Kup (Animated)

Kup is an Autobot from the Animated continuity family.

Grouchy and old as the Pit. He and Ratchet would get along.

Kup held the rank of Minor when he was a member of the Cybertron Elite Guard, but now that he's retired, so is his old title. He was formerly a drill sergeant at Autobot boot camp, where he trained many Autobots of note, including Optimus, Sentinel, and Hot Rod, and you can tell that Kup is good at his job by the fact that these three all went on to gain the title of Prime. On the surface, Kup is a snarling, no-nonsense, tough-as-nails 'bot whose dedication to his job was second to none, but underneath all the barked orders and cy-gar-sucking, worthy cadets found there was a kind Autobot with a wealth of experience to share.

Fiction

Animated cartoon

A thousand stellar cycles ago, Kup trained Optimus, Sentinel, and Elita-1 in boot camp, giving each of them their names for their optimism, vigilance, and snobbish attitude, respectively. He had no lost love for Sentinel in particular, and was not happy about his appointment to the rank of Magnus a millennium later.

Eight hundred stellar cycles ago, Kup found himself with a particularly vexing class consisting of Blaster, Quickslinger, Skram, and one bright-red, horn-honking, flame-painted Autobot who ground his gears the wrong way on sight. Aggravating by this turbo-revving young punk's attitude, Kup dubbed him "Hot Rod". Kup was soon to discover he had misjudged Hot Rod during a live-fire training exercise, when Skram dropped a grenade that rolled right next to Kup. The old 'bot thought he was done for, but before he could even react, Hot Rod had thrown himself on top of the grenade to protect his teacher. Fortunately for all concerned, the grenade turned out to be a dud, but Kup could see that the young hothead had the qualities of a genuine hero. Hot Rod ultimately made it into the Autobot Academy a decade before the rest of his class, and became Rodimus Prime.

By the 22nd century, Kup had retired from service, but still kept his eye on Rodimus, and was aghast to hear of his crippling encounter with Cosmic Rust while fighting the Decepticons' Team Chaar. Kup blamed himself for not being there to protect his old charge, believing that he should have been the one to fall. The AllSpark Almanac II

Notes

• Kup's design was developed with a view to including him in the Animated cartoon, but was abandoned before being completed. It was eventually finalized for The AllSpark Almanac II.
• Kup's character model shows him with a cy-gar in his mouth, a trait taken from Generation 1 Kup in IDW Publishing's All Hail Megatron.
• Initial proposals for BotCon 2011 included a redeco of Cybertron Mode Optimus Prime into Kup.^[1][2]

Foreign names

• Japanese: Kup (カップ Kappu)

References