Rick Ottman is a Decepticon-allied human from the Shattered Glass continuity family.

Let's hope he fares better than some other plucky redheaded robot sidekicks...

Frederick "Rick" Ottman is one of Professor Arkeville's three interns. He and his best friend, Will, get into all sorts of trouble together—though when they signed up to be Professor Arkeville's interns for college prep purposes,^[1] they probably weren't counting on said trouble involving giant robots.

He thinks Sephie is cute, but won't admit it except under threat of death.

Fiction

Fun Publications Shattered Glass continuity

Rick Ottman and his co-interns joined Professor Arkeville on a trek into the desert to find a meteorite, which had descended to Earth right in the middle of a massive electromagnetic event. Despite the potential criminal consequences of trying to beat the military to the find, Rick kidded around with his friends about Will's bottomless appetite and Sephie's obsession with machines. Things turned strange when a pair of driverless and...gesturing vehicles pulled into the area, and downright ridiculous when a blindingly white mechanical cat introduced himself from a nearby rock, looking to "has humanz".

After the initial panic subsided, Rick and Will realized that Ravage (and his friends Frenzy, Soundwave, and Heatwave) were actually friendly. (Maybe a little too friendly in Ravage's case.) They made their way to the crashed wreckage of the Nemesis and met the acting leader of the Decepticons, Starscream. After being fully briefed on the Cybertronian War, Rick and his friends agreed to help the Decepticons locate the fallen Autobot ship, and make sure their enemies were off-line.

As it turned out, they weren't. Rodimus Prime and the evil Autobots captured the GODS orbital weapon at Burpleson Air Force Base, and tried to hold the world hostage. Rick and Will helped Soundwave infiltrate the base, posing as a food delivery van. Once inside, they went with Frenzy to secure the GODS control room. A quick blast of fire extinguisher foam and sonic-juiced Frenzy helped clear Goldbug and Rodimus away from the controls, letting Heatwave tele-mechanically access the GODS system and trigger a self-destruct. Eye in the Sky

When the Decepticons were incapacitated by some serious comm static, Rick and his friends volunteered to look after the base while Soundwave went out to deal with the problem. Sephie's romance with technology gave her a rather defeatist attitude about the chances four "mere humans" stood if the Autobots happened to show up, and Rick did his best to defend humanity's ingenuity to her. He got a chance to prove it when the insane Beachcomber arrived looking for trouble. Rick and Will kept Beachcomber busy with defense cannons, flaring energy cells, and even a sparkling clean decon bath. Their antics occupied him until the comms were cleared up, and Beachcomber fled rather than facing the entire Decepticon army. Blitzwing Bop

Will and Rick were on hand with video cameras when the Decepticons got their stellar spanner working and Shockwave arrived on Earth. Rick was surprised Sephie hadn't been there, but when he found her, she broke the news that she had been offered a job in Maine with R.J. Blackrock's company. When the Decepticons were later invited to the unveiling of Blackrock's Mega-Rig, Rick went too. The ceremony was attacked by Autobots, and after Shockwave protected Sephie from Seaspray's missile, Rick was the first by her side. He later told her not to blame herself for Shockwave's critical injuries, but the next time he saw her, she had upgraded herself with Cybertronian technology and was half machine. Despite this, as Sephie observed, Rick was still attracted to her.

Sephie decided to go and attack the Autobots on her own, and Rick anxiously told the Decepticons they had to go after her, even snapping at Cliffjumper. When he became determined to go after her himself, the Decepticons built him an exosuit using Shockwave's aide Fistfight as a base. He and Fistfight found Sephie at Arizona Bay, but while Rick tried to talk her out of an assault, the Autobots surprised them and rendered Rick and Fistfight unconscious. He woke up to find they had welded Fistfight to some junk, and he was forced to watch helplessly as they captured the Decepticons. When Blackrock arrived piloting his Centurion mech and began fighting the Autobots, Rick convinced Fistfight to let him go unprotected and free Sephie. After Rick watched her appear to perish saving everyone from the overloading Centurion, he was heartbroken, but she turned out to be still alive after all. She suggested he disengage his hug as her metal parts were still hot. When she was subsequently stunned to the point of speechlessness by Blackrock firing her, Rick had to remind her that they had to leave. Though the Decepticons offered her a place on their team, Sephie turned them down in favor of striking out on her own, but Rick insisted she come back and visit occasionally. Transhuman

Notes

• Rick is one of only a small number of Shattered Glass characters who are not based on Generation 1 characters.
• Rick was more-or-less named after professional wrestler Fred Ottman, best known as "Tugboat" and "Typhoon" in the late 80s.

References