, these Japanese spinoffs should be regarded as a whole different continunity, as proven by the fact that "Rebirth" was altogether ignored.

You see Blitzwing in 'The Ultimate Weapon', and he was apparently exiled. Maybe Wheeljack's appearance in one of the episodes of Victory was just an animaton error.

ThunderThruster wrote:Basically they didnt know!

But they did, because they recapped the plot points from the movie at the start of both 2010 and Headmasters.

ThunderThruster wrote:wheeljack is dead, offically! the reason you see him in victory, is that the japanese didnt get the movie for years after the rest of us, by which time they had already done headmasters, masterforce and victory.
Basically they didnt know!

Yea, I think the movie finally appeared in Japan in 1990.
Victory was in 1989.

Of course Wheeljack appeared in Victory, he was mentioned in the Timelines comics, and he had a post-movie toy (Action Master Wheeljack), so I see no reason you have to say he was dead if you don't want him to be. Heck, he recently had an Alternator and Spy Changer toy, but they have no supporting fiction.

That's an interesting point. Of all the characters in G1 TF, why did Hasbro make an Action Master toy of one who was officially dead?