Shockwave (Transformers)

Generation 1

As the Decepticons' military operations commander, Shockwave's power is second only to Megatron's, and even that is disputed. His actions are carried out with the cold, brutal clarity and perfection one would expect of a purely mechanical being - his way is not that of bloodlust, like so many other Decepticons, but rather that of a scientist attempting to solve a problem. And that problem is: how can he use his abilities to most effectively eliminate the greatest number of enemies? Unfortunately for the Autobots, it is rare that Shockwave will not find a suitable answer.

Having not been aboard the the Ark, Shockwave was not modified into an Earthly form, and retains his Cybertron alternate mode - a 35-foot-long ray gun. He possess the power of flight in both modes, and commands the totality of the electromagnetic spectrum allowing him to emit beams of energy in a wide variety of forms. His high energy output makes him particularly fuel inefficient, but radioactive fuel sources stored in the reactor in his chest can help Shockwave to overcome this problem. Although his logical brain center is usually an advantage, human adversaries often pose more of a difficulty to Shockwave, as more intuitive and emotional thought processes often confound him.

Unusual for a 1985 (second year) toy, Shockwave was present in Transformers fiction from the first year, appearing in both the original 3-episode cartoon pilot, and 4-issue comic book miniseries. Shockwave was one of the few toys from the first two years of the line that did not originate as part of a Takara line, having originally been produced in Japan by ToyCo under the name "Astro Magnum". It is believed this was the only toy that ToyCo made. Unlike Shockwave, Astro Magnum was gray with a red eye, and a standard trigger design (changed to a flat trigger for Shockwave, perhaps due to the "phallic" position it adopted in robot mode). Also unusual is that, prior to Shockwave's release by Hasbro, Radio Shack sold the gray version in the US (often referred to as "Shackwave" by fans). However, it is debated as to whether or not the Radio Shack release was a licensed ToyCo release or a bootleg.

A second toy incarnation of Shockwave was sold in 1991, as part of the non-transforming Action Master sub-line. He was accompanied by a transforming "terror droid" partner named Fistfight - a loathsome little creature who enjoys dissecting late-model cars - who transforms into a long-range lightning rifle that Shockwave can wield. Although many other Action Masters appeared in the Marvel Comics continuity (see below), Action Master Shockwave did not.

Animated Series

Robot Mode

When Megatron prepared to lead his troops in pursuit of Optimus Prime and the Ark, Shockwave was instructed to stay behind and guard Cybertron in Megatron's absence. Swearing that Cybertron would remain as Megatron left it, Shockwave performed his duty to the letter for four million years, after Megatron and the other Transformers were entombed in stasis on Earth.

So accurately did Shockwave carry out his task, however, that no advances were achieved in the war, and the deadlock slowly caused what little supplies of energy the planet had to dwindle. In the Earth year 1984, Shockwave again attempted to make contact with the lost Megatron - only this time, he got a reply. The Transformers on Earth had been awakened, and immediately, Shockwave and Megatron co-created the spacebridge, an inter-galactic transport system, with which to send Energon Cubes made from Earth's energy to the depleted planet. In the first tests of the spacebridge, Megatron was transported to Cybertron himself, but Shockwave soon returned him so that further transport runs could be conducted. Spacebridge technology was taken to its ultimate extreme when Shockwave and Megatron co-ordinated the transportation of Cybertron itself into the Sol System via the use of a colossal spacebridge.

Gun Mode

In 1985, Shockwave contended with the power of the Dinobots when they splintered off from the Autobots and came to Cybertron. With the aid of his guards, Shockwave was able to overpower them and put them to work in the Cybertonium pits, but failed to prevent the escape of Spike Witwicky and his girlfriend, Carly, when they pursued the Dinobots to the planet and were able to effect their release.

Soon after, Shockwave discovered that a guerilla team of Female Autobots had been raiding his Energon stores for years, and successfully tracked them back to their hidden base, arranging the capture of Elita One. Optimus Prime and several of his warriors came to Cybertron aid their female allies, and Elita One herself blasted Shockwave out of the battle. Subsequently, Shockwave located the key to Vector Sigma for Megatron (and in a cut scene, battled and seriously damaged Omega Supreme). Spying on the Autobots, he then discovered the key's hidden power to transform organics into technomatter.

When the Combaticons invaded Cybertron, Shockwave attempted to fend them off, but was turned against his sentinel drones when Bruticus seized him in gun mode and opened fire on them with him, before launching him off into space, where he crashed into Starscream. Shockwave and Starscream returned to the planet, but were captured and imprisoned until Megatron and Optimus Prime's forces arrived to stop Bruticus's rampage.

Over the next twenty years, Megatron turned his attention away from Earth, and succeeded in fully conquering Cybertron. In 2005, however, the planet came under attack by Unicron, and Shockwave attempted to mobilise the Decepticons against the threat. The script for explicitly details Shockwave's death as Unicron crushes his command tower with him in it, rips it off the planet, and tears it to shreds, and although this was not shown in the finished film, Shockwave was not seen again following the movie (although several incorrectly-colored versions of Shockwave--presumably intended to be generic Decepticons--were seen in some third-season episodes of the tv series, most notably Five Faces of Darkness Parts 1-5).

Shockwave was voiced by Corey Burton (US) and Yutaka Shimaka (Japan).

In Shockwave's first appearance, in More Than Meets The Eye, Part One, he has two hands. By his next appearance, in the first episode of the ongoing series, Transport to Oblivion, his left hand has been replaced with a gun barrel, matching his toy appearance (although notably the toy's boxart itself incorrectly presented the gun barrel as being on his right arm).

Shockwave's tech spec and Transformers Universe profile claim that he seeks to overthrow Megatron and rule the Decepticons because he views it as the logical thing to do. This portrayal of the character was abandoned for the cartoon - the show's bible presents him as an ambitionless servant - although there remains one unusual scene in the episode, Roll For It, in which Shockwave wishes Megatron a "safe journey" back to Earth, taking an unusual pause before uttering the words that gives the line a notably insincere feeling. It is possible, though, that as Shockwave shows no signs of treachery and is loyal to Megatron throughout the rest of the series, that it was merely a bad vocal take. In Five Faces of Darkness you see some Shockwave clones, although given the poor animation of this particular set of episodes, it is possible that it was an animation error.

Marvel Comics

Shockwave's Marvel Comics appearance

In 1984, Shockwave was reawakened by an Autobot probe and quickly struck the weakened Autobots, who had just defeated Megatron's forces. Deactivating them all and stringing them up in the Ark, which he took for his own base, Shockwave brought the Decepticons back online to serve him, and was soon challenged for leadership by a wounded Megatron, who he soundly defeated and brought under his heel. As Decepticon commander, Shockwave commandeered the Blackrock Aerospace Plant, using its resources to construct new Transformers, which he then gave life using the Creation Matrix, siphoned from Optimus Prime. However, Prime was able to transfer the Matrix into Buster Witwicky's mind, preventing Shockwave from giving life to his newest creation, Jetfire. Shockwave instead programmed Jetfire to acquire Buster, but Buster was able to reprogram and give life to Jetfire and took Shockwave out of the game long enough to recover Optimus Prime's severed head. Prime then battled Shockwave and hurled him into a swamp.

Shockwave was able to extricate himself in short order, and attempted a series of failed plans, such as draining sonic energy from a rock concert and attempting to control Bumblebee. When Megatron resurfaced, he and Shockwave clashed again, but settled into a brief period of shared leadership until Shockwave fell victim to an Autobot trap, and saw the logic in Megatron's accusations of failure, ceding command to him. However, in the UK comic Shockwave didn't stand for this for long, and he soon sent the Predacons in to assassinate both Optimus and Megatron, only just managing it without Megatron knowing it was him. When Megatron began to descend into paranoid insanity after the death of Optimus Prime, Shockwave attempted to take advantage of the situation by arranging a staged attack by the Predacons [in the UK comic, dialogue was rewritten to say that due to his insanity, Megatron had forgotten his original battle with them]. Megatron defeated them, but when Shockwave revealed that he had duplicated his mind to disc to guide the Predacons during their hunt, Megatron's deranged mind (accurately) began to believe that this was how Optimus Prime had survived. Desperate and insane, Megatron apparently killed himself by blowing up the spacebridge while he was on it, once again allowing Shockwave to take leadership. However, he soon faced various objections courtesy of Ratbat, the local Decepticon commander on Cybertron, who criticised his operations for being too fuel-inefficient. Arriving on Earth to oversee Shockwave's work, Ratbat encountered Buster Witwicky, who he captured and brought to the Decepticons' mobile island base. With the Autobot Headmasters in pursuit, Shockwave transformed the island into its rocket mode and blasted off, but in a space-bound battle with Fortress Maximus, Shockwave was defeated and sent hurtling into Earth's atmosphere, where he seemingly burned up.

Although this would be all that the US comics would see of Shockwave for some time, this was not the case for its sister title, the UK-based Transformers comic, which reprinted the American stories with their own original material intertwined. In previous UK stories, Shockwave had run afoul of the future Decepticon leader, Galvatron, who was attempting to disrupt his leadership in the present to ensure the loyalty of his army in the future. After his battle with Fortress Maximus, Shockwave was revealed to have survived his fall back to Earth and returned to the Decepticons' original castle base, where he had the Seacons acquire the body of what was apparently Megatron (but would, in actuality, be later revealed as a clone), which he brainwashed into doing his bidding in order to pit him against Galvatron. When he was visited by the other future Decepticons, Cyclonus and Scourge and learned that in their future, they would kill him, he unleashed Megatron upon them, who killed Cyclonus. Shockwave then turned Megatron upon Galvatron, but rather than destroy him, he saw a potential partner in Galvatron, and they teamed up to battle Autobots and Decepticons from both the present and future in the "Time Wars", as a rift in the space-time continuum bore down on them. Shockwave, however, had become a prisoner of his own logic - to seal the rift it was necessary to return Cyclonus's body to it, thereby saving everyone, including himself. A logical action. However, to do so would be to condemn himself to death in the future by Cyclonus and Scourge's hands. Illogical. Unable to cope with the paradox, Shockwave went insane, but was saved by Ravage, who pointed out that, equipped with knowledge of his death, he could prevent it. His mind restored, Shockwave returned Cyclonus's body to the rift, after Galvatron and Scourge were consumed by it, and sealed it shut with an X-ray blast. The day had been saved, but Optimus Prime promised him that the next time they met, it would be as enemies.

A short time later, Shockwave went on to make his return to the pages of the US comic, as he established a small splinter cell of Decepticons, consisting of himself, Starscream, Mindwipe, Triggerhappy, Ravage and Runamuck. Declaring civil war against the current Decepticon Earth commander, Scorponok, Shockwave battled him in New Jersey, only for the conflict to be interrupted when all the Transformers were transported back to Cybertron by their deity, Primus to battle Unicron. Awestruck by the chaos-bringer, even Shockwave's vast data-grid could not compute a logical course of action, and he and Starscream hijacked the Ark and fled the planet shortly after Unicron's defeat. However, the Dinobots had previously treated the Transformers stored in the Ark's stasis pods with the life-restoring fuel, Nucleon - and among those Transformers was the true Megatron, who battled with Galvatron, who had also stowed away on board the craft. Galvatron came to his senses in time, realising that if Megatron was killed, he could cease to exist, and hid as Shockwave arrived to kill a weakened and disorientated Megatron. Galvatron intervened, but in an attempt to break the cycle of violence that seemingly bound him and Megatron, Autobot medic Ratchet crashed the Ark into Earth. Shockwave was last seen in pain as Megatron and Galvatron advanced on him just before the ship crashed. His fate remains unknown, but as everyone save for Megatron and Galvatron(driven insane by the crash) was deactivated or destroyed in the crash, it is unlikely Shockwave survived.

In the Earthforce sequence of UK comic stories, both Shockwave and Megatron were running separate Decepticon cells on Earth, fighting both Autobot and each other. (It was never really explained where the Earthforce stories fit into continuity, though many believe it takes place vaguely between the original comics and the G2 run) It was clear that unless they were united, the Decepticons could not ever defeat the Autobots, and so Soundwave & Starscream organised a coup of both cells and reunified them as a single army. Shockwave and Megatron were forced to team up to retake control.

In the UK comic stories set after the Transformers movie, it is revealed Shockwave took command of the Decepticons in 2006 and, as Rodimus Prime was focused on finding Galvatron, was able to conquer half of Cybertron from under the Autobots. Part of his rule involved keeping Cyclonus & Scourge from ever being in a position to usurp him - this failed when Unicron sent them, backed up by a mind-controlled Death's Head, to assassinate him and take control of the Decepticons.

Dreamwave Comics

Shockwave, by Dreamwave

Shockwave was left behind on Cybertron while Megatron's forces pursued Optimus Prime and were subsequently lost on Earth for four million years, and became Decepticon leader on the planet. He began experimenting with cloning, and through studies of Astrotrain and Blitzwing, began to conceive the idea of a Transformer with multiple alternate modes. Eventually, however, Shockwave and all the other Transformers on Cybertron succumbed to stasis as the planet's energy ran out, and it entered a hibernation phase known as the "Great Shutdown." During this period of inactivity, 3000 years ago, Unicron's herald Scourge located the planet, and reactivated Shockwave for study purposes. However, when Shockwave was attacked by a swarm of Sharkticons, Scourge intervened, and after saving him, was shot by Shockwave, who then proceeded to study him, learning much of the function and purpose of Transformers and Cybertron from the secrets within Scourge.

Shockwave steadily worked to restore Cybertron, reactivating it's population and solving their energy needs, ending the war and unifying the planet. He also continued his experiments into multiple transformations, yielding the unstable Duocons, and then successfully mastering the process with Triple Changers. Capturing Alpha Trion, Shockwave sought to unlock the full secrets of Vector Sigma, having already learned of the mysterious signifcance of Earth to the Transformer race. In preparation for the invasion of the planet, Shockwave subliminally influenced the population of Cybertron to become more violent, and prevented the return of Optimus Prime and Megatron aboard the Ark II by having a human agent blow it up.

In 2003, Shockwave made his move, heading to Earth with his Triple Changer troops and capturing Megatron and Optimus's forcing, planning to try the two leaders as war criminals. Megatron was jettisoned into space by Starscream, while Prime's escape from his clutches led him to fall in with a rebel group, and then to confront Shockwave himself, only to be defeated by the Decepticon, who ripped the Matrix from him. Using the Matrix to activate Vector Sigma, Shockwave downloaded the compressed contents of the mega-computer into his network, but before he had an opportunity to view the data, he was pulled into a battle with Ultra Magnus. In the course of the fight, the fuel line to his cannon was severed, and the resulting explosion destroyed his citadel and knocked him into a chasm.

While the rest of Cybertron believed Shockwave to be deceased, he had actually survived the explosion and gone underground in the wastelands of Cybertron with Astrotrain and Blitzwing, continuing his experimentation, resulting in Sixshot. Soon after, however, Megatron returned to Cybertron and bested Shockwave, taking him to Earth where he did the same to Starscream. But now, the three players were assembled, each knowing certain dark secrets of Cybertron's past... but unfortunately, Dreamwave's bankruptcy and subsequently closure at the start of 2005 means that currently, this story remains unresolved.

Shockwave also appeared in several other Dreamwave miniseries, including Transformers/G.I Joe ( where he was given a World War 2 artillery cannon alternate mode) and the Micromasters series. In this series, set after The War Within but before the Great Shutdown, Shockwave is in command of the Cybertron Decepticons, with Scorponok and Ratbat serving under him. Later in the series a low-on-fuel Shockwave is defeated by the Micromaster Skystalker and decapitated. Whether this miniseries is in continuity with the main Generation One series is unclear.

Devil's Due comics

Shockwave was also a major player in the second Dreamwave crossover with Devil's Due G.I Joe comics. In this Shockwave had taken control of the Decepticon army after Megatron's disappearance and conquered Cybertron, forcing the Autobots underground. However, this all changed when Cobra Commander hacked into Teletran 3 with the aim of creating a wormhole to Cybertron where he could steal more Transformer technology. G.I Joe attempted to interfere and they, along with COBRA and Cobra Commander's personal transport Starscream were all transported to Cybertron. Shockwave arrived with his troops (including Cyclonus, Scourge, Dirge, Thrust and Ramjet) and attempted to eliminate them. However a squad of Autobots led by Ultra Magnus stop them, keeping the Decepticons out by erecting a shiled generator. While the Joes and COBRA forces attempted to locate several time-displaced Transformers (including Optimus Prime), Shockwave's forces battered at the shield and eventually overwhelmed it, capturing most of the humans and Teletran 3 and killing Ratchet in the process. The humans were able to sneak in and undo the blocks on the time-displacement equipment, allowing the last Transformers to return - the Dinobots, reconfigured into their now-familiar dinosaur modes. They wiped out most of Shockwave's forces and severly damaged Shockwave. As Starscream tried to weasel his way out of being killed by Shockwave for his part in the fiasco, both were instead eliminated when Cobra Commander activated his "parting gift" to the traitorous Starscream -45 pounds of plastic explosives.

Despite the character being notoriously difficult to kill, it seems Shockwave did indeed perish in the explosion. In the third crossover (this time with IDW) a group of Autobots and G.I Joes returning to Cybertron via the Spacebridge are attacked by Cannabilizers - old and damaged Transformers after spare parts. One of these clearly has Shockwave's arm.

IDW comics

Shockwave from IDW's Hearts of Steel.

Since the Dreamwave bankruptcy, the Transformers license has been acquired by IDW Publishing, who have begun to issue their own Transformers series. The upcoming Evolutions: Hearts of Steel, set during the Industrial Revolution will feature Shockwave. Early design sketches indicate he will be reconfigured as an Ironclad. http://idwpublishing.com/titles/transformers/hos.shtml

Alternators Shockwave/Shockblast

For more details, see: Shockblast (Alternators/Binaltech)

Shockwave staged a comeback in 2005's ' toyline, which featured classic characters re-interpreted with modern vehicular alternate modes. However, since Hasbro had since lost the right to use the named "Shockwave" the toy was labelled with the altered name of "Shockblast" (see Transformers: Energon, below), although Takara still held the rights to their original name for the character. Although the American toys offer no supporting fiction, the storyline included with the Japanese version of the line, Binaltech''', detail the story of Shockwave's rebirth in this unusual new form.

When the time-displaced Decepticon agent, Ravage, used the time machine called the Chronosphere to alter the timeline (braching off the Binaltech/Alternators storyline from the continuity of the G1 animated series), the chaos that ensued resulted in the destruction of Shockwave's body. With Ravage's aid, his mind was installed into a stolen Autobot "Binaltech" body, equipped with a prototype "Transmuter" device, which, when interfaced with Shockwave's personality component, allowed the chassis to "transmute" itself into Shockwave's recognizable physical form, including his cyclopean visage and gun-arm. He wields a Turbo Rifle which can also serve as a power booster for his gun-arm, and can project up to five holographic duplicates of himself anywhere on the planet (an ability mentioned in the bible for the original animated series, but never put to use).

Transtech

Transtech Shockwave concept art.

After the conclusion of the Beast Machines series and toyline, Hasbro's initial plans were for a follow-up series entitled Transtech, which would supposedly bring back some deceased Beast Wars characters, as well as some older Generation 1 characters, all in new, more organic-looking bodies, except with vehiclular alternate modes instead of the animal forms which had dominated the two recent series. Although the idea was eventually scrapped in favor of ' (with ' being imported for the "filler" year in between), Toronto-based design studio Draxhall Jump produced many concept sketches (from which even a few toy prototypes were produced), among which was a Transtech incarnation for Shockwave, described as a high speed assassin, who turned into a six-wheeled Cybertonian low-rider vehicle that emitted shockwaves from its engine.

/Micron Legend

Micron Legend Shockwave

Shockwave was the name Takara used for the character called Tidal Wave by Hasbro. Hasbro's original design for the figure cast him in shades of purple and grey, although they later abandoned this in favor of a green and grey scheme for their figure; the animated series, however, had gone into production before this last-minute change, resulting in the cartoon incarnation of the character being rendered in the purple and grey scheme. Accordingly, in the interest of show-accuracy, Takara release their figure in this color scheme, rather than the altered Hasbro one - happily, these colors fit suitably well with his Japanese name in harkening back to the purple-and-grey G1 Shockwave, although it is unclear whether or not this was intentional.