Arcee (G1)/2005 IDW continuity

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Sexual violence hardens female character into skilled warrior -- the freshest idea in comics, everybody.

This is not the Arcee you knew in your childhood.

IDW Generation 1 continuity

This section covers fiction that is ongoing. It will be added to as the story progresses. If it isn't current, you can help by updating it.

Maniac

Jhiaxus is big into Rule 63.

Over six million years ago, Arcee was an early test subject of the mad genius Jhiaxus, who was trying to reintroduce gender to the species after the extirpation of female Transformers on Cybertron. Her fundamental CNA was altered, something that she loathes, giving her a "maddening maelstrom of contradictory sensory input" and causing all other Transformers to sense a fundamental difference about her and inadvertently use feminine pronouns around her. Arcee failed to live up to Jhiaxus's standards and was abandoned, but, driven by an implacable homing instinct towards her creator's experiments, she cut a mech-fluid swath of carnage across several planets in her obsession with destroying everything Jhiaxus created. She was eventually taken down by Tyrest Accord enforcer Ultra Magnus and incarcerated on the Autobot penitentiary on Garrus-9. As was policy for threats of her level, Arcee's spark was separated from her body, and in this limbo, she found a kind of peace.

That peace was shattered when the Decepticon Secret Service, led by Banzaitron, attacked Garrus-9 to liberate the recently incarcerated Monstructor Six, more of Jhiaxus's experiments. When the Combaticons infiltrated the facility, warden Fortress Maximus freed Arcee as a last resort to stop them. She presented quite the frightening obstacle for the invaders, severely wounding Blast Off and Brawl, but in the end they managed to escape with their target. Jetfire convinced Maximus to allow her to pursue them, Spotlight: Arcee and she followed their trail to the Decepticon Battle Platform Zuska, where she tortured a Decepticon for information on the escapees' location. Spotlight: Cyclonus

File:Arceealtmodeidw.jpg

Fast and the Furious: Cybertronian Drift

Using this intel to locate Banzaitron, Arcee found that the Transformers from the Dead Universe—Jhiaxus among them—had activated Monstructor and spirited him away, decimating the Banzaitron's team in the process. Arcee agreed to help Banzaitron in recovering Monstructor, on the basis that it would lead her to Jhiaxus. Spotlight: Hardhead Tracking Monstructor to Rotan, she and the Decepticons engaged him in battle until Skram arrived with information on Jhiaxus's location. Abandoning the fight, Arcee headed for Gorlam Prime, where she murdered her way through a legion of Micromasters before finally cornering him beneath the planet's surface. There, she was surprised and delighted to find that, as he came from the Dead Universe, and they were in a location close to its influence, Jhiaxus could not die. And that meant she could kill him over, and over, and over... Spotlight: Sideswipe

Those were the best days of our lives.

Arcee did just that for six years, and would later profess that the experience helped her straighten her head out. A Better Tomorrow It had in fact been the only time she'd ever been truly happy. Sins of the Wreckers #3

This demented "therapy" came to an end when Gorlam Prime's portal to the Dead Universe reactivated, hypnotically drawing all life on the planet into it. Arcee also felt its lure but Hardhead held her back until the effect faded, and the two Autobots decided to investigate. Heart of Darkness #2 A while later, they detected Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, and Jhiaxus in the vicinity and attacked them. Heart of Darkness #1 Discovering that her arch-enemy had been restored by Galvatron's Heart of Darkness, she vowed to destroy Jhiaxus all over again, but those plans had to be tabled when Galvatron powered himself up by tapping into the Dead Universe via the portal. Convinced by Hardhead to flee and warn the Autobots of Galvatron's return, Arcee was blasted into a chasm by her pursuers, but managed to survive. Heart of Darkness #2

You know how the saying goes about wearing your spine on your stomach-- wait, that's not how the saying goes? ....scrap.

Some time later, as Galvatron was in the process of assembling an army and preparing to enact his grand plan, Arcee and Hardhead came to the rescue of an Autobot escape pod full of survivors from the Kimia Facility. Kings Bringing the survivors aboard, she and Hardhead had to explain at least five times to them all about the Dead Universe, the Heart of Darkness, D-Void, and Galvatron's plans. The rag-tag group made it to Cybertron, by which time Galvatron infected Vector Sigma with the Heart of Darkness, which caused a maelstrom to break out on the planet's surface. Arcee suggested guiding the ship through an underground tunnel, crashing right on top of Galvatron himself, but this failed to take the super-powered villain out, and he quickly engaged and defeated Arcee and Hardhead. Genesis

Under Prowl

Optimus Prime subsequently used the Matrix to purify Vector Sigma, but in the process reverted Cybertron to a primordial state. In this tumultuous new era, Arcee fell into the employ of Prowl, acting as his shadowy enforcer in an era of uneasy peace. The Autonomy Lesson She inaugurated her new role by assassinating Ratbat before the former senator could have Bumblebee killed, but her vicious methods sat ill with Prowl. The World & Everything in It Later, Arcee watched with amusement from a high vantage point as a set of rockets Wheeljack had fired into orbit successfully drew away dangerous energies that would have caused an explosion on the planet's surface. Stick Together

She never was one for politics.

Prowl soon called upon Arcee again to aid him in dealing with Decepticon malcontents, this time confronting Bombshell and his cerebro-shell-controlled minions. After Arcee killed the mind-controlled Sunstorm against Prowl's wishes, the pair pursued Bombshell into underground tunnels, but ran into the Constructicons, whom Arcee took on solo, saving an unknowing Blurr in the process. Prowl, meanwhile, went after Bombshell, but succumbed to his newly improved method of mind control. Under Bombshell's sway, Prowl returned to Arcee's side and "destroyed" Constructicons by detonating their I/D chips, then sent her after Dirge, who had witnessed the whole thing. Evidently suspecting that something was amiss with Prowl, she secretly allowed Dirge to escape. Devisive Deducing what had happened to Prowl, she met with him later, informing him she "knew his secret" and cautioning him to remember that she was not his killer to order around, A Better Tomorrow but continued to work towards whatever objectives Bombshell was manipulating Prowl for, allowing the Insecticon to think she was on his side so she could discover what he was up to and stop him. Plan for Everything

Arcee later secretly joined "Prowl" and the other Autobot security officers in tracking Dirge to the Decepticons' bolt-hole, but once again, she stood back and allowed him and Swindle to escape during the ensuing firefight. A Better Tomorrow She would later be seen prowling the rooftops of the city, watching Reflector and Ravage through the sight of her weapon and graciously deciding not to snipe them. Night and the City

She didn't exactly have a knack for massages, either.

When the time came for the Decepticons to put the final stage of their plan into action, Bombshell directed Arcee, through Prowl, to exfiltrate Shockwave, Soundwave and their men from their present living quarters in the Decepticon pen. She chose to do so in the most violent way possible, of course, first attacking and killing the pen guards Triggerhappy and Blot and then detonating a shrapnel bomb that disabled all the other Decepticons present. Before departing with their unconscious bodies, she planted another explosive which Prowl then deliberately tripped while leading a "raid" on the pen, making it appear that the Decepticons within had been destroyed by their own booby-trap. Meanwhile, unaware of what had truly transpired, Starscream assumed that all of this had gone down as a result of his blackmailing Prowl with the knowledge he had gained from Dirge, so Arcee decided to drop in and rain on his parade, informing him she knew exactly where he had hidden Dirge, and could take away his "advantage" at any time. The End of the Beginning of the World

I'll cry when I'm done killing!

That, as it turned out, was exactly what she did when riots broke out upon the return of Megatron. Recovering Dirge from his hideaway and informing him of "Prowl's" involvement with the Decepticons, she took him and Swindle to Maccadam's Old Oil House, where a standoff with Blurr ensued. City on Fire Convincing him to listen to her by revealing that she was the one who had saved him from the Constructicons, Arcee handed Dirge and Swindle off to him and cut a path through the rioters for him so he could take them and the information to Bumblebee. The Verge Arcee proceeded to join Prowl, Bombshell, Megatron and the other Decepticons in the Black Room, relaying a message from Turmoil and Skywarp that they were in position. Following the information she had fed them via Dirge, Bumblebee and his team soon arrived; they were overpowered, and Arcee stabbed Sideswipe through the torso, pinning his body to the wall (but avoiding doing any serious damage, cluing him in to her deception). Together, they all watched as the Decepticons' plan was enacted, and a perfected version of Devastator was formed, incorporating Prowl as its mind-controlled head. Before the Dawn Calmly waiting until the most dramatic moment possible—when Bumblebee asked her what her place in the plot was—Arcee then promptly stabbed Bombshell through the head, cutting off his control of Devastator and shutting the combiner down. Calling on Sideswipe to open fire, Arcee armed Bumblebee and apologized for not acting sooner, explaining that she had had to wait until she was close enough to Bombshell to act. Plan for Everything As the battle began to rage, with Ironhide busy with Prowl and Bumblebee busy with Megatron, Arcee and the Dinobots were put in charge of taking on the rest of the Decepticon army. Following Megatron's defeat, as Starscream took control, Arcee and the other Autobots were cast out into the wilderness.Heavy Is the Head

As the Autobots left the city, they were trailed by the Constructicons, who had become fans of Prowl after having combined with him. Arcee wanted to intervene when the Constructicons and the Dinobots came to blows, but Prowl restrained her while Bumblebee's worsening condition stopped the fighting for good. During Bumblebee's restoration, Arcee tried her best to comfort Prowl, who was visibly upset, but Arcee's emotional detachment made it difficult for her to connect. Her failure to empathize with Prowl sent her to Sideswipe next, whose love of violence she thought would give them common ground, but Sideswipe also shooed her away. The Constructicons picked a fight with her next, pointing out her lack of Autobot symbol as a sign that no one wanted her, and Arcee was all too happy to oblige. Their skirmish ended when Ironhide and the Dinobots broke them up, and Ironhide confided in Arcee that he was worried the night would bring madness to their camp as it did to the Aerialbots and Dinobots earlier. Arcee, confident that the madness wouldn't affect her, stayed up all night guarding Bumblebee, and when Bumblebee awoke the next morning in his new body, he found her outside with an Autobot symbol carved into her arm. But suddenly there was a weird glow over the horizon, and the sunrise wasn't for another few hours. Arcee immediately suspected Jhiaxus. Second Exodus

Prowl thinks this is special, despite this being Arcee's fourth body in as many years.

Suddenly, an undead Titan, a Necrotitan, burst free from the ground before them. Dark Dawn Arcee was happy to have a giant target to shoot at, though she wasn't hopeful of their odds of survival. Bumblebee insisted on caution rather than rash action, but before Arcee and the others could act, Soundwave's Decepticons were upon them. Black Metal Their battle was interrupted by Starscream arriving overhead and landing on the inert Necrotitan's shoulder. Arcee offered to shoot him out of the sky, but before she could, the Necrotitan suddenly unleashed a strange, deadly wave that spread in all directions, and leaving Arcee without one of her arms and one of her legs. Winners & Losers Arcee sat quietly as the others freaked out in the wake of the strange wave. Into the Abyss She did not let her major limb damage deter her whatsoever once the Autobots chose to besiege Shockwave's lair (thought it probably helped that she'd somehow grown back her missing arm). Finest Hour Still without one of her legs, she was forced to retreat with the others, leaving Megatron and Bumblebee behind. No Exit

Arcee, the other Autobots, and Soundwave's Decepticons returned to the city, where the Necrotitan had recently advanced, reducing what was left to ashes. Prowl ordered anyone still able to fight (Arcee included herself) to attack the Necrotitan before it could do more damage, but there was little they could do. Thankfully, that was when Metroplex and the Lost Light appeared over them via spacebridge and engaged the Necrotitan for them. Burning Bright With the surprising help of Megatron, Metroplex was able to defeat the Necrotitan, and the citizens of Cybertron and the crew of the Lost Light were reunited. Arcee approached and greeted the female Transformers the Lost Light had brought along. In the calm that followed, Arcee was rebuilt into a new body, and Prowl wondered if she was considering this a fresh start. Before too long, however, their calm was ended by the arrival of Shockwave's army of Ammonites. The Becoming She fought alongside her many comrades against the Ammonites. Black Planet and also got to talk with Whirl about how he ended the Ammonite's war and started their own war, leading her to reflect on how they should have hung out more. Later, after fighting was over, Arcee was in a crowd of bots watching Optimus and Megatron exit the Lost Light. ...And the Damage Done

During the following six months, Arcee attended Megatron's trial along with Whirl and Ratchet. Words Hang in the Air Following the trial, Arcee admitted to Prowl that Windblade and her party of female Transformers didn't evoke any particular feelings in her. After Sideswipe opened his big yap, Arcee asked Optimus about what had happened to Hardhead, and volunteered to join his crew for the trip to Earth to find Alpha Trion. The Mind Bomb

On Earth

As soon as the Ark-7 arrived in Earth's orbit, they were attacked by Earth Defense Command's orbital missiles. After they took cover on the far side of the Moon, Arcee joined Optimus's team heading down to the planet in Sky Lynx and was assigned with Prowl to investigate who had fired the rockets at them. Hello Cruel World When Prime's team, investigating a Cybertronian life sign, were attacked by Galvatron's forces and the EDC, Prowl sent Arcee and Sideswipe to provide covering fire as the team retreated to nearby Poverty Flat. Prowl also brought Devastator to provide help, revealing the Cybertronian presence to the humans. Detonation Boulevard Arcee and the other Autobots protected the panicking humans until the Decepticon were all teleported away on Marissa Faireborn's orders. As the Autobots returned to Ark-7, Arcee warned Optimus that more might be going on than they knew. The Mind Bomb

The Autobots tracked the EDC's mind bomb signal to their base on island Bikini Atoll and Optimus opted for a frontal assault. On their way down, Arcee confided in Prowl that she'd seen Scavenger acting suspiciously. She was part of Prime's frontal assault, only to be surprised by the arrival of the Decepticon warship. Full Fathom Five The Autobots fired at the ship until Prowl used the EDC's own defense system to shoot the ship down. As they departed with Alpha Trion, whom they'd recovered from the EDC base, Arcee helped the wounded Kup onto Sky Lynx. I Dream of Wires

....fifth body in as many years.

Jetfire, Arcee and D.0.C. investigated an alarm in the Ark-7 shuttlebay to find Prime and Trion had gone for a jaunt. The Crucible When Optimus left for Cybertron to learn more about the Enigma of Combination, he left Prowl in charge and asked Arcee to keep an eye on Prowl. Signals, Calls, and Marches When Prowl took the Constructicons to intercept Spike Witwicky in Japan, Arcee followed using Sideswipe's backpack and prevented Prowl from grabbing Spike and Jimmy Pink. The two humans fled and Arcee pursued them, only to end up being cornered by the Decepticons along with Jimmy Pink. Vs. Though Galvatron claimed they were after the same thing, Spike, Arcee opted to take Jimmy and leave the Decepticons and Constructicons to it, only to be tackled mid-air by Galvatron. During their fight which landed them in the Australian outback, Galvatron lied to Arcee, claiming Prowl had killed Spike's father to draw Spike out, and persuaded her to join him in trying to destroy the Enigma of Combination. ONoffON

She, Jimmy and the Decepticons arrived in Wanmu to find Devastator already attacking the Onyx facility there. She tried to reach Prowl, but Devastator was set on killing Spike and she was knocked flat by the discarded Enigma of Combination. After Scoop left the planet with the Enigma, Arcee was finally able to reach Prowl and get him to disassemble Devastator. They left on Sky Lynx with a space bridge from the Onyx facility. The Onyx Interface Conclusion: The Obliterati

Much later, Optimus contacted Arcee and filled her in on recent Combiner-related events on Cybertron. She had a clandestine meeting with Galvatron who wanted to use the space bridge, and provided her with an Onyx tablet. Arcee returned to the Ark-7 to get the tablet analyzed and gave Cosmos a mission to Jupiter. Now and On Earth He soon reported back on the Decepticon station being built there, and she met him on his return, however he fobbed her off with the promise of a report later and headed to a recharge slab. South of Heaven

...sixth...

Arcee returned to Cybertron in order to take the Enigma of Combination out of the hands of the Cybertronian government so that it couldn't be used to create any more "abominations" (as Galvatron had put it to her). However, her escape was complicated by Windblade and Chromia, who inadvertently corralled her into the Sea of Rust where a Camien team of Torchbearers was scouting. The Torchbearers fumed at not only Arcee's injuring of Windblade, a Cityspeaker, but also her intent to harm an artifact of the Primes, and further battling resulted in the Torchbearers exposed to the Enigma of Combination and reconfigured into the mighty combiner, Victorion. The newborn, confused Victorion singled out Arcee for punishment, and so Windblade and Chromia found themselves protecting her against the gestalt. Windblade, surprisingly, was able to calm Victorion down long enough for them to disassemble. Arcee explained that she hated the Enigma not because of Galvatron's thoughts on the matter, but because it changed people against their will, which rung sorely with her particular history. The Torchbearers, however, noted that while they were changed against their will, they had equal right to remain what they now were. Warming to Windblade's combination of diplomacy and willingness to bury the truth to promote lasting peace, Arcee agreed to return the Enigma of Combination and pretend the incident had never happened. An Uneventful Night

She briefly watched Starscream talk to himself before swapping notes with Optimus. When one of Starscream's Badgeless troops was about to stage a massacre at a bar, Arcee stepped in and took the Badgeless to confront Starscream himself, whom she suggested needed to win over those on Cybertron before he went conquering other worlds. The Transgressors

Back on Earth, to her pre-emptive satisfaction, she detected that Prowl was in Alaska, ready to be taken in by her... and then suddenly wasn't. She went looking for Kup for help and was perturbed to find he'd passed out while outside the ship, and this may have happened before. But she didn't have time to care when Prowl disappearing was a major security risk and she needed help finding him! They broke into Prowl's old quarters, with Arcee suspicious how easy Kup managed it, and found some fleshbag called Verity Carlo had been blackmailing the fugitive with a copy of Autobot war crime data! Arcee was livid, thinking Carlo might restart the war if she made such horrors public. She was more livid when a recorded message from Prowl was broadcast, saying to get Springer to look for him as only Springer was good enough. Screw you, Prowl!

The most sensible course of action was to knock out Kup, go to Earth, and violently threaten Verity Carlo into saying what she'd done to Prowl. Verity turned out to know nothing. When Springer and the Wreckers showed up, Sins of the Wreckers #1 Arcee continued to insist it had to be this human anyway... which was round about the time the real culprits, Mayhem, attacked and Prowl broadcast through Kup to explain he was in the hands of Tarantulas, at the Noisemaze. Arcee was horrified to realise Prowl had put a backdoor hack in Kup's brain in case he'd needed to manipulate suckers. This clearly meant... it was still Verity's fault! CONFESS, VERITY!! Springer pulled rank and led the Wreckers-plus-Arcee in battle against the Mayhems, where Arcee was amused to find Springer only got emotionally engaged when there was a fight on. After chopping limbs off Claw Jaw and joining the Wreckers on a raid inside Mayhem HQ, Arcee crossed to the Noisemaze... Sins of the Wreckers #2

...sev- no, wait, this is the fifth one again. Never mind!

...and immediately fell in screaming pain, unable to stand its sensory onslaught. Tarantulas had the Wreckers taken to his lab, where the guilt-extracting computer Impetus caused her to babble that it was "my fault" she'd not seen through Jhiaxus and not been "strong enough" to stop him, and the only time she'd ever known happiness was killing him. Sins of the Wreckers #3

Brawl liked design number four better.

After their encounter with the Wreckers, Arcee and Kup returned to Ark-7 to find Jetfire had examined the human code Blackrock had created and it was communicating with other iterations of the code via a quantum signal. Arcee ordered her Autobots to track it down while she, Alpha Trion, and Sideswipe stayed on the ship. The mission went sour fast and Arcee had Sky Lynx return to the Ark where she could use its mighty guns to blow away his pursuers... at which point the Onyx code activated their deflector shields, causing all the firepower to rebound on the ship, and locked them out of their systems, leaving them trapped and on fire! The Nothing Man They found themselves fighting their way through their own compromised defences while Trion claimed they were facing Primal weapons that they could not stand against. (Arcee didn't think much of that claim) Aphelion Her plan was to get to the spacebridge and call for reinforcements, but a sudden rush of Decepticons through the spacebridge put paid to that! Lagrange Luckily, other actors caused the shield to drop and Arcee ordered her guys to fall back to the ship's bridge and crash it into the moon while she went to overload the engines. The plan failed when she failed to distract the Decepticons through ultraviolence, being battered into unconsciousness by Brawl. Perihelion By the time she came round, the battle at Shanghai was almost over and she gladly fell back with the newly arrived Autobots.

Optimus asked her to run operations soon enough as part of his new strategy. She was up for that! And then, to her disgust, she learned his strategy was to help Earth by annexing it under his protection. Once Upon a Time on Earth While sitting in the med-bay of the Skyroller, she casually mentioned that both she and Sideswipe were fine to a disinterested med-bay. Edge of the Earth She later met, and tried to murder, Galvatron at the Copahua volcano where they pondered if Optimus' time as a combiner could have allowed Prowl's personality to push Optimus towards drastic actions. She later revealed to Optimus that Soundwave had murdered Horri-Bull for the greater good allowing the Prime to blackmail the Decepticon. The Medium and the Message In Monument Valley, she forced Prime to stay behind during the attack on the Nemesis claiming he was too valuable before showing zero gratitude when Sunstreaker gave her Sideswipe's jetpack. During the attack, Galvatron managed to force Victorian apart before creating Galvatronus and Sky Reign. It's Beginning To And Back Again When Superion managed to turn the tide and rip open the Nemesis, Arcee was ready to takeBlackrock into her custody before she was fired on by Marissa Faireborn and Ayana Jones. She was ready to kill all three before Skywarp teleported them out of her reach. She was later ordered by Optimus to pursue and terminate Galvatron. As Above...So Below Hitching a ride on Cosmos, she caught up with the Decepticon in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. After casually murdering Astrotrain, she engaged Galvatron. The fight was in his favour until Optimus and Soundwave arrived to back her up. The ancient warrior still managed to hold his ground before Soundwave shot him in the back allowing Arcee to destroy his fusion cannon taking him out of the fight. Galvatron mocked all three of them before agreeing to be their ally so as to fight off Onyx Prime. Arcee was horrified when Optimus shot Galvatron through the Spark. She later accompanied him to see the President of the United States where he declared the threat over. No Fair Fights When they returned to Monument Valley, Metrotitan the trio observed transformed to city mode, a form which Optimus dubbed Autobot City. She then observed Metrotian fire a beam of data into space regarding Optimus' deeds. The Last Autobot

As it turned out, that beam attracted the attention of Sentinel Prime who was not only still alive but also a Titan Master. The Prime left his large Transtector body to fight Arcee while he attended to business causing the femme to protest a body without a head should be not be a good fighter. The fight spilled into a massive cache of Ore-13 located beneath Autobot City. Sentinel then returned with Blackrock who was revealed to be Sovereign. The Titan Master duo tapped into the Space Bridge to warp away Optimus Prime and Soundwave with them. Left behind, Arcee, at the end of her rope, contacted Prowl and briefed him on what happened. He assured her he would take care of it. White Light She then hovered ominously in the background and off to the side during Soundwave's inspirational speech. White Heat

Once that was sorted out, she was sent to do relief efforts in Portland, Oregon with Jazz. An aerial drone then fired a missile at Jazz courtesy of G.I. Joe. Relieved at the chance to blow off some steam, she quickly drove off to be greeted by a hailstorm of ineffective bullets. Unleashing her swords, she began cutting through G.I. Joe's war machines before demanding an explanation for the attack. She continued this until reinforcements arrived and Soundwave fired an EMP that destroyed all the Joes' equipment. Out of the blue, an alien arrived to atomize four humans. Jazz tried to tackle it only for Rock 'n Roll to fire into Jazz's open wound. Acree came to his aid as the alien flew off. She then carried off by Victorion as Optimus ordered the Autobots to pursue the alien. Concorde Hymn The Autobots tracked the alien to Umpqua National Forest where they forced it to make an emergency landing. When the alien responded with aggression, Arcee punched in its open chest wound down to the ground while noting she enjoyed hitting her problems. The Divine Source of Liberty