Navigator (Autobot)

This article is about the Autobot. For the Star Seeker, see Navigator (Star Seeker).

Navigator is an Autobot from the Marvel portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

"This looks like a job for Bi-Polar Bear! But I just can't seem to get out of bed this month."

Navigator is an Autobot on a mission: to find the Ark. While his partner has more actively scouted, becoming the stuff of human legend as a mysterious "man of iron", Navigator has slumbered for ages, awaiting the day he is reactivated and can reveal the location of Cybertron to his lost comrades.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

For millions of years a signal was broadcast, its message meant to be picked up by the lost Autobots aboard the ill-fated Ark. The signal emanated from Navigator, for whom those millions of years passed as seconds as he lay in repose aboard his ship. He and his partner had been sent on their search by the Autobots of Cybertron, and they ended up finding the correct planet, but were unfortunately too early for their signal to be heard. An old chronicle recorded an encounter between his partner out scouting and some terrified humans in the year 1017 around Stansham Castle. Unbeknownst to the humans, their ship lay buried beneath the English castle, thousands of miles away from the place where their missing comrades also slumbered.

When the Ark's occupants awoke in 1984, Navigator's signal finally served its purpose, attracting the attention of Optimus Prime's Autobots... but also Megatron's Decepticons. Navigator's rest was uninterrupted as the quiet village of Stansham became host to both Transformer and human military activity. His partner, however, did emerge from their ship, but was quickly destroyed by a barrage of Seeker rockets. The Autobots engaged the Decepticons in battle and were victorious, but this was not good news for Navigator: Optimus immediately ordered the buried ship's destruction. Jazz dutifully vaporized it in a massive implosion, not realizing he was killing Navigator within. Man of Iron

Notes

In American comics, the mattresses are paved with gold.

• "Man of Iron" identifies this robot only as "navigator, warrior and guardian of Autobot destiny." The lettering being all caps, plus the lack of an Oxford Comma, makes it possible to parse the sentence in such a way that "Navigator" is his name, and "warrior and guardian" are his functions, but the unearthly tone of the story makes it far more likely "navigator, warrior, and guardian" are all intended to be functions of a nameless robot. Whatever the original intent may have been, over a year later the letters page of UK issue #63 chose to assign "Navigator" as the robot's name.
• Navigator and his partner share nearly identical character models, differentiated only by their heads. Their robot forms are highly genericized, lacking any distinguishing features that would hint at what their alternate modes are, if any.
• Thirty-four years after Navigator's appearance in the Marvel comic, IDW published a one-shot that retconned him into being Cloudraker and his partner into being his clone brother Fastlane. It's... not the smoothest of retcons, but it works if you squint. [See Transformers '84 issue 0 for a full rundown.]
  • In particular, the part about Navigator having been broadcasting the signal for millions of years while unconscious doesn't match up at all, as the new story shows the very active Cloudraker being knocked out cold in a battle in 1017, then Fastlane dictating a distress call right afterward via what seems to be the ship radio.
  • However, the story does provide more context for Optimus's strangely heartless and abrupt order to destroy the ship and Navigator within: Optimus is shown to have used the Ark launch as bait to lure Megatron away from Cybertron. Even if it meant sacrificing the Ark and all its unwitting crew to destroy or at least isolate Megatron, Prime thought the cost would be justified to protect their homeworld from Megatron's evil. He also ordered Punch to sabotage any rescue attempts. Thus, the reader can surmise that the same moral calculus led Prime to consider the destruction of the rescue ship and whoever may have been inside worth it to cut off any means of reuniting with Cybertron while Megatron still functioned.
  • Many Transformers have borne multiple names over time, so the idea that the 'bot called "Navigator" is also called "Cloudraker" isn't really a contradiction per se. A potentially interesting distinction is that "Navigator" is given in narration, while "Cloudraker" is given in Fastlane's dialogue. Make of that what you will.
  • The clones' very different appearance from Navigator and his partner is given a hint of an explanation by a shot of Cloudraker's battle-damaged form with bits of white plating peeking out from beneath areas of blown-off red armor.