Starscream (Armada)
| The name or term "Starscream" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Starscream (disambiguation). |
- Starscream is a Decepticon in the Unicron Trilogy continuity family.
Starscream is disillusioned by his leader Megatron. It took a while for Starscream to come to grips with Megatron's faults, but there's no turning back. Megatron doesn't respect him, doesn't appreciate him, and would casually toss Starscream's life away if it got him something he wanted. If following Megatron is the school of hard knocks, then Starscream is the valedictorian -- but not without a few scars. Starscream may have once been compassionate, he may once have known what true friendship is, but all that has been replaced, scab for scab, with the lessons of Megatron's abuse.
Unwittingly, Megatron may have created a monster even he cannot ultimately control.
Starscream's nominal Mini-Con partner is Swindle, thought he has been seen to work with Zapmaster.
Japanese name: Nightscream (Energon)
Fiction
Animated continuity
Armada
- Voice Actor: Michael Dobson (English), Jin Yamanoi (Japan)
Accompanying Megatron's forces to Earth, Starscream was deliberately made to be the last of the Decepticons to acquired his personal partner Mini-Con. Infuriated by this mistreatment, Starscream's resent for and hatred of Megatron made him a chink in the armor of the Decepticons that could be easily exploited by the manipulative Sideways.
Initially, Sideways coerced Starscream into a duel with Megatron, which he promptly lost. A short time later, Thrust, acting under the instructions Sideways, further exploited Starscream by making him the patsy in his latest plan. Starscream was given the Star Saber and allowed to run riot to draw the Autobots out of their base, but was then abandoned on the battlefield so that the other Decepticons could invade the base and steal the Requiem Blaster. Surviving to return to the Decepticon base, Starscream went on a rampage with the sword and disowned the Decepticons, siding up with the wary Autobots, not out of any desire to do good, but simply out of sheer hatred for Megatron. After a clash with Hot Shot and a trip to Mars with Jetfire, Starscream befriended the Autobots' human allies, particularly Alexis, and then gave the Autobots access to the Decepticon base, resulting in a raid that freed all the captive Mini-Cons. Starscream's defection was not a smooth process, however; he constantly clashed with his new teammates over morals and battle strategies, but nonetheless proved a capable, and on at least some level, willing Autobot. Soon thereafter, Sideways and Thrust approached Starscream, planting seeds of doubt in his mind. This eventually caused him to steal the Skyboom Shield from the Autobots and return to the Decepticon fold, giving the Decepticons possession of all three Mini-Con weapons.
Subsequently, Starscream was among the Transformers injured battling Nemesis Prime, and who then received power boosts from their Mini-Cons. Starscream gained a new, blue coloration that he commented made him look like his contemporary, Thundercracker. Returning to Cybertron, Starscream pursued Thrust into the depths of the planet when the turncoat tactician revealed his treachery by stealing the Requiem Blaster and Skyboom Shield. Starscream took a fatal shot from the Requiem Blaster as he battled Thrust in the subterranean tunnels, but the Mini-Con High Wire used his powers to restructure the timeline, saving Starscream. Thrust escaped and delivered the weapons to Sideways and his master, Unicron, presently disguised as Cybertron's moon. Following Thrust through a warp gate and briefly reuniting with Alexis, Starscream entered the belly of the beast along with Hot Shot and Wheeljack, but the unlikely trio were stymied by Unicron's internal defenses and failed to stop Sideways from using the weapons to begin Unicron's reactivation.
Megatron - now Galvatron - was unwilling to acknowledge Unicron's threat, dismissing it as an Autobot trick, but Starscream knew the threat was real, and that only united under a true leader like Optimus Prime - whose strength of character and nobility had touched Starscream during his time with the Autobots - could the Transformers hope to stop him. To show Galvatron the error of his ways, he challenged him to a duel in which he allowed Galvatron to run him through with the Star Saber, and then turned his firepower on Unicron. Unicron promptly obliterated him, proving to Galvatron that the danger was real.
Energon
- Voice Actor: Michael Dobson (English), Nobuo Tobita (Japanese)
Ten years after Starscream's death, when Megatron seized control of Unicron's body by ousting its former occupant, the alien being Alpha Q, the evicted extra-terrestrial needed an assassin to eliminate Megatron so that he could return to his original task of recreating the worlds destroyed by Unicron. Using what little energon he had left, Alpha Q recreated another victim of Unicron - Starscream. However, Alpha Q ran out of energon before the process could be completed, leaving Starscream incomplete - his memory blank, and his body unstable, constantly shifting from a physical to an ethereal form, able to teleport by "ghosting" from location to location. Alpha Q unleashed Starscream upon Ocean City, where he battled Optimus Prime and then tracked Megatron back to Unicron's body. Even his awesome new abilities proved no match for the Decepticon leader, who used Unicron's power to brainwash Starscream, turning him into his right-hand man and most loyal subordinate. Rather ironically, Megatron now treated Starscream with far more respect than previously, even entrusting him with some of the most difficult missions.
Later, when Megatron became Galvatron again through immersion in a subterranean reservoir of super energon on Cybertron, Starscream was allowed to do the same as a reward for his loyalty; the influx of power stabilised his physical form, while allowing him to retain his teleporting powers. When Galvatron was subsequently possessed by Unicron, Primus used the super energon to create a sun, and Galvatron plunged himself into it in order to contain Unicron's spark within it. Starscream seemingly sacrificed himself as well, diving into the sun alongside his leader.
Cybertron
- Voice actor: Michael Dobson (English) Takaya Kuroda (Japanese)
A decade after the events of Energon, when Primus's plan to contain Unicron's spark at the core of the energon sun failed, the sun collapsed, becoming a deadly black hole that threatened Cybertron. Freed from his imprisonment in the sun by Megatron, Starscream's mind was his own again, and his body was refurbished into yet another new form.
Megatron began his campaign to acquire the legendary Cyber Planet Keys by stealing the map that showed their locations from the ancient Transformer, Vector Prime while Starscream created a diversion that kept the other Autobots busy. During the fight, Starscream sent Landmine tumbling into the black hole, but Vector Prime saved him at the last moment, opening a dimensional gate that teleported him to Earth. The Autobots and Decepticons followed, and when it was deduced that the Cyber Planet Keys' focusing device, the Omega Lock, was hidden somewhere on the planet, Megatron charged Starscream with locating it while he focused on acquiring the Cyber Planet Key of Velocitron, the Speed Planet.
Little did Megatron suspect, however, that Starscream had evolved a new ambition - now, he sought to oust Megatron and become the leader of the Decepticons, then the universe. Unlike those with similar goals, however, Starscream was smart enough to keep his intentions to himself, quietly working to achieve his goals through subtle means. While on a brief mission to attack Red Alert on Velocitron, Starscream was able to secretly switch Megatron's map with a copy that would play an important role later, and in an attempt to acquire more troops loyal to him, recruited the disillusioned Autobot Mudflap into his service on Earth. He later crossed paths once again with the mysterious Sideways, who saw in him the best chance to achieve his own goals.
With the Autobots having successfully acquired the Omega Lock and the Cyber Planet Keys from Velocitron and the Jungle Planet, Starscream realised it was time to step up his agenda. His duplicate planet map led Megatron and the other Decepticons to a dead sector of space and sealed them within a metal sphere, freeing Starscream to search for the third Cyber Planet Key, from Earth itself. Encountering the Autobot monster-hunter, Crosswise - one of the ancient Transformers whose ancestors had come to Earth with the Cyber Planet Key eons ago, who had recently been reactivated - Starscream discovered a vast underground holding cell in which Crosswise had imprisoned the ancient Decepticons of his time. Liberating them, Starscream took command of their forces and began a planetwide search for the Cyber Planet Key, fighting back the Autobot and human military resistance. The Autobots had Crosswise's ally Evac recover the key from its hiding place in preparation for a retreat to Velocitron, but Starscream fought his way through the entire Autobot army and confronted Optimus Prime himself, successfully purloining the lock and all three keys by endangering the Autobots' human allies and drawing Prime out of the fight.
Retreating to a small volcanic island in the South Pacific, Starscream attempted to harness the power of the Cyber Planet Keys. Megatron, meanwhile, had been freed by Scourge, and immediately sought retribution, only to wind up clashing with the Autobots first. The extra time this afforded Starscream allowed him to tap the power of the keys and harness a fragment of the spark of Primus, growing to a gigantic height and besting Megatron in combat. With an extra power boost courtesy of his combination with Wing Saber, Optimus Prime was able to defeat Starscream, but Sideways teleported his body away to the ancient starship Atlantis to recuperate.
When the Cyber Planet Keys were used by the Autobots to awaken Primus and tranform Cybertron into his body, Starscream successfully attempted to drain more of his power and grew to planetary size. He was defeated in one-on-one combat with Primus himself, battered into submission by Cybertron's moons, and drained of his excess power. The discovery of the fourth Cyber Planet Key on Gigantion, the Giant Planet, set Starscream racing to acquire the key first, but Landmine reached it ahead of him and was able to use its power to pay him back for past indignities by growing to his size and pummelling him.
With all four Cyber Planet Keys finally acquired, Starscream challenged Megatron - now Galvatron once more - to a final battle for possession of them. So incredible were the energies released during the clash that space and time itself was rended by the final explosion, and Starscream was hurtled into to another dimension along with the interfering Sideways and Soundwave. He would appear for one final time before a defeated Galvatron, his spirit reaching out across the dimensions to encourage him to fight on - leading Galvatron to his final demise at the hands of Optimus Prime.
As the Autobots made preparations to begin their new space bridge initiative, Wing Saber - having departed from the rest of the Autobots to continue with his "loner" lifestyle - radioed Cybertron to repotthat he had found a lead on Starscream's trail and was pursuing it. Landmine and Mudflap departed to aid him, and somewhere out in space on a world of lava, it seems their mission to locate Starscream was a success...
Dreamwave comics continuity
Armada
Energon
In the wake of the unification of Autobots and Decepticons following Unicron's defeat, Starscream tried to ingratiate himself with Tidal Wave and the rest of the remaining Decepticons. His wheedling didn't last long, though, as Scorponok showed up and promptly blasted him into a trash compactor. Later, during the Terrorcon attack on Earth, Starscream reappeared in his new form as an energon ghost and slaughtered Demolishor. Due to Dreamwave's subsequent bankruptcy, however, this ended up being his only appearance in his Energon form.
Fun Publications Cybertron comic
Starscream kills Mini-Con Over-run as the little guy's uploading himself into Cybertron's planetary mainframe. An allusion to a Dreamwave Comics continuity event, but apparently it also took place in the animated continuity, too? Well, okay. Don't think too hard on this one.
Toys
Armada
- Starscream with Swindle (Mega)
- Japanese ID number: MD-02
- Starscream (Happy Meal)
- Starscream Supermode with Spark Grid (Mega)
- Japanese ID number: MD-09
- The Japanese version of the Thundercracker toy represents a powered-up version of Starscream instead of a new character.
Energon
- Starscream (Deluxe)
- Japanese ID number: SD-01
- Not a remold of Smokescreen.
- Prowl with Longarm & Starscream with Zapmaster (Sam's Club exclusive)
- Energon Starscream (Deluxe)
- Japanese ID number: SD-19
Cybertron
- Starscream (Supreme)
- Supreme Starscream comes with a Decepticon Crown of Leadership(identical to the one in the Movie), two Cyber Planet Keys (Cybertron-Decepticon and a gold-trimmed Earth key), and a quarrel for his null-ray cannon. He is different from the Japanese release of the figure in a several other ways apart from size: one of his swing-out blades has been replaced with a Null Ray Cannon, a reference to Generation 1 Starscream's armaments; his swing out features are activated by two separate Cyber Key slots(leaving the original one and a new slot underneath in his back as non-active key holders); the turrents on the side of the cockpit can also be aimed, whereas on the smaller version they were fixed in place. Lights and sounds have been added for the figure, a feature not present in the smaller figure. The lights and sounds react to the moving of his sword arm.
- Starscream (Galaxy Force Voyager)
- Japanese ID number: GD-03
- Starscream vs. Vector Prime (Toys "R" Us exclusive)
Attacktix
- Starscream (Booster, 2006)
