June Darby

June Darby is a human from the Prime portion of the Aligned continuity family.

She wants to know how you got the beans above the franks.

Ever since her husband left her, June Darby has been raising her sixteen-year-old son alone. When she's not spending time as a nurse at the local hospital, June's spending time being overprotective towards her son, who hangs out with warring robots from outer space. Who can blame her?

Fiction

Prime cartoon

Voice actor: Markie Post (English), Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese), Yan Lizhen (Chinese), Carolina Tak (Spain-Spanish), Katrin Zimmermann (German), So-yeong Lee (Korean), Dulce Guerrero (Latin-American Spanish, season 1), Sarah Souza (Latin-American Spanish, seasons 2 & 3), Carolina Tak (Castilian Spanish), Cecília Lemes (Brazilian Portuguese), Tarja Alexander (Finnish), Élisabeth Guinand (French), Lorella De Luca (Italian)

At some point, June's husband left her and their son. Metal Attraction

June called her son, Jack, after his shift at work finished. She asked if he was going to the dance, but he said no. She told him to be careful, but Jack had to go, as he had something on his mind. Darkness Rising, Part 1 June returned home from work late in the evening to find Jack standing with a motorcycle in their garage. She wondered how he had paid for the motorcycle and expressed her concern for his safety, but Jack was able to convince her that he was old enough and responsible enough to operate the vehicle. She made it very clear that he always had to wear his helmet.

Early the next morning, the motorcycle told Jack to leave a note for his mom when he left the house, to keep her from worrying. Darkness Rising, Part 2

Love at first sight?

Hearing rumors that Jack had been racing his motorcycle and complaints that he'd been neglecting his work and school, June confronted him after curfew and grounded him from using the motorcycle. The next day, she took a break from the hospital to go home and make Jack some dinner, but found the garage empty. She blew up at Jack, even though the motorcycle had somehow reappeared in the garage, and he spun some wild story about robots from space. Refusing to believe him, June returned to the hospital. Later that night, as she was leaving work, she was grabbed and bundled into a vehicle by some masked goons. She recovered consciousness to find herself in a cocoon dangling from a building, while Jack tried to rescue her from a menacing robot. Then Jack's motorcycle turned up in robot form and fought the other robot. After Agent Fowler came to their rescue, he tried to explain that Jack was interning for him, but June didn't buy it. Jack introduced her to Arcee, and they all went to base to meet the rest of the Autobots. Crisscross

June began regularly dropping by the Autobot base to check up on the kids, much to their regret. When Jack and Arcee were preparing for a routine maintenance check, June's overprotective questioning drove Arcee batty, and the Autobot instead opted to go out on a mission with Bulkhead. June stayed at the base, and when Arcee told an errant Miko to return there, Miko's loud comment that Arcee was as bad as Jack's mom could be clearly heard over the comm link. Taken aback, June asked if she was really that bad, and Jack declined to comment. On Arcee's return, June felt compelled to apologize for her earlier behavior. Metal Attraction While exploring a stripped energon mine, Arcee suggested Jack not inform his mother about being allowed to go into a potentially-dangerous area. Rock Bottom

After Raf was injured in a Decepticon attack, Jack called in his mom to try and help. June did her best to stabilize the boy, but said that they'd need to get him to the hospital. Ratchet pointed out that the doctors there wouldn't know how to treat Dark Energon contamination, but he quickly came up with a treatment of his own. After Ratchet infused Raf with energon, June checked his pulse and confirmed that it was stabilizing. One Shall Fall

Following the rescue of Optimus, June informed him that she was taking Raf to the hospital, and also taking Jack and Miko with her, as the Autobots' war was no place for children. To her disappointment, both Jack and Miko refused to leave with her, so she departed in her car with Raf. They hadn't gone far when the car was almost struck by lightning and then almost pulled into a tornado, but Bumblebee managed a last-minute save and took them back to base. June was glad to see Jack again, but told him he was grounded. She stuck around while the Autobots realized that the chaos god Unicron was at the center of the Earth, but realized that no one had any idea what Unicron would do next. One Shall Rise, Part 1

The humans listened as the Autobots battled giant stone Unicrons, and as Megatron arrived to offer to help the Autobots defeat the Chaos Bringer himself. June was horrified that Optimus was even considering letting Megatron near the children, but Prime assured her they would keep everyone as safe as possible from him. The humans hid as Megatron arrived, but after Raf ran out to try to confront the Decepticon leader, June had to lead him back to safety. The humans all watched the Autobots and Megatron step through the GroundBridge into Earth's core. One Shall Rise, Part 2

"Ok, you can let go now." "You smell like strawberries." "No, really. You can let go now."

After the TV went dead, June tried to distract the kids from the impending end of the world by suggesting they play a game. She took cover underneath Ratchet as the ground shook, and when it turned out that Prime's team were all OK, she found herself being hugged by Fowler. She and Fowler stood by with the kids as the Autobots returned through the GroundBridge with the news that Optimus had become amnesiac. One Shall Rise, Part 3

Ratchet determined that they needed to use the Key to Vector Sigma which Optimus had entrusted Jack with to restore Optimus's memory. June was resistant to the idea of Jack going to Cybertron, but was told that Jack was the only one who would be able to use the key. Orion Pax, Part 1 She turned out to see him off as he left for Cybertron. Orion Pax, Part 2 While they monitored Jack's progress, she was able to give him encouragement. She later welcomed him back when he returned with the Autobots and the restored Optimus Prime. Orion Pax, Part 3

There goes the neighborhood...

Unable to find Jack, she contacted Ratchet to see if her son was at the Autobot base, and got an abrupt response from the Autobot. After a huge wave of energy hit near Jasper, she headed out in her car, only to come under attack from a Vehicon. Fowler rescued her and they watched in horror as the Nemesis opened fire on the Autobot base, destroying it. Darkest Hour

June joined the medical personnel at the base Fowler retreated to, but had no knowledge of the safety of those in the base until she got a text message from Jack. Darkmount, NV She was present when Fowler was contacted by Ratchet, though the Autobot had no news of Jack. She accompanied Fowler in his jet to the Harbinger where she was finally reunited with her son. Prey June and the kids stayed behind as the Autobots assaulted Darkmount and later joined them at new new base in Hangar E. Rebellion

I can't believe I get shipped with you, I'm like half your age!

June paid a visit to Fowler to ask about medical supplies, and ended up being talked into helping him retrieve a Predacon relic from a museum. The pickup went without a hitch, but then the pair ran into Knock Out, who promptly grabbed them and the Predacon bone. As the Decepticon proved unable to contact his ship to arrange pickup, June and Fowler were able to escape into a rail yard, in which June hid the Predacon bone on a departing train. The furious Knock Out took them both with him when he pursued the train, only releasing them when Arcee and Wheeljack joined the chase. Luckily Wheeljack caught the two humans, and returned them to base safe and sound, where Jack was alarmed to see that they'd taken a shine to each other. Plus One

Following the defeat of the Decepticons, June turned out to farewell the Autobots from Earth. She had to put her foot down when Fowler announced he was making the three kids Unit:E agents. Deadlock

Titan Prime comic

Much to Mrs. Darby's annoyance, her son elected to stay up late playing video games with Raf rather than get some sleep before school. She figured a power outage would send her son to bed, but when the lights came back on, he just kept right on playing. Power Outage

Legends comic

June was one of the many women brought to the Legends World by Tigatron using the ultra-drill in an attempt to get women who liked him better than Springer. It did not work out, as all of the women brought over eventually swooned over Springer. Bonus Edition Vol. 19

Notes

• June is named after Jeff Kline's mother June and daughter Darby.^[1]
• She was included in a brief scene inserted into "Shadowzone", for the script reading at BotCon 2011.
• June Darby's license plate is "RPI-437".
• Her car resembles a Ford Crown Victoria.
• It seems that her idea of a good, wholesome meal includes organic tofu.
• According to her son, June is lactose intolerant.

Foreign names

• Japanese: June Darby (ジューン・ダービー Jūn Dābī)

References

1. ↑ "Darkness Rising, Part 2" commentary