City Commander
- City Commander is a rank in the Autobot and Decepticon forces from the Generation 1 continuity family.
A City Commander is a Transformer tasked with overseeing the operations of a given city. Considering the state of war, "cities" can vary from full habitats expected to house civilians and soldiers to little more than a fortress with living quarters. Three separate Transformers were referred to as City Commanders during the G1 toyline.
Ultra Magnus
The Autobot City Commander, Ultra Magnus, started his role in the fiction as the commanding officer of Autobot City. Although he is not specifically referred to in dialogue as the commander, he takes a steady hand during the opening battle, overseeing the mobilization of the base defenses and attempting to contact reinforcements. The Transformers: The Movie However, Magnus clearly didn't feel comfortable in a command position, as despite being the commander of the largest concentration of Autobot power at the time he felt he was unsuitable as the next leader of the Autobots.
Following the events of the film, the American continuity has Ultra Magnus largely abandoning the post of City Commander in favor of acting as a second-in-command to Rodimus Prime. In the Japanese continuity, however (specifically, The Headmasters), Magnus remained in his command post and worked to coordinate a variety of Autobot operations on Earth.
Galvatron
Galvatron is listed as a Decepticon City Commander on his toy tech specs. This was most likely done to avoid spoiling the events of the animated film before its release; no reference is made to his status as a rebuilt Megatron for the same reason. Neither Trypticon nor any other Decepticon city feature in the film, and by the time Galvatron is commanding the Decepticons in the animated series, there aren't really any Decepticon cities left to be commanded. (Though he technically would be their commander.)
Galvatron's Universe profile updated his biographical data to match the film, but still retains his "Decepticon City Commander" function.
There was one continuity in which Galvatron did take his function as City Commander quite seriously—specifically, his role in the stop-motion toy version of Scramble City, where he is presented as a subordinate to Megatron and specifically serves as an opposite number for Ultra Magnus. Scramble City This was produced when the Japanese production staff was still unaware of Galvatron's role in the movie, and no subsequent materials have mentioned it... except for the attempted retcon to claim that that Galvatron was actually Galvatron II, who is... um... still Megatron. Only crazier even than normal.
In other words, it's probably best not to expect any cities to be commanded by Galvatron.
Sixshot
Although never officially labelled with this function (referred to instead as a "Ninja Staff Officer"), Sixshot was head of the Decepticons' Earth-based forces during The Headmasters, operating out of Trypticon and serving as a constant opposite number to Ultra Magnus.
Trivia
- There is an add-on set called "City Commander Armor" (or "City Commander Trailer") made by the FansProject kitbash which combines with Classics Ultra Magnus[1] to resemble the original G1 toy. Despite its excellence, it is completely unofficial and thus not allowed to be mentioned in this wiki. So don't tell anybody you read it here. Ssshhhhh.
