Kup

Kup is an Autobot who can transform into a light bluish-green futuristic pickup truck and wields a musket laser. He has a wealth of experience and is well liked by the Dinobots for his old war stories, of which he seems to have an endless supply. Kup was introduced and featured in The Transformers: The Movie and the third season of the original animated television series. He also serves as something of a mentor to the more rebellious and youthful fellow Autobot Hot Rod. Kup is also said to be among the oldest of the Transformers, a title held in the prior seasons by Ironhide.
Kup was voiced by the late Lionel Stander in The Movie, and the late John Stephenson in the TV series. 
==History==
===Cartoon ===
====The Movie====
Kup first appears in the movie putting up a roadblock which Hot Rod ignores and demolishes. Kup later rescues Hot Rod and Witwicky from Decepticon Blitzwing.
Later, Hot Rod and Kup crash into an ocean on the planet Quintessa. He is captured by a giant mechanical squid which is then attacked and defeated by Hot Rod. On Quintessa, he uses the universal greeting when confronted by hostile alien transforming robots. Although the ploy fails in this case, it leaves a lasting impression on Hot Rod, who uses it later on the planet of Junk. The pair are taken prisoner and meet Kranix who tells them about Unicron and who is soon after taken out and dropped into a pool full of Sharkticons. A fate which later befalls Kup and Hot Rod, who escape by creating a whirlpool, thus avoiding Kranix's fate.
Throughout the movie, Kup has an anecdote for every situation, although at the sight of Unicron attacking Cybertron, he claims to have "never seen anything like this before." Alongside Springer and Arcee, he combats Unicron's internal defenses until Hot Rod releases the power of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, destroying the Chaos Bringer. Upon seeing that Hot Rod had become Rodimus Prime, Kup states "I knew you had potential lad" as the new leader of the Autobots led him and the others in the escape from Unicron just as he explodes.
==== Season 3 ====
Kup would revisit Quintessa months later when he, Ultra Magnus, and Spike Witwicky are kidnapped by the Quintessons. Kup and the others would escape with the help of Rodimus Prime's strike force, shortly before the planet was destroyed by the Quintessons.
While investigating a shuttle crash, Kup determined that the craft had been torn apart by death crystals from the monster known as Chaos. Kup had encountered Chaos many years before, on the creature's homeworld, planet Dredd. On that previous visit, Kup had been captured and enslaved; he barely escaped, but left the other slaves behind in order to save himself. Kup lead a team of Autobots to planet Dredd to investigate, only to find that the Decepticons were building a new superweapon utilizing the crystals. During the course of the mission, Kup confronted Chaos once again, and this time he freed the slaves. With Chaos defeated and the slaves freed, the Decepticons fled the planet, and a dark part of Kup's past was redeemed.
Kup continued to play a key role throughout season 3, serving as security director. He watched over Rodimus Prime as a sort of father figure, noting that the new Autobot leader had a lot of the same growing pains as his predecessor, Optimus Prime. When Rodimus was feeling over-pressured by the demands of leadership, Kup described it as giri - "the burden hardest to bear", and something Optimus had to learn to cope with and respect.
Kup was among the Autobots injured by Superion during the hate plague outbreak. After Optimus Prime was revived, Kup was among the team of Autobots that joined the expedition to Chaar to recover the metal developed by Drs. Morgan and Swofford, previously stolen by Galvatron, which was impervious to the plague. Kup bought time for Optimus and Sky Lynx to escape with the metal, before becoming infected with the plague himself. Kup, along with everyone else who was infected, was subsequently cured by the power of the Matrix.
====Season 4====
In season 4, Kup he becomes a Targetmaster with a Nebulon named Recoil.
====The Headmasters====
In the Japanese exclusive Headmasters series, the events of The Rebirth are ignored and Kup never became a Targetmaster, instead leaving Cybertron with Rodimus Prime and Blurr to find a new homeworld for the Autobots.
===Comics ===
====The Headmasters====
Note: The Headmasters series is told in the US series, and is referenced in the UK comics, indicating that these events occur regardless of timeline.
Kup was part of a group of Autobots serving under Fortress Maximus on Cybertron. When Fortress Maximus tired of the war with the Decepticons and decided they should retire to the planet Nebulos. Kup agreed to accompany him, but was willing to use force against attacking Nebulans until Maximus stopped him. Afterwards, he surrendered his weapon as a gesture of peace.
With Fortress Maximus and most of his senior staff having voluntarily deactivated themselves, Kup took a leading role in establishing an Autobot base out in the unused swamp. After the Decepticons came to the planet and captured the Autobot Headmasters, Kup was among those upgraded to Targetmaster to try and stop Scorponok and Lord Zarak's control of the planet. Their first battle was partly successful but the Autobots withdrew on realising they were destroying the area they had tried to protect, with both factions leaving Nebulos soon after.
====Marvel's the Transformers (UK)====
The events seen in the UK comics are initially seen as the definitive future of the series, until time travel rewrites the timeline to become a potential future.
At one point during the war, Kup was diagnosed with combat fatigue and retired from the Autobots, drifting aimlessly in a spacecraft. He ended up going to the rescue of Hot Rod when he saw him under attack from the Tyroxians but refused to help him rescue his friend Blurr, only offering him a lift back to Cybertron. When Hot Rod went to rescue Blurr on his own, Kup went after him and rescued the pair, deciding the Autobots needed him after all.
In 2003, Kup was supposedly given the job of transporting the plans for Autobot City to the Earth government. En route, he was ambushed by the Stunticons, who stole the tape. Hot Rod was badly injured during a failed attempt to retrieve it, after which Kup explained the tape was a fake, designed to convince the Decepticons they knew the city's secrets.
During the events of The Transformers: The Movie, Kup, Hot Rod and Blurr were manipulated by Unicron into going back in time to stop Galvatron interfering in the past (displacing Shockwave and other Decepticons into limbo in the process). They teamed up with that era's Ultra Magnus and set up an elaborate deception, blowing up Galvatron's cannon and then using a recording and a repainted Skywarp to convince him Starscream was responsible. Galvatron blew "Starscream" apart in anger, leaving him convinced he was in an alternate past and causing him to return to the future. Kup and the others returned the real Starscream to stasis before leaving again.
Following the defeat of Galvatron and Unicron, Kup assisted Rodimus Prime in battling the resurgent Decepticons on Cybertron. When they learned that Galvatron was again in Earth's past, along with the bounty hunter Death's Head, the two of them travelled back with Blurr and Wreck-Gar. They again joined forces with Ultra Magnus, along with Goldbug, and attempted to return Galvatron to their own time. They failed however and only managed to take Death's Head with them.
When the Decepticons, manipulated by Unicron, launched an all-out attack on the Autobots on Cybertron, Kup and Ultra Magnus led the defence while Rodimus Prime travelled to Junk to stop Unicron. He later accompanied Rodimus Prime to Earth to beat back a Quintesson attack.
Kup was later part of the team Rodimus Prime took back into the past to finally retrieve Galvatron and stop the time storm threatening to destroy Earth, although he insisted on taking Arcee and Red Alert to stop Soundwave and the Terrorcons draining Earth's energy first. Their journey into the past caused Blaster and several other Autobots to be displaced into limbo, making the Autobots of that era suspicious of them. Kup ended up being attacked by Grimlock, who failed to recognise him, until a truce was finally called. The two Autobot groups, together with Decepticon allies, battled Galvatron together. Kup was knocked out by Megatron but was back on his feet to join the other Autobots in returning to the future after the time rift was finally sealed.
However, their interference in the past had altered history: Galvatron had never travelled back in time and had led the Decepticons in recapturing most of Cybertron. The Autobots were hampered by the fact Rodimus Prime had Unicron contained in the Matrix and Galvatron nearly goaded him into giving into a berserker fury and releasing him. The Autobots chose to evacuate to Earth but their ship was sabotaged and it took some time before Kup realised the culprit was Rodimus Prime himself, now possessed by Unicron. With the ship crashed and Rodimus tearing through both the ship's crew and the Autobot City staff, Kup refused to authorise lethal force and managed to rip the Matrix from Rodimus, temporarily breaking the link. He was later present when Unicron was finally released.
====Marvel's the Transformers (US)====
After the Nebulan Autobots reached Earth, Fortress Maximus was binary bonded with Spike Witwicky. Kup was mistrustful of their new leader and insisted the Targetmasters take the lead in trying to rescue Spike's brother Buster from Ratbat's Decepticons. They were beaten back by the defences, leaving Fortress Maximus to try on his own. Although they failed, he and Spike did manage to defeat Shockwave, winning Kup's respect. He was later present when their group joined with the Earth Autobots on the moon.
Following the events of the Underbase Saga, which left most of the old Autobots deactivated, Kup became one of Optimus Prime's senior staff. He was left in charge of the Ark when Optimus took most of the crew to stop the Air Stike Patrol attacking MacDill Airforce Base. Kup was knocked out by the Sports Car Patrol and recovered to find Blackjack planting a bomb. He was unable to defuse it and reluctant to evacuate and leave dozens of Autobots in stasis on board. Ratchet provided the solution by transporting the bomb into Megatron's base, apparently killing them both.
Kup stumbled across Grimlock removing the bodies of the Dinobots as part of his plan to revive them with nucleon, and failed to stop him. Kup became increasingly argumentative towards Optimus Prime. When they retrieved Ratchet from nullspace only to find he had been fused with Megatron, Kup advocated killing the resulting creature but Optimus overruled him, having them separated and placed in stasis. Kup disagreed with Optimus Prime surrendering his crew to Scorponok in order to negotiate an alliance against Unicron, punching Apeface when his taunting became too much, and had to be convinced to join Optimus Prime and Hot Rod in a charade designed to make Scorponok trust them.
When Shockwave's Decepticons attacked the base, Kup was left behind by Optimus to contain the resulting battle between the two Decepticon factions and managed to force Mindwipe to use his hypnotic abilities to force a ceasefire. The group were then all transported to Cybertron, where Kup took part in the battle with Unicron. Surviving, he and the other Autobots followed the Decepticons to Klo where Grimlock led them into an ambush. Kup was again among the survivors and managed to join Optimus Prime in putting the Decepticons to flight.
== Transformers IDW ==
==Transformers Cyberverse==
==Trivia==
*Wired Magazine once nominated him as one 12 most ridiculous Transformers of all time. 
*The universal greeting used by Kup and Hot Rod appears in the game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
*Kup is a smoker, as seen in the IDW Comics and his artworks. He is also the first smoker in the Transformers franchise.
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