At that moment, the Decepticons attacked, and Bumblebee was hurt in an explosion. However, Buster was close enough that he heard Bumblebee's cry of pain. He quickly took action and tried to drive Bumblebee away, only to realize that the Autobot had no pedals. However, Bumblebee was able to start himself, and allowed Buster to steer him. Buster took the wounded Autobot to his house and tried to repair him in his father's garage. Although his father, "Sparkplug", was at first delighted that his son was showing interest in car repair, he soon became concerned that Buster believed the car was alive. However, after Sparkplug repaired Bumblebee, he transformed into his robot mode and thanked the two humans. Hearing of their plight, Sparkplug agreed to try and convert Earth fuel into Cybertronian fuel for the Autobots. Thus was born the first deal between a human and a Transformer.
However, Ravage had managed to overhear this, and contacted Megatron with the news. Wasting no time, Megatron's troops arrived at Sparkplug's house soon after the Autobots did. In the ensuing battle, Bumblebee was assigned to protect the humans, but failed miserably when he was knocked out by Megatron.
Some time after that, Bumblebee was caught in a bout of depression and self-pity over his small size and weak abilities. He left the Ark unannounced, and found himself pursued by Shockwave and several Decepticons. It seemed that Shockwave was determined to use Bumblebee for his own purposes. Bumblebee was badly damaged in the initial attack, but escaped capture when he shut himself down in a used car lot.
That night, Bumblebee was stolen by a couple of guys looking for a joyride. Reactivated, Bumblebee was suddenly a findable target for the Decepticons again. He was saved at the last instance by the timely arrival of Jetfire, who shot down Laserbeak. However, he was soon shot down, and Bumblebee would have been caught if not for the appearance of a large number of Autobots, led by Optimus Prime himself. Shockwave retreated.
When the US government created the nuclear power station codenamed "Power Station Alpha", Optimus sent Bumblebee down to guard against Decepticon interference. However, Bumblebee was seen by the Insecticon Bombshell, who quickly took control of a young boy's mind with a cerebro-shell and caused him to walk into harm's way. Forced to help the child, Bumblebee transformed into robot mode and rescued the boy. However, to the G.I. Joe members guarding the station, it appeared that Bumblebee had tried to take the boy. Unable to convince them that he was not a threat, Bumblebee was blown to pieces by the combined weapons fire.
However, Bumblebee found that he was not killed. After G.B. Blackrock convinced G.I. Joe that Bumblebee, as an Autobot, was one of the "good guys". As a result, they attempted as best they could to reassemble him, but when Ratchet took charge of the repairs, he noted that it was a good thing he arrived when he did. As a result of the inadvertant modifications made to Bumblebee's body, he decided to rename himself Goldbug. As his first mission, Goldbug transported the Baroness and Scarlett to Power Station Alpha so they could plant explosives onboard it.
When Goldbug returned to the Ark, he found that Optimus had died, and Grimlock had somehow ended up in charge of the Autobots. Grimlock charged Blaster and Goldbug with the task of capturing the human who had stolen several Autobot devices and called himself "the Mechanic". Unable to catch him, and unhappy with Grimlock's leadership, Blaster and Goldbug decided to leave the Autobots.
Realizing that a Decepticon freighter had somehow crashed-landed on Earth, Goldbug and Blaster immediately moved to find out more about it. Goldbug obtained information from Blackrock, and working with a human scientist, they managed to get close to the wreckage. By this time, the Decepticon Triple Changers had moved to protect the site. In the process of spying on the Decepticons, Blaster and Goldbug were infected by Scraplets. The Triple Changers, also infected, managed to capture Blaster. Goldbug realized that their only hope would be to find a cure, so he left, which caused Blaster to believe he was desserting him.
In the process of battling with the Throttlebots, Goldbug was able to demonstrate a cure for the Scraplets: water. But since they were located in a desert, water had to be transported in via tanker trucks from Blackrock. Goldbug informed Blaster and the Triple Changers of the cure, and despite Blaster's insistence that they all be left to die, he sprayed water over them all. The Scraplets fought back, but the combined firepower was too much for them. Blaster, now somewhat calmer, made peace with Goldbug.
While hiding out as human cars, the Throttlebots and Goldbug were doublecrossed and sold to R.A.A.T. after their fuel tanks were tainted with sugar. After Ratbat's Decepticons rampaged on several occassions, I.I.I. decided to demonstrate their resolve by excecuting the Autobots, not realizing that it was exactly what Ratbat wanted them to do. Walter Barnett, finally accepting that the Autobots and Decepticons were not one and the same, snuck the Autobots' brain components out by implanting them inside toy radio-controlled cars. Their bodies were crushed by I.I.I.
Ratbat and the Predacons soon broke into the facility where the crushing was done. Inspecting the wreckage, Rampage concluded that the Autobot brain components were not present. They eventually traced the Autobots to Barnett, who was trying to get Buster to help him. While they were in a mall to purchase batteries for the cars, the Decepticons attacked. Barnett and the Throttlebots were able to get away, but Ratbat transformed into a cassette and snuck into Buster's stereo and followed him and Goldbug to Mt. St. Hilary. Just as Buster realized that the Ark was no longer in the volcano, Ratbat transformed, crushed Goldbug in his feet/claws/talons, and kidnapped Buster.
Goldbug managed to send out a distress signal, which was picked up by the Steelhaven, Fortress Maximus's ship. They repaired his body and took him with them as they went to meet up with Ethan Zachary, who was in possession of a copy of Optimus's mind. Fighting off Scorponok's new Pretenders, they obtained the disk and returned to the Steelhaven. Later, they got together with the Ark on the surface of the Earth's moon. Grimlock challenged Fortress Maximus to a duel, but Goldbug convinced Blaster (who was a prisoner in the Ark) to act as his champion. The Decepticons attacked during the duel, and Fortress Maximus, realizing that only with Optimus as the Autobot leader would all the pointless power struggles stop, sent Goldbug, Getaway, Joyride, and Slapdash to Nebulos to rebuild Optimus's body and input his mind into it.
On Nebulos, Goldbug convinced Hi-Q and his followers to create a new, more powerful body for Prime, and they eventually convinced him he was once again alive. Four of the Nebulans agreed to become binary-bonded to the Autobots (Goldbug being the exception) to create Powermasters.
When Starscream took in part of the power of the Underbase, he decided to demonstrate his power by destroying three of Earth's cities. In Los Angeles, he fought a number of Transformers, including Goldbug, and terminated them all.
Ratchet, frustrated with his inability to repair all the destroyed Transformers, took the bodies of Jazz, Grimlock, and Goldbug with him to Cybertron. There, he was confronted by the newly-returned Megatron, who forced him to use new user-repairing Pretender shells to reconstruct Starscream's body. Doublecrossing Megatron, Ratchet used three of the prototype shells to repair the three inactive Autobots. However, possessing only the specs to the Bumblebee body, Ratchet was forced to return to that design. Accepting this reluctantly, Goldbug changed his name back to Bumblebee. Unsuccessfully fighting Megatron, they watched helplessly as Ratchet teleported explosives into the room where he fought Megatron. The explosion leveled the building.
The three Autobots met up with Emirate Xaaron and decided to return to Earth with the Micromaster Rescue Squad. Due to Decepticon interference, they ended up in the center of Cybertron with Bludgeon, Octopunch, and Stranglehold. Despite being in the chamber where Primus slept, and having been warned that waking him could doom Cybertron, the two groups fought. Bumblebee worked together with Seawatch to take Bludgeon out of the fight. Unfortunately, a last, desperate shot by Octopunch reflected off of Grimlock's armor and woke up Primus, screaming. Light-years away, Unicron heard the scream and immediately moved to intercept Cybertron.
Desperate to recover the Matrix to stop Unicron, Optimus sent his Autobots on a galaxy-wide search for it (following his death, his body, with the Matrix inside, had been shot into space). Bumblebee, Jazz, and Grimlock managed to track it down to the planet VsQs, but as they neared their goal, they were attacked by Thunderwing and his troops. Despite putting up a good fight, they lost the Matrix to Thunderwing. The Autobots were eventually rescued by their comrades.
Bumblebee's present status is unknown, though he was later shown battling Jhiaxus's troops..
US Cartoon article submitted by Sybok
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