Electrochemical laser

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It's one or the other.

Powered by chemical reactions, an electrochemical laser emits direct current electricity. Galvatron wields one in robot mode.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

In robot mode Galvatron carried a laser that emitted chemically-produced, direct-current electricity. Galvatron's Universe profile

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Galvatron's arm-mounted cannon could fire a variety of energy beams, including super-heated plasma and direct-current electricity. Galvatron's More than Meets the Eye profile

Toys

The Transformers

• Galvatron (Decepticon City Commander, 1986/1987)

• Accessories: rifle, laser barrel, laser connector

The Transformers Galvatron came with an orange laser that fit on his arm via a connector and a hand-held rifle, as labelled in his instructions. According to his packaging bio, in robot mode he is armed with a laser that emits chemically-produced, direct-current electricity.

Notes

• The laser referred to in Galvatron's bio is often assumed to be the orange cannon on his arm, but it may be referring to the toy's hand-held rifle.
• In the letters page of Marvel UK issue #323, in reply to a reader's query regarding whether Galvatron was armed with a proton rocket cannon, a proton cannon, a particle accelerator cannon, a particle cannon, or a laser that fired chemically-produced direct-current electricity, Blaster replied that the latter was most likely up-to-date and accurate.
  • Galvatron's Dreamwave More than Meets the Eye profile seems to be an attempt to sidestep the above issue entirely.
• While emitting DC electricity is a rather strange thing for a laser to do, it is a neat pun on Galvatron's name. A galvanic cell, named after Luigi Galvani, is a certain type of chemical voltage source. Though Galvatron's toy's batteries are not galvanic cells, they do produce DC electricity chemically, making his toy one of the more fiction-accurate in the Generation 1 line.
• In IDW's Robots in Disguise issue #30, the cannon Galvatron has on his arm is an almost exact rendition of the rifle that the G1 toy comes with. Galvatron also appears in his G1 toy colors; this seems to indicate that in the 2005 IDW continuity, the rifle was Galvatron's previous weapon before his current cannon. The cannon mounted on his arm was destroyed by Myskrion during the Battle of Aegiax.