Serena Bharwaney

Serena Bharwaney is a human from the 2005 IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Serena Bharwaney is the daughter of Doctor Sanjay Bharwaney. She is an upbeat little girl, who makes friends rapidly, even if some of them happen to be somewhat... unusual.

Contents 1 Fiction 1.1 2005 IDW continuity 2 Notes 2.1 Foreign names

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

Serena was happily skipping rope in her front yard when she was approached by Bumblebee. Although Serena was at first confused as to why a strange car was honking at her, she soon came to look forward to the "funny car's" visits after her father's departure. On one such visit, the funny car transformed into a robot, and introduced itself as Bumblebee, prompting Serena to ask if all cars were actually robots. (She learned that only special, "German" cars were robots.)

Serena quickly became friends with Bumblebee, despite Swati, her babysitter, warning her not to play on other people's cars. After a few rounds of "hide and go seek," Serena's new friend asked her a favor: to bring out one of her father's case, so that Bumblebee could fix it, and prevent her father from getting hurt. She did just that after lunchtime. She was disappointed to hear that Bumblebee would have to leave early to get one of his friends to look at the suitcase, as she had hoped to play with the robot for a while longer. Her disappointment turned to confusion as Bumblebee became silent and still, as though his mind was somewhere else... then began to "fix" the suitcase after all. Once Bumblebee was done with the suitcase, he instructed Serena to run back into her house through the back door, and to put the suitcase where she had found it without getting caught by Swati. The Gift Horse

Serena's father came home shortly after, and she ran to him with glee. She began explaining to her dad how she played with the "funny car" all day... then another robot showed up. Serena's dad rushed her outside, attempting to run away from the new robot, but he began fumbling his keys as he got to his car. Thankfully, Bumblebee showed up just then, and took them for a wild drive to escape the bad robot. The ride became bumpier as Bumblebee had to transform to outrun the bad robot. Serena's father then became very upset, screaming at how Bumblebee had ruined his control panel. He then said he would use it to hurt both Bumblebee and "Skywarp"... but Serena pleaded for him to stop. Bumblebee admitted to Serena that he had lied to get the control panel through her, but Serena still wanted to be Bumblebee's friend. The feeling was mutual. Then a soldier man showed up and helped to fight the bad Skywarp robot! As Serena and her dad ran away with the soldier, Serena saw Bumblebee use the control pad to stop Skywarp... but burned himself out too! But that was okay, because unlike the bad robot, Bumblebee had friends that would fix him. Wings of Wax

In 2017, a teenage Serena was interviewed for her opinion on Earth joining the Council of Worlds where she briefly recounted her meeting with Bumblebee and wondered if her father was alright once Metrotitan's space bridge had fallen offline. Primeless, Part 1

Notes

• In the Bumblebee limited series, both Serena and her father were drawn and colored as pretty white folks, in stark contrast to the rather Asian-sounding name "Sanjay Bharwaney" (and that of their housekeeper, Swati), possibly as the result of miscommunication between the writer and the artist and/or colorist. On top of that, Serena's hair was colored red. While Sanjay's renditions in subsequent appearances in Spotlight: Bumblebee, Robots in Disguise and its rebranded continuation, The Transformers, remain a bit on the ambiguous side regarding his ethnicity at best, the teenage Serena seen in Optimus Prime #11 is drawn and colored considerably more Asian, with darker skin and darker hair (although the coloring is a bit ambiguous whether her hair is actually meant to be colored purple or whether that's just supposed to be a stylistic choice).

Foreign names

• Japanese: Serena Bharwaney (セレナ・バーウィニー Serena Bāwinī)