Starscream (Transformers: Animated)

Starscream is the secondary antagonist of the 2007 cartoon Transformers: Animated.

History
Starscream was aboard the Nemesis when it came across an Autobot repair ship that appeared to be emitting the energy signature of the fabled AllSpark. Starscream's doubt of the AllSpark's very existence and his dismissal of Megatron's millennia-long search did not sit well with Lugnut, and an argument broke out on the bridge until Megatron himself arrived and all fell silent. Starscream was forced to eat his words when Blackarachnia confirmed that the energy coming off the ship was indeed that of the AllSpark, but quickly volunteered to secure it for his leader. Seeing through his lieutenant's greed, Megatron put a dent in Starscream's wing and rose to obtain it for himself. As he was leaving, however, Starscream arrived at the airlock to wish Megatron luck and patted him on the back—planting an overload device on him in the process. As Megatron attacked the Autobot ship, the device overloaded his circuits and caused an explosion that led Starscream to believe that Megatron was no more. In the aftermath of the blast, Starscream got so caught up in his own greatness that he didn't notice that his comrades had left him on the ship, hurtling towards an exploding space bridge.

Surviving the explosion, Starscream spent the next fifty solar cycles searching for the AllSpark on his own, using the damaged ship as a base (and probably getting a few screws loose in his central processor in the meantime). Detecting the faint signal of the AllSpark on Earth, Starscream tapped into television broadcasts from the planet and discovered that the Autobot ship had landed there. While heading for the planet, Starscream was approached by Blackarachnia, who was also seeking the AllSpark for her own purposes and proposed an alliance. Starscream was unsurprisingly unwilling to share power, and he booted Blackarachnia out into space just before the ship warped away. Starscream was so occupied by the task, however, that he failed to notice Earth's moon appearing in the ship's path. The Arrival issue 1 One crash-landing later, Starscream abandoned the ruined hulk of the ship and headed down to Earth, immediately drawing the attention of military jets. After a brief dogfight, Starscream scanned one of the jets as an alternate mode in order to continuing searching incognito. The search did not go on long, as Starscream found the Autobots watching a Crimson Angels air show, and he quickly joined in the proceedings. Upon revealing himself to the Autobots, he quickly thrashed each of them individually. Starscream mocked them, apparently assuming that the Autobots thought they had really defeated Megatron (whom he referred to as "the great Megatron" without sarcasm, so he seems to have at least a loathing respect for his leader's power). All too boastful of his cunning, Starscream boldly admitted that Megatron was already defeated by the bomb which Starscream himself had put on him. Despite being more powerful than the Autobots, Starscream failed to take the AllSpark, partially because he spent too much time gloating. Optimus Prime grabbed Starscream in midair, and they opened the AllSpark, releasing a massive wave of energy. Optimus was killed by the energy surge and subsequent fall (he got better), while Starscream disappeared.

Starscream was hurled into the wilderness by the AllSpark energy surge, where he lay, unconscious and undisturbed, for an unspecified period of time. Eventually, Starscream came back online, only to discover that his body had succumbed to stasis lock, leaving him immobile. As "luck" would have it, it was at this moment that he was happened upon by the villainous Professor Princess, whom Starscream attempted to sweet-talk into triggering his manual reset. She was insistent upon "fixing up" Starscream first, plastering him with makeup and a wig, but when the horrified Starscream screamed at her, she just decided to blast him. Her rainbow-blast jumpstarted Starscream's systems, and he seized the Professor, but before he could reduce her to a pink stain, she threatened to broadcast an image of the prettified Starscream all over the world and perhaps the galaxy. Preferring not to be hideously embarrassed, Starscream let her live and quickly departed, unaware that she'd worked her fashion magic on his wings, too.

Starscream next appeared when he revealed himself to a badly damaged Blitzwing and Lugnut, offering them help in exchange for their loyalty. Lost and Found After repairing Lugnut and Blitzwing, Starscream continually had to reassert his authority over the two walking malfunctions, who were quick to point out that their service was by threat, not choice. As Lugnut went prostrate with praise, Starscream was initially quite flattered by the hulking Decepticon's obsequity, but quickly learned that the big guy was being manipulated by an outside source. Tracking the transmission, he came to Sumdac Tower and was quite surprised to find the disembodied head of his former leader. Megatron, aware of Starscream's betrayal after seeing a news report on his earlier battle with the Autobots Home Is Where the Spark Is but not wanting to tip his hand, greeted Starscream as a "devoted and faithful subject", while Starscream adopted a subservient attitude himself. Beginning the smug monologue to end all smug monologues, he was interrupted by the senseless heroics of the Autobot Bumblebee. Focusing his attentions on the little yellow squirt, he mistakenly assumed that Megatron was helpless, an oversight that allowed the galactic despot to control the lab's machinery and defenestrate the traitor. Even so Starscream remained fixated on Bumblebee, and thus was caught unaware when the repaired form of Megatron burst from the tower roof.

Starscream watched with interest (briefly pondering if he should side with Megatron or help the Autobots stop him), tossing Bumblebee around absentmindedly as Megatron trashed the Autobots. When Megatron called out his loyal Decepticons, Starscream gracefully landed on Lugnut's head, ready to return to his position as second-in-command. Megatron prepared to fire on the Autobots, but quickly lashed out and rammed the Key into Starscream's chest, seemingly offlining the traitor, who then crumpled to the ground.

Sometime later, Starscream awoke on a garbage barge, evidently thrown in by an Autobot cleaning up Detroit. He found he couldn't detect any energy signals, not even his own. Panicking, he wondered if he was dead, but recovered when he realized he was still on Earth. Furious, he managed to track down Lugnut and Blitzwing and to follow them to the Decepticon base. There he challenged Megatron and was soundly sliced, blasted and thrown off a cliff. However, he again revived, except now he had no spark! Starscream discovered he was being kept alive by an AllSpark fragment embedded in his head. Using this newfound immortality to his advantage, he again attacked Megatron — and again and again and again, each time taking a trouncing and having his corpse thrown off a cliff by Blitzwing and Lugnut. Discovering another fragment, he set up a trap that would draw Megatron out and blow up both him and the city. He embedded the shard in a train engine, and as the overloading machine drew out Megatron, Blitzwing, the Elite Guard AND the Earth team, the plan seemed to be working. Unfortunately, the Autobots stopped the train, and Megatron knocked Starscream out of the sky, sending him crashing into the midst of the Autobots. He blasted Ultra Magnus and took back his fragment, but was put into stasis lock when Optimus slipped some cuffs on him. He was last seen bound, gagged and being taken onto the Elite Guard vessel.

While in transit on said vessel, Starscream somehow blasted his way out, once again vowing revenge against Megatron. Magnus sent word to Optimus Prime, warning him that Starscream was most likely on his way back to Earth. Megatron, eavesdropping on the conversation, offered a substantial reward for bringing Starscream to him.

To this end, Prowl ran off by himself towards to Moon and the resting place of the Nemesis, where he ran right into Starscream. Despite getting in behind Prowl, Starscream was rather easily disabled and put in stasis cuffs. While Lockdown and Prowl battled, Starscream somehow managed to escape.

Lockdown and Prowl agreed to team up, and they tracked down an apparently very scared Starscream, who was captured easily. While Lockdown brought him to Megatron, another Starscream turned up. This Starscream tried to deal with the Autobots, suggesting they team up to deal with their common enemy, Megatron. Prowl disabled him with ease, despite making a total mess.

Shortly after Lockdown delivered "Starscream" into the hands of Megatron, the Autobots showed with the other Starscream. Confusion ensued, and suddenly both Starscreams exposed internal bombs, and a recording of the real Starscream revealed that his entire plan was to allow the clones of himself to be captured and take out all his enemies in one fell swoop. In his infinite wisdom, however, he apparently programmed the bombs to explode long after everyone had realized what had happened. Prowl sent the clones into the sky, where they exploded without destroying the city.

Afterwards, Megatron increased the bounty on Starscream, this time stipulating that it had to be the real one. Watching, Starscream cursed Megatron (again) and dismissed his failure, noting he had plenty more clones—an army of them thanks to the protoforms that Lockdown brought to the ship prior to the series.

His time alone allowed him to produce five clones of himself, which he empowered with small slivers of the AllSpark fragment in his head, giving them life. He quickly learned that each of the Starscreams was a different aspect of his personality: cowardice, ego, sycophancy, deception, and, uh, something else. He asked the female version of him where she came from, and she said not to ask. Once introductions were done, he ordered them on their merry way to Megatron's base.

Upon reaching the base, the clone army attacked, leading to a free-for-all against Megatron's forces and the Autobots who'd assembled to stop the Decepticon leader's plan. During the fight, Starscream became fed up with his female clone telling him how to handle Megatron, as he'd been working on killing him long before she existed. She was unimpressed with his results to date. Eventually, his team overwhelmed Megatron, allowing two of the clones to subdue him while Starscream prepared to deal the killing blow. Starscream relished the moment, wryly assuring Megatron that he'd tell everyone that he died fighting valiantly—after naming Starscream as his successor. Abruptly, Starscream got head-jacked by Isaac Sumdac in a Headmaster unit, hoping to kill Megatron himself, but he easily handled Starscream's body and the clones.

Starscream's inert body fell on top of his head, which put him out of action. Panicking, he told his clones to attack, but was outraged when they all sided with Megatron instead. Starscream's head was then glued to one of the walls by Mixmaster's concrete. When he tried to mock Megatron's plan for the conquest of Cybertron, he had his mouth closed by more concrete.

When Megatron's newly activated Space bridge ran out of power to maintain the portal to Cybertron, Megatron replaced the AllSpark fragment with Starscream's head, which overloaded the power systems. This caused the portal to expand and attempt to suck everything around it into itself. This included Starscream's head and Megatron, the latter of whom was disabled by Autobot stasis cuffs, which prevented him from resisting the space bridge's pull. The overload also caused the space bridge receiving coordinates to be deleted, dumping the pair into empty space. Without a body to maneuver, Starscream was forced to look at Megatron, while Megatron, still disabled by the stasis cuffs, suffered a similar problem. A long night of bickering commenced.

Still a floating head, he and Megatron had a nice friendly chat on who's fault it was that they were in this predicament whilst Starscream attempted to use his teeth to remove Megatron's stasis cuffs. He then decided to place all the blame on Megatron and in his anger his mouth transformed into a gun which shot the stasis cuffs and freed Megatron. Suddenly, the giant Autobot Omega Supreme transwarped in front of them and a frightened Starscream attempted to beg the Autobot to spare his life and that it was Megatron he was after. He looked very foolish when Megatron informed him that Omega Supreme was in sleep mode. He later floated into the Autobot to join Megatron as the Decepticon leader attempted to commandeer the Autobot superweapon. TFA Starscream Possessing OmegaStarscream takes over Omega Supreme.

After numerous failures, Starscream decided to gloat but Megatron found some use for him by plugging him into Omega Supreme and using the Allspark fragment in the head as a power source once more. Taking the giant Autobot back to Earth, he sought to destroy Optimus Prime but was pulled out of Omega's internal processor by Prowl who managed to awaken Omega Supreme's consciousness. However, things just went back to worse as Starscream had now commandeered Omega Supreme and used his giant body against the Autobots whilst taking Megatron prisoner. A cunning Megatron then said to Starscream that they should work together and return to Cybertron and rule side by side. An intrigued Starscream decided then to transform into space ship mode and make the jump into transwarp though he didn't notice Optimus Prime dumping a Space bridge component into his large body which caused random jumps through transwarp. Victory seemed to have been within his grasp as he jumped near Cybertron only to horrified that the fates conspired against him and began moving from one point in space to another constantly. In his words "No... no... NOOOOO!"

His head later appeared with Megatron on Omega Supreme when Lugnut was drifting through space after being defeated by Sentinel Prime. He then asked Megatron his opinion on hitch-hikers, something Megaron didn't take too kindly to. Decepticon Air

After they pick up Shockwave, Starscream starts playing with Lugnut's feelings when Megatron labeled Shockwave his most loyal servant until they arrive on Earth's moon. Sneaking off, Starscream builds himself a replacement body from one of the clones before Megatron arrives and then destroyed most of the remaining clone bodies. Though attempting to bargin Megatron to reconsider slagging him after lying that the clones were an army he made for him, Starscream learns the full nature of Megatron's plan to create clones of Omega Supreme.

After Starscream helped place the protoforms into the Supreme clones, he attempted to take the activation codes for himself before Lugnut shoved him out of the way and recieving them by accident. Revealing that the chain of events was all part of his plan, Megtron blasted Starscream into pieces from the waist down, stating that his services were no longer required.

Starscream soon rebuilt himself, and flew away before he could see Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ratchet, and Sari Transwarp to the Moon. Meanwhile on earth, The Lugnut Supreme clones were taken over by a program Starscream inserted, mimicking a previous attempt to destroy Megatron. Unfortunately, while Jazz and Prowl were trying to get Allspark fragments to stop the Starscream Supremes, they pulled out Starscream's spark, and he fell to the ground and finally goes offline.

Links

 * http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Starscream_(TFA)