Circuit Breaker (G1)
| This article is about a girl who hates machines. For a girl who loves machines, see Sephie Beller. |
- Circuit Breaker is a human from the Marvel Comics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Circuit Breaker is a villain whose pathological hatred of robots knows no bounds. She refuses to make the distinction between Autobot and Decepticon, blaming the Transformer race as a whole for the attack which left her crippled. As such, she is more likely to do harm to the Autobot cause than to be of assistance.
Circuit Breaker was genius Josie Beller. Hired by Blackrock Industries only a few years out of high school, she was responsible for designing the most advanced oil-drilling platform in the world. Despite her well-publicized technological achievements, Beller was humble; to her, it was merely part of her job. She continues to be extremely devoted to her employer, G.B. Blackrock.
But after being paralyzed during a Decepticon attack on the platform, she invented a uniform to enable her to walk again. Her computerized suit not only allows her to move, but grants her the power to shoot electricity, disrupt circuitry, and fly. This costume does not cover much of her body, but having the power to manipulate electricity gives a you a good defense against inappropriate catcalls.
- Portuguese name (Portugal comics): Disjuntora
- Portuguese name (Brazil comics): Rompe-Circuitos
Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
After Josie Beller appeared on the news The New Order, her life took a tragic turn when the Decepticon Shockwave attacked the oil-drilling platform that the news report was showcasing. Beller, who was operating the defense systems, fired harpoons at Shockwave. As Shockwave reeled in pain, he yanked away from the rig, ripping out the harpoon launchers, which, as a chain reaction of debris fell through the construct, caused the electrical systems to malfunction. Josie Beller was electrocuted. This paralyzed her entirely from the neck down, other than the ability to use her right arm. The Worse of Two Evils!
Hospitalized, Beller blamed herself. She told Blackrock that she had failed him, and swore she would make it up to him. Blackrock tried to explain that Beller owed him nothing, but she would not listen to him. Her devotion was, perhaps, pathological. She hated robots, she hated what they did to Blackrock Industries, and she hated them for paralyzing her.
Blackrock sought to equip himself better against attacks from the Transformers. Soon, he planned to unveil a new secret weapon to the press, the Anti-Robot Photonic Multi-Cannon. Josie Beller broke into Blackrock's office and disrobed, revealing an electrical costume which allowed her to move again. She declared her name to now be Circuit Breaker. The next day, when Blackrock unveiled the Anti-Robot Photonic Multi-Cannon to the press, it had been sabotaged by Circuit Breaker. She wished for Blackrock to introduce her as the real weapon he had intended to announce all along. But then, the Decepticons Starscream and Frenzy arrived, intent on stealing the cannon, while Wheeljack and Jazz arrived to stop them. Circuit Breaker's hatred did not distinguish between Autobot and Decepticon and attacked both. However, as the Autobots refused to attack humans, both Jazz and Wheeljack suffered heavily from her electrical attacks. Blackrock pleaded to her, demanding she realize that not all robots were her enemy. She again refused to listen. In need of a recharge, she left, vowing to return to finish the job she started. DIS-Integrated Circuits!
Still fuming and wanting revenge on all Transformers, Circuit Breaker witnessed a girl playing with her friends fall through the ice. She used her power over electricity to melt the ice to get her out, but her heart had stopped. She defibrillated her heart using her powers, saving her life. But the adult present was unappreciative, calling her a freak and telling her to leave. This made her even more angry at the Transformers for causing her injuries. As she was flying away, she witnessed Jazz loose control on the icy roads which caused Buster to fall in the snow. Circuit Breaker thought Jazz was attacking Buster and came to his aid, destroying Jazz's gun and getting ready to finish him off. Buster pleaded with her to spare him since they were friends. Just then the clock struck twelve. Since it was now Christmas day, Circuit Breaker gave Jazz his second reprieve and flew off. Christmas Breaker!
The anti-Transformers military task force, RAAT, hired Circuit Breaker to head their agency. Their first triumph was capturing seven Autobots who had found themselves recently stranded on Earth. Circuit Breaker ordered their faces mounted on the walls of RAAT headquarters. Aerialbots Over America! She analyzed footage of RAAT's victory with Walter Barnett, who praised her efficiency, but expressed doubts about the Transformers' intentions. As Barnett handed her a bonus check, Circuit Breaker refused, reminding him that she didn't do this for the money, but for revenge.
Later, Barnett showed her the news, which was reporting that a robot had lifted power lines off of the road to save humans. He hoped this would impress on her, but she refused to even consider the evidence; all this meant was that there was another robot to hunt. She and a team of RAAT helicopters found the target robot, an Autobot named Skids, on the run from the Stunticons. The Stunticons made short work of the helicopters, but Circuit Breaker was able to divert some of them with her electrical powers. Motormaster, however, was able to knock her out of the air by throwing a truck cab at her. Skids' human companion, Donny Finkleberg, ran to see if she was okay, but she pleaded for him to leave the battlefield lest he be hurt. When the Aerialbots arrived, and they and the Stunticons battled as the super robots Superion and Menasor, Circuit Breaker made her move. Despite Finkleberg's pleas that Superion was one of the good guys, Circuit Breaker fried Superion, putting him out of commission. Skids, Finkleberg, and the Stunticons fled, while RAAT took custody of their prize. Heavy Traffic!
Though Finkleberg liked the Autobots, he liked money more, and he turned Skids in to RAAT for a hefty $50,000 reward. Circuit Breaker dissected and examined the robots in her care in order to learn more about how to destroy them. By then, she had amassed thirteen robots, and she continued to hang their faces on her wall. Soon, Walter Barnett came to Circuit Breaker's lab to inform her of a wave of vandalism perpetrated by a pair of Decepticon Battlechargers. She, Finkleberg, and RAAT arrived at Washington Monument, in Washington, D.C., moments after it was vandalized, and she questioned a family there that believed that their son's actions had inspired the Decepticons. Suspecting that the Decepticons were following the family, she accompanied them to their next vacation spot, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her suspicions were correct, they encountered the Battlechargers there. Unfortunately, RAAT was forced to retreat due to the large number of people, and Circuit Breaker herself was hurt badly while protecting the vandalizing boy from falling debris.
Suffering a cracked rib and a mild concussion, Circuit Breaker was ordered to rest, but when she refused to listen, she was temporarily stripped of her command. Finkleberg, who was feeling guilty for having turned in Skids, convinced Circuit Breaker that the only way to stop the wave of vandalism was to team up with the captured Autobots. In exchange for their freedom, she assembled the thirteen Autobots into a mega robot which she controlled. Circuit Breaker and her robot suit fought the Battlechargers next to the Statue of Liberty in New York City, resulting in the Decepticons' defeat. (Though she wondered why her robot suit would use its arms to deflect shots away from her.) True to her word, she freed the thirteen Autobots, though this resulted in RAAT firing her. Once again she swore she would make the robots pay. Decepticon Graffiti!
Circuit-Breaker approached Hector Dialonzo (AKA Dynamo), a superhuman with the power to draw energy from the Earth, after he wiped out the Air Strike Patrol; she hoped he would join her in a campaign against robots. By this point her mental state had deteriorated further, to the point she referred to Josie Beller as being "dead" and that she had been "built for" the task of destroying robots. She battled Starscream and clashed with Blackrock and his superhumans before Dialonzo decided he'd rather go with Blackrock than her. Blackrock then offered her a place on the team, guilty that he'd never truly reached out to her before and telling her she was becoming more emotionless than the robots. Rattled by the thought, she went off with them. The Human Factor!
...All This and Civil War 2 Out of Time! The Void!
When Unicron attacked Cybertron, Josie had completely shut down mentally at the sight. In order to buy Optimus Prime the time he needed to reach the Matrix, however, Blackrock was forced to sacrifice her sanity: he slapped her and told her the robots were laughing at her, and was she going to put up with that?
Then she snapped and TOTALLY FRIED UNICRON. Holy crap, man. On the Edge of Extinction!
Exodus!
The Last Autobot?
End of the Road!
Notes
- Circuit Breaker is also directly and solely responsible for saving the entire Marvel universe from the Beyonder, in Secret Wars II. At the request of Bob Budiansky, she was published in that book before her debut in Transformers solely so Marvel Comics could claim ownership of the character[1]... or at least, she appeared as Circuit Breaker in Secret Wars II before Transformers, as Josie Beller she'd already turned up. "Circuit Breaker" is the trademark, so this probably makes sense for lawyers, but it gives us a headache.
- Titan Books earlier reprints had been able to use Circuit Breaker for a small fee, as nobody at Marvel was bothered at the time: after all, who'd want to read old Transformers comics, eh? Years later, Marvel figured out "many people" and it wasn't until Classic Transformers Volume 5 that IDW had the rights to reprint issues with Circuit Breaker in: before then, all stories featuring Circuit Breaker were replaced with text summaries.
- Shattered Glass has a technology-loving Sephie Beller. Don't tell Marvel!
