Thundercracker (WFC)

The name or term "Thundercracker" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Thundercracker (disambiguation).

Thundercracker is an Decepticon from the Transformers: Prime continuity family.

Someone told me I was meeting Mike Costa here.

A scientist by nature, with a more upperclass air, Thundercracker stands out among his fellow Decepticons in being a fairly calm and level-headed fellow. He believes in the cause, even if he's not enthusiastic about certain of Megatron's methods. Lacking the endless ambition of Starscream and the cruel thuggery of Skywarp, he displays little malice towards his enemies and takes no joy from battle. For Thundercracker, conflict is simply applied physics and chemistry, nothing more than the redirection of forces and energy towards the desired target...his foes.

Fiction

Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron

When Decepticons bombed Altihex Casino, Starscream told Sentinel Prime that Thundercracker and Skywarp were his trusted lieutenants and that they would take him to safety. They actually took him to Kaon Prison. Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron

Games

Transformers: War for Cybertron (Xbox 360/PS3/PC)

Voice actor: Graham McTavish (English)

Thundercracker served with Skywarp, Jetfire, and the former Sky Commander Starscream on a dilapidated orbital research station that once experimented on the powerful, but highly dangerous Dark Energon. This made it a target for the leader of the Decepticons, Megatron, who wished to restart Dark Energon production in his plans to revitalise Cybertron. Megatron attacked the station and fought his way into the laboratory, and despite Starscream's attempts to destroy the remaining Dark Energon, Megatron withstood its destructive power and bent it to his will. His survival intrigued Starscream, who offered to serve Megatron in exchange for learning how to manipulate Dark Energon himself; Thundercracker and Skywarp fell into line. Jetfire declared them traitors and left to warn Zeta Prime. Thundercracker and Skywarp were prepared to give chase, but Megatron allowed the Autobot to leave, as he wished Zeta Prime to know his demise was coming. However, the Decepticon commander scoffed at the idea of being given what he could simply take from Starscream, until the one-time Sky Commander revealed that there was very little Dark Energon left on the research station, but he knew how to manufacture more, and that the ancient, long-forgotten Energon Bridge needed to be reactivated before they could do so.

Thundercracker, Starscream and Skywarp were sent the cliffs of Kaon, where they could make their way into the underground. Thundercracker commented with wonder that he had never travelled this far into Cybertron before, for which Skywarp labelled him as being boring as always. As they entered an underground energon reservoir, Thundercracker warned his teammates to avoid touching the flowing streams and waterfalls of crude energon, as in that state is was extremely volatile; Skywarp once again mocked his companion's thoughtfulness. Making their way out of the reservoir, the three fliers faced their first serious challenge when an Autobot cruiser appeared in a canyon they needed to travel through. The trio crippled the cruiser's weapons system, fought their way past the Aerialbot squadron it launched, and moved into the ship. Defeating the ship's defenders, they then destroyed it by placing a detpack on the ship's power core. While Starscream and Skywarp busied themselves with glory hogging and relishing the battle against the Autobots, Thundercracker tried to keep them alive, using his Energon repair ray to heal their wounds. Deeper in the core, they encountered strange creatures the likes of which Thundercracker had never seen before. Eventually, they found themselves before the mechanism needed to restart the Energon Bridge, but Thundercracker's scans detected something very unusual about the machine. Starscream, tired of Thundercracker's readings and sensors, pushed his way past and injected Dark Energon into it without waiting for more information. Perhaps he should have listened to Thundercracker, as the machine activated its defense systems, revealing itself to be Cybertron's Sentinel. The three Decepticons were forced to fight a desperate battle where the Sentinel threw heat-seeking fireballs at them, activated powerful energy beams and turned the floor into lava. Exploiting the machine's cooling down period, they were eventually victorious, and barely escaped with their lives when the Dark Energon infected the facility and reactivated the Energon Bridge, which sent its energon bouncing along satellites to Megatron's Dark Energon facility. Thundercracker remarked his amazement at this...but not until after Skywarp did. Y'know, TC, it's all well and good for you to be thoughtful and careful, but when Skywarp beats you to the punch in stating the blindly obvious, you might want to speed it up.

Shortly after the defeat of Zeta Prime, Iacon's guardian Omega Supreme gave chase to Megatron, though based on Megatron's attitude it was hard to tell exactly who was chasing whom at times. At one point, Megatron even ordered Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker to attack the behemoth, if only to provide a distraction. The three apparently eluded him after drawing his fire, however, as after Omega had cornered Megatron's team at an Autobot anti-aircraft terrace (or, depending on who you talk to, when Megatron tricked him into attacking them there), Omega's armour was breached by Megatron using the heavy guns, and Starscream led Skywarp and Thundercracker in shooting down the mighty Autobot, forcing him to crash land in a sub-level below. After Megatron defeated Omega Supreme on the ground and forced him to open the Omega Gate, Thundercracker and the others watched as Megatron achieved his plan to infect Cybertron's core with Dark Energon. Transformers: War for Cybertron

Transformers: War for Cybertron (DS)

Voice actor: Graham McTavish (English)

Thundercracker is an unlockable character for the DS version of War for Cybertron. He is unlocked by finding a disc in the mission "Testing the Experiment" (His character disc is located in one of the prison cells). On the Decepticon version he can replace any of the other Decepticons in the campaign mode.

Thundercracker served under Megatron loyally during the final days of the war. He followed Megatron into battle against the titanic Autobot Omega Supreme, but not without expressing his numbing fear of the giant first. Transformers: War for Cybertron

Notes

• Thundercracker is usable in both the Autobot and Decepticon versions of the War for Cybertron games for the DS. Used only for multiplayer, bonus missions and Arena mode in the Autobot version and used in Multiplayer, Arena mode, and campaign in the Decepticon version.