The Transformers (animation)/Awesome

Animated TV series

• Grimlock's Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner in "Day Of The Machines", right before he's about to pull Optimus out of being shot to bits by semi-sentient tanks that shoot laser beams. Also hangs a great lampshade on the guy's role as well:

Grimlock: Huh. Grimlock always pulling Optimus out of messes he can't handle. Always saving him when he needs it. Dinobots, SMASH THEM!!!

• The episode "The Ultimate Doom" has Megatron pulling an epic Sadistic Choice on Optimus Prime. Either Optimus activates the final pylon, which would pull Cybertron into Earth's orbit and pretty much doom humanity and give Megatron a nearly endless supply of energy, or leave the pylon alone, which would destroy Cybertron and kill everyone on it. Optimus activates it, leading to:

Optimus: "Have I saved Cybertron...only to destroy the Earth?"

• Omega Supreme gets one in the second-season intro to the cartoon. Blitzwing strafes the Dinobots and tries to take him on in a Tank Battle. Omega transforms... and steps off of Blitzwing as he turns to attack his next target.
• Starscream in "Atlantis, Arise!" Throughout the whole episode, he's suspected that the Sub-Atlanticans are planning to betray the Decepticons, and he is proven right when Nergill, the Sub-Atlantican king, has a ray built which can shut down Transformers. Later, Nergill is about to fire the ray at Grimlock and Megatron (knowing full well that the ray will deactivate both mechs) when Starscream snatches it from him and calls him traitor. In case you don't get what's so awesome about it: the Trope Namer for The Starscream actually saves his leader's life. Of course, he doesn't get any gratitude for it, but even so...
  • In that same episode, the Dinobots get one (yes, they are walking CMoAs, but still...). While the Autobots are at the mercy of the Decepticons and Sub-Atlanticans, the Dinobots are called in, proceed to smash through the Force Field erected over the battlefield, and smash the Decepticons. Grimlock then goes after Megatron himself, shrugging off several shots from Megatron's fusion cannon.

Grimlock: Once again, me Grimlock have to pull your diodes out of danger, Optimus Prime.

• The end of "City of Steel", where Prime takes out Devastator with dialogue that would never be allowed in PC firearm-hating children's television these days:

Devastator: "It will take more than your puny arm to stop DEVASTATOR!"
Optimus: "Right. Which is why it's lucky that the hand at the end of that arm... is holding a gun!"

• In the second-season episode "Starscream's Brigade", Megatron finally kicks Starscream out of the Decepticons after he tried to play, well, The Starscream one too many times. So what does Starscream do? He creates the Combaticons and comes within inches of defeating the entire Decepticon army, and has Megatron on the verge of surrender before the deus ex machina prevents his triumph.
• A minor one comes for Wreck-Gar in Season 3's "The Killing Jar" when he is abducted by the Quintesson scientist and placed in an immaculate room. Separated from the usual clutter of the planet of Junk, the Quint expects Wreck-Gar to have a breakdown. Instead, he simply tears strips off the wall until it's nice and junkified again.
• G1 Blitzwing at the end of "Five Faces Of Darkness" saves the day, stands up against his psychotic leader and refuses to join the good guys, walking out of the series and into fanfiction forever.

Galvatron: You will never be welcome in the ranks of the Decepticons again!
Blitzwing: Sometimes it's better to be known for one's enemies.

• "Webworld": The psychiatric-hospital-planet of Torkulon restrains Galvatron and tries to lobotomize him by invading and consuming his metaprocessor. What does Galvatron do? He invades Torkulon's mind by being just that powerful of mind and just that mad and proceeds to tear the place apart.
• "The Return of Optimus Prime" features the return of Optimus Prime. It also features something called a "Hate Plague" which is passed on by touch and drives the infected insane with hatred (mostly, people are also driven to infect others, and are just a little bit loopy when infected - Ultra Magnus cackles while chasing Rodimus, for example). Galvatron is scared witless by the plague (before infection). It's stated that it's spreading across the galaxy (and maybe the universe). By the end of Part 1, the only uninfected Transformers are Galvatron, Sky Lynx, an unnamed Quintesson and a small handful of Autobots (who were all wounded by a maddened Superion). Yep. No Ultra Magnus (one of the first infected). No Rodimus Prime (who spent half the episode eluding Ultra Magnus only to be infected by Wreck-Gar in a fraction of a second). Even the city-bots have been defeated or offlined. And the plague is still spreading. By the end of the story, only the reborn Optimus and the Quintesson are uninfected (and Optimus has special armour keeping him sane, he'd be maddened as well without the armour). Cue Optimus realising that wisdom beats hate... and unleashing the full power of the Matrix to the roaring tunes of "The Touch" by Stan Bush.
  • Wisdom beats hate. Prime saves the day. "The Touch" is played. It's frankly amazing. Especially if you're a little kid who watched as all the heroes and villains fell one by one.
  • And, of course, Optimus' actual return:

Sky Lynx: There's no time left for mistakes! The world needs a leader, NOW!

Quintesson: Once again we are ready. But, if this doesn't work, Optimus Prime will never live again!

(The switch is thrown. Optimus's body is sitting in a chair. Then it stands up.)

Sky Lynx: Optimus...

Quintesson: I've DONE IT!!! Optimus Prime LIVES!!!!!

Sky Lynx: It's true... Our leader is back!

Optimus: Yes, Sky Lynx. And this time, NO FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE CAN STOP ME!

• "Sixshot! Show them what a one-robot-army is!"
  • The Transformers Wiki calls it the "sell-my-toy routine". It certainly convinced me.
• From the Headmasters three-parter:

Scorponok: "I have your boy, and your Autobot friends. They're within my city banks. And when you die, they ALL die!"
Spike: Don't make any funeral arrangements yet!

• In "Desertion of the Dinobots", Grimlock stops Devastator mid-combination by headbutting the robot that would have become his arm.
• "The Key To Vector Sigma" has four that stand out.
  • Megatron gloats after revealing to the Autobots that the Stunticons have a combined form—Menasor. Then Optimus commands the Aerialbots to "show 'em what you've got!" Cue This Cannot Be! from Megatron as Superion, the first Autobot combiner, introduces himself.

Optimus Prime: "Surprise, Megatron!"

• • The first-ever combiner-on-combiner battle, which of course starts with a great line from Superion before the mechs throw down.

Menasor: "Menasor crush! Destroy!"
Superion: "Talk is cheap!"

• • Just as Menasor is about to crush Superion, Omega Supreme returns and beats the ever-living scrap out of him.
  • Silverbolt overcoming his fear of heights just long enough to destroy the key, then losing control and saying his farewells as he spirals to Earth ("So long, cruel world!"), and then a Big Damn Heroes moment from Slingshot just before he hits the ground.
• In the episode "Changing Gears", Ratchet flying jumpkicks Thundercracker RIGHT IN THE CHEST!!!
• In "A Plague of Insecticons", Megatron tries to blow up an oil refinery by crashing a burning oil tanker into it. Optimus leaps into its path and capsizes the burning ship before it reaches the shore. Moments later Megatron is about to fire on the Autobots when Optimus rises from the water holding the entire tanker over his head like it weighs nothing. Then he does exactly what you think he's going to do with it.

Optimus Prime: "Megatron...CATCH!"

|Marvel comics

• Shockwave showing up as a Big Damn Villain taking out all the Autobots with one shot while Prime was giving a Rousing Speech.
• A moment from the UK comic series that doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny. Rodimus Prime has a Decepticon in the exact same position that Optimus had Megatron in in the movie. The Decepticon asks for mercy, and Rodimus repeats Optimus's line "You who are without mercy, now plead for it?" However, instead of hesitating and being interrupted, Rodimus simply shoots the Decepticon in the face while yelling "REQUEST DENIED!"
• From the UK comic: Ultra Magnus taking on Galvatron. Okay, yeah, he lost, but still.
• Circuit Breaker is a human who built herself a Stripperiffic suit to manipulate electricity in addition to serving as an artificial nervous system. Unicron is a Cosmic Horror the size of a planet. And yet she successfully fries Unicron long enough for Prime to destroy him. Holy crap.
• Towards the end of Marvel's original Transformers run, Fortress Maximus, the mighty but conflicted Autobot subcommander, vs. Galvatron, one of the most powerful single warriors ever forged, who dismantled pretty much every Autobot he'd ever fought, either barehanded or with his particle cannon. Recent events have driven Galvatron completely 'round the twist, and he has some lingering injuries, but he is still one of the most dangerous beings alive. Despite having part of his face torn off, despite being thrown around like a toy despite being physically more massive than Galvatron, and despite the Decepticon being so Ax Crazy he rips out some of Fort Max's wires with his mouth, Max overcomes his mental weaknesses, and uses the fact that he is fairly bristling with weaponry to blast him, beat him down, and throw him into a freezing Arctic lake.

Fortress Maximus: We are Fortress Maximus, the Last Autobot, and you--you are history! *knocks Galvatron into a lake with an uppercut*

• • To further make it cool, the dizzying size of the cast of the comic meant that only the most well-known characters got more than one CMoA—even Optimus Prime only had three I can remember off the top of my head, and the final writer's favorite, Grimlock, only had a handful—so a severely underutilized character like Fort Max getting a Crowning Moment of Awesome is doubly cool.
• Ratchet was a medic with laser scalpels as his main weapon, but was 2-0 against Megatron, for a while was the only functional Autobot in the early goings and saved the day with guts, determination and the inability to know when to quit. In some ways, he was more heroic than the Marvel version of Optimus Prime.
  • #58 and #59 are basically nothing but Ratchet being awesome.