“ | Only Starscream could fail to dispose of a helpless captive. | „ |
~ Shockwave being annoyed with Starscream's idiocy. |
“ | Your mission was most illogical. | „ |
~ Shockwave after single-handedly beating the Wreckers. |
“ | An impressive display from my creations, but would it not be more logical to employ your might elsewhere at this time? | „ |
~ Shockwave's final words, convincing the Predacons to help the Autobots save Cybertron from Unicron, being the only Decepticon to escape justice. |
Shockwave is a major antagonist in Transformers Prime.
He is the hulking scientific mind and one of the right-hands of the Decepticons who discovered the Autobots were located on Earth. After escaping certain death, he enacted a project to clone ancient warrior beasts called Predacons to tip the scale of the war in favor of the Decepticons.
He was voiced by David Sobolov in Prime, who also voiced The Annihilator from Mighty Med and Grodd from the Arrowverse, and was voiced by Steve Blum in Fall of Cybertron.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He is the cold, calculating genius of the Decepticon movement, enacting advanced scientific projects to advance the factions goals. He is also a chilling speaker.
- He operates solely based on logic and like Soundwave, he lacks detracting traits like sadism, cowardice, pettiness, and xenophobia all the other Decepticons have. He even questioned Megatron's logic on ruling both Earth in addition to Cybertron, showing he has no inherent hatred towards humanity.
- He is an epic powerhouse of brute strength, being both intelligent and proficient in combat.
- This is best shown in his fight with Smokescreen and Bumblebee. Even when Smokescreen used the Phase Shifter, Shockwave manage to outmatch the two.
- He is the creator of the infamous cortical psychic patch, which revolutionized interrogation techniques as it allowed the user to hook into the victim's mind and directly obtain the information needed from their mind. While an invasive procedure, if done correctly, the process is relatively painless, showcasing Shockwave's pragmatism.
- He cloned an army of Predacons, installing trackers in them to track them at all times and sent them to Earth on Megatron's orders to successfully wipe out all Autobots on prehistoric Earth.
- He remained behind on Cybertron while nearly everyone else left after it became practically uninhabitable and was not only able to survive, but reconstruct a fabled space bridge from scraps he scavenged on the planet.
- He successfully discovered Optimus Prime and the Autobots were on Earth through using the cortical psychic patch on Arcee and activated a space bridge to prepared a wide-scale ambush. He would have successfully wiped out the Autobots and ended the Great War right there and then with a victory for the Decepticons if not for Starscream's utter idiocy and failure to kill a captive Cliffjumper and Arcee.
- He easily went toe to toe with Cliffjumper and even when Arcee buried him under a massive boulder, he survived and went into the space bridge in pursuit of them. He knocked out Cliffjumper and would have killed Arcee had she not carefully aimed a precise shot straight in his eye.
- He escaped certain death and was able to survive being caught in the space bridge's collapse and explosions. Despite being blinded and suffering extensive injuries, he was able to repair all of his injuries and continue his work unfazed.
- He cloned the powerful beast Predaking using fossils on Cybertron and makeshift materials to use to turn the tides towards the Decepticons after being reunited with them in the opening episode of Season 3.
- When Predaking failed the defeat the Autobots assault on Darkmount, Shockwave improvised and epically just down from Darkmount and single-handedly defeated the Wreckers, the Autobots specialized brute unit, with one shot before infamously remarking their mission was illogical.
- He was the only Decepticon not caught off guard and defeated when Optimus Prime returned. Instead, he put off a good fight against the Wreckers and forced them along with Bumblebee and Arcee to retreat. Upon seeing Darkmount collapsing, he simply has Soundwave open a groundbridge and nonchalantly walks out.
- He nearly succeeded in completing Project Predacon to create an army of Predacons despite Autobot interference, but after discovering with the other Decepticons that Predaking was sentient, he agreed with Starscream and Megatron’s suggestion that destroying the Predacons and his lab was the most logical thing to do to prevent them from potentially rising up against the Decepticons, putting aside any pride in favor of what he thought was logical, further demonstrating his pragmatism.
- He went back to his lab and discovered that the Predacon CNA had merged with Synthetic Energon to form unstable cybermatter. He deduced that this formula once stablizied, could allow the Decepticons to cyberform entire worlds, initiating the final plan of the Decepticons of the series to stabilize the formula and recreate the Omega Lock.
- While he had one very brief moment of losing his cool when he got angry at Starscream for purposefully abandoning him to die and nearly impaled him through a cybermatter shard, once Starscream explained himself, he found some logic in Starscream’s reasoning and spared his life, retaining his calm demeanor and showcasing some honor.
- He realized he needed Ratchet’s expertise in Synthetic Energon to help him stabilize the alternative cybermatter formula and had Laserbeak stalk Agent Fowler and discover the location of the Autobots new base so Laserbeak could reunite with Soundwave and Soundwave could break free and kidnap Ratchet while he successfully raided necessary materials from the Solaris Particle Accelerator.
- While it ultimately wasn't genuine, he had a polite tone while working with Ratchet and proved to be quite the helpful coworker.
- Despite Ratchet sabotaging the formula and the project data, he was able to recover it and successfully complete the stable, alternate formula for cybermatter without Ratchet's help.
- He successfully reconstructed the Omega Lock and mass produce his cybermatter formula to fill the Omega Lock's tanks.
- He defeated Ratchet when he confronted him and took down Smokescreen to prevent him from giving the Star Saber to Optimus during the final battle on the Nemesis.
- After Bumblebee killed Megatron, he had a Pet the Dog moment where he saved Starscream from suicidally trying to attack the Autobots despite having no reason to save him and escaped to Cybetron.
- He successfully cloned two more Predacons, Darksteel and Sky Lynx on Cybetron and frequently changed lab locations to avoid detection by the Autobots.
- He deduced that the returned "Megatron" was really Unicron in Megatron's body and unlike Starscream, he didn't run away from Unicron's new Predacon Terrocons and instead faced them.
- Despite being swarmed and seemingly killed by Unicron's horde, he was revealed to have amazingly survived and returned to note his respect for the Predacons after their duel to determine the leader and he convince them to help the Autobots save Cybertron from Unicron, marking his final scene as the only Decepticon to escape justice.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- He cloned an army of Predacons to massacre all Autobots on a prehistoric Earth.
- He effectively tortured Arcee to decrypt the Autobots secret transmission and nearly succeeded in ambushing and massacring the Autobots.
- He was complicit in Starscream and Megatron's wiping out of his own Predacon clones.
- He had Laserbeak stalk Agent Fowler to discover the location of the Autobots new base and free Soundwave to kidnap Ratchet.
- He stole materials from the Solaris Particle Accelerator.
- He reconstructed the Omega Lock to enact the Decepticon's plan to cyberform Earth, which would wipe out humanity.
Trivia[]
- While smart in the War for Cybertron games, unlike in Prime, Shockwave does not count because he enacts a litany of horrifying experiments on Grimlock and his quad and then sends in entire legions of his own men to suicide missions just to test Grimlock's powers.
External Links[]
- Shockwave at the Villains wiki
- Shockwave at the Near Pure Evil wiki
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Generation One Continuity Transformers: Animated Transformers Film Series Aligned Continuity Other Continuities |