Swerve (G1)
| The name or term "Swerve" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Swerve (disambiguation). |
- Swerve is an Autobot from the Generation 1 continuity family. He is sometimes known as "Shut the Hell Up."
Gregarious would be a good word to describe Swerve. So would outgoing, enthusiastic, upbeat, joyfully irreverent, flippant, sarcastic, wise ass, troll, or "total pain in the aft," depending on which side of his weapons-grade mouth you happen to fall on and how long you've been listening to him use it. Swerve has a sense of fun and even whimsy that stands out from your run of the mill Autobots fairly dramatically. The little fellow may get on their nerves... he'll probably get on their nerves... But it'll always be with a smile, a laugh, and an epic level quip, making him a good bartender.
He is, however, also a menace to everyone within range of a gun in his hand - including himself - given his legendarily bad aim, as well as to anyone driving nearby because he's so easily distracted by just about anything that catches his attention. Despite this, he's quite intelligent and skilled as a metallurgist, analysing the properties of a material with unique sensors in his hands. When he gets caught up in a problem, he becomes almost laser-like in focus and intensity, going on quest after quest, both major and minor. Unfortunately, this generally leaves him just as distracted from any other tasks at hand and just as accident-prone as ever. He's almost always in need of some repairs, major or minor, because of it.
Now if only Prime could get him to not get easily distracted when receiving his orders too...
Fiction
Generation 1 cartoon continuity
The Transformers cartoon
- Voice actor: N/A (English), Minoru Inaba (Japanese)
Swerve participated in the defense of the Ark in 2006, but was trod upon by Trypticon. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5 Later, after the Quintesson scientist Inquirata attempted to change history by removing the Autobot resistance leader known as A3 from the past, a race Swerve was participating in repeated itself in an endless loop due to the ripples in the timestream. Forever Is a Long Time Coming
Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers comic
Swerve appeared on Earth as a member of the 4-Wheel-Drive Brigade. Led by Hound, the Brigade confronted the Insecticons out in the desert, only to be caught in an explosive mine trap and fall into a pit. Working together, Swerve and the others combined their Scramble Power and worked their way free of the pit. A concentrated Scrumbuster attack drove off the Decepticons, and the Autobots won the day. Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers #3
Dreamwave Generation One continuity
Swerve was on Cybertron observing the anti-Prime propaganda that Shockwave pumped through the data-net after retrieving the Ark's crew from Earth. Cold War Later, after the Autobots toppled Shockwave and the Decepticons' rule, he was among the group of new recruits seen failing to take on the auto-combatant training drones on Cybertron after Shockwave's rule was toppled. Black Sunshine
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Swerve was forged. This Calamitous Life For at least four million years, Swerve has wanted to swap his metallurgy career for bartending. Before the war, he was a huge fan of Blurr and when he was getting an autograph, Blurr mentioned he wanted to run a bar too after retiring from racing; Swerve thought Blurr might want to run it with him and the only way the racer could escape was to give Swerve a fake phone number. Cybertronian Homesick Blues Forever after, Swerve would tell people that he and Blurr had a plan to run a bar after the war. The Chaos of Warm Things
During the war, before Cybertron had to be abandoned, Swerve's metallurgical skills prompted Thunderwing to contact him along with several other Transformer scientists with his discovery about Cybertron's dwindling energy reserves. Swerve, like the rest, disregarded Thunderwing's warnings. Stormbringer #1 With a fondness for adventure, Swerve took part in at least ten quests over the course of the war, including a Moon Quest, a Titan Quest, a Matrix Quest, a Prime Quest and the legendarily bad Thumb Quest. Cybertronian Homesick Blues
In more modern times, Swerve was stationed at the Kimia Facility. He was a fan of the Wreckers: Declassified datalogs, although he thought Fisitron was a bit of a hagiographer. Bullets Swerve was present when Cyclonus and the Sweeps invaded Kimia. Lamentations He survived the massacre and got away aboard an escape pod piloted by Chromedome and Brainstorm. Arcee soon came to rescue them. Everyone seemed to feel the need to remind him in particular not to say something tactless that might set her off. Kings
Aboard Arcee's shuttle, Swerve listened with the others to Hardhead and Arcee's explanation of the situation with Galvatron, the Heart of Darkness and D-Void. Swerve reiterated everything he had just heard to Hardhead, just to confirm he understood the complicated scenario (he got it all right, except for missing the hyphen in "D-Void"). He was quite naively optimistic at the prospect of putting a stop to Galvatron's plans and saving the universe. However, once they arrived in Cybertron's atmosphere and Arcee had ordered the shuttle to fly directly at the planet's surface, Swerve was among the first to bail out. Genesis
Swerve was one of the Autobots who chose to accompany Rodimus on his quest to find the Knights of Cybertron. Red Alert reluctantly allowed Swerve to board the Lost Light if he'd stop talking. Swerve doesn't know. How to Say Goodbye and Mean It He was in the medibay when Tailgate recovered consciousness, and got to be the one who broke the news about how long Tailgate had been trapped underground. He and Tailgate went out for some fresh air and, along with Chromedome and Rewind, encountered Skids and watched him fight the Legislators. Skids wasn't keen on Swerve's suggestion they should team up. Hangers On
During the incident with the Sparkeater, Swerve and Skids stumbled on a bar, reminding Swerve of his earlier plans to run such an establishment. The Chaos of Warm Things Swerve opened the bar for a celebration of the Sparkeater's demise. As a subscriber to Fisitron's Wreckers: Declassified, he received a strange new datalog and discussed it with Ratchet, prompting the latter's trip to Delphi. Life After the Big Bang
Swerve accompanied Hoist and Perceptor on a mission to scrounge energon from a deserted Decepticon outpost but their pilot, Sunstreaker, was distracted by his own reflection in the radar screen and crashed their shuttle into a planet. With the ship upside down and Perceptor half-melted into the floor (now the ceiling) Swerve kept up his usual banter as they found themselves under attack by Tarn, which happened to be one of his worst fears. With the shuttle cloaked, Swerve passed the time by teasing Sunstreaker and talking about his other worst fears—Megatron, Overlord, Sixshot, Shockwave and some nightmare combination of all four. However, it was soon revealed that this bluster was merely an attempt to disguise the fact that his spark casing had cracked during the crash and that without attention he would die. Hoist and Sunstreaker left him to take the fight to Tarn but the D.J.D. leader quickly took down Sunstreaker and Hoist found himself under attack by Megatron, Overlord, Sixshot and Shockwave—who then combined before disappearing at the same time Swerve fell unconscious. After Perceptor deduced that the planet was protected by a phobia shield, Hoist managed to defeat it by rendering Perceptor and Bob unconscious and facing his own worst fear—being alone. The Waiting Game Swerve was presumably repaired upon their rescue by the Lost Light, as he was back tending his bar soon afterwards.
Unfortunately Ultra Magnus finally found out about the bar, stormed in, and led Swerve away in handcuffs. Swerve was soon on rivet duty with Rewind, clambering around on the Lost Light's hull and replacing rivets. The pair were pressed into service when Fortress Maximus flipped and took Rung and Whirl hostage, as the only way to get near the hostage situation was via an exterior window. While Rewind distracted Maximus with a recording of Garrus-9, Swerve fired his rivet gun. Unfortunately his protests about his poor aim turned out to be true, and instead of wounding Maximus, he blew Rung's head off. Interiors Though Rung survived, Swerve was horrified to learn that his actions had left the psychiatrist in a coma. He visited Rung with Skids, and left one of Rung's model ships at his bedside. Rules of Disengagement Later, he would sit and talk to Rung for 147 hours straight, until the patient finally moved for the first time since the shooting... to make a "shush" gesture. Signal to Noise
Swerve intended to attend Tailgate's Act of Affiliation ceremony but got sidetracked when he discovered Ore had been recently revived. He was assigned by Rodimus to distract Ore from realizing what had happened to him which would cause the engine block he was stuck on to activate and quantum jump the whole ship. Swerve began a conversation with Ore, not telling Ore what had happened to him, under the false identity of Pipes since the Duobot had been chatting with Pipes before the accident. Swerve used the conversation as an excuse to (surreptitiously) discuss the guilt he was experiencing after shooting Rung, his inability to disobey Rodimus for fear of losing his bar as well as the confusion he was undergoing about the difference between peace and happiness. Ore allowed Swerve to realize that his ability to regret his actions made him a decent person, and Swerve considered whether or not he really wanted the reputation he'd earned. Moments late, Swerve was contacted by Rodimus to tell Ore the truth about what happened, as his death or mental breakdown would jump them away from the recently aggressive Galactic Council. Swerve responded by saying he would rather save Ore than hurt him, orders or no, something Rodimus kept to himself when asked. Fortunately, a recently revived Metrotitan quantum-jumped the ship and Ore was teleported away as an extra convenience. You, Me, and Other Revelations
A few days later, Swerve joined a few other Autobots for movie night in Rewind's hab-suite, watching "Proteus's Promise". Who's Afraid of the DJD? Swerve and Rewind arranged a series of storytelling sessions in the bar to try and help Rung's mental recovery. An Intimate Beheading They made little progress and eventually had a third session with Chromedome, Drift, Ratchet, Whirl and others. Post Hoc Swerve was unable to stop himself occasionally interjecting into the story. Patternism Unable to get into his own quarters to fetch refreshments, Swerve raided Trailbreaker's stash of Nightmare Fuel. Following the story, the shipwide alarm sounded and Swerve speculated that someone had trodden dirt into Ultra Magnus's office. An Intimate Beheading
The alarm turned out to be a call to take part in a mission to Temptoria to find the Circle of Light. Swerve kept himself calm during the trip in the Leading Light by using Rungian re-experience therapy. He took part in the battle on Temptoria until his gun ran out, at which point he asked Whirl for another and was thrown the Shoomer. He struggled to lift the huge weapon and accidentally ended up shooting himself in the face with it and so his part in the fight ended. Despite the damage, he survived and was taken back to the Lost Light. Before & After
When Swerve and his crew went to Hedonia's bars, he was tasked by Rodimus to bring Ultra Magnus along and help him relax. That led to Magnus falling unconscious after drinking nucleon and Swerve was left to look after him, and provide a shoulder for a maudlin drunk Magnus to cry on. He tried to buck the enforcer up, reassuring him that people did like him; when Magnus fell unconscious again, Swerve quietly admitted that people didn't like him but just tolerate him because of his jokes. After an intense effort, Swerve and the gang got Ultra Drunkus back to the Lost Light (Swerve decided this quest was now in his top three) and he used a prototype broadcast system to tell the whole thing to Blurr's personal number... refusing to admit that it was a fake. After that, sensing a new relationship with Magnus, Swerve asked him (next in a long line) if he'd like to share his room: Magnus, like everyone else, turned it down. Cybertronian Homesick Blues
Swerve and Tailgate bet 100 shanix that each would be the first to discover what Rung's alternate mode was without asking him directly. Swerve's initial attempts involved striking the psychiatrist in the neural cluster to induce an involuntary transformation, but he was unsuccessful. He then tried to bribe Rung by getting him Thunderclash's autograph, however they soon found themselves in the middle of a hostage situation as the Autobot Paddox revealed he was actually a deep-cover group of Ammonites and demanded the Lost Light, with its superior quantum engines, in exchange for Thunderclash's life. Swerve bemoaned the fact that they were unarmed and Rung responded that wasn't necessarily the case—he transformed into his alternate mode (officially classified as an "ornament") and Swerve used him to clobber Paddox into his component parts. Little Victories
Some while later, Swerve accompanied Rewind to Brainstorm's laboratory, as the archivist was hoping to probe the inventor as to Chromedome's whereabouts. Whilst the two other Autobots talked, Swerve had a poke around, and decided to push a button on small device he picked up, something which he subsequently denied to Brainstorm. The invention, as it turned out, was a "meta bomb", and it had the effect of making Swerve unwittingly act as if he were a character in a comic book. Just then, a ship wide alarm sounded – the notorious Decepticon psychopath Overlord had appeared on the ship and begun a rampage! No doubt too small and inept to be of much use in the battle that followed, Swerve wound up sitting by an injured Drift and thanks to the continuing effects of the meta bomb began an oddly detached monologue about the situation the crew found themselves in. Under Cold Blue Stars
After the threat had passed, thanks to Rewind's self-sacrifice, Swerve and Tailgate visited the medibay, where Ratchet was working on the mortally wounded Ultra Magnus. To the medical officer's chagrin, Swerve played The Empyrean Suite for the comatose patient. Shortly afterwards, at the memorial service for those killed during Overlord's rampage, Swerve decided to begin a "quest" to learn the contents of Brainstorm's briefcase, as a way of distracting himself from the recent tragedies. The Gloaming
After the service, Ultra Magnus disappeared from the medibay and fled in a shuttlecraft, and in pursuing it the Lost Light arrived at a vast portal hanging in space. Swerve enthused wildly about this latest development to Tailgate, ignorant that the Autobot-in-training had just been diagnosed with a fatal case of cybercrosis. Through the portal, the ship found the long lost Luna 1, but despite the his enthusiasm, Rodimus forbade Swerve from joining the landing party, citing that he had done nothing useful with his metallurgical training for the past months and had instead been a barman. Forlorn, Swerve decided to shut down the bar for good, but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a huge, heavily armed robot saying nothing but 'seventeen twenty-one' over and over. The Fecund Moon
The mechanoid promptly opened fire, shredding the room to pieces, but Swerve was able to get behind the bar and trigger the 'security' installed recently by Brainstorm: scores of automated turrets that emerge from the walls and blast the invader. Despite the heavy fire, the attacker remained standing, so the bartender went for another gift from Brainstorm, My First Blaster™. Despite his infamous (lack of) marksmanship skills, this chunky weapon allowed Swerve to put a hole through his assailant, finally stopping it.
With more invaders all across the ship, Swerve ran to find his friend Skids at the oil reservoir. He arrived just as the amnesiac theoretician emerged victorious from an enormous battle, but a large, sword-wielding warrior teleported in behind him and ran Skids through. Swerve frantically opened fire, but missed every shot and was knocked unconscious. House of Ambus The two Autobots were teleported into a cell on Luna 1 where they found the captured members of the Lost Light's landing party and Getaway, who explained that the insane Chief Justice Tyrest was behind their imprisonment. He sprung them from the cell and they rushed to confront Tyrest but the mad lawman was ready for them and incapacitated the Autobots before activating his universal killswitch. Arm the Lonely Swerve was unaffected and after Tyrest was defeated by Minimus Ambus he heard the Chief Justice say something about winning. Later he was part of a team that raided Pharma's medbay, where he used his metallurgy skills to discover a cure for cybercrosis that would save Tailgate's life. This Calamitous Life Swerve was still congratulating himself on this achievement when he was approached by Brainstorm, who suspected that someone had opened his briefcase and wanted Swerve to help him find out who would have done such a thing. The Sound of Breaking Glass After the Lost Light left Luna 1, Swerve held a grand reopening of his bar that was attended by Ultra Magnus but not Rodimus. This Calamitous Life
Toys
Generation 1
- Swerve (Mini-Vehicle, 1986)
- Japanese ID number: C-58
- Swerve is a retool of the Microchange toy originally used to make Gears, and therefore has a similar pickup truck vehicle mode, a 4WD off-road of indeterminable model. He is largely maroon and white, with squarer legs and a more elaborate face than Gears.
Alternators
- Swerve (Alternator, 2004)
- Alternator ID number: 15
- Accessories: Engine/blaster
- Alternators Swerve is a retool of Tracks, and transforms into a red Corvette Z06 featuring opening doors and hood, as well as a realistic interior. Amusingly enough, his rocket launchers are stored next to the passenger and driver seats. Swerve is armed with his double-barreled engine gun formed from his engine, two pairs of double-barreled slide-out wrist blasters, and two shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, making him one of the most heavily armed Alternators toys.
- He came with a flame hood decal reminiscent of the flames on Tracks's original toy (which was originally available with Tracks's Binaltech release), thus making him resemble Road Rage in vehicle mode.
Encore
- Bumble & Minibots (Multi-pack, 2008)
- Japanese ID number: 10
- In 2008, Swerve was reissued in the Encore line, bundled with Bumblebee, Pipes, Tailgate, and Outback. As with his pack-mates, his face paint was given more detailing to resemble his cartoon model better.
Generations
- Swerve (Deluxe, 2012)
- Accessories: Blaster
- Generations Swerve is a pretool and redeco of Sergeant Kup, using the planned-in alternate head for the mold.[1] He transforms into a pseudo-retro-styled pickup truck of indeterminate, probably-made-up model, and is covered in 3mm rungs that are compatible with C joint clip-on weapons. There are two rungs on his backpack, plus two rungs each on his forearm kibble, and two on his lower back. The blaster can either be hand-held via 5mm post, plug into the underside of the truck to form a second exhaust pipe, or clip onto the roof of the truck via C joint. Interestingly, due to his transformation, Swerve's truck mode features a working tailgate.
- Swerve was originally only to be released as part of a big block of toys developed exclusively for release in China and other Hasbro Asia markets. However, ToysЯUs picked up Swerve as part of a massive group of Transformers exclusives for US market release, just in time for the 2012 holiday shopping season.
- This mold was retooled into Timelines Hoist and Autobot Electrons.
- Swerve & Flanker (Legends, 2013)
- Series / number: 2 / 005
- Part of the fifth wave of 2012-onwards Generations Legends Class toys, Thrilling 30 Swerve is a new mold that is roughly the size of a Cyberverse Commander Class toy. His robot mode is styled after his appearance in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, but transforms into a mostly red, modernized 4-wheel-drive pickup truck of made-up model. He comes with
a tray of drinksa My First Blaster™Flanker, a small bot who transforms into either a blue jet or a weapon for Swerve to wield via its 5mm handle.
- Swerve was retooled into Generations Gears.
Notes
- Swerve and Hubcap are curiously absent from 1986's Transformers Universe profile book. The only other missing characters were the two Deluxe Vehicles and the four Deluxe Insecticons, whose absence might be explained by their toys' origins with companies in competition with Takara. Swerve and Hubcap's omissions, however, appear to be errors; all the other toys in their wave and subgroup were included. The extended, unused TFU entry ended up on Disciples of Boltax.
Foreign names
- Japanese: Werve (ウェーブ Wēbu; sometimes ウエーブ Uēbu)
- French: Embardo (Canada)
- Chinese: Bèilí (背离, "Swerve")
