Darkwing is a minor antagonist in the 2024 animated film Transformers One. He is a member of the Sentinel Prime empire where he oversees the mining system being abusive and ableist who abuses others, mainly Orion Pax and D-16.
He voiced by Isaac C. Singleton Jr.
What Makes Him Pathetic?
- He is an abusive, ableist, and classist boss who takes pleasure in abusing and torturing Bots without T-cogs.
- He's also very egotistical over having a cog, with the movie later revealed that this isn't something uncommon since everyone were born with one, but when it's Sentinel's regime, he took away most of the people's cogs. This means it's only thanks to Sentinel's artificial system that he look "superior" to the others, which is something he took a lot of pride on.
- He unfairly fires Elita because of something she didn't even do, but something Orion and D-16 did, and when she confronts him, he says "You are no-cog bots with limited options" and demotes her to waste management.
- Not only he valued the protocol so much that he didn't feel impressed by how Orion was willing to break it to save Jazz (to which Jazz would have died if Orion didn't), but he even lack the decency to ask if there's anyone that got hurt, as the first thing he did on-screen is firing elita for being a "bitch".
- He punches D-16 when he tries to apologize for Orion Pax's behavior.
- He intentionally put everyone in the race in danger by attacking Orion Pax and D-16 by sabotaging their Jetpack. This would make his defeat on the race karmic.
- He punished Orion and D-16 by throwing them into sublevel 50 for being humiliated in the Iacon 5000 race, hoping that the two would go crazy like Bumblebee.
- When Ironhide pointed out that the miners needed rest, Darkwing threatened and intended to punch Ironhide just for talking back, until Orion Pax appeared to defend him.
- Despite acting tough, he is shown to be weak when dealing with someone of the same level, since Orion easily knocks him out with just one punch, meaning he is nothing more than a pathetic bully who only attacks those who are weaker than him.
- Not to mention, Orion did it when he just got a cog recently and find transforming initially struggling.
- Despite being Sentinel Prime's enforcer, nothing confirm he's loyal to him, especially since he's fine with defying his orders to bring Orion & D to Sentinel's office over his petty grudge. He did follow Sentinel's order to oppress the miners to triple their work, but this is only motivated by his pettiness against them.
- While Sentinel Prime is technically worse than him, being a despicable traitor he is still a cool villain with some charisma and was able to manipulate an entire planet to serve his needs for 50 years, Darkwing is just a petty and ableist bully, and is shown to be pathetically weak when faced with someone on his level.
What Makes Him a Pinhead?
- He unfairly fires Elita because of an action by Orion Pax and D-16 and not hers and he doesn't even realize it, it's also stupid since Elita proves to be the most hard-working and efficient captain and unfairly firing someone efficient would only bring disadvantages.
- He disobeys Sentinel Prime's orders and throws Orion and D-16 into sublevel 50, the stupid part is that his action indirectly causes Sentinel's empire to fall and all of this would have been avoided if he hadn't disobeyed his orders, even if Orion and D-16 hadn't found the message that leads to Alpha Trion they (along with Bumblebee) would still have probably decided to go up the tunnel and leave sublevel 50, and would have told Sentinel what he did and Darkwing would have been punished for disobeying Sentinel, he would have been screwed either way.
- Furthermore, he only get away with it thanks to Sentinel's lack of regard toward other lives, since if Sentinel questions about it, then he wouldn't be able to give out a good excuse to vindicate himself.
- This also means he only get away thank to pure luck, not because he try to weasel his way out of it.
- Him threatening and physically hurting Ironhide and the other miners would only make them worse off, which would have made mining more difficult for Sentinel, something that doesn't cross his mind.
- He's the movie's most pathetic fighter, even more than the miners he constantly bully, as Orion only need a single punch to knock him out despite just getting a cog recently and struggle to transform.
- And this is hardly better even against someone without a cog: D-16 doesn't even have a cog and yet he managed to block Darkwing's punch not only very quickly, but also very easily without much struggle.
- Ultimately, his poor treatment of Optimus Prime and Megatron when they were still Orion Pax and D-16 respectively would most likely result in him being an outcast among Autobots and Decepticons alike.
Trivia
- He is indirectly responsible not only for the fall of Sentinel's regime but also for the existence of the Autobots and Decepticons, he throwing Orion Pax and D-16 into Sublevel 50 where the two, along with Bumblebee and Elita-1 would find Alpha Trion's message and the events of the film occur.
- There is a theory that says that Sentinel Prime was the one who ordered Darkwing to throw Orion and D-16 into sublevel 50 for entering the race, but nothing has been confirmed. Furthermore, even if it were true, it would not be very disqualifying since Darkwing is still an incompetent supervisor whose abuse and xenophobia ends up hindering the miners' work.