Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity
Once a right-hearted member of a corrupt Senate, Shockwave is now an emotionless schemer of the Decepticon army.
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Student, Senator, Shadowplay
Six million years ago, long before the war, Shockwave was the greatest student of Jhiaxus. Spotlight: Doubledealer With the Cybertronian population growing exponentially under Nova Prime's program of expansion, the forward-looking Shockwave grew fearful of an energon shortage that he saw as inevitable, and, inspired by Jhiaxus's talk of a prophecy known as "Dark Cybertron", began experiments to develop a a self-regenerating energy source. Distilling an ore from energon, Shockwave sought to test his creation by seeding it beneath Crystal City, but unfortunately, the city was ravaged in a battle between Omega Supreme and Jhiaxus's newest terrible creation, the combiner Monstructor. The city's ruins were subsequently sealed beneath the planet's surface, leaving Shockwave to believe his test was unlikely to complete itself. Morever, Monstructor's defeat was the first time he saw his teacher and his works as fallible, and as Jhiaxus left Cybertron on the Ark-1, Shockwave took up his role, striving to study and better his master's works. Shockwaves
Becoming a senator in the new regime that formed on Cybertron, Shockwave marked his first day in the senate by announcing the founding of the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology, in memory of his departed teacher's good works. He immediately clashed with senator Proteus, whose short-sightedness and functionism sat ill with Shockwave, but found a friend in senator Dai Atlas, who has initially wary of his continued study of Jhiaxus's sciences, but with whom he shared a dislike of Proteus. Shockwaves Shockwave quickly developed a reputation as an extremely expressive individual (known for changing his colour scheme regularly) that even saw him suspended from duty on occasion for "emotional outbursts unbecoming a senator". His master's teachings drove Shockwave in his work, as he focused on myriad ways of advancing the Transformer race: in addition to repeatedly voting to bring back Nova Prime's spark-splicing programs, he secretly used the Academy as a safe haven for outliers, Transformers with abnormal abilities and functions who were hated and feared by functionists because their abilities had nothing to do with their alt modes. He sank billions into various offworld projects, and came into contact with the enigmatic Omega Guardians. An Intimate Beheading
Recognizing that Proteus and current planet leader Nominus Prime were resistant to change, Shockwave began befriending certain promising young Cybertronians and modifying them so that they could carry the Matrix of Leadership, with the hope that one of them could take leadership of their race and steer Cybertron off the dark path the Senate had placed it upon. An Intimate Beheading When police captain Orion Pax stormed into a Senate meeting with accusations of corruption amongst its ranks, Shockwave saw this potential in him. The damaged Pax was apprehended after his tirade, but Shockwave arranged for his release and repair, adding a Matrix chamber to his chest. After his release, Pax met his secret benefactor in front of the Ark-1 memorial, where Shockwave warned him that factions within the senate had arranged for a recent attack on Nominus Prime in an attempt to gain control of the Matrix's power. Chaos Theory Part 2
In time, word of Nominus's death was released to the public; although the Prime's passing was attributed to a rust infection, when Shockwave met with Orion and his friend Ratchet, he was able to confirm that the Senate had their head of security Sentinel kill Nominus when the Matrix within him proved to be a fake. Post Hoc Soon after, Pax received a tip-off from revenge-seeking former Senate agent Whirl of a plot that was soon to claim Shockwave's life, so Pax had Ratchet and Roller visit the Academy of Advanced Technology and take him into protective custody. Along with Pax's other allies, Shockwave was able to provide enough evidence to help Orion figure out that the Senate had turned the fake Matrix in Nominus's body into a bomb that they would detonate as his body lay in state, which they could blame on the trouble-making Decepticon movement, an underground organization advocating the dissolution of the functionist regime. Patternism Shockwave gathered three of his outlier students, Skids, Glitch, and Windcharger, to help with the theft of the Matrix-bomb, but he himself was kept under guard in case things went wrong. Shockwave laughed that off, thinking he was too high profile for Sentinel to assassinate, but in the midst of the heist, he found out how wrong he was when Senate thugs burned down the Academy and broke into the safehouse intending to capture him: Sentinel had found out about the army of outliers and was very unhappy. While Orion Pax was willing to fight to save Shockwave, the senator willingly went with his captors rather than allow Roller to be killed in his name.
The captive Shockwave was taken to the Institute and subjected to "Shadowplay", the emotion centers of his brain cut out by mnemosurgery to change his entire personality, turning him from a fiery crusader into an emotionless husk. To add insult to injury, Proteus and Sentinel had empurata was performed on him, taking away his face and hands, replacing them with a featureless mask and claws solely out of spite. An Intimate Beheading
Joining the Decepticons
Proteus could not have predicted the monster his actions would unleash. Where he had considered the mutilation of Shockwave a punishment, Shockwave, freed of the bonds of morality by the removal of his emotions, felt liberated by the experience, now able to take the most logical path to saving Cybertron. Shortly after lying about his previous energon-shortage concerns during a hearing so he could continue to work toward a solution alone, Shockwave was approached by Starscream, who brought him before Megatron, leader and founder of the Decepticons, who had recently turned to increasingly excessive terrorist tactics. Realizing that Shockwave had a goal of his own, but with no interest in what it actually was, Megatron offered him a laboratory and the resources to continue his work that the senate could not provide, in return for Shockwave using Jhiaxus's technology to create a combiner for the Decepticons. Shockwave accepted, though he cautioned that the creation of the combiner could take a very long time. Shockwaves He did not know it at the time, but his mere presence had made him an object of distrust to Megatron's loyal lieuteant, Soundwave, because he could not read his Shadowplayed mind. Shockpoint
Severing his ties with Orion Pax, Shockwave used the resources Megatron had provided to secretly continue his alternate energy experiments, more sure than ever that the political strife raging across Cybertron would ultimately give way to a war not over ideals, but resources. He distilled a variety of different synthetic energons and tested them on an assortment of innocent Cybertronians, few of whom—if any—survived the myriad unusual effects the new fuels had. Seeking to speed Shockwave's science, Megatron offered him a pair of hands to replace his empurata-granted claws, but upon hearing of Megatron's plan to kill the Senate the following day and truly began a war on Cybertron, Shockwave chose to take only one hand, replacing the other with a gun he saw as being more useful for the coming conflict. In one last lingering moment of sentimentality, however, he visited Dai Atlas's quarters the night before the planned assassination and shot him, wounding him enough that he was unable to attend the Senate meeting, thus sparing him the other Senators' fates. Shockwaves Shockwave joined the Decepticons in their attack on Kaon the next day, and met with Soundwave to arrange the construction of a new body for captured senator Ratbat. Soundwaves
The deaths of the Senate and Sentinel Prime allowed Zeta, another of Shockwave's candidates, to ascend to the rank of Prime. By the time of Zeta's reign, Shockwave's sinister experiments had earned the scientist a reputation as "obsessed with combiners". Omega's Conundrum But Zeta's extremism forged strange bedfellows; when Orion turned on Zeta, he was badly injured by the Prime and had to be rescued by Megatron and the Decepticons. Shockwave repaired his old friend's wounds, and witnessed Orion's unit form an alliance with the Decepticons. Choices When the two sides launched an attack on Zeta, Shockwave gained the satisfaction of destroying the last Omega Destructor, then witnessed Megatron's betrayal of Orion's unit. Overthrown Megatron's short-lived rule of Cybertron came to an end when the Autobots attacked the Citadel and defeated him, forcing Shockwave to call for a retreat. Endgame
Not long thereafter, Shockwave was present at Kolkular when Scorponok announced that he had banished Megatron for his failure to hold Cybertron. Wreckage When the exodus began, Scorponok had the Decepticons assault Starsreach Spaceport, an attack that Shockwave saw as an inefficient use of resources. Massacre His forces met with resistance from a raging Grimlock who tore them to pieces and shrugged off Shockwave's firepower, forcing him to call for another retreat while picking shrapnel out of his arm. They rejoined Scorponok at the Toraxxis Plains, where to their shock and horror they found him in the process of reawakening Trypticon. Unleashed With Scorponok having accomplished nothing but bringing Cybertron further into ruin, the Decepticons rejected him as soon as Megatron returned from his exile. Once their true leader had dealt with the usurper, Shockwave repaired the injuries he had sustained during his absence. The Illusion of Control He was subsequently present as Megatron turned a defeated Trypticon into a Decepticon. Belly of the Beast
As the war progressed, Shockwave helped create the super-Decepticons known as the "Warriors Elite", programming them with killswitches and viruses that would prevent them from turning on Megatron. Remembrance Day He was also known to have commanded a Worldsweeper at some point during the conflict. Rules of Disengagement Shockwave also made the mistake of earning the enmity of the Dynobots after they stole a cache of energon from him; reaching the logical conclusion that if he could not have the energon, neither could they, Shockwave tracked them back to Autobot territory and destroyed the energon supply. Spotlight: Shockwave
Regenesis
Six hundred thousand meta-cycles ago, Shockwave's experiments with alternative energy sources reached a turning point with the program he called "Regenesis". He covertly launched thirteen rockets from Cybertron to thirteen other worlds with specific geological properties, each carrying with them a different kind of ore distilled from energon that would be seeded across the target planets. It was Shockwave's hope that the chain reactions which would ensure would potentially yield thirteen different kinds of energy sources that could the energy crisis that was now looming ever larger. Spotlight: Shockwave
Some time after launching the rockets, Shockwave left Cybertron to examine the fruits of his labor, his whereabouts left unknown to those he had left behind on his homeworld. The results were far from what had been expected: the mutated ores had taken on a variety of esoteric qualities that went so far as to affect the fabric of space and time around them. For next the next half-million yaers, Shockwave travelled from world to world, observing the various powers of the ores; ten thousand years after launching the rockets, he visited the gas giant Arduria, where he found that the Ore-6 sent there had developed the power to halt molecular motion, blanketing the planet it eternal cold. After putting some of the slowly dying native rocs out of their misery, he remarked that while not his intended result, it served as a learning experience nonetheless. Syndromica (1) Other explorations discerned that about half of the ores had successfully taken root on their target worlds: Ore-1, on LV-117, had the ability to transcend time; Syndromica (2) Ore-2, on Gorlam Prime, drained the life from all around it; Homecoming Ore-7 had attained transmutative properties; The Becoming and Ore-8, on Tsiehshi, had taken the form of highly explosive, unstable crystals. Spotlight: Kup Though millennia away from being realized, Shockwave's mind began to piece together a scheme that would unite these different ores and their powers to achieve his dream.
10,000 years ago, Shockwave arrived on the thirteenth world: prehistoric Earth, at the end of its most recent ice age. The extremely powerful Ore-13 seeded on this world was catalysing so strongly that the reaction needed to be regulated with global dampers, but as he went about his business, he was unaware of a threat that had shadowed him: the Dynobots had tracked him down, and were seeking to settle their old score. As Shockwave finished planting the dampers and was preparing to visit other Regenesis worlds, the Dynobots teleported upon him. The attack threw Shockwave off-kilter with both its ferocity and its unexpectedness, as he had anticipated a stab in the back from Megatron but had failed to consider the simple vengeance of the Dynobots. Mentally and physically confounded by the assault, Shockwave deactivated his higher reasoning and allowed a subroutine simulating rage to take over. This brutal, violent Shockwave decimated the Dynobots, burning off the organic coating shielding them from the planet's high energon fields and forcing them into stasis lock. As the battle concluded, Shockwave restored his full neural operations and logged the emotional experience for further study. But, as his logic center churned away once more, it again failed to anticipate his enemies' chaotic nature. Specifically, Grimlock had set a dead-man's switch on the Dynobots' ship, and before Shockwave could act upon his own victory, the ship shot an energy beam into a nearby volcano, causing it to erupt and consume all of the combatants, entombing them for millennia to come. Spotlight: Shockwave
Shockwave's long absence would eventually rouse Megatron's suspicions, and he assigned Bludgeon to search through Shockwave's files, Spotlight: Shockwave in turn tasking Soundwave with shadowing Bludgeon, Spotlight: Soundwave knowing that Shockwave had been working on something in secret and intending to use it for the Decepticon cause. Shockpoint
Machinations
Coindentally, around the same time, a human archaeological team uncovered Shockwave's body. Spotlight: Shockwave As the dig continued and the Dynobots also began to be unearthed, a government organization swept in and took the operation over. Escalation #5 Skywatch repaired and attempted to control their captives through neural inhibitors, but the results were consistently disastrous, and both the Dynobots and their other capatives Laserbeak and Ravage were soon running out of their control. Skywatch commander Joshua Red decided to use a less sophisticated method on their last remaining subject: bringing Shockwave online in their Salt Lake City base, Red told him there was a bomb in his head set to detonate in 24 hours if Skywatch didn't transmit a reset code. Shockwave's task was to take down the rogue Transformers in that time. Shockwave casually asked if they knew how much damage he could do in 24 hours, then he made a beeline for Laserbeak and Ravage's master, Soundwave, who misfortune had caused to be mode-locked in a Portland, Oregon child's possession. Maximum Dinobots #3
Shockwave arrived at Soundwave's location shortly after Laserbeak and Ravage had retrieved him from his human captivity, and proposed a deal: Maximum Dinobots #4 Shockwave would undo the mode-lock, originally caused by a weapon of his design, in return for Soundwave intercepting the reset codes for the implanted bomb. Soundwave attempted to further bargain for information on the Regenesis program, but was rebuffed when Shockwave observed that said information would die with him if the bomb went off. Shockpoint
Relenting, Soundwave allowed his cassettes to be "captured" and handed over to Skywatch, to sell Shockwave's deception, whilst the scientist went in search of the Dynobots. Discovering them already engaged with Scorponok and the Machination, Shockwave decided to engage Scorponok's forces first, so he could destroy the Dynobots himself. By the time Shockwave beat Scorponok, only 12 minutes of his 24-hour countdown remained, and Grimlock proved to have more than 12 minutes' worth of fight left in him. On the 30-second mark, the two were still grappling in a Machination arms bunker, so Joshua Red ordered the reset code sent, wanting to ensure all other combatants were down before killing his pawn. The code was successfully intercepted and decrypted by Soundwave, who transmitted the information to Shockwave, who in return sent him instructions to mentally disable the mode-lock. Soundwave transformed, his cassettes attacked their would-be captors, and Shockwave abruptly walked away from his fight, declaring an end to the "charade." But Grimlock would not be denied his revenge, so before Shockwave could leave, he detonated a grenade that blew the arms bunker sky-high. The two were soon recovered, still functioning, by Ultra Magnus, who took Shockwave, Scorponok and Grimlock into custody. Maximum Dinobots #5 Shockwave was sent to Garrus-9, where his spark was extracted for imprisonment. Last Stand of the Wreckers #3
At some point prior to his imprisonment, Shockwave was able to recruit Bludgeon and the Monstructor Six as his personal agents, though they wound up simply fighting with the main Decepticon forces during their new master's incarceration. Shockpoint
During Shockwave's time in Skywatch captivity, the researchers had gathered enough information about him to design a weapon based on his technology. According to Spike Witwicky, the first working prototypes were the size of a house, but with some unspecified "outside help," they were able to condense it to a size small enough for hand-held use by a human. It was stored in a secret New York City facility, and when the city was overrun by Megatron's forces following the Surge, Spike was sent in with a military squad to retrieve it and use it to kill Megatron. All Hail Megatron #9 Though his team perished, Spike survived, got the weapon, and successfully shot Megatron in the head, ending the Decepticon occupation. All Hail Megatron #12
One year after Overlord's takeover of Garrus-9 during the Surge, he reintegrated Shockwave's spark. In exchange for his freedom and a hand-picked crew, Overlord wanted Shockwave to remove the Achilles virus that had been implanted in him during his conversion to a Warrior Elite. Shockwave agreed to the terms as they served his own purposes, but he was quick to comment that Overlord's actions on Garrus-9 were less about the former general's gratification and more about attracting Megatron's attention. Last Stand of the Wreckers #3
Over the next two years, Shockwave spent time re-establishing contact with his agents, Shockpoint and dispatched Deception warmonger Turmoil to LV-117 with instructions to collect data from the Regenesis missile there, knowing that the time-bending properties of the planet would come into play. Syndromica
Shockwave would eventually regroup with what remained of the Decepticon command structure, who were encamped on a desolate asteroid following their retreat from Earth. Shockpoint The other Decepticons were under the impression that Shockwave was put to work building a space bridge;All His Engines in reality, Shockwave was assisting Soundwave in building a new body for Megatron that contained a space bridge. Additionally, they used the remnants of his old body to make tiny replicas of his gun form, with plans to distribute them amongst the population of Earth in order to create chaos amongst both the humans and Autobots. Starscream, who had taken up leadership after the fall of Megatron, was furious that Shockwave had squandered their resources on something like that rather than build a space bridge, only for Shockwave to reveal that he had integrated space bridge technology—derived from Metroplex—into Megatron's new body. Altered Carbon He was eager to run further tests on this technology, but Megatron, unwilling to be a cog in whatever machinations Shockwave was surely planning, assured him everything was in order and had him continue working on the gun replicas. Spotlight: Megatron After finishing, Shockwave carefully calculated that Quetzaltenango, Mexico was the most appropriate location to deposit the Megatron guns, and stood by Megatron as he sent the weapons through the space bridge to Earth. Altered Carbon Four months later, the Decepticons themselves traveled to Earth to see through their plan, where Soundwave was heavily injured in a confrontation with Optimus Prime. When ordered to repair him, Shockwave protested that he no longer had the resources he had used to rebuild Megatron, but when pressed, affirmed that he could in fact save Soundwave's life. Enemy Mine
Shockpoint
Megatron would later use the space bridge technology built into in his new body to summon Shockwave and the rest of the Decepticons to him on Cybertron. The Question At first they did battle with the Autobots, but were soon mind-controlled by Galvatron into combining with his Sweep army and forming a huge monster. Chaos Part Three: Kings Once Galvatron and the monstrosity were defeated, Cybertron was reformatted into a primordial state, and the weakened Decepticons, left leaderless by the disappearance of Megatron, were rounded up by the Autobots and kept in confinement in the rebuilt Iacon, now under the unstable governance of Bumblebee. After a few weeks of imprisonment, they were released to deal with rioting "NAILs" who had returned to repopulate Cybertron, and did so with glee. The Death of Optimus Prime
Needlenose, fed up with working as an enforcer for the Autobots, accused Shockwave, Soundwave and Bombshell of just sitting around instead of doing something about the Decepticons' situation. The Autonomy Lesson Of course he was wrong: Shockwave is always doing something. In this case he, along with Soundwave, worked with Ratbat to take control of the inhibitor/deterrence chips implanted in them by the Autobots. He seemed uninterested in Ratbat's further plans to fight their captors, only saying "Events will play out as they will." when asked for his opinion. The World & Everything in It Following the failure of Ratbat's plan, Shockwave was approached by Swindle, who didn't believe that he was truly uninterested in the political situation on Cybertron and introduced him to Dirge, who professed to having witnessed Prowl murdering the Constructicons and needed help as he was now on the run from the Autobots. Shockwave was unsure what he expected him to do with this information, Dinobot Hunt and in any case, he had his own much longer game playing out among the stars: he had successfully made contact with Bludgeon, Monstructor and Jhiaxus, and had sent them on course for LV-117. Syndromica (1) In the interim, Turmoil had returned to Cybertron with the ship Shockwave given him, which had been outfitted with a time machine created by LV-117's enslaved inhabitants. Evidently having retroactively pieced the necessary events needed to occur together following the visions of the past and future he saw on LV-117, Shockwave had Reflector steal the ship and return it to the time-torn planet, Night and the City where it was able to be retrieved by Jhiaxus's group. Syndromica (2)
After an explosive assassination attempt on Omega Supreme, Starscream confronted Shockwave, assuming this was his doing. Though Starscream warned Shockwave to not interfere with his political ascension, Shockwave refused to humor him; Starscream had made his choice to live with the Autobots, while the remaining Decepticons under Shockwave's care rejected the growing new government architecture. Shockwave seemingly underestimated Starscream's cunning, however, and later he and his Decepticons were assaulted by Arcee. The Autobot assassin, under orders from both Prowl and Starscream, made it appear as if the Decepticons' own base had exploded and buried them, stealing Shockwave and Soundwave away to the Black Room with Prowl's other secret prisoners. The End of the Beginning of the World In truth, this was all an act for Starscream's benefit: Prowl was under the control of Bombshell, and had only "captured" Shockwave and the others so they could be reunited with Megatron in time for his master plan: using a new and improved Devastator to conquer Cybertron once and for all. The Verge Before the Dawn
However, in playing his role in Megatron's plan, Shockwave was merely keeping up appearances—he promptly disappeared once his part in the plan was done. Plan for Everything Believing both Megatron's rebellion and Bumblebee's government were doomed to fail, Shockwave took Dreadwing with him out into the wilderness, to the subterranean remains of Crystal City, which had somehow survived Cybertron's reversion to its primitive state and the supposed recent obliteration by an exploding Metrotitan. It was the original seed Shockwave had sown beneath the city that had recreated it each time, Ore-14, the key to resurrection—which Shockwave tested by shooting Dreadwing dead, only for the ore to immediately revive him. A plan begun millions of years ago was at last reaching its endgame. Shockwaves
Dark Cybertron
 Plot details for ...And the Damage Done: Dark Cybertron Finale follow. |
Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1 Black Metal: Dark Cybertron Chapter 2 Winners & Losers: Dark Cybertron Chapter 3 Into the Abyss: Dark Cybertron Chapter 4 Finest Hour: Dark Cybertron Chapter 5 The Dead Are Not Enough: Dark Cybertron Chapter 7 Finis Temporis: Dark Cybertron Chapter 9 The Becoming: Dark Cybertron Chapter 10 Black Planet: Dark Cybertron Chapter 11 ...And the Damage Done: Dark Cybertron Finale
Trivia
- The unnamed senator was not intended to be Shockwave back in "Chaos Theory" but James Roberts immediately thought it would be cool to make him a character we already knew. Shockwave was picked because he was one of the few important characters that did not have an IDW pre-war backstory yet, and because it allowed Roberts to tie together empurata and shadowplay.[1]
- In his subsequent "Shadowplay" appearance, the still-unnamed Senator Shockwave was deliberately designed and coloured to look like Ultra Magnus,[2] making it a real surprise that we'd been reading the origin of Shockwave all along. It helped that Shockwave was a Robots in Disguise character and this origin was then in the 'wrong' comic, tying the two together.[3]
