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Shockwaves - Transformers Wiki

The name or term "Shockwave" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Shockwave (disambiguation).

Shockwave reflects on his long and changeable life as the seeds of a plan sown millions of years ago at long last bear fruit...

Synopsis

As Iacon burns, Shockwave secretly withdraws from the city, confident that the Decepticon uprising will fail, taking Dreadwing with him to investigate the remains of Crystal City out beneath the wilderness. Dreadwing is rather grumpy at having been taken out of the fight, but that displeasure is replaced with amazement at the discovery that Crystal City is still standing, despite supposedly having been obliterated by the explosion of the Titan weeks beforehand. Shockwave suggests he can help solve the conundrum... and shoots him dead. Shockwave waits, then... and reflects on the life that has brought him to this point...

Millions of years ago, Shockwave is performing an experiment in Crystal City when his teacher, Jhiaxus, pulls him away from his work to observe his latest creation: Monstructor, embroiled in battle with Omega Supreme. When Monstructor falls before the ancient Transformer, Shockwave's faith in Jhiaxus is shaken for the first time, and he watches as his master leaves Cybertron aboard the Ark-1 before his first failure can disgrace him.

Inheriting Jhiaxus's role, his teachings, and his sciences, Shockwave becomes a senator in the new regime that arises on Cybertron. On his first day as a member of the senate, he announces the founding of the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology in honor of his teacher, but clashes with Senator Proteus, whose ardent functionism and open abuse of a Disposable class projector 'bot rankles with Shockwave. Presently, he is approached by Dai Atlas—initially wary of Shockwave due to concerns expressed by Omega Supreme over his continued study of Jhiaxus's work, but impressed by his reaction to Proteus—who listens as Shockwave explains his greatest concern for the future of their race: the inevitability of a catastrophic energon shortage. In an attempt to safeguard against this, Shockwave explains that he seeded something in Crystal City—but with the city devastated and sealed back underground, that experiment is unlikely to come to fruition, and so he has begun to consider replicating it on other planets...

Observing that neither the Senate nor Nominus Prime were willing to entertain change, Shockwave begins courting prospective candidates for new Primes, including Orion Pax. Following the rise of Sentinel Prime, Proteus's discovery of Shockwave's defiance results in his being subjected to empurata and Shadowplay: his head and hands replaced and the emotion centers of his brain cut away. But while Proteus believed he was punishing Shockwave, in truth, the now-emotionless Shockwave considers himself truly free, with morality now no longer an obstruction to pursuing the most logical path to preserving Cybertron. After rebuffing Dai Atlas during a hearing in which his former friend attempted to explain Shockwave's earlier concerns to the senate, Shockwave is approached by Starscream and brought before Megatron, who offers him the resources to continue his experiments in developing new kinds of energon in return for creating a Decepticon combiner. Shockwave accepts, and begins experimenting on an increasing number of Cybertronian citizens, few of whom survive the process.

While walking through the city one day, Shockwave is approached by the worried Orion Pax, who has not seen him since his transformation, and has been sent by Dai Atlas to find him. Pax believes that the old Shockwave is still within him somewhere, but Shockwave brushes him off. Not long after, Megatron provides Shockwave with new hands to replace the claws grafted to him in empurata in hopes of increasing the pace of his work; but when he then informs Shockwave of his plan to murder the Senate when they next meet in Kaon, Shockwave elects to take only one hand, replacing his other with a gun that he feels will be more useful in the coming war. The night before the planned assassination, Shockwave visits Dai Atlas in his chambers... and shoots him. But the blast does not kill him—in what Shockwave believes to be a "final moment of sentimentality", he merely wounds Dai Atlas, leaving him unable to attend the Senate meeting, thus sparing him the fate shared by the other senators.

Reminiscing done, Shockwave turns his attention back to Dreadwing's corpse. His attempts to develop new kinds of energon have yielded many different results on many different worlds, from the time-manipulating Ore-1 of LV-117 to the ultra-powerful Ore-13 of Earth, but the most potent of them all is the very first—the one he sowed in Crystal City all those years ago. He dubs it now Ore-14, the ore that resurrected the city when Cybertron was reduced to its primordial state, and again when the Metrotitan destroyed it... and it is Ore-14 that now revives Dreadwing, who hauls himself to his feet, a gaping hole in his chest, but otherwise entirely unperturbed by his experience. Ore-14 is the key to resurrection... and with it, the future is Shockwave's to mold.

Featured characters

(All characters other than Dreadwing and Shockwave appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Be gone with you, you wretch!"
(Proteus picks up the projector-bot, and hurls it across the room.)
"Aah-woo-yessir! Whatever you say, sir! I'll be going, as you say, sir!"

—Proteus and the poor projector-bot


"What—what are you doing to me—?"
"Calm yourself, fellow Cybertronian. Give yourself over to science. I merely wish to find out the effect of this synthetic energon."
"Ahh—ahh—"
(The Cybertronian explodes.)
"Ah, I see. That effect should prove useful."

—Some poor nameless shmuck and Shockwave

Notes

  • This issue is trailed on its front cover as a prelude to "Dark Cybertron", the event looming in the future of IDW's Transformers books. The inside front cover (containing the "story so far" segment, issue credits, and thumbnail cover gallery) is redesigned as part of this, with a Shockwave background graphic.

Continuity notes

  • This story take place concurrently with the last few issues of the series, following Shockwave's remarked-upon disappearance in issue #15.
  • The seeming destruction of Crystal City as a result of the Metrotitan's explosion occurred in the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual. Flashbacks in that issue were also the source for both the battle between Omega Supreme and Monstructor that Shockwave is shown watching, and the original devastation of Crystal City and its return to the planet's underground.
    • Curiously, Dreadwing refers to the Metrotitan's arrival as having been "weeks ago", despite the passage of time in previous issues suggesting it has been little over a day since that event.
  • Shockwave's role as a student of Jhiaxus was originally introduced in very brief passing by Simon Furman waaaaay back in Spotlight: Doubledealer, and it has been mentioned several times in the course of Robots in Disguise thus far, but this is our first look at master and student contemporaneously.
  • Shockwave's original two-handed, binocular form was introduced by James Roberts in his "Chaos Theory" storyline, but we did not know that this character was Shockwave until the game-changing "Shadowplay" trilogy in issues #9-11 of Roberts's More than Meets the Eye, which detailed the events summarized across pages 11–12 of this issue—Shockwave's rebellion against the Senate, the death of Nominus Prime, the rise of Sentinel Prime, and how the ritual of empurata transformed Shockwave into the 'bot we all know. Throughout this issue, we see Shockwave in all the various color schemes he wore during the "Chaos Theory" and "Shadowplay" stories, a hallmark of his expressive pre-empurata self.
  • The Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology was also introduced during the "Shadowplay" storyline, a note of foreshadowing of Shockwave's true identity before the audience learned it.
  • Senator Proteus is another James Roberts creation, debuting in "Chaos Theory" and playing a key role in "Shadowplay".
  • Dai Atlas speaks of his familiarity with Omega Supreme, as seen in the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual. Here we see him as a senator, similar to the role he occupies in the Monstrosity series, with the added explanation of how he avoided being executed alongside the other Senate members in Megatron: Origin #4.
  • The Senate's projector is a member of the Disposable class, an underclass introduced in More than Meets the Eye #12.
  • Megatron and Impactor here debut as miners departing for Luna 2, whose mining facilities were introduced in "Shadowplay", and seen in more detail in More than Meets the Eye #14. This is prior to the events of "Chaos Theory", after which "Shadowplay" notes Megatron will be shipped off to Messatine, setting up the events of Megatron: Origin.
  • Shockwave's concern over resources, leading to the development of his Regenesis program, has been the driving force being his bubbling sidestory through Robots in Disguise thus far, and was introduced by Simon Furman waaa-hay-haaaay back in Spotlight: Shockwave.
  • Starscream remarks that he is "not yet" a colleague of Shockwave's, obviously alluding to Shockwave's eventual joining of the Decepticons, but also perhaps foreshadowing the role that Starscream will later play in the Senate in Autocracy.
  • Shockwave's role in the creation of Megatron's combiner—Devastator—was noted back in issue #14, clarifying that issue's slight chronology confusion.
  • Four of Shockwave's Regenesis ores are numbered: Ore-1's effect on LV-117 was seen in issue #10, Ore-6's devastation of Arduria featured in issue #6, and of course, Ore-13 was a major plot device during Simon Furman's run, particularly Infiltration. The one new ore introduced here, Ore-8, is described as creating "crystals of pure destruction" on the planet Tsiehshi—recognizable from its landscape and twin suns as the formerly-unnamed world from Spotlight: Kup, canonizing a longstanding fan theory about that world's dangers being the product of Regenesis.

Transformers references

Errors

  • Functionism is consistently referred to as Functionalism.
  • Monstructor is consistently described as being formed from five Cybertronians, when actually, he's made up of six. This was corrected in the trade paperback collection, but not in the version of this issue packed with the Generations Thrilling 30 Deluxe Class Dreadwing toy.
  • On page 11, Shockwave narrates Proteus sought the power of symbol of the Prime".
  • On page 14, Shockwave's first caption says "dank bowls of Cybertron". This remained unchanged in the trade paperback edition, but the version available with the Generations Dreadwing toy had "bowls" changed to "bowels".
  • On page 18, Megatron says "How goes your efforts to build my combiner?" It should be "How go your efforts".
  • Dreadwing appears in the flashback depicting Shockwave and Megatron's first meeting. That's all fine-and-dandy...except he's drawn with his current day design- a body that Soundwave will later claim Dreadwing adopted to honor Megatron's own stealth bomber design, which of course must have happened very recently.

Other

  • Similar to the pack-in versions of other existing IDW comics, the version of this issue available with the Generations Deluxe Class Dreadwing toy was also subject to some slight censorship, albeit only a minor instance in this case: On page 18, Megatron's line in panel 4, "I shall kill the senate", was changed to "I shall destroy the senate".

Foreign localization

Japanese

  • Title: "Shōgeki no Nami" (衝撃の波, "Shocking Wave")

Covers (4)

  • (thumbnail)

    Shockwave, all fresh and minty.

  • (thumbnail)

    Alas poor my head, I knew thee well.

  • (thumbnail)

    This comic has ME in it! Shockwave toy not included.

  • (thumbnail)

    Dreadwing toy comic cover.

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Reprints

  • (thumbnail)

    Robots in Disguise Box Set – cover art by ???