Jhiaxus (G2)
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| "Jhiaxus" redirects here. For the TransTech character, see Jhiaxus (TransTech). |
- Jhiaxus is a Cybertronian - and occasional former Decepticon - from the Generation 1 continuity family.
Jhiaxus is no ordinary Decepticon. He and his faction left Cybertron eons ago and formed the Cybertronian Empire of cyberformed planets. He views the original Autobots and Decepticons as evolutionary throwbacks, simple animals, insults to his race's memory which must be wiped out. But his ice-cold demeanor of control and amoral objectivity is merely a facade. It is only a mask, a face he wears to forget the mad tyrant he once was. He has been repressing this side of himself, burying it, for millennia. Unfortunately, recent encounters with Autobots and Decepticons have been testing his resolve...
Jhiaxus is not one for improvisation. He has been denying his impulses for so long, it has weakened his ability to think on his feet in many situations. Once Jhiaxus has set a course of action, it is tough for him to diverge from his strategy.[1]
Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
Marvel Generation 2 comic
| “ | We had order. Structure. A perfect, faultless mechanism that was destined to re-shape the galaxy. Then you came! Old, flawed... an evolutionary stage we had risen far beyond. A reminder of every primal instinct we had buried. | ” |
—Jhiaxus doesn't like Optimus Prime very much, "A Rage in Heaven!" | ||
Millions of years ago, some time after Optimus Prime and Megatron left Cybertron and crashed on Earth, Jhiaxus was born through the long-forgotten "budding" means of reproduction. The Power and the Glory At first a cruel and petty tyrant ruled by his irrational desires, Jhiaxus learned slowly to bury this part of himself beneath layers of icy control. Primal Fear! Tired of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict, Jhiaxus left with his budded brethren into space, determined to begin a new Cybertronian Empire free of the war waged by those he deemed "evolutionary throwbacks". War Without End! He was anointed the rank Liege Centuro of this new Cybertronian faction by the Liege Maximo, A Rage in Heaven! and Jhiaxus began to wipe out what he considered to be inferior life and terraform their conquered worlds.
A decade after Optimus Prime and Megatron's war had restarted on Earth, Prime and his Autobots found out about this empire while pursuing the remnants of Bludgeon's Decepticons across the universe. Quickly thereafter, Jhiaxus's ship, the Twilight, abducted them and delighted in telling Prime and Grimlock that for his side of the universe, the war had been over for millions of years and that Prime and his adversaries were embarrassments to him. Jhiaxus hoped that Prime would see the error of his ways, but he escaped in a stolen ship with his fellow Autobots. However, Jhiaxus had launched a ship of his own to follow them. War Without End!
Jhiaxus traced the Autobots to the K'tord Nebula, and his Cybertronians battled Prime's bitterly on the surface of one of its planets. Parasitic creatures on the planet began to feed on the hate and fury buried in the minds of both sides, which caused Jhiaxus to revert to the barbaric version of himself he thought he'd long buried. Despite Prime's own problems with the parasites' induced rage, he was able to convince Jhiaxus and their respective warriors to stop fighting and go their separate ways. Primal Fear! Jhiaxus retreated to his flagship, and thanked the maker that, as far as he knew, there were no Decepticons left of the original generation to cause him further conflict. Sadly, he was misinformed. Old Evils
When Grimlock and a bloodthirsty group of Autobots tried to sneak a Chaosmaster Bomb on board the Twilight, Jhiaxus easily saw through their ruse. He shipped the survivors in a prison ship to be examined by the Liege Maximo, but the ship was intercepted by Optimus Prime. Devices and Desires! Later, Jhiaxus made a visit to Outpost D-109, a recently conquered planet the Cybertronians were busy eco-structuring into a Cybertron-like world. Though the process was ahead of schedule, Jhiaxus was still disappointed. The Autobots had mysteriously halted their attacks on his troops, and their absence worried him. The Power and the Glory
One of his teams crossed paths with the original-generation Decepticons, and the incident ended badly. Jhiaxus decided to make his move, and ordered a full-scale attack on Megatron's Warworld near Tykos. This altercation resulted in casualties in Megatron's forces while Jhiaxus battled Megatron himself in orbit. Jhiaxus relished condescending to his opponent, an act reinforced by his superior might. He shot Megatron out of orbit, leaving him for dead on the moon's surface. New Dawn However, Megatron miraculously survived, and his Decepticons and the Autobots forged an uneasy alliance against the Cybertronians. Increasingly frustrated, he vowed to escalate his galactic efforts, ordering that every planet be stripped of life. He hoped to force the hand of the original generation Transformers and overwhelm them, a plan that nearly worked on Ethos against the Autobots until Decepticon reinforcements arrived. Escalation! Indeed, the battle there decimated the best of Jhiaxus's forces. But Jhiaxus soon gained an unexpected advantage—Starscream sold out the location of the original generation's base of operations in exchange for a high-ranking position. Swarm
Jhiaxus attacked the base on Earth. Tales of Earth Part Six The headquarters itself was quickly destroyed, but Optimus and Megatron's troops fought back strongly and met the challenge equally. Jhiaxus wanted to end the conflict here and then, so he called for reinforcements from every corner of his empire. Total War! Adding insult to injury, Jhiaxus was informed that his troops had lost the Warworld to the backstabbing Starscream. Jhiaxus lost his composure, and when he tossed his subordinate, Rook, in anger, Rook arranged a trip to the Liege Maximo. Jhiaxus returned to the Twilight, and upon receiving a transmission from Optimus Prime on board the Warworld, he acted upon his anger by targeting a random spot on the Earth with nuclear weapons. Before Jhiaxus could order another shot, the Twilight was knocked away by a blast from the Warworld and the Swarm arrived. Dark Shadows!
Despite his officers' pleas to withdraw, Jhiaxus's troops were ordered to stay their ground even as the Swarm ate its way through them effortlessly. Optimus Prime, ever trying to reach a solution, arrived on the Twilight to talk, but Jhiaxus would not have it. He threw Prime around, powered by his increasing rage, and blamed him for how his life, his empire, had disintegrated. Before he could strike the final blow, however, the Swarm broke through the bridge of the Twilight, and Jhiaxus challenged it. Jhiaxus was consumed. A Rage in Heaven!
Regeneration One
An image of Jhiaxus could be seen from Zero Space along with many other sights from Cybertronian history. Counterpoint He then appears in issue 91 speaking to Rook.
Universe comic
Unicron abducted Jhiaxus's spark and stripped him of his rank and power. Though he once again wore the brand of an ordinary Decepticon, he still nursed a hatred towards Autobot and Decepticon alike. They were all, of course, unevolved, inferior throw-backs. This bias forced him to work alone.[1]
While still abducted by Unicron, Jhiaxus was kept locked inside one of the chambers within the Cauldron and periodically forced to combat other Transformers so that Unicron could feed on the loser's Spark. He was freed along with countless others when Optimus Primal orchestrated a prison break. Escape
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Jhiaxus was Nova Prime's chief theoretical strategist and pioneer of attempts to push forward the Transformer race, as well as a mentor to Shockwave. Spotlight: Doubledealer Few knew that he was also completely without morals and not at all averse to perform horrible experiments on his fellow Cybertronians in the name of science. At one point he was behind the introduction of gender to the Cybertronian genome, produced by his tampering with the CNA of Arcee. This had the slight side effect of turning her into an insane murdering monster. Spotlight: Arcee He was also the creator of the vamparc ribbon, a weapon that drained the lifeforce from its victims to use it as ammunition. Parasites
As part of Nova's inner circle, Jhiaxus was present when the Prime located Crystal City and ushered Cybertron into an age of prosperity. On Nova's orders, he pioneered gestalt technology, bonding six Transformers into one combined entity to create an ultimate Transformer—resulting in another insane murdering monster that had to be taken down by Omega Supreme. Primus: All Good Things Jhiaxus left Cybertron as part of the crew aboard the original Ark spacecraft before the failure that was Monstructor had a chance to disgrace him. His student, Shockwave, remained behind to continue his master's work and clear his name, later naming the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology after him. Shockwaves When the Ark was lost in the Benzuli Expanse, Jhiaxus and the rest of the crew werestuck in the Dead Universe (only able to leave for brief periods before dying). He became a confidant for the rechristened Nemesis Prime and plotted on a plan to merge the Dead Universe with the regular one, allowing them to go home and gain power over the combined reality. Devastation #6
Jhiaxus began prepping Nega-Cores on three worlds, which would enable this universal "Expansion". Spotlight: Arcee He also set up an underground base on Gorlam Prime, where a large portal to/from the Dead Universe resided; he then began poking Gorlam Prime's evolution with a stick, accelerating the development to an advanced technological race with the end result of turning them into tiny Transformers. These were the template for what all life would be turned into to survive the Expansion, and the first few batches served as guards and general minions. (Shockingly, while murderous and with monstrous origins, they weren't insane.) Spotlight: Hardhead
On the eve of the Expansion, Jhiaxus told Nemesis Prime that he suspected Galvatron of having his own agenda. The point would become moot, however, once their plans unfurled. Devastation #6 After Cyclonus secured the Nega-Core and activated its guardian, Jhiaxus initiated the Expansion with Nemesis Prime and the rest of the Dead Universe crew. Spotlight: Cyclonus
Jhiaxus was in mental control of the three guardians of the Nega-Cores, Spotlight: Doubledealer and also took mental control over Nightbeat and sent in hordes of Micromasters when the Autobot, alongside Hardhead, began investigating on Gorlam Prime. Unfortunately, his intricate and long-plotted strategy was undermined by Hardhead's "shoot people in the head" plan. The Autobot then leapt into the Dead Universe portal. Spotlight: Hardhead
He also monitored the Autobots' efforts to withstand their attacks. When he noticed Jetfire preparing to disrupt his mental control over the guardians, he took mental control of Bludgeon to defend the project. Spotlight: Doubledealer
Unfortunately, as Jetfire pointed out, the Autobots were quickly destroying all his hard work, and his attention was divided. So much so that he not only was frozen and distracted from offing Jetfire, he didn't realise someone was in his control room until they sliced off his arm. Turning round, he was faced with a gleeful Arcee.
Making a run for it, and using his Micromasters to keep Arcee busy, he made his escape through the portal... or he would have if an undead Hardhead hadn't popped up, slowing Jhiaxus down enough for Arcee to stab him and cut off his head. But, in the realm between the living and dead universes, Jhiaxus was practically immortal. Which meant Arcee could keep killing him for as long as she liked. Spotlight: Sideswipe
Helpless, Jhiaxus spent several years being repeatedly killed by Arcee over and over again, until one day when the portal to the Dead Universe suddenly began to act strangely and lure people into mindlessly wandering into it. The entire Micromaster population of Gorlam Prime disappeared into the Dead Universe, and though Jhiaxus was also tempted, he was seemingly too damaged to follow them. Arcee and Hardhead subsequently left him to investigate the matter. Heart of Darkness #2 Eventually, his broken body was discovered by Galvatron, who had earlier betrayed Nemesis Prime and stolen the Heart of Darkness from him. Jhiaxus was restored by the power of the Darkness, though he was disoriented and couldn't explain where everyone on the planet had gone to. He led Galvatron and his men to the Dead Universe portal, which had now turned from a pool into a large sphere. Heart of Darkness #1
At the portal's location, Arcee and Hardhead returned and attacked them. Filled with terror upon seeing his tormentor again, Jhiaxus tried to fight back against her, with little success. Galvatron managed to chase Arcee off and read Hardhead's memories to learn what happened on Gorlam Prime, eventually learning of the "D-Void", a major threat to all Transformers. He subsequently took Jhiaxus with him to raise an army capable of opposing this entity. Heart of Darkness #2
Jhiaxus quickly got to work rebuilding the space bridge network, based out of Gorlam Prime, allowing Galvatron to travel the galaxy and recruit soldiers for his army. Heart of Darkness #3 Later, after Galvatron's ship was infested by zombies and crashed on Earth, Jhiaxus put up a space bridge portal that allowed the crew to leave. The Transformers: Infestation #2 Jhiaxus found the zombie virus very intriguing, especially its ability to infect both organic and robotic lifeforms, but Galvatron dismissed it as irrelevant and inefficient. Heart of Darkness #4
After using the Kimia Facility to blow a large hole in Cybertron's surface, Galvatron took Jhiaxus with him to the blast crater. Chaos Part Two: Numbers Their goal was to reach and destroy the planet's core, though they were briefly hindered by Optimus Prime on the way. Chaos Part Three: Kings When they located Vector Sigma, Galvatron inserted the Heart of Darkness into it in the hopes that this would stop the D-Void. Then Optimus Prime caught up and fired on them, and Jhiaxus wasn't seen again during the events that followed. Chaos Part Four: Genesis
Rendered catatonic by the reformatting of Cybertron, Jhiaxus was taken captive by Hardhead, Wheelie and Garnak and imprisoned in their ship, to be kept floating in space forever to protect Cybertron from his evil. Some time into his imprisonment, Jhiaxus was reawakened by a signal from Arduria, which seemed to drive him into a frenzy, screaming the words "Pax" and "Prime". Believing him to be referring to Orion Pax—the once and former Optimus Prime—Hardhead's team joined up with Orion to investigate Arduria, but they soon discovered they had walked into a Decepticon trap when they were attacked by Jhiaxus's old creation, Monstructor. While they were occupied, Bludgeon liberated Jhiaxus, and the villains set off together to track down the worlds which had been the subjects of the Regenesis program created by Jhiaxus's old student, Shockwave. Syndromica (1)
At LV-117, Jhiaxus and Bludgeon tried to take control of Ore-1, a Regenesis ore capable of traveling through time. He met Orion Pax again in an era close to the planet's destruction, and explained that his screams had had nothing to do with him, but were referring to a vision he had during the reformatting: a vision of a future where Pax Cybertronia happened on Gorlam Prime. Before Orion could stop him, he took the Regenesis control device and left on a time-traveling starship sent to the planet by Shockwave, intending to use the Ore-1 to bring back Gorlam Prime's past, prosperous self. Syndromica (2)
Theft of the Golden Disk
A statue of Jhiaxus was kept in the Cybertropolis Maximal Data Archive. Theft of the Golden Disk
Wings Universe
After having been absent from Cybertron for a very long time, Jhiaxus made a secret return. He enlisted the Battlechargers to fill him in on what he had missed, culminating in the events of the Battle of Autobot City and The Rebirth. With Galvatron out of the picture, and everyone else unawares, it was the perfect time to rebuild the Cybertronian Empire, with himself in control! A Flash Forward
He teamed up with Sky-Byte, who provided him with forestonite, and Clench, who supplied him with the Firecons and blueprints stolen from Quantum Laboratories. He also sent the Battlechargers to find some personality components. A Flash Forward, Part 2 They returned with a bonus surprise—an amnesiac Side Burn. They next headed for Nebulos, where Jhiaxus had the Battlechargers kidnap Hi-Q. With the aid of the Nebulon scientist, Jhiaxus was able to create a "second generation" of Cybertronians. A Flash Forward, Part 3 These newly created Cybertronians were trained at a secret facility on the formerly barren planet Qre.
Jhiaxus left a deliberate trail to lure the Autobots to his training grounds so he could capture them, incapacitate them and force them to listen as he waxed philosophical. A Flash Forward, Part 4 He introduced Pyro and the other Autobots to his clones. When the Sideswipe clone apparently woke early, Jhiaxus showed him off as well, however it was actually the original Sideswipe who then freed Pyro. A Flash Forward, Part 5 Jhiaxus squared off against Pyro, who was reluctant to attack due to the fact Jhiaxus had Hi-Q concealed in his chest cavity. Unfortunately Blaze was an expert marksman and shot Jhiaxus in the face, allowing the Autobots to make off with the captive and blow up the base. Jhiaxus and Sky-Byte later watched from a rocky outcrop as the Autobots prepared to leave, and Jhiaxus reflected that for his second generation to succeed, the first generation would have to be wiped out. A Flash Forward, Part 6
Toys
Robots in Disguise
- Jhiaxus (Deluxe, 2003)
- Jhiaxus is a redeco of the deluxe-sized Jetstorm toy in orange and gray. His jet-mode cockpit has a spring-loaded extension, giving him a bird-like head in this form that is articulated at the neck to "search" for targets. Both jet and robot modes feature spring-loaded "energy blast" missiles. He also has an alternate robot mode, which folds his legs into a "flight cone" and reveals jet thrusters. Jhiaxus was available exclusively at KB Toys stores.
- Although most previous versions of the mold have the wingtips swept forward in vehicle mode, Jhiaxus was packaged and depicted in his instructions with the wingtips swept back. His toy art and instructions also show the robot-mode wingtips swept forward, as shown here; this contrasts with the Universe art above.
- This mold was also used for Sonic Attack Jet, Robots in Disguise Storm Jet, and Universe Skywarp.
Notes
- Jhiaxus's name is a pun on "gee, axe us", a phrase which expressed writer Simon Furman's dread of the Generation 2 comic's cancellation by Marvel.
- Generation 2 Jhiaxus's robot mode design seems to be based loosely on the Seekers. He keeps the air-duct boobs, the cockpit torso, the ear-vents, the wing placement, one shoulder-mounted jet engine (including Starscream's stickers), and a nosecone on the back of the head.
- Among the many, many toy ideas Glen Hallit suggested was a repaint of Go-Bots Aero-Bot as Jhiaxus. It was to be distributed as the Dinner Exclusive at OTFCC 2003, but as with most of Hallit's toy proposals, it was not produced.[3]
- In IDW continuity, Jhiaxus's obsession with improving the Cybertronian form has led to him altering even his own body. This has resulted in a chassis that strongly resembles an entirely different Starscream.
- Jhiaxus's name is apparently very difficult for IDW's writers to spell. Known variations to date include "Jiaxus", "Jihaxus", and "Jihauxus".
