Richard Branson

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The name or term "Richard" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Richard (disambiguation).
Richard Branson is a human from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Yes, that Richard Branson.

Richard Branson runs a large company called Virgin from the United Kingdom. Their activities involve clean-up operations, which he oversees personally. His intentions are genuine, but he doesn't object to a little publicity along the way, either.

He's smart enough to know that you don't get sharks in the Thames, though Jawbreaker disagreed.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

Richard Branson appeared exclusively in the UK portion of the Marvel Comics continuity.
Branson shark! Doo doo doo doo doo doo

Following the discovery of Transformer bodies in the Thames, Richard Branson led a crew from Virgin to remove them environmental hazards from London's main waterway, come rain or shine. No sooner had they hauled the bodies of Centurion and Megatron[1] above the water than a team of Decepticons showed up to steal them and fly them back to Shockwave.

Branson appeared cross at the Decepticons as they took the bodies away. In which case he may have had more in mind than simply disposing of them. (Or he just didn't like being put out of a headline.) Salvage!

Notes

  • Originally, this story would have featured a character who was merely Bransonesque, but Lee Sullivan had a bit of fun drawing a full-on Branson likeness. When his bosses saw it, they decided to try for permission to actually use Branson as the character. They were successful, with Branson's appearance being tied into his ongoing environmental "Clean Up Britain" campaign, leading to it even making some UK papers. One such article was reprinted in the Titan trade paperback Transformers: Space Pirates, though it wasn't very complimentary about either Branson or Transformers.
  • Later reprints of "Salvage!" would replace Branson with "Mister Johnson", as they were unable to produce the paperwork showing Branson's prior approval of the use of his likeness and decided to err on the safe side.

Footnotes

  1. Of course, Centurion isn't actually a Transformer, and Megatron wasn't really Megatron but Straxus-as-Megatron at this point.