Hardhead



Hardhead is a soldier to his core. A soldier with a stubborn streak a megamile wide. He's stubborn to the point of rejecting outright any path but his own, any idea that goes against his natural instinct or inclination (namely fighting), and any advice he didn't come up with himself. He doesn't talk much, and when he does, it tends to be blunt and terse, if not outright rude. A soldier doesn't waste time on social niceties when there's a war to fight.

Perhaps surprisingly, given his limited social aptitude, Hardhead has found a good companion in Duros, his binary-bonded Nebulan partner, who enjoys warfare just as much as Hardhead does. The two mesh so well, it's been said that theirs may be the best match among all the Autobot-Nebulan teams.

Fiction
After the resurrection of Optimus Prime, the Decepticons practically disappeared for a time. On Cybertron, Brainstorm used this reprieve to experiment on pairing Transformers with human partners, though his efforts did not convince Hardhead or Chromedome. Shortly after the exercise, Optimus Prime contacted them, notifying them of the Decepticons' return. They had stolen the Key to the Plasma Energy Chamber and were on their way to the chamber itself on Cybertron. Unfortunately, the chamber's activation would destroy Cybertron. Hardhead and several other Autobots commandeered a ship to head off Scourge and Cyclonus before they could reach the Plasma Energy Chamber, and they managed to retrieve the Key, but an energy surge smacked the Autobot ship out of Cybertron's orbit and far into space.

Hardhead and the others crash-landed on a strange planet named Nebulos and were quickly taken captive by an underground resistance movement that believed the Autobots were machines controlled by the Hive, who ruled Nebulos. After Hardhead volunteered to become a Headmaster, he was partnered with Duros. Their first test run against the Hive machines was a cracking success with the pair working to take one down. They followed that up by taking part in the liberation of some Autobots who had been captured by Decepticon forces, easily outclassing their foe. He was the first to welcome Optimus Prime when the Autobot leader arrived on the planet. The Autobot Headmasters and Targetmasters managed to get the stolen key back from the Decepticons, only for Scorponok to reveal himself.

With the key back in Decepticon hands, the Autobots headed back to Cybertron in an attempt to regain it. It looked like the Decepticons were planning to open the Plasma Energy Chamber, and the Autobots suddenly found themselves abandoned by their partners. Stuck in vehicle mode, Hardhead and the others tried to storm Scorponok to rescue Arcee and Daniel Witwicky, but were easily captured. Spike Witwicky came to the rescue with Fortress Maximus, and the Autobots were free for all of thirty seconds before they were overwhelmed by the energies from the opened Plasma Energy Chamber. Luckily they had Spike and the Nebulons to close the chamber and bring about a new Golden Age.

Hardhead, Duros and the other Headmasters later returned to Nebulos to begin the work of reclaiming and rebuilding the planet. Four million years ago, Hardhead was among a group of diminutive Cybertronians who departed Cybertron under the leadership of Fortress, seeking to escape the eternal war that had consumed the planet. Alas, engine trouble caused their craft to crash land on the planet Master, an inhospitable world whose murderous environments and wildly changeable atmospheric conditions threatened the lives of the Cybertronians almost as soon as they stepped off their ship and were caught in a desert of sinking sands. Fighting against the odds, the Cybertronians made several technological quantum leaps to survive on Master, including the creation of larger, lifeless Transformer bodies called transtectors. Hardhead and many of his comrades underwent rigorous physical and mental training to master the art of transformation, learning to transform into heads that connected to the transtectors and placed them under their control. Hardhead was one of ten warriors who became one of these "Headmasters", but unfortunately, half their number soon rebelled against Fortress's leadership and sided with a traitor named Scorponok against him. Via the Decepticon ninja Sixshot, Scorponok soon forged an alliance with the Decepticon leader, Galvatron. In the year 2011, when Galvatron launched his latest attack on Cybertron with the added power of his new Decepticon Headmasters, Hardhead and his fellow Autobot Headmasters traveled to the planet to help their comrades defend their homeworld. He helped Chromedome fight Weirdwolf. After the battle concluded with a Decepticon retreat, the Headmasters went to Athenia for introductions with the rest of the Autobots. They soon joined Hot Rod on Earth to search for the Matrix of Leadership and fought Abominus while Hot Rod retrieved their prize. They returned to Cybertron with the Matrix, and witnessed Optimus Prime sacrificing himself to save Vector Sigma and Hot Rod becoming Rodimus Prime once more. When the Decepticons developed the Madmachine, the Headmasters were all ready to storm over to Chaar and destroy it. Instead Rodimus had Blaster resurrected as Twincast, and the Headmasters went to Cybertron to delay the Decepticons and their machine long enough for Twincast to find a way to destroy it. Out on patrol in space, Hardhead and Chromedome first found stowaways in the form of Daniel and Wheelie, and then retrieved a couple of Beastformers floating in space. The latter led the Headmasters to the planet Beast, where they found the natives had been subjugated by the Decepticons. Joining with White Leo's rebels, they helped free the natives from Decepticon rule.

After the Decepticons directed a metal-warping meteor named Metamorphose at Athenia, the Headmasters accompanied Daniel on a mission to destroy it and ended up tangling with the Decepticon Headmasters. Lured to the planet Praum by a distress call, the five Headmasters fell into a trap laid by Scorponok. It was only by remembering their struggles back on Master that they performed a Cross-Head on and escaped the trap so they could fight the Decepticons. When Earth's major powers were threatened by a mysterious blackmailer, the Headmasters attempted fruitlessly to track the culprit down, until a clue led them to the fact it was Sixshot. They joined Raiden in cornering Sixshot in Japan and saw the Decepticon off.

The Headmasters continued their training, with Hardhead exercising on a treadmill. When the Decepticons were reported to be heading for Earth, he and Chromedome went there to investigate, and when it turned out that the Decepticons were heading to Cybertron to secure the supply of cybertonuron, the pair joined the other Earth-based Autobots in heading there too. The Decepticon Headmasters mysteriously ran off mid-battle and the Autobots tracked them down. They followed the trio to Vector Sigma's chamber, where the Decepticons had planted a number of bombs. Unable to defuse them, the Autobot Headmasters headed to the surface and raised the alarm, allowing the planet to be evacuated before it was destroyed. At the party to celebrate the completion of the Sol 1 satellite, Hardhead got drunk, bullied Twincast into providing music, and "treated" everyone to some karaoke. When the Decepticons attacked the launch, Hardhead and Highbrow double-teamed Cyclonus and the satellite was successfully launched, though a short time afterward, the Decepticons stole it. The Headmasters tried to retrieve it, but were eventually forced to destroy it to prevent it being used for evil. The Headmasters followed that up by helping save the residents of the South American village of Pan from a nearby erupting volcano. They also faced a huge buridanka plant as it attacked San Francisco, though it wasn't until Fortress pulled out the Master Sword that they were able to defeat it. When reports came in of the Decepticons being up to something on Mars, hardhead and the other Headmasters traveled there in Broadside. After tangling with Predaking they rescued Daniel and found out that the Decepticons were planning to blow the entire planet up. Interrogating the Decepticons led them to a crater which naturally turned out to be a trap. With Maximus, Brainstorm and Highbrow out of commission, Hardhead and Chromedome fought on. Despite the help of Raiden and the other Headmasters once they were better, the Autobots were faced with the arrival of Scorponok's new transtector, and were unable to prevent the Decepticons destroying the planet.

Despite Fortress's orders, Chromedome and Hardhead made an attempt to attack Chaar by concealing themselves aboard Maximus and heading toward the planet while the ship was on patrol. They were intercepted by the forewarned Decepticons, who sent them back to Maximus in a hurry. Hardhead took part in the Autobot strike on Scorponok's coronation, and was witness to the return of Galvatron. Following a distress call from the planet Sandra, the Headmasters attempted to take a shipment of energon there. When they were ambushed by the Decepticons en route, Hardhead and Chromedome used their transtectors as decoys while they went on ahead to deliver the energy.

As part of Spike's plan to negotiate with the Decepticon, the four Headmasters accompanied him to Shangri-La Island on Earth as an escort. When the Galvatron who met with Spike turned out to be an impostor, Hardhead and the others rescued Carly and Daniel before attacking the Decepticons. During the escape, Sixshot destroyed the space bridge network, and the Autobots set out in pursuit in Battleship Maximus. When the Decepticons invaded Hive, the Headmasters set out to assist, but the Hive ships mistook them for enemies, and even Hardhead, Chromedome, and Brainstorm trying to reason with them didn't help. After Chromedome went on ahead and persuaded the people of Hive that the Autobots were on their side, the other Headmasters were allowed to help fight off the Decepticons. The Autobots followed the Decepticons to Twin Star, where it turned out that the planet the Decepticons were attacking had already been evacuated of population and energy. They next followed an SOS to planet Daros where they helped overthrow a corrupt government and fight off the Decepticons. Hardhead and Chromedome were put to work fixing Battleship Maximus's weapons systems, and completed repairs by the time they had to go rescue Highbrow and expel the Decepticons from the idyllic world of Paradise. They again tangled with the Decepticons on the Pirate Planet, though it ultimately turned out that the planet's energy was long gone.

As the Decepticons returned to Chaar, their mission complete, so the Headmasters returned to Athenia. They were unable to get to Earth in time to prevent Sixshot from killing Ultra Magnus, but fought the ninja off with a fearsome counter-attack. The emboldened Decepticons began striking across the globe until the Headmasters tracked Galvatron down in Alaska. Using information passed on by Punch, they defeated the Decepticon leader and buried him beneath the ice. New information pointed to the Decepticons trying to destroy Earth altogether. As Chromedome had been relieved of duty by Fortress, Brainstorm took Hardhead and Highbrow to face the Decepticons on Kamchatka Peninsula. They didn't fare well until Chromedome completed Highbrow's research, discovering Scorponok's weak point.

With the Decepticons having abandoned Earth, the Autobots set about repairing the damage they'd done. Hardhead and Chromedome attempted to remove a number of bombs from a mine, but when Chromedome accidentally activated one, the pair had to perform a head switch to get them out safely. As they transported the bombs to a safe location in space, the Headmasters encountered a ship of refugees from Master. The refugees attempted to help dispose of the bombs but were caught in the explosion. The refugees from Master became bonded as Targetmasters with three newly-arrived Autobots, who turned out to have a low opinion of the Headmasters. Nonetheless, the Headmasters returned to their home world to fight the Decepticons.