Decapitation

This article only exists to please him.

Decapitation is a means of defeating an opponent by which his head is removed. Depending on the continuity, this may lead to death.

Optimus Prime loves it while Bonecrusher hates it.

Give me your FACE!Optimus Prime revels in his favorite tactic, Revenge of the Fallen

Fiction

Generation 1

Marvel Comics continuity

Time to face facts.

It's all a matter of how you remove your head. You see, even I - unh, there it goes - can take my head off. It's all a matter of how you do it. There's a whole set of mental commands that disconnect nerve endings and the like. If you just rip it off, fuel lines, neural connections and other vital bits are severed, as in the case of Cyclonus. Nine times out of ten it's fatal.Dreadwind on decapitation.

Well, it's quite simple really: the 'stupid female' (!) in question kindly restored Cloudburst's head to its rightful place, i.e. on top of his shoulders. Cyclonus wasn't lucky enough to have somebody around to do the same.Dreadwind contradicting his previous statement.

After defeating the Autobots, Shockwave removed Optimus Prime's head from his body for the purpose of accessing the Creation Matrix. The New Order Prime's head remained conscious and able to communicate with Buster Witwicky. The Worse of Two Evils! When he was finished with Prime's head, he disposed of a fake Optimus Prime as part of a ruse to trick the Autobots. The Autobots did indeed find the head and install it back on Prime's body. The fake head took control of Optimus's body and immediately started attacking the Autobots. Prime Time!

Cartoon continuity

Heading into the realms of disbelief.

Optimus Prime was decapitated by Hook as part of his disassembly after falling into Megatron's trap. This did not prevent him from being able to have partial control over his body parts. City of Steel

Cybertonium depletion caused Powerglide's head to fall off, though he still had full control over the rest of his body. Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1

IDW comics continuity

Where knocking your block off has a rather more literal meaning than first intended.

Runamuck was decapitated by the Whirling Reaper. His head remained alive, fully conscious and still able to speak, until another Reaper smashed it with a very large boulder.

Beast Wars cartoon

Can you believe that this is the only decapitation like screenshot we have from Beast Wars?!

Decapitation is notably non-fatal for the Beast Warriors. Waspinator's head frequently comes off, Silverbolt got his head knocked off in an explosion, Nemesis Part 1 and when Inferno and Megatron accidentally slammed into each other, they swapped heads. Coming of the Fuzors (Part 1)

Live-action film series continuity

Your face? GIVE ME YOUR WHOLE FREAKING HEAD!

Optimus Prime rather ruthlessly decapitated Bonecrusher.

Frenzy was decapitated ... by a chick! ... but his head lived on, taking a cell-phone alternate mode of its own. Frenzy is able to do this because he has a special, decentralized, modular nervous system. Transformers

Barricade was decapitated by Optimus Prime, apparently killing him. Movie Adaptation #4

Grindor's head was torn in half and then removed by Optimus Prime in Revenge Of The Fallen. Revenge of the Fallen (film)

Barricade's decapitation was not shown in the film and later comics retcon him as surviving with his head still on his shoulders.

Animated continuity

Glad to see you've got some headspace to deal with this issue (had enough of the puns yet?)

The Headmaster uses his Headmaster unit to cut off the heads of Transformers so that he can take control over their bodies. Yet this does not kill his victims.

Two stand out examples of surviving decapitation are worth noting. The first is the example of Megatron, who was decapitated during an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Transform and Roll Out He was sent into stasis lock as a result, but was reactivated fifty years latter thanks to Sari Sumdac's AllSpark Key, which had been powered with the energies of the AllSpark. Home Is Where the Spark Is

The other major example is Starscream, but this is atypical. Starscream's survival was because of an AllSpark fragment embedded in his head, meaning he could survive any normally spark threatening injury as long as the shard was in his head. Mission Accomplished

Trivia

• In the movie continuity, Frenzy's decentralized nervous system allows him to not only survive decapitation, but to continue remain active as a mere head, even taking on a new alternate mode. In any event, the remains of his head were later seen in a display case, probably because his final injury in the movie only lopped off MOST of his head.