Mudflap



The goofy-looking Mudflap and his twin Skids are a result of a split spark, and share a close bond accordingly. Mudflap is hyperactive, noisy, argumentative, and eager... not that different from his brother. He's so desperate to impress that he comes off as having the robot equivalent of ADHD. [1] When they're not trying to outdo each other in crazy, daredevil antics, the twins are usually bickering with each other over anything. Like Skids, he possesses hyper-reactive optical imaging scanners, making him able to process tactical information faster than any other Transformer (except Skids).[2] As irritated as Mudflap gets from Skids' vocal one-upmanship, he realizes that they actually work best as a team.[3]

Each twin can transform into smaller, separate vehicles or combine into a single, more durable alternate mode, [4] but whether they can combine similarly into a larger robot mode remains to be seen. Upon first arriving on Earth, Mudflap and his brother took the form of a beat-up old ice cream truck, but he later scanned a Chevy Trax for a disguise, and, sometime after that, a Chevrolet Spark. That being said, it's unlikely the twins will keep an alt-mode for long.

Fiction
After hearing Optimus Prime's call into space for all Autobots, Skids and Mudflap were captured by the Decepticons Thundercracker and Flatline just before reaching Earth. Seeking to perfect some new medical experiments, Flatline tried to forcibly reprogram the brothers' processors, but only succeeded in leaving them addled and confused. Another of Flatline's experiments, the tri-fold biker named Arcee, helped Skids and Mudflap escape. They picked up a ship and made their trek the rest of the way to Earth.

Skids and Mudflap followed Optimus Prime's message to Earth and arrived on the planet with Topspin, Leadfoot, Roadbuster, Sideswipe, Arcee, Chromia and Elita-One on the Wreckers ship Xantium. The ship and the Wreckers stayed behind in NASA, Dark of the Moon. The Twins both chose the combined form of an old, beat-up ice cream truck. The newly arrived Autobots joined the human-Transformer military alliance NEST and began training in earnest at Diego Garcia, but soon had to be deployed to Shanghai, China.

Sometimes, he has a small forcefield in vehicle mode.

Mudflap first met Bumblebee when they were about to be thrown into a smelting pool. It was fun!

Mudflap and Skids happily stayed on Cybertron, going through intensive training (which totally wasn't goofing off) and having extreme-sports contests. Neither wanted to leave their homeworld, and they were the only Transformers on it until Starscream turned up with a Decepticon army. When they heard him mention a Star Harvester, Mudflap said they should tell someone...but was a bit upset to find out the fastest way to do that would be to leave Cybertron and tell the Autobots in person.

The decision was made for them when the Decepticons attacked. Mudflap took some hits, causing Skids to obliterate the Decepticons responsible, but for the most part, their training paid off. However, he realised they were running out of places to run, so he followed his brother in leaving the plane, with only one course of action remaining: follow the message Optimus Prime had beamed into space and head for Earth.

The twins made it to Earth soon, crash-landing in Toronto, Canada. On the way in, Mudflap hit a big tower, and was a bit guilty since he knew how these primitive luddite humans still needed radio waves (the saps). They swam their way to Ball's Falls, where they picked up Earth alternate modes and, Mudflap taking charge, set out to try and find local Autobots and warn them about the Star Harvester.

Driving along the wrong side of the Interstate, the twins were attacked by the Seeker Ransack, who pursued them across open countryside, trying to kill them on Starscream's orders. Mudflap transformed and blinded the old Decepticon with a fistful of dirt, which bought the twins some time to find cover. However, the airborne enemy kept up with the twins, and Mudflap lost a chance at cover when he ran back to save his brother. Luckily they were saved by Bumblebee, who attacked and forced Ransack to retreat.

Now living at NEST's Californian base with Bumblebee as their minder, Skids and Mudflap repeatedly asked to deliver their info to Optimus Prime—and only Optimus, much to Ironhide's annoyance. He was more annoyed when they ambushed him to get to Optimus...who, as it turns out, was away on a need-to-know mission anyway.

After this defeat, and with Ironhide having bluntly told them nobody believed them, they desperately asked to join in a NEST op in Las Vegas...getting turned down, because they were too crap to get involved. Mudflap almost called their superior a very rude word over this, and after the team had left, he decided they should go to Vegas anyway to show Ironhide just what they could do! What they could do, it turned out, was screw up a successful mission by freeing a captured Decepticon by trying to "shoot him down". Mudflap was left mortified. Ironhide, recognising what they were trying to do, told him that maybe they could work on training the twins not to jump in without looking, and that the trick was to learn from mistakes. The twins claimed they'd try.

They soon wished they hadn't, as they were condemned to NEST's Orkney Islands base for days of sim-com (simulated combat) training under Sideswipe. Mudflap agreed with Skids' theory that this was an excuse to keep them away from Optimus, and the whole situation got on his nerves. They both protested to Sideswipe that they could handle Decepticons. Him pointing out their failure with Grindor shut them up. However, the training was interrupted when a huge metal cat monster broke into the base, KOed Sideswipe, and tried to eat the twins!

They transformed and fled, with all attempts at holding it off failing. Mudflap hit on a plan of trapping the creature in the sim-com room and letting the drones shoot it down. He pulled this off, using himself as bait; in the process, he received a communication from the monster's master, who demanded to know what the twins knew about some lost and fallen guy. Mudflap briefly wondered who this dude was, then shrugged and just sprang the trap on Ravage.

With that done, the twins tried to fill in the revived Sideswipe... except the creature had gone, leaving their instructor with the view that they'd knocked him out in revenge for their training. Between that and Grindor, he thought they were up to something...

The twins were later taken to Diego Garcia, and ecstatic to learn Optimus was coming there! Okay, he's only dropping a prisoner off, he's not here to see them and knows nothing about their story, but they ignored all that and drove off when Sideswipe wasn't looking so they could greet the leader. Mudflap squeed over how Optimus would be so proud with his work! Skids picked up on that and accused his brother of trying to steal the glory, and soon the two of them were having a big fight and slagging match...

And so their first meeting with Optimus Prime was to be yelled at for conduct unbecoming of an Autobot warrior. (See the pic to the side to find out how that went.)

That was when Scorponok made his attack, blasting at the distracted Prime and moving to free the prisoner Sideways. Mudflap swiftly grabbed a weapon to stop this escape, but Sideways snatched it from his hands and used it himself to cover his retreat. Sideswipe, watching from a distance, believed Mudflap had given over the weapon, and convinced Prime that the twins were traitors: they must have helped Scorponok get here and now assisted him in his mission, on top of freeing Grindor and attacking him! Mudflap and Skids protested they were being set up because they knew too much, but it fell on deaf ears as they were taken into custody...

Following this, the decision was made to exile the twins into orbit. Mudflap and his brother moaned that they should've just ignored the Fallen, but help was at hand... from the Decepticons? Mudflap angrily told Decepticon agent Wheelie that they didn't want to be freed by him, but the complaint fell on deaf ears: now the twins looked like even bigger traitors. The two went underground to clear their names, and hit on the foolproof plan of abducting Sam Witwicky from his house and pleading with him to tell their story to Optimus. All this did was cause Bumblebee to launch an attack to rescue Sam. Mudflap pleaded with the angry Bumblebee that they weren't traitors, that they had vital info...

...and then Soundwave gunned down the scout and offered the twins sanctuary in the Decepticons. Nowhere else to go, Mudflap took Soundwave's hand and said he'd never liked Earth anyway...

Once in the Decepticons, he had fun dissing all the other members as being losers and getting on everyone's nerve, before Soundwave finally sent them on a mission to bring in a rogue member. Once on Earth again, he was genuinely surprised to find out Skids was only pretending to defect; his annoyed brother explained the plan was that, since Soundwave would send a minder to watch them, they could ambush their minder and have a prisoner to give to the Autobots.

The rogue member turned out to be Ransack, and Mudflap helped Skids lie to him that the Fallen had sent them. Talking instead of fighting? That annoyed both of their minders, and they came under attack by Grindor and Sideways! Mudflap was ordered after Sideways, and engaged him in a game of chicken; the Decepticon blinked first and crashed into a tree. He thought this was enough, but Skids was determined that they'd now take the fight to Soundwave himself! (Mudflap's considered response was "YOWZA!")

Upon returning to the Phobos base, Mudflap was consulted about having a plan of attack. He decided why bother having plans now, just attack! The twins stormed the base, and Mudflap was able to defeat Ravage by ducking the beast's attacks and planting an electrical bomb on him. However, this success was quickly undone and Mudflap found himself about to be killed by Starscream... but the battle gave Ransack an opening to shoot the Seeker in the back and escape, causing the other Decepticons to chase after him! The twins had no idea what that was all about... but this was just a short respite, as the twins discovered just what that army massing on Cybertron had been planning: to arrive at the Phobos base en route to Earth...

The twins stood ready to make their last stand, and Mudflap prepared to take down as many drones as possible... when Optimus arrived with the other Autobots! The twins had been tracked to Phobos and to their shock, the other Autobots had realised they weren't traitors and were even apologising! And with all the street cred of uncovering the Phobos base, the twins were welcomed to the Autobots' Earth division. Skids briefly wondered if they should mention "the Fa-" again, but Mudflap told him they were never mentioning that bloody thing again. Whatever happened, would happen... The twins were first into action for NEST's mission to Shanghai, slowly trundling through the city streets in their ice-cream truck mode and taunting Decepticons in the area to show themselves. Two Decepticons soon did: Demolishor and Sideways. At NEST's orders, the twins went after the smaller foe and, working with Arcee, managed to herd him into an alleyway. However, their slow, ungainly choice of alternate mode left them unable to keep up with Sideways. While Arcee leapt through a building to pursue the Decepticon, the twins tried to go around the building to catch him. However, the twins inadvertently split apart from one another when they rounded the corner too sharply, thus taking them out of the chase. Mudflap took the blame for the crash, but Skids still berated (and smacked) Mudflap for his failure.

Upon arrival to Diego Garcia and NEST headquarters, the twins were given new, individual alternate forms to make sure another incident like that never happened. Mudflap wanted the Chevy Beat as a vehicle form, but after a brief wrestling match with his brother, he was relegated to the form of the Chevrolet Trax.

Later, the twins, along with the other NEST-allied Autobots, were dispatched to look for Sam Witwicky when Decepticons were detected heading towards his college. After Optimus Prime was killed by Megatron, the twins helped the Autobot force fight off the Decepticon leader and Starscream, allowing Sam, Leo Spitz, Mikaela Banes and Bumblebee to make good their escape. Skids and Mudflap met up with Bumblebee and the humans, and together they fled to a remote location. After the twins teased Leo for a while for his panic attack, Sam inquired whether one of them could interpret the Cybertronic symbols with which he had become obsessed. The twins claimed that they couldn't read the ancient Language of the Primes and weren't much into reading, anyway.

With the help of the Decepticon Wheelie and former Sector Seven agent Seymour Simmons, the group made their way to the Smithsonian, where the humans reactivated the venerable ex-Decepticon Jetfire. He teleported them all to Egypt before telling them the tale of the original Primes, the Star Harvester, which had the potential to destroy all life on Earth, and finally, the Matrix of Leadership, the key to activating the harvester and possibly the only thing that could bring Optimus Prime back to life. When the Matrix could not be found at the ruins of Petra, Mudflap questioned why they where helping Sam, wondering what they had done for the Autobots. Skids pointed out that Sam had killed Megatron, but Mudflap said the point was moot since Megatron was now back. After calling each other "scared" and "ugly" the two began to fight with one another. After damaging the structure and nearly crushing the humans, Bumblebee picked the twins up, bashed them together, and threw them out the door. However, their bickering created a hole in the wall where the Tomb of the Primes lay, and with it, the Matrix.

Making their way back to the Pyramids where NEST waited with Optimus Prime's body, the group came under attack by Starscream. Mudflap, Skids, Leo and Simmons acted as a decoy to lure the Decepticons away from Sam and Mikaela. Unfortunately, they attracted the attention of the Constructicons, who combined into Devastator and attacked by vacuuming up loose objects such as sand, cars, and Mudflap. Hanging on for dear life inside the monster's mouth, he tried to use his "kung-fu grip", but was sucked further inside, losing his shoulder guards in the process.

As Skids mourned the loss of his twin, Simmons realized that the safest place to be was directly under the giant. But he had survived being vacuumed up by Devastator, and to escape he had blasted a hole through its head. To buy the humans time to escape, Skids clambered up Devastator's right forepaw to assist Mudflap. Skids threw a cable to Mudflap, who grabbed it and swung off Devastator's head onto his arm. However, once they had landed, Mudflap accidentally shot Skids in the face, knocking them off. At Megatron's command, Devastator continued onto the Great Pyramid of Giza.