Mindwipe (G1)
| "Mindwipe" redirects here. For the Decepticon from Revenge of the Fallen , see Mindwipe (ROTF). |
- Mindwipe is a Decepticon Headmaster from the Generation 1 continuity family. Blah!
No one knows the dead quite as well as the Decepticon hypnotist, Mindwipe. A mysterious and mystical one, Mindwipe claims to have the powers to commune with Transformers who have long since left this plane of existence. From Black Sabbaths to seances to super-conductive antennae, Mindwipe knows of many methods to reach those who now rest in peace.
Well...not really. He desperately wants to speak with the departed sparks of dead Decepticons, but all his labors to create antennae and receivers for the departed have had... "limited" success. In reality, all he's picking up are radio broadcasts of old Earth sitcoms, which he's actually become quite fond of. Still, some day, Mindwipe hopes to finally bridge the gap between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead.
Despite those shortcomings, Mindwipe is a formidable opponent, able to hypnotize and control both organic and mechanical lifeforms just by making eye contact, and with an eerie and potent precognitive "sixth sense." He is binary bonded to the Nebulan Vorath.
| “ | The powers of darkness are a more powerful weapon than all the toys your science can muster. | ” |
—Mindwipe, talking all spooky to Vorath, "The Rebirth, Part 2" | ||
- Japanese name: Wipe, Vorath (see below)
- Hungarian name: Agymosó
- French-Canadian name: Amnésiak
- Italian name: Pipistrello
Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
Generation 1
Mindwipe was one of Scorponok's soldiers on Cybertron. After Fortress Maximus's unit abandoned Cybertron, Scorponok received word they had come to the planet called Nebulos, and brought a strike team to that world in order to exact revenge. After kidnapping the Nebulans who called them to this world, Scorponok gave them to Mindwipe to use for his experiments. Mindwipe removed Monzo from his cage and placed him in front of a machine that enclosed the Nebulan in a polymer membrane bubble. After a shot from Skullcruncher's anti-gravity gun, Monzo went floating up through an opening in the roof, but the bubble popped, prompting Mindwipe to catch Monzo so as to not waste a "good laboratory animal."
But before further experiments could be performed, Lord Zarak, one of their Nebulan prisoners, suggested that the Decepticons binary bond with them to become Headmasters, so that they could match the power of the Autobots who had recently gone under this process themselves. When the Decepticons next met the Autobots in battle, Mindwipe was now bonded with Vorath, and the two sides were evenly matched. To tip the odds, Mindwipe hypnotized members of the Council of Peers and Zarak's daughter, Llyra, into getting enclosed in the same polymer bubbles that Monzo had previously. After the Autobots saved the Nebulans, Mindwipe and the other Headmaster Decepticons shot the Autobots in the backs. Lord Zarak presented himself, Mindwipe, and the others are Nebulos's true heroes. Love and Steel!
The Decepticon Headmasters struck next at the Mercury Gardens of Melanossus, where they faced the Monsterbots. Once the Nebulan partners combined with their Decepticon bodies, the Monsterbots were overwhelmed and forced to retreat. Vorath detached from Mindwipe again when the media arrived, while Zarak explained that even though the Gardens were destroyed in the process, this was a victory for Nebulos. Brothers in Armor!!
At some point during their stay on Nebulos, the Autobot and Decepticon Headmasters fought each other. Mindwipe hypnotized Brainstorm, causing him to crash into Hardhead. When Mindwipe found the defeated bodies of his peers, however, Mindwipe staged a panicked retreat. Worlds Apart!
However, Zarak didn't believe his own lies and ultimately led Mindwipe and the other Decepticons offworld to follow the Autobots to Earth. Brothers in Armor!!
Mindwipe detected the signal that the Autobots were drawn to on Earth, and found that it originated from an abandoned Autobot headquarters inside a volcano cavern. But Fortress Maximus's Autobots weren't far, and the Decepticons fought them once again. Mindwipe and the others were stampeded out of the volcano when Fortress Maximus picked up a new Headmaster partner, the Earth human Spike Witwicky. Trial by Fire!
While his scientifically inclined partner Vorath helped Scorponok create Pretender technology, Mindwipe watched silently in bat mode, probably muttering to himself about how magic is totally better. Pretender to the Throne!
Scorponok put Mindwipe's hypnotic powers to use setting a trap for Highbrow, by having him mesmerize some humans who then led the Autobot Headmaster into a deep wood. The trap sprung, Highbrow attempted to flee, but Mindwipe pursued and used his powers to give him a severe case of amnesia. Scorponok tried to convince the brainwashed Highbrow that he was really a Decepticon, but Highbrow remained ill at ease, so the Decepticons tried to defuse the tense atmosphere by transforming their heads into Nebulan mode. Unfortunately, it was at this point that they discovered Mindwipe's fatal mistake: He had neglected to also blank the mind of Highbrow's partner, Gort. Gort knocked out Vorath, taking Mindwipe out of the fight, and then recombined with Highbrow, restoring his memory. He proceeded to rip Scorponok's head from his shoulders, the mental shock knocking the Decepticon leader offline. All in the Minds! Not long thereafter, amidst a time storm that threatened to end all reality, Mindwipe helped hunt down Highbrow in order to reclaim Scorponok's stolen head. Once Mindwipe retrieved the head and restored it to Scorponok's shoulders, the rest of his team was shunted to Limbo and replaced by a group of Decepticons from 2009 led by Soundwave. After some misunderstandings were ironed out, Mindwipe and the two other Decepticons not limboed away formed a temporary alliance with the Autobots, the future Autobots, and the future Decepticons against the time-traveling Galvatron. But the alliance was short-lived; when the future Ultra Magnus accidentally shot Scorponok, Mindwipe joined his fellow present-day Decepticons in tearing Ultra Magnus apart. They retreated with Scorponok's wounded body just before Galvatron was thrown into the time storm, sating it and saving the universe. Time Wars
Inevitably, Scorponok's band of Earthbound Decepticons met with Ratbat's band of Earthbound Decepticons, and a group including Mindwipe was given a really boring tour by Starscream of Ratbat's island headquarters. When the tour's star attraction, the kidnapped Buster Witwicky, unwittingly let slip that Ratbat was searching for a powerful artifact called the Underbase, Scorponok was enraged. Scorponok took Mindwipe and the others to confront Ratbat for hording such information, and a civil war broke out between the two Decepticon camps. Cold War! Soon the Autobots as well were drawn to the island base, and the Decepticons put aside their differences to fight the surprised Autobots. Mindwipe was quick to maul the hapless Beachcomber. Dark Star
In the wake of the Underbase Saga, Scorponok took command of the remnants of the Decepticon army and established a headquarters under a garbage dump in New Jersey, across the river from New York City. He had Mindwipe engineer an energy conversion machine to convert power into Energon, and all he needed was for a cable to be laid across the river, connected to an electrostator placed at the top of the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, Iguanus failed at this and seemingly perished. King Con!
The Decepticons scrambled once again when the Micromaster Air Strike Patrol summoned them to MacDill Air Force Base after the wayward new recruits, facing Optimus Prime and the entire Autobot army, were seemingly over their heads. Though both Optimus Prime and Scorponok privately suspected someone had arranged for this altercation, a fight broke out regardless. Mindwipe got punched in the batface by Blurr, while the Air Strike Patrol made their quiet retreat. The Resurrection Gambit! Mindwipe recuperated and joined Scorponok in advancing on the Autobots, just as Optimus Prime, strangely, called all his troops other than himself to return to the Ark. Scorponok was suspicious, and Mindwipe suggested that some powerful weapon was hidden inside the Autobots' shuttlecraft. Mindwipe and the others rushed Optimus Prime as he tried to stop Scorponok from firing on the shuttlecraft, but Prime, who was quickly becoming frustrated with the day's events, was able to overpower all of them. As Optimus pleaded to Scorponok to stop fighting and determine the mastermind who was pulling their strings, they were interrupted by a huge hint: Starscream had arrived, reborn as a Pretender. All the Familiar Faces! Curiouser still, Mindwipe was shocked as Starscream claimed he had been sent by Megatron, also believed to be dead! As Starscream's Pretender shell trounced Optimus Prime, Scorponok half-heartedly ordered Mindwipe and Weirdwolf to help him. Mindwipe learned the hard way that his hypnotic power had no effect on the new Starscream, just before Starscream suddenly reverted to his classic cowardly self and begged for mercy. Skin Deep
Scorponok reluctantly allowed Starscream back into their ranks, a decision that began to turn his troops against him. Mindwipe was one of the most vocal members of this retaliation, and pointed to the hole Starscream had put in his chest. He reminded Scorponok that Starscream was a chronic traitor, but Scorponok rebuked him, noting that Starscream was a powerful warrior needed to bolster their ranks, and was better kept close so they could monitor his actions. Primal Scream But when Starscream went missing, Mindwipe and Triggerhappy decided they'd had enough and left Scorponok's command. Ironically enough, they ran into Starscream himself and joined his small band of Decepticons against Scorponok. Eye of the Storm Mindwipe and Triggerhappy returned with Starscream, Shockwave, and Ravage to Shockwave's underwater headquarters, where they learned that their forces also included the Battlechargers. With only seven on their team, Mindwipe was not impressed and expressed doubts, but when Starscream told him that they'd either fight for them or be executed, he quickly changed his mind.
Immediately, the seven flew to Scorponok's base and fired into it from the air, collapsing it on an Autobot/Decepticon alliance that had been forming. Surrender! Once again, Mindwipe was the designated worrier. Though the collapsed base showed no signs of life, if Scorponok had survived, he said their best bet was to get while the getting was good. Triggerhappy agreed, and Starscream silently pitied their cowardice. Unfortunately for Starscream, Mindwipe was right, and Scorponok burst out of the ground to deal with them. Shockwave ordered Mindwipe and the others to rush Scorponok, an idea that was not popular with Mindwipe, and for good reason. Scorponok shrugged off their attacks. Mindwipe and Starscream subsequently concerned themselves with Scorponok's troops while Scorponok battled his equal, Shockwave. ...All This and Civil War 2
Mindwipe put his magic powers to good use and hypnotized Field Commander Soundwave with the intention of controlling the troops through him. It was a good plan! And Kup agreed! At gunpoint, Mindwipe told Soundwave to tell all the other Decepticons to lay down their arms in service of the Autobot/Decepticon alliance against Unicron -- just in time for every Transformer on Earth to be warped to Cybertron by their creator, Primus. Out of Time! Mindwipe watched with the other warped Transformers as Primus explained to them the history between himself and Unicron, and that the Transformers' destiny was to defeat him. The Void!
Once the massive planet-sized Unicron arrived, Mindwipe and the other Transformers froze in terror. After watching Brainstorm get eaten by the Chaos Bringer, Mindwipe regained enough of his faculties to be able to run away. The Transformers did eventually come around and face their destined adversary, but it did not end well for Mindwipe. As Unicron tore an avatar of the Creation Matrix to pieces, the resulting shockwave sent what was left of Mindwipe's body flying. On the Edge of Extinction!
Earthforce
After having been thrown out of the Decepticon army for trying to hypnotize Scorponok into making him leader, Mindwipe devised a master scheme of his own. He manufactured thousands of thought-sensitive Sleepfast(TM) night lights, selling them to humans on the novelty that they actually turned on or off just by thinking at them. Little did the humans know, however, that repetitive use of the night lights had a subliminal mind-control effect. Over time, Mindwipe would have gained an army of human slaves! Luckily for Humanity, the Autobots Wheeljack and Snarl came to investigate, and they confronted Mindwipe in his storage facility. He was beaten by his own night lights when the Autobots suddenly thought "Lights on!" in a darkened room, turning on thousands of Sleepfasts(TM) at once and temporarily blinding the Decepticon.
Mindwipe was, to coin a phrase, bat-sh*t nuts. The Living Nightlights!
Generation 2
Mindwipe was still a part of the Decepticons after Megatron took back control of the army from Bludgeon. He was involved in the disastrous first encounter between Megatron's troops and Jhiaxus's Cybertronian Empire. After Megatron was literally knocked out of orbit by Jhiaxus and plummeted to the planet below, Mindwipe joined Soundwave, Drag Strip and Weirdwolf in looking for their fallen leader. He was in the midst of voicing the selfish but sensible idea of abandoning Megatron to his fate and gettin' the slag outta there when Drag Strip found their commander. New Dawn
The Transformers cartoon
- Voice actor: Stephen Keener (English), Eiji Itō (Japanese)
Mindwipe was one of the many Decepticons who attacked Autobot City. He used his hypnotic powers to send Lightspeed driving down into a lake. The Rebirth, Part 1
Mindwipe was later one of the Decepticons who underwent binary bonding to become Headmasters. Mindwipe found that his hypnosis could control Vorath, making his binary bonding the most advantageous of the Decepticon/Hive alliance. Mindwipe was also able to use his extra-sensory perception to reveal that Brainstorm was carrying the key to the plasma energy chamber.The Rebirth, Part 2
Japanese cartoon continuity
The Headmasters cartoon
- Voice actor: Naoki Tatsuta (Japanese)
Four million years ago, Mindwipe was among a group of diminutive Cybertronians who departed Cybertron under the leadership of Fortress, seeking to escape the eternal war that had consumed the planet. The Mystery of Planet Master Alas, engine trouble caused their craft to crash land on the planet Master, an inhospitable world whose murderous environments and wildly changeable atmospheric conditions threatened the lives of the Cybertronians. Fighting against the odds, the Cybertronians made several technological quantum leaps to survive on Master, including the creation of larger, lifeless Transformer bodies called Transtectors. Mindwipe and many of his comrades underwent rigorous physical and mental training to master the art of transformation, learning to transform into heads that connected to the Transtectors and placed them under their control. The Four-Million-Year-Old Veil of Mystery Mindwipe was one of ten warriors who became one of these "Headmasters", but he and several other warriors soon began to chafe under Fortress's leadership, and ultimately rebelled against him, siding with a traitor named Scorponok. Via the Decepticon ninja Sixshot, Scorponok soon forged an alliance with the Decepticon leader, Galvatron. The Mystery of Planet Master
In the year 2011, Mindwipe and his fellow Headmasters Weirdwolf and Skullcruncher joined Galvatron's Decepticons in a massive attack on Cybertron, seeking to seize control of the destabilized Vector Sigma and establish a Decepticon hold over the planet through the computer. Mindwipe's hypnotic powers proved instrumental in the battle, as he put Grimlock to sleep, but Galvatron was less than impressed, since he also accidentally knocked out Skullcruncher with the technique. Undeterred, Mindwipe put his powers into play again a short time later, taking out Grimlock (again!), Slag and the Throttlebots, and leaving the entrance to the computer base wide open. Before the villains could enter, however, Fortress's Autobot Headmasters arrived on Cybertron to stop them. Four Warriors Come out of the Sky In ensuing battle, Mindwipe tried using his powers on Chromedome and Brainstorm, but the Decepticons were soon forced to retreat when faced with the power of Fortress's Battleship Maximus. The Mystery of Planet Master
The Headmasters comic
The Headmasters #1Great Decisive Battle of Planet Beast!The Headmasters #2The Headmasters #6
Super-God Masterforce comic
Several years after the Decepticons' departure from Earth, Mindwipe appeared on Athenia with the other Decepticon Headmasters, working with the new Decepticon Godmasters to disrupt the coronation of Ginrai as Supreme Commander at the behest of their new secret ruler, Devil Z. The Battle Begins! The United Earth-Space Troops
Dreamwave comics continuity
During the Dark Ages, when Optimus Prime and Megatron were believed to have been killed in a space bridge test, Mindwipe was part of the Chaos Trinity that attempted to use dark science to manipulate events in their favor. When the mysterious, frighteningly-powerful being known as The Fallen arrived and offered them dark powers in exchange for their services, they agreed. Fragmentation The three managed to initiate a serious surge in factional engagements, in an attempt to isolate the Angles of Dissolution that the Fallen needed. During their attempt to secure Jetfire, Mindwipe managed to put the Autobot scientist into a trance, while Bludgeon and Bugly put Shockwave out of commission. When Grimlock, another target, surprised them, Mindwipe was confident he could do the same to Grimlock.
He got thrown into a wall for his troubles. The Fallen had to pull their exhaust ports out of the fire. Revelation
When they went to secure Hot Spot, Mindwipe turned several of the Protectobots against their teammates. Confrontation However, Shockwave tracked the Chaos Trinity down, bringing Soundwave, Ravage, the Insecticons, the Seekers, and Trypticon as well. Mindwipe believed that it was time to retreat, but found that Bludgeon had already fled. Mindwipe was then slagged by Shockwave. Conflagration
Toys
Generation 1
- Mindwipe with Vorath (Headmaster, 1987)
- Japanese ID number: D-86
- Accessories: "Vorath" Headmaster trainer, "Viper Pistol"
- Mindwipe transforms into a robotic bat. In this mode, Vorath fits into his chest compartment. The tail gets in the way and prevents the bat from standing in an upright position, unless one swings the tail to the front (as seen in the picture), which, while hilarious looking, isn't the correct orientation. One solution is to unscrew the toy and flip the tail over so it angles upwards. Doing this doubly benefits the beast mode in that the tail now acts as a sort of third leg for stability.
- In robot mode, Vorath forms his head; attaching him activates a tumbler mechanism that displays an abbreviated set of Tech Specs behind the robot-mode chest panel. Mindwipe and Vorath are both cross-compatible with any other Generation 1 Headmaster body/head.
Trivia
- In the television commercial for Marvel Comics' Headmasters limited series, the Autobot and Decepticon Headmasters are shown having different head designs than the ones their Nebulan partners would later turn into. These designs were seemingly never used in any other piece of Transformers media. The models for most of them, however, turned up in the excellent Transformers Generations guidebook... except for Mindwipe's. Damn it.
