Starscream (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity
Generation 1
Millions of years ago, on the troubled planet Cybertron, Starscream acted as the figurehead leader for the controlling dictators of the city-state of Vos. Following a botched attempt at igniting war between Iacon and Tarn, Vos itself went to war with Tarn, and both cities were destroyed by an exchange of photon missiles. The survivors of both cities—presumably including Starscream—were gathered together by the ex-gladiator Megatron, who used their bitterness towards Iacon to unite them under his control as the Decepticons. State Games
Four million years ago, Starscream was part of Megatron's attack raid on the Ark. After its crashlanding on Earth, Starscream was revived and rebuilt into an Earthly form in 1984, along with the other survivors. After a Decepticon roll-call, they fled the Ark. When the Autobots were spotted near a native settlement, aka a drive-thru movie theater, Starscream and the other Decepticons were commanded to attack. While Starscream extolled the use of guile and stealth, Cliffjumper saturated him with his glass gas gun, which coated Starscream, making his metal brittle and breakable as glass. As his chassis shattered, Starscream ordered his fellow jets to flee. The Transformers
Megatron led his Decepticons to a perch above the half-constructed Harrison Nuclear Power Plant, with intent to take it with brute force. Starscream suggested that Buzzsaw scout the area first. Megatron reluctantly agreed with Starscream, choosing Ravage to scout in Buzzsaw's stead. It wasn't until Ravage's report that Megatron realized it was the humans who created the machines in their midst, and thus they must have the technology to convert their fuel to a form they could use. Starscream quietly acknowledged Megatron's shrewdness, and felt that he must never let his eagerness to take over the Decepticons blind him to Megatron's cunning. The Decepticons attacked, and when they had achieved victory, Starscream and the others each hauled off chunks of the plant's machinery to construct their own base of operations atop a harsh cliffside. Starscream and the other Decepticons next attacked the auto repair shop of Sparkplug Witwicky, a friend of the Autobots whom the Decepticons suspected could convert fuel for them. Once Starscream abducted Sparkplug, the Decepticons retreated. Power Play!
Starscream and the others returned to their cliffside headquarters with Sparkplug Witwicky, as Starscream found humor in the role reversal of this planet's human domination over machines. He continued to boast of his successful kidnapping in front of Megatron and the others, a ploy that did not go unnoticed by Megatron. Their captive, Sparkplug, needed materials to aid him in converting Earth fuel to Transformer fuel, so Starscream and Rumble were dispatched to bring back a tanker truck full of fuel for Sparkplug to work on. The Decepticons' actions did not go unnoticed, and the human media and military crowded around their headquarters. But it wasn't until the Autobots arrived that Starscream and the other two jets were unleashed upon the crowd. Prisoner of War! Though the human escaped, it was not before he had successfully done their work for them. Regardless, Starscream berated Megatron for allowing the human to be rescued, to which Megatron responded with a blast from his fusion cannon. The Last Stand
Starscream was one of a group of Decepticons who were sent to the United Kingdom to investigate tales of the Man of Iron, who was in reality an Autobot sent from Cybertron to Earth to look for the missing Ark. Starscream destroyed him. Man of Iron Meanwhile, Megatron had begun to grow weary of Starscream's constant attempts to undermine his authority, and he sent Ravage to follow Starscream, hoping he would uncover enough damning evidence to permit Megatron to destroy Starscream once and for all. But when Starscream failed to rally the Decepticons behind him by staging a conflict with the Autobots, he tried to kill Ravage to keep this secret. When caught, he demanded a trial-by-combat and was pitted against Brawn, a fight which he won, until Starscream was shot down and deactivated by Ravage. The Enemy Within!
When it was discovered that Sparkplug had failed to convert fuel for the Autobots, Megatron ordered an attack on the Ark to destroy them once and for all, showing them what lay in wait for those who dared to defy him. Starscream meekly agreed. Despite the Autobots' dangerously low fuel levels, Starscream was amazed at Optimus Prime's commanding power. But just as victory was about to be handed to the Decepticons, Starscream and the others doubled over in pain. Sparkplug Witwicky had poisoned their converted fuel. If not for the sudden appearance and intervention by the long-lost Shockwave, the Decepticons surely would have been defeated. The Last Stand Shockwave, having defeated the entire Autobot army, save the Autobots' medic Ratchet, set up a base of operations inside the Ark and began rehabilitating Starscream and the others. The New Order When Megatron awoke and rebelled against Shockwave, the former Decepticon leader was humiliated in his still-weakened state, and paraded in front of Starscream and the others as a warning to those who would cross Shockwave. The Decepticons hailed Shockwave as their new leader. The Worse of Two Evils!
When Megatron went missing, leaving control of the Ark back in the hands of the Autobots, Starscream disparaged Megatron's failure in front of Shockwave. The Decepticons had in the meantime taken control of one of Blackrock Industries' aerospace plants, and G.B. Blackrock had constructed a superweapon to retaliate. Starscream convinced Shockwave to let him and Frenzy destroy the weapon to boost morale (or maybe allow him to steal the superweapon and use it to destroy Shockwave and take command). There, Starscream and Frenzy not only encountered the Autobots Jazz and Wheeljack but also a super-powered human who was determined to destroy all robots, Circuit Breaker. Starscream suffered few injuries, but had to drag Frenzy's body from the conflict. DIS-Integrated Circuits!
Shockwave went missing as well, and with both him and Megatron gone, Soundwave assumed command. Soundwave wasted no time in telling Starscream why he would never lead the Decepticons—he's just "a missile with a mouth". Soundwave orchestrated Bumblebee's capture, and challenged Optimus Prime to fight his way through the Decepticons to rescue him. Although Starscream loudly boasted of being a "leader killer", once he faced Optimus Prime alone, he stammered and hesitated, and was quickly defeated. Crisis of Command!
Shockwave returned, and none too soon! Starscream and the other jets had been standing watch over their captured Blackrock Industries oil rig for weeks. Shockwave unveiled the power siphon he had built during his absence, which Starscream and the others would soon use to convert sound energy from a Brick Springstern concert into Energon cubes. Their plot was stopped abruptly when they were defeated by Bumblebee and a group of new Autobot recruits. Rock and Roll-Out! Starscream soon agreed with Shockwave that Bumblebee would be a perfect candidate for them to add to their own ranks. They waited until Bumblebee was alone, and then hunted him relentlessly. It wasn't until human authorities and the Autobots arrived to rescue Bumblebee did the Decepticons abandon their hunt. Plight of the Bumblebee!
Starscream, among others, escorted Megatron to the Space Bridge, where they were expecting reinforcements from Cybertron. Though only a team of Autobots had made it through the Space Bridge to Earth, their disappointment was brief. The Autobots had in the meantime launched a full-scale attack on the Decepticons' base, which Megatron reckoned meant that the Ark was unguarded. Indeed, the sole obstacle in their way to the entrance was a tank and a rocket. However, these elements soon combined into the impressive super robot Omega Supreme. One by one, Megatron's troops fell before the titan, including Starscream. Only Megatron and Laserbeak survived. Command Performances!
The Autobots gathered up Starscream and the other deactivated Decepticons and placed them in life support capsules within the Ark, holding them imprisoned in stasis. Not long afterward, the Autobots were plunged into a state of disarray by the violent arrival of the enigmatic time-travelling Decepticon, Galvatron, and Grapple was in such a rush to depart the medical bay and attend a mission briefing that he failed to notice an alert signifying the malfunction of Starscream's capsule. Starscream awoke and punched his way out of the capsule, and proceeded to steal out of the medical area and listen in on the Autobots' briefing. He was shocked to overhear that the Autobots had teamed up with Megatron to defeat Galvatron, and Starscream immediately decided to sneak off to join forces with this powerhouse from the future. Galvatron went along with Starscream's toadying, as the irony amused him; Galvatron was, in fact, a recreated future incarnation of Megatron, and would go on to kill Starscream twenty years in the future! When Galvatron and his men faced Megatron once again, Starscream shot Megatron in the back, but had to be stopped short of killing him by Galvatron himself, who knocked Starscream unconscious in order to secure his own future existence. Starscream's body was placed back into its stasis capsule by the future Autobots Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr, who then proceeded to trick Galvatron into returning to the future through a complicated plan that involved painting Skywarp to look like Starscream, and then duping Galvatron into destroying him. After killing "Starscream", Galvatron rationalized that he must have travelled back to a parallel timeline, since Starscream was not supposed to die until 2006, and returned to the future with his men. Target: 2006
Rather than do the smart thing and return Starscream the Ark, the future Autobots rather unwisely left his capsule lying in the middle of a field. As happenstance would have it, Starscream lay there, undisturbed, until he awoke at Christmas the following year. Desolate, he wished he could go home again, and was in mid-mope when he was chanced upon by a a human who sought to inform him of the meaning of Christmas. Urged to help a busload of elderly humans who had become stuck in a snowdrift, Starscream wanted to know what would be in it for him. As Starscream debated this good deed, he was suddenly attacked by Streetwise, who suspected him to be up to his usual do-baddery. After a brief battle, the human intervened to chastise Streetwise, and Starscream proceeded to show up the Protectobot by saving the bus, purely out of spite. Stargazing
Starscream quickly ingratiated himself with Ratbat and helped run Club Con, a human island resort that covered their attempt to uncover subterranean information on the legendary Underbase. Club Con! When a pair of Autobot audio and video tapes recording the loss of the Underbase were found, Starscream convinced Ratbat to let him watch the tapes with him. In the "Realvision" playback, he witnessed a young Optimus Prime thwart Megatron's early attempts to possess the Underbase by shooting the legendary database into space. The Flames of Boltax! Starscream then set about a chain of systematic betrayals in order to gain access to that power. He set loose Buster Witwicky, whom the Decepticons had been holding prisoner, with equipment that would lure the Autobots to the Decepticon's Antarctic base. The ensuing battle served to distract his fellow Decepticons as he then stole a ship from Scorponok to look for the Underbase. Cold War!
Upon finding the ancient database, Starscream began absorbing its power but was unable to finish the task as he was blasted by Ratbat's ship, piloted by a temporary Autobot/Decepticon alliance. However, while the light of the Underbase had only shone on Starscream for a moment, that moment had been enough to fill him with its awesome power, and the now-cosmically-powered Air Commander survived the attack. Growing to monumental proportions, Starscream hurled his ship at Ratbat's craft, and promptly headed for Earth with the intention of proving his power by destroying New York, Tokyo and Buenos Aires. The Autobots and Decepticons traveled to those locations to try and stop Starscream, but they ultimately failed, as a massive amount of the Transformers active on Earth were badly damaged and incapacitated by Starscream's Underbase-powered rampage. Starscream only stopped after intercepting a radio transmission between Fortress Maximus and Optimus Prime, and realized that the great Autobot leader was elsewhere, plotting against him. Starscream fled back out into space to find Prime, and rediscovered the Underbase. Starscream attempted to finish absorbing its power, only to have the absolute knowledge overwhelm him, which resulted in his destruction. Dark Star
Starscream's corpse crashed in South America, but the Decepticon still clung to some semblance of life, as his shattered husk was reanimated by the residual energy of the Underbase that still saturated it, and driven by Starscream's own murderous impulses into an insane rampage. After nearly killing Susan Hoffman and her Assistants, the zombie-like Starscream was confronted by Dreadwind and Darkwing, who had been sent by Megatron to recover Starscream's body, and the Autobot Triggerbots. Triggerbot Backstreet was able to appeal to the fraction of the Underbase that was still within Starscream and convinced it to try and regain control of itself, but as soon as it did, Dreadwind and Darkwing had their Powermaster partners Hi-Test and Throttle siphoned all the Underbase's remaining power from the walking cadaver. Starscream's corpse returned to being an inanimate pile of scrap, which the pair quickly collected. Race with the Devil
Starscream's remains were delivered to Megatron in his Cybertronian base, who kidnapped Ratchet and forced him to rebuild Starscream with a powerful Pretender shell. Ratchet was shown three different shell prototypes, and a final design meant for Starscream. The Resurrection Gambit! As Ratchet worked on repairing Starscream, he feigned a friendly attitude towards Megatron, but this was a facade to cover Ratchet's true motives. Though Megatron had some tweaks in mind for Starscream's personality, Ratchet had something else in mind. After the Pretender shell had finished healing the body inside, Megatron sent Starscream to Earth, where Scorponok and Optimus Prime had clashed over a misunderstanding. As they were about to peacefully discuss the machinations that had gathered them there, Starscream's shell appeared! The Transformers and Nebulans below gaped in horror as the shell opened up to reveal the treacherous Starscream! All the Familiar Faces!
Starscream's new form was powerful, but what gave him his true edge was how much he spooked his victims. He was believed to be a ghost, an invincible force of revenge, and most of Scorponok's troops quickly fled the battlefield. It wasn't until Hot Rod manned up and shot their attacker did they realize that this was no ghost at all, but rather a physical being that could feel pain and be destroyed. This was further sold by Starscream's sudden display of cowardice. Ratchet had arranged for Starscream's true personality to eventually surface, and Hot Rod's blast had knocked it free. Completely outmatched, he surrendered and begged Scorponok for forgiveness. Skin Deep
Briefly after becoming a Pretender, Starscream began to wallow in self-pity, believing that all the other Decepticons considered him a joke for his many failed takeover attempts and defeats. His self-esteem crumbled every time the other Decepticons refused to speak to him or spoke about him behind his back. In reality, the other Decepticons were terribly frightened of Starscream (thanks to that whole Underbase thing) and were avoiding him so they wouldn't be killed. Starscream sulked about it for a while until he defeated and captured a few Autobots and his confidence began to return. Fallen Star!
Starscream was a source of dissention among the Decepticons, who were angry with Scorponok for letting him back in Primal Scream—and it was pretty dumb, as Starscream tried to capture the mutant Dynamo and use him as a Powermaster so he could challenge Scorponok. He failed, but was then met by Shockwave, then believed to be dead. The Human Factor! Starscream joined his gang in a Decepticon Civil War against Scorponok, and pressganged Triggerhappy and Mindwipe into the group. Eye of the Storm Thanks to the Autobots and Neo-Knights, it was a bust. Out of Time!
Starscream was transported to Cybertron to take part in the fight against Unicron. "Take part" as in "ran away". Along with Shockwave, he hijacked and repaired the Ark so they could escape the dying planet. Shockwave and Starscream found Megatron and Ratchet awakening from the Nucleon on board the ship, both very confused and addled due to their mind-link. Starscream tried to kill Ratchet and got totally beaten up, before the medic directed one of Starscream's null-rays into the Nucleon storage tanks, causing enough of a chain reaction to send the Ark into a crash-landing on Earth, once again resulting in Starscream's deactivation. A Savage Circle
Earthforce
In an alternate series of events, Starscream and Shockwave's army grew much larger, and their main competition was not Scorponok, but a revived Megatron and his group of Decepticons. As Shockwave's second-in-command, Starscream had few responsibilities, and even less power. The final indignity came when he was assigned to mere monitor duty at their undersea base. Still, even that ignoble assignment presented an opportunity, as Starscream caught Megatron's spies, the Insecticons, trying to tune in to Shockwave's war room. After incapacitating the bugs, Starscream surprised them by offering to let them go free, if they would report back to Megatron that Shockwave would be alone at a certain spot the next day, ensuring that Megatron would go out to battle him alone. Bugged! With the trap baited, Starscream contacted his opposite number, Megatron's second-in-command Soundwave, and proposed an alliance. Soundwave had already been playing both sides by feeding information to him, and so the two of them conspired to join the Decepticon factions under their joint rule. Sure enough, after Megatron and Shockwave's private battle came under Autobot fire (Autobots who had been anonymously tipped off by Starscream), they radioed their respective bases only to hear that the Decepticons no longer considered the two of them leaders. Internal Affairs!
Starscream's first major action as Decepticon leader was the ol' "bait and switch"—sending Soundwave and a Decepticon strike force to keep the Autobots busy at their Earthbase, while he personally attended to stealing a supply of oil from a tanker in the Gulf of Mexico. It seemed, however, that Starscream's plan hadn't accounted for Earthforce's newest recruits: the Survivors. A quick 1-2-3 by Carnivac, Skids and Inferno took the fight out of Starscream, and so he retreated, radioing his troops to do the same. Divide and Conquer!
Sometime later, returning to the Decepticon base in the Louisiana bayous, Starscream suddenly found himself fighting for his life against several mismatched bounty hunters and mercenaries. Believing his co-commander Soundwave must have been responsible for the contract, Starscream stormed back to their headquarters to confront him. Assassins He wasted no words in confronting his "treacherous" partner, but fortunately Soundwave had had the foresight to prerecord an explanation. While trading blows and dodging laser fire in person, Soundwave's recording outlined how the situation was clearly a set-up to make them fight each other. Fortunately, Starscream believed him. Unfortunately, Bludgeon and the Mayhem Attack Squad stormed in at that moment, having been paid by the true contractors, Megatron and Shockwave, to eliminate anyone left standing. External Forces! The two Decepticons would have been overwhelmed if they hadn't received aid from an unlikely source: Earthforce. It seemed the Dinobot Snarl was dying of Corrodia Gravis, a wasting disease which required an energy transfer from a compatible Transformer, and Starscream fit the bill. After driving off Megatron, Shockwave and the Mayhems, Starscream made a deal with Earthforce to help Snarl in exchange for their aid against any future uprising by the former Decepticon leaders. The Lesser Evil!
Soon afterwards, Starscream and Soundwave engaged in Project: Smear, a campaign to ruin the Autobots' good name among the humans, and ensure they received no additional aid in the war. A straight-forward attempt to brainwash Superion into wrecking a human settlement didn't pan out, Inside Story! so a more subtle plan was engineered. Starscream had Bombshell use his cerebro-shells to subvert the will of a human reporter, Irwin Spoon, and compel him to write a story bashing the Autobots and portraying them as kidnappers, or worse. End of the Road!
Generation 2
Starscream had been damaged to the point of stasis lock when the Ark crashed on Earth for a second time. Megatron, apparently the only one to recover from the crash more or less unscathed, decided to revive Starscream. All or Nothing! He would later question his own judgement in doing so, but in his defense, the only other Decepticons involved in the crash had been Shockwave and Galvatron (and Galvatron had walked away from the crash anyway), so his options for loyalty were slim.
Predictably, though, Starscream would indeed betray Megatron and the Decepticons once again, this time by giving Jhiaxus and his troops information that allowed them to take control of the Decepticon flagship Warworld. Total War! Starscream then doublecrossed Jhiaxus, stole the Creation Matrix (which Megatron had stolen from Prime earlier) and used its powers to merge himself with the Warworld, becoming an unstoppable force of destruction. As Optimus Prime and Megatron entered the possessed ship to try and stop him, Starscream exhibited a startling control over the physical nature of the vessel, turning the Warworld into an ever-shifting maze of horrors to torment the two leaders. Dark Shadows! But when they confronted him face-to-face, he found that the Matrix was having a disagreeable effect on his own mind. He found himself wanting to be, in his own words, "good". He desperately gave the Matrix back to Prime in the hopes that the effect would be temporary. This reverted Starscream to his ordinary form, presumably severing his connection with the ship. A Rage in Heaven!
Classics
Starscream reappears alongside several other Decepticons restored by Megatron fifteen years after the Ark crash-landed. He still appears to enjoy making snide remarks at Megatron's expense.
Crossing Over Games of Deception
When Megatron prepared his final strike against the pretender to his throne, Bludgeon, he sent out three warships to menace the skeletal warrior, commanded by Starscream, Thundercracker and Octane. Somewhat reluctantly, Starscream did nothing but languish in his command chair in space above Bludgeon's headquarters, as the Seacons acted on Megatron's order to betray and eliminate Bludgeon from within. Starscream just waited for Astrotrain and Soundwave to inform him the deed was done, and the Decepticons below were surrendering and powering down their weapons. A bit cleaner than he would've liked it, but Starscream still had to admire Megatron's skill at deception. At Fight's End
