Soundwave (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity
Soundwave did a lot of stuff in the Marvel Comics continuity!
Marvel The Transformers comics
Millions of years ago, Soundwave was one of the first members of the Decepticons; after sowing discontent amongst the masses, he, Megatron and Ravage began the war that tore the planet itself out of its orbit. The Decepticons, including Soundwave, attempted to hijack the Ark four million years ago, only to fail and fall into deactivation sleep for four million years. In 1984, the detonation of the volcano, Mount St. Hilary, reactivated the Autobots and Decepticons, unleashing their war on Earth. Learning the inhabitants of this planet had access to its vast energy sources, Soundwave joined the Decepticons in raiding a drive-in movie theatre. The Transformers Soon after, Soundwave participated in a raid on Harrison Nuclear Power Plant, and after helping the Decepticons make off with large chunks of its machinery, helped use their bounty to build a new headquarters atop a cliffside. Power Play! After returning from S. Witwicky Auto Repairs & Tow Service with Sparkplug Witwicky, a human the Decepticons kidnapped to help them convert human fuel to Transformer fuel, the Decepticons' headquarters were infiltrated by a rescue party of Gears and the human superhero Spider-Man. While Spider-Man caused a diversion in front of Soundwave, Gears was able to suckerpunch him. Prisoner of War!
When Starscream nearly caused the death of Ravage, Megatron rallied the other Decepticons, including Soundwave, to enact vengeance for his treason. The Enemy Within! Later, the Decepticons unleashed a surprise attack on the Ark. After Soundwave defeated Jazz, the battle was halted when Aunty, the Ark's computer system, turned rogue. After the crisis was averted, Soundwave and the others were able to retreat. Raiders of the Last Ark Due to Sparkplug's efforts during his kidnapping, the Decepticons were able to refuel, and Soundwave and his comrades attacked the Autobots. However, Sparkplug had poisoned the fuel, and Soundwave shorted out along with the others. As Soundwave lay deactivated, it was only the surprise arrival of Shockwave that turned the tide. The Last Stand
Shockwave assumed command, and immediately began restoring Soundwave and the other poisoned Decepticons. Soundwave was ordered to prepare the bodies of the fallen Autobots to serve as spare parts for Shockwave's new army of Decepticons. The New Order Megatron objected to this new order and rebelled, but Shockwave quelled him quickly, and paraded Megatron's broken body in front of Soundwave and his peers as a warning to those who would cross him. The Worse of Two Evils! Under Shockwave's command, Soundwave attacked the Blackrock Aerospace Assembly Plant Number One and secured it for Decepticon use. Warrior School! The plant's facilities were used to create the Constructicons, who built a massive radio dish that Soundwave used to beam a message back to Cybertron. However, the radio dish was destroyed when Soundwave was defeated by Huffer and the human trucker Bomber Bill. The Next Best Thing to Being There!
A short time later, during a brief period when both Megatron and Shockwave were missing in action, Soundwave assumed leadership of the Decepticons, happily slagging off Starscream's ambitions of leadership. His first attempt at manipulating Autobots into a trap failed. Crisis of Command! The second, taking advantage of the "Dinobot Hunt", was a major success—six Autobots were badly injured, not counting two of the Dinobots, and a large amount of fuel was stolen while the Autobots tried to stop a Dinobot rampage in a human town. On the way out, Soundwave proudly declared their victory, a turn of events that Optimus Prime did not enjoy. Dinobot Hunt!
When Megatron resurfaced, rendered immobile in a Wyoming coal mine due to lack of fuel, Soundwave sped to his rescue, re-energizing him. I, Robot-Master! Using the splintered state of the Decepticon forces to his advantage, Soundwave worked both sides of the field, reporting to both Megatron and the returned Shockwave, each without the other's knowledge. When Shockwave learned that the human Buster Witwicky had begun to suffer Matrix-induced visions of the next leap in Transformer evolution, Soundwave reported this to Megatron, prompting him to battle Shockwave for leadership. The Decepticons' human ally, Robot-Master, televised the battle, much to Soundwave's distaste, and in order to prevent the Decepticons from looking like fools, he interrupted the duel and insisted that they agree to a joint leadership. Second Generation!
When the Robot-Master hoax the Decepticons were perpetrating was threatened by the investigative work of Joy Meadows, Soundwave was instrumental in ending the conflict that ensued between the Decepticons and the Dinobots by holding the reporter hostage and destroying her footage, and making it clear she'd be dead if she tried this again. In the National Interest Not long thereafter, when the deranged future Decepticon, Galvatron, traveled back in time, Soundwave was intrigued by the fact that he was unable to scan his mind to discern the truth of his identity. Siding with Megatron when conflict erupted, Soundwave and his leader were buried under an avalanche by Galvatron and then rescued by the Autobots in the name of forming an alliance to defeat their common enemy. Target: 2006
Soundwave's loyalty to Megatron was shaken when the latter became increasingly paranoid. Consequently he manipulated his leader into summoning the Predacons to Earth as part of a scheme by Shockwave to ensure a weaponless Megatron was destroyed by Optimus Prime. Prey! However Megatron survived and soon returned to the Decepticon leadership, albeit with his memories of the events lost. Resurrection! Soundwave again served as co-conspirator when Shockwave once more used the Predacons to destroy Megatron. In the process a deranged Megatron seemingly committed suicide on the space bridge. Gone but Not Forgotten!
Soundwave was now once again under Shockwave's command, and, while patrolling on the Decepticons' mobile island base, he found himself attacked and subdued by the time-traveling freelance peace-keeping agent, Death's Head, and tricked into giving up information on the whereabouts of Galvatron. Hunters Although Death's Head's attempts to track down the Decepticon met with failure, Galvatron was ultimately entombed in lava, where he was later discovered by Susan Hoffman. Soundwave observed a televised broadcast of her discovery, and he and the Combaticons attempted to destroy Galvatron with explosives planted around the volcano in question. After a battle with the Throttlebots, Soundwave found that he was unable to remote-detonate the explosives thanks to Blaster jamming his signal. Ladies' Night
When Shockwave was removed from power, Soundwave smoothly transitioned to serving under the new Decepticon leader, Ratbat, and helped to operate his Realvision playback system to decode data from Autobot tapes Grand Slam and Raindance. The Flames of Boltax! The tapes, it was discovered, contained information on the Underbase, the power of which was desired by Starscream so badly he sparked off a Decepticon-Decepticon war to cover himself. Soundwave ended up having his fuel pump torn into by Bomb-Burst. Cold War! When Starscream gained the Underbase's power and targeted the Earth, Soundwave co-led the defense of Buenos Aires alongside Fortress Maximus, but was temporarily deactivated by a blast of cosmic power from Starscream. Dark Star
He was back on his feet by the time that Starscream, now a Pretender, was busy doubting his self-worth. Soundwave was extremely scared of Starscream by this point. Fallen Star! He continued to operate under the command of the new Decepticon Earth commander, Scorponok, though like the other troops he was very unhappy about Starscream being allowed back in after trying to kill everyone. Primal Scream He was put in charge of guarding Optimus Prime after the Autobot leader surrendered his troops to Scorponok, hoping to elicit an alliance against the coming of Unicron. When Prime changed his mind about meekly waiting in a cell for Scorponok to make time for him, however, Soundwave provided little resistance in keeping him there. Surrender! After the Decepticon auxiliary army bombed Scorponok's base in New Jersey, Soundwave assumed temporary command of the active Decepticons in fighting back against the traitors, led by Starscream and Shockwave. This "Decepticon Civil War" didn't last long, though, as all the Autobots and Decepticons of Earth were summoned to Cybertron by Primus to deal with Unicron. Out of Time!
Soundwave survived the battle with Unicron, and attended a meeting between the briefly-allied Autobots and Decepticons with Treadshot. There Blaster announced the imminent end of their world, and an evacuation was called for. Soundwave was still hanging out with Treadshot when he witnessed a fight break out between Grimlock and Fangry. Bludgeon, who had assumed command of the Decepticons, doublecrossed the Autobots by sabotaging their ships. Soundwave was last seen beside Bludgeon as the Decepticons left their self-destructing homeworld. Exodus!
Future timelines
In 2008, Soundwave was under the command of Shockwave on Cybertron. When the bounty hunter named Death's Head arrived with the deactivated bodies of the renegades Scourge and Cyclonus and demanded an audience, Shockwave had Soundwave wait nearby as a precautionary measure. Sure enough, Soundwave's monitoring abilities alerted Shockwave that the two Decepticons were not as dead as they seemed, and the three invaders began an assassination attempt on Shockwave. Soundwave summoned the Stunticons, hoping that Menasor could breach the sealed doors of the audience chamber in time, but wasn't swift enough. Death's Head killed Shockwave, and together the trio demanded that the Decepticons accept Scourge and Cyclonus as their new leaders. Faced with superior firepower and a hefty dose of explosives, Soundwave was reluctantly forced to accept on behalf of the Decepticons.
Wasting no time, Scourge and Cyclonus commanded the Decepticons to begin a full-scale assault on Autobase. This was effectively suicide, as the two armies were just about evenly matched. That, of course, was the point—Scourge and Cyclonus's true master, Unicron, wanted the children of Primus exhausted and depleted in number by the time of his glorious resurrection. After Rodimus Prime and Death's Head took the fight straight to the recuperating Unicron on Junk, however, he summoned his two minions back to his side. Seeing their "glorious leaders" abandon the battle, Soundwave and Hun-Grrr sounded a retreat. In the absence of Unicron's spawn, Soundwave became the new permanent leader of the Decepticons. The Legacy of Unicron!
Aching to make a name for himself in Decepticon military history, Soundwave soon fell into a Quintesson trap. A lone Quintesson arrived at Decepticon headquarters, seeking an alliance against the Autobots, who supposedly had assembled most of their fleet and were on their way to Quintessa. Instead of helping the Quintessons, Soundwave saw this as an opportunity to invade and destroy the Autobot territory on Cybertron, when most of their warriors were off-world. He assembled his various sub-commanders and set out aboard Astrotrain to claim a glorious victory.
Instead, Soundwave and the Decepticons walked right into an ambush. There were no Autobots on Quintessa: it was a ruse to draw them out of their base, where legions of Allicons and Trident Attack Crafts waited to overwhelm the Decepticons. Seeing the danger his troops were in, Soundwave was forced to call in the Autobots. Sending a garbled distress beacon to Autobase, Soundwave hoped to draw a suitable fighting force of Autobots to their location. He was successful, as Ultra Magnus and his men remained to fight even after learning who the distress call came from. Autobot and Decepticon fought side-by-side until the Quintesson invaders were either destroyed or driven off-world. In a moment of introspection, Soundwave realized how effective the two armies were when fighting as one instead of as enemies... but quickly brushed aside the idea. Simply too much had happened between the Autobots and Decepticons to ever hope for a peaceful end to the war. Space Pirates!
In 2009, Soundwave and the Terrorcons were on Earth, prepping a new energy extraction system to leech the planet dry. A surgical strike led by Kup and Ultra Magnus destroyed all their equipment, however, leaving their power cells empty of energon. Looking for revenge, the Decepticons pursued the Autobots back to Autobot City, only to find an open trans-time dimensional portal. Realizing the Autobots had fled back to 1989 on a mission of unknown purpose, the vengeful Terrorcons wanted to pursue them. Giving in to popular opinion, Soundwave led his troops back through time and right into the midst of the Time Wars.
Recognizing that the uncontrolled timestorm could conceivably destroy all of existence, Soundwave chose to put aside vendettas for the moment, and added his men to the alliance of Autobots and Decepticons from two time periods against the unmatched power and evil of Galvatron and Megatron combined. Still, the alliance was far from perfect: Soundwave was more than willing to allow the Autobots to charge in first, letting them die in order to "soften up" the resistance. When things turned ugly, Soundwave and the Terrorcons then fled back to 2009, apparently without ever getting their hands dirty. Their final fate after reality restructured itself and the timestorm abated is unknown. Time Wars
The Big Broadcast of 2006
In an alternate future of 2006, Soundwave was briefly seen participating in a battle on Junkion. He didn't do much except retreat. The Big Broadcast of 2006 (US)
Earthforce
In an alternate timeline, Soundwave left Scorponok's army and returned to serving at Megatron's side during the Decepticon Civil War against Shockwave, helping him with the launch of a global warming satellite. Starting Over! He was not above exploiting the conflict for his own ends, however. When an energon shipment was hijacked by Shockwave's forces thanks to information Soundwave had given them, Megatron came to suspect the presence of a traitor in his ranks, but ironically assigned Soundwave to identify the culprit. To keep his own duplicity a secret, Soundwave set up Wildrider to take the fall, and Megatron destroyed the Stunticon. Soundwave not only got away with his treachery, he went on to happily blackmail everyone he'd mind-scanned. Eat your heart out, Starscream! Secrets
Approached by Starscream with a plan to make them both Decepticon leaders, Soundwave joined forces with the schemer and lured Megatron and Shockwave to an airport, tipping off the Autobots to their location. With the two leaders thus occupied, Soundwave and Starscream took control of both factions. Internal Affairs! Subsequently, Soundwave led an all-out attack on the Earthforce base as a diversion, while Starscream attempted to plunder an oil tanker. Starscream met with failure, however, leading Soundwave to withdraw his forces and hint to them that maybe be should have sole command... Divide and Conquer! Starscream was aware of Soundwave's goals, and when he was attacked by a group of alien assassins, he suspected that Soundwave had ordered the hit and struck back at him. Soundwave was able to convince Starscream he was not responsible and that in actuality, it was the work of Megatron and Shockwave. External Forces!
Soon afterward, Soundwave learned that human reporter Irwin Spoon had secured an interview with the Autobots that could potentially resolve the public view of the Transformer war. Seeking to prevent this, he had the Stunticons capture the journalist. Although the Autobots were able to rescue him, a carefully planted cerebro-shell ensured that the story Irwin wrote was anything but accurate. End of the Road!
Transformers Comic-Magazin
Template:TransformersComicMagazin Soundwave was present when the Decepticons unleashed a robotic hell-beast known as 'King Con' on New York and helped Megatron and Shockwave to set up a mine belt around the harbor. However Optimus Prime rented a helicopter to fly a banner announcing huge raw oil deposit finds in the Rocky Mountains. After a short hesitation, the Decepticons retreated to pursue these findings. New York — A City Sinking in Terror
Marvel Generation 2 comic
After Megatron deposed Bludgeon and reassumed control of the Decepticons, Soundwave once again served Megatron as a close adviser. One of his first acts was to ask, "Why revive Starscream?". Megatron shared Soundwave's concerns, and assured him the on-again-off-again traitor would be dealt with once Megatron had regrown his army. Tales of Earth #3
Megatron immediately drew his Decepticons to the moon of Tykos to violently acquire Rheanimum from the natives. However, things soured when Soundwave received a distress call from Skullgrin. In moments, Jhiaxus's Cybertronian Empire was upon them. After several casualties, and Megatron missing in action, Soundwave led a party to discover if Megatron had survived and recover him if he had; when Mindwipe expressed doubts about the mission, Soundwave told him to shut up. He appeared to assume command when Megatron appeared dead, but ceased when Megatron turned out to still function. New Dawn
He was in command of the Warworld while Megatron was on Earth. When the Empire boarded the ship (thanks to Starscream's treachery) he and his bridge crew fled to Earth in escape pods. Total War! He was later seen standing by in the final battle against the Swarm. A Rage in Heaven!
Classics
Soundwave was apparently one of the first Decepticons to return to Megatron's side after the Decepticon leader re-emerged. He helped Megatron rebuild his power base on Earth in secret, using human proxies to covertly recover the remains of Astrotrain and other Decepticons lost on Earth during the Underbase Saga. Astrotrain's Classics profile
After the arrival of the mysterious Decepticon Landquake, Soundwave ran a neural scan on the Transformer to confirm his story of alternate dimensions and Unicron singularities. Soundwave confirmed that, at the very least, Landquake believed he was telling the truth. The Decepticons took off aboard Astrotrain to explore a new energy signature in the Southern Hemisphere...one which materialized at the same time as Landquake and possessed a similar resonance pattern. Crossing Over, Part 2 In South America, Soundwave engaged Optimus Prime's troops alongside Megatron and Devastator on the ground. At Megatron's command, he dispatched Ravage and Laserbeak to intercept the Autobot scouts who had been sent after the energy source. Crossing Over: Part 3
The Cassettes soon reported back that the energy had been discovered, and Megatron rallyed the Decepticons behind Soundwave to break for the source's location. Grimlock interferred with the Decepticons' progress, however, by hurling Constructicons like shotputs until he knocked Soundwave down. Crossing Over: Part 5 Soundwave and Astrotrain got caught exchanging fire with Rodimus and Mirage until the latter Autobot turned invisible and snuck around behind the Decepticons, getting the drop on Soundwave. An explosion from below rocked the battlefield, however, and the Decepticons withdrew from combat. Crossing Over: Part 6
When Bug Bite tried to assassinate Megatron, he used cerebro-shells to take control of Soundwave and several other Megatron loyalists. The shells' effects were soon jammed by an attacking Autobot team, and in the chaos that followed, Soundwave noticed that the Autobots were targeting their base's computers, but failed to stop them. Games of Deception
Soundwave was stationed aboard Starscream's warship when Megatron orchestrated the downfall of Bludgeon and his splinter faction. After their inside men terminated Bludgeon, Soundwave informed Starscream he had received a transmission of surrender from the forces below. At Fight's End
Regeneration One
Twenty-one years after the return of the Last Autobot, Soundwave had taken charge of what Optimus Prime dubbed the "Neo-Decepticon" insurgents. After rallying his troops at Fort Scyk he led a strike force on the Kalis Baird Beaming Transmitter, killing the guards and taking control of the facility. He then used it to direct one of Cybertron's orbital defence satellites back towards the planet itself, targeting Iacon and destroying the Last Autobot! Counterpoint
Soon afterwards, the insurgents Windrazor, Afterburner, Terradive and Eagle Eye had blundered while trying to steal warheads from the Pax Cybertronia Decommissioning Depot and were engaged in a siege with Ultra Magnus's Cybertronian Civil Defense. Soundwave seized upon the opportunity to turn the Skyscorchers into martyrs for the Decepticon cause and had Venom, Ransack and Chop Shop assassinate them. Unfortunately for Soundwave, the Wreckers were also on the case and they easily captured the three Insecticons inside a detention-sphere.
Back at Fort Scyk, Soundwave was contacted by Bludgeon, who had apparently gathered almost all the resources he needed to take revenge on the Autobots. Only one element remained and if Soundwave could procure it for him, Bludgeon agreed he would provide troops and firepower for the insurgency campaign. Loose Ends, Part 1
After Dirtbag informed Soundwave of the departure of Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus for Earth, Soundwave saw his opportunity. Loose Ends, Part 3 His unique talents made him highly suited for infiltrating the Hall of Silence, constructed by the Autobot Grapple to safely contain the remains of Thunderwing and, within him, the last remnants of the Matrix. Loose Ends, Part 4 Hot Rod and the Autobots on Cybertron faced the dilemma of destroying the Hall to prevent the Matrix from falling into Soundwave's hands but destroying the Matrix altogether. Loose Ends, Part 5
Soundwave's mastery of sonic energy allowed him to navigate the booby traps inside the Hall of Silence, and then he used the pre-emptive destruction of the Hall by the Autobots to cover his escape. Natural Selection, Part One He arrived on Bludgeon's Warworld and allowed the Pretender to use the Matrix's residual energy to power his warrior drones. Natural Selection, Part Three Soundwave was impressed by the drones when Bludgeon unleashed them on Cresta Superior as a test. Destiny, Part One
Soundwave returned to Cybertron in advance of Bludgeon's invasion to sow chaos. Spinister transmitted live footage of a fight breaking out at a blockade to Soundwave, whose enjoyment of the riot was interrupted when he realized their comm-line had been hacked into. In order to neutralize the intruder, Soundwave deployed the Mayhem Attack Squad. The "intruder" was Blaster, who had been convalescing in The Garage with other Autobots that had recently been cured of the adverse effects of Nucleon. Blaster had randomly accessed an old Decepticon comm-line frequency that Soundwave had been using, and overheard his discussion with Spinister. With the Autobots still rattled after the effects of Scorponok's Gene Key were reversed, Soundwave had been transmitting an irritant, subsonic signal across a frequency shared by all Cybertronians, agitating the Autobots into such a restless, rebellious state that they would be left defenseless. After thwarting their would-be assassins, Blaster convinced Prowl to take the intracomm offline "for essential maintenance", stopping Soundwave's signal. With communications out, however, the Autobots would have no way of knowing if an attack was coming until it was too late. Destiny, Part Two
Soundwave continued his preparations for Bludgeon's invasion, dispatching Wingthing to alert the Neo-Decepticon cells that the time to begin the next phase of their plan had come, while Soundwave readied Monstructor for battle. Destiny, Part Three As the invasion proceeds, Omega Supreme was ordered into action to repel the Blitz Engines, but Soundwave ordered Monstructor to stop Omega. Before Soundwave could retreat from the field of battle, though, he was intercepted by Blaster. Destiny, Part Four Soundwave attempted to use his powers to distort Blaster's senses, but was defeated when his opponent overwhelmed Soundwave's hyper-senses. Destiny, Part Five
Soundwave's actions in attempting to restart the war had really all been part of a greater plan by the Dark Matrix creature, which sought to escape into the Multiverse and spread chaos across multiple realities.The War to End All Wars, Part 5 Ravage, sensing this sinister influence, concluded that he could no longer trust his master. When the creature began its endgame, it proceeded to transform every Transformer on Cybertron it could reach into shadow-leeches, including Soundwave. The Soundwave-leech absorbed his surviving minions Howlback, Slugfest, Squawktalk, Beastbox, Wingthing, and Overkill, but Ravage managed to elude him long enough to be rescued by Starscream. King of Shadows Rodimus Prime defeated the Matrix creature in Zero Space; cut off from their creator's lifeforce, the shadow-leeches expired. Soundwave's dream of reviving the Decepticons and fulfilling Megatron's vision of universal conquest died with him, as the surviving Transformers - Autobot and Decepticon alike - would spend the remainder of their days as emissaries of peace. The War to End All Wars, Part 5
Notes
- The Marvel U.S. comics chose a purple scheme for Soundwave. This could have been an attempt to distinguish him from the other Decepticons, who were mostly blue (especially since blacks also ended up as blues in the industry's then-limited color palette). Or it could have been a simple error. But very likely, it had something to do with his early animation model, which appeared lavender, rather than blue. (See right) Compounding this error, Marvel US Soundwave was drawn without a mouthplate by artist José Delbo. The Marvel UK comics colored him blue like everywhere else (partially due to using a more sophisticated coloring system) and always included his faceplate.
- Soundwave was in charge of the UK letters page from issues #22 to #78, barring a few interruptions.
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- Classics Decepticons
- Communications specialists
- Decepticon leaders
- Marvel Generation 1 Decepticons
- Marvel Generation 2 Decepticons
- Letters page answerers
- Regeneration One Decepticons
- Robo-Capers characters
- Scientists
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