Starscream (TFA)


 * Starscream is a Decepticon from the Transformers Animated continuity family.



Starscream is easily as accomplished, powerful and deserving of leadership as Megatron. At least, that's what he thinks. Power-hungry and driven by jealousy, Starscream operates through three ideals: lying, manipulation and deception. And when all else fails, a bit of sabotage never goes astray. Wise bots are careful about turning their backs on Starscream, just in case it's the day he finally decides to shove in the knife.

Though not as powerful as Megatron (despite what he thinks of himself), Starscream is by no means a wimp. His null-rays can demolish large buildings, and he can fly around so fast that he can break free of Ratchet's magnetic powers. Unfortunately, all these abilities are offset by an enormous ego and the tendency to make long, overbearing speeches when he should just get on it with and fight. More than once, his leanings towards bombast have caused him to miss a golden opportunity. Sadly, he doesn't seem to be learning from these mistakes.

"Don't worry. I'll tell them all you went offline valiantly... just after you named me as your successor!"

- Starscream to a bound Megatron

Animated cartoon

 * Voice actor: Tom Kenny (English), Stefan Staudinger (German)

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 backplanting 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, howevever, that he failed to notice Earth's moon appearing in the ship's path.'' 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. 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  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 yellow little 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, 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 Decepticons, not even himself. 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.



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...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.

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. Poor Screamer.

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.

Animated



 * Starscream (Voyager, 2008)
 * Accessories: 2 missiles


 * Starscream transforms into a futuristic, forward-swept wing fighter jet based upon the Su-47 (S-37) Berkut Experimental Fighter and the YF-19 "Alpha One" from the series Macross Plus.


 * His null ray cannons can slide forward, opening panels on his forearms. Landing gear in his vehicle mode flip down from his undercarriage, and his null rays flip forward or back for a "hidden" attack.  He also features two automorph gimmicks.  When his nose cone is pushed in, his undercarriage folds into his hips.  Folding his shoulders down also pushes up his head.  Though not really an "automorph", with the arms and legs out of the way, his spring loaded wings fold down by themselves.  His arms are also just poseable enough to stroke that enormous chin.


 * His missiles have tiny shark faces molded into them.


 * As with past incarnations, Starscream will be redecoed as Animated Skywarp.


 * Starscream (Activators, 2008)


 * A smaller, simpler version of Starscream, the Activators Starscream toy has a spring-loaded autotransform gimmick that springs him from harrier jet mode to robot mode in one easy step, although robot to harrier jet mode is still that good old manual click-it-up yourself transformation, giving you the best of both worlds.


 * Activators Starscream greatly resembles Voyager Starscream, especially when compared to several other Activators and their respective larger toys, with the only discernible difference between Activators and Voyager Starscream is that Activator Starscream's wings sit lower on his back. Most notably, this toy possesses more show-accurate null-rays than its Voyager counterpart, due to the lack of a launching mechanism.


 * This mold was also used to make Animated Thundercracker.


 * Starscream (McDonald's Happy Meal Toy, 2008)


 * A simple version of Starscream with a very simple transformation sequence. A tad unique among the McDonald's Animated toys, he has given up a toy accurate vehicle mode for a toy accurate robot mode. You transform him by splitting the front of the jet to form the legs, snapping up the feet, lowering the rear wings and rotating his head.  His robot mode, save for the fact the wings are pointing the wrong direction and that he is missing his guns, is decently show-accurate, but his vehicle mode totally sucks.  Plain and simple.

Trivia

 * Though he never truly took out Megatron, this Starscream may be the most successful to bear the name to date.
 * First, Starscream was responsible for reducing Megatron into a talking head. Now Sumdac's turned him into a talking head. Karma's a funny thing.
 * Starscream's toys seem to have the tendency to never actually bear his gray colors, instead having various blues and purples.
 * This is not the first Starscream to persistently cheat death. Some others beat him to the punch.