Jhiaxus (G2)


 * Jhiaxus is a character from the Generation 2 portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Jhiaxus is no ordinary Decepticon. He and his faction left Cybertron eons ago and formed a Cybertronian empire of cyberformed planets. He views the original Autobots and Decepticons as evolutionary throwbacks, simple animals, insults to his race's memory which must be wiped out. But his ice-cold demeanor of control and amoral objectivity is merely a facade. It is only a mask, a face he wears to forget the mad tyrant he once was. He has been repressing this side of himself, burying it, for millennia. Unfortunately, recent encounters with Autobots and Decepticons have been testing his resolve...

Jhiaxus is not one for improvisation. He has been denying his impulses for so long, it has weakened his ability to think on his feet in many situations. Once Jhiaxus has set a course of action, it is tough for him to diverge from his strategy.

Generation 2
"We had order. Structure. A perfect, faultless mechanism that was destined to re-shape the galaxy.  Then you came!  Old, flawed... an evolutionary stage we had risen far beyond.  A reminder of every primal instinct we had buried."

- Jhiaxus doesn't like Optimus Prime very much

Millions of years ago, some time after Prime and Megatron left Cybertron and crashed on Earth, Jhiaxus was born through the long-forgotten "budding" means of reproduction. At first a cruel and petty tyrant ruled by his irrational desires, Jhiaxus learned slowly to bury this part of himself beneath layers of icy control. Tired of the Autobot/Decepticon conflict, Jhiaxus left his budded brethren into space, determined to begin a new Cybertronian Empire free of the war waged by those he deemed "evolutionary throwbacks." He was anointed the rank Liege Centuro of this new Cybertronian empire by the Liege Maximo, and Jhiaxus began to wipe out inferior life and terraform their conquered worlds.

A decade after Prime and Megatron's war had restarted on Earth, Prime and his Autobots found out about this empire while pursuing the remnants of Bludgeon's Decepticons across the universe. Quickly therafter, Jhiaxus's ship, the Twilight, abducted them and delighted in telling Prime and Grimlock that for his side of the universe, the war had been over for millions of years and that Prime and his adversaries were embarrassments to him. Jhiaxus hoped that Prime would see the error of his ways, but he escaped in stolen ship with his fellow Autobots. However, Jhiaxus had launched a ship of his own to follow them.

Jhiaxus traced the Autobots to the K'Tord Nebula, and his Cybertronians battled Prime's bitterly on the surface of one of its planets. Parasitic creatures on the planet began to feed on the hate and fury buried in the minds of both sides, which caused Jhiaxus to revert back to the barbaric version of himself he thought he'd long buried. Despite Prime's own problems with the parasites' induced rage, he was able to convince Jhiaxus and their respective warriors to stop fighting and leave their separate ways. Jhiaxus retreated to his flagship, and thanked the maker that, as far as he knew, there were no Decepticons left of the original generation to cause him further conflict. Sadly, he was misinformed.



When Grimlock and a bloodthirsty group of Autobots tried to sneak a Chaosmaster Bomb on board the Twilight, Jhiaxus easily saw through their ruse. He shipped the survivors in a prison ship to be examined by the Liege Maximo, but the ship was intercepted by Optimus Prime. Later, Jhiaxus made a visit to New, a recently conquered planet the Cybertronian Empire was busy eco-structuring into a Cybertron-like planet. Though the process was ahead of schedule, Jhiaxus was still disappointed. The Autobots had mysteriously halted their attacks on his empire, and their absence worried him.

One of his teams crossed paths with the original-generation Decepticons, and the incident ended badly. Jhiaxus decided to make his move, and ordered a full-scale attack on Megatron's Warworld near Tykos. This altercation resulted in casualties in Megatron's forces while Jhiaxus battled Megatron himself in orbit. Jhiaxus relished condescending to his opponent, an act reinforced by his superior might. He shot Megatron out of orbit, leaving him for dead on the moon's surface. However, Megatron miraculously survived, and his Decepticons and the Autobots forged an uneasy alliance against the Cybertronian Empire. Increasingly frustrated, he vowed to escalate his galactic efforts, ordering that every planet be stripped of life. He hoped to force the hand of the original generation Transformers and overwhelm them, a plan that nearly worked on Ethos against the Autobots until Decepticon reinforcements arrived. Indeed, the battle there decimated the best of Jhiaxus's forces. But Jhiaxus soon gained an unexpected advantage—Starscream sold out the location of the original generation's base of operations in exchange for a high-ranking position.

Jhiaxus attacked the base on Earth. The headquarters itself was quickly destroyed, but Optimus and Megatron's troops fought back strongly and met the challenge equally. Jhiaxus wanted to end the conflict here and then, so he called for reinforcements from every corner of his Empire. Adding insult to injury, Jhiaxus was informed that his troops had lost the Warworld to the backstabbing Starscream. Jhiaxus lost his composure, and when he tossed his subordinate, Rook, in anger, Rook arranged a trip to the Liege Maximo. Jhiaxus returned to the Twilight, and upon receiving a transmission from Optimus Prime onboard the Warworld, he acted upon his anger by targeting a random spot on the Earth with nuclear weapons. Before Jhiaxus could order another shot, the Twilight was knocked away by a blast from the Warworld and the Swarm arrived.

Despite his officers' pleas to withdraw, Jhiaxus's troops were ordered to stay their ground even as the Swarm ate its way through them effortlessly. Optimus Prime, ever trying to reach a solution, arrived on the Twilight to talk, but Jhiaxus would not have it. He threw Prime around, powered by his increasing rage, and blamed him for how his life, his empire, had disintegrated. Before he could strike the final blow, however, the Swarm broke through the bridge of the Twilight, and Jhiaxus challenged it. Jhiaxus was consumed.

Universe


Unicron abducted a Jhiaxus's Spark and stripped him of his rank and power. Though he once again wears the brand of an ordinary Decepticon, he still nurses a hatred towards Autobot and Decepticon alike. They are all, of course, unevolved, inferior throw-backs. This bias forces him to work alone.

While still abducted by Unicron, Jhiaxus was kept locked inside one of the chambers within the Cauldron and periodically forced to combat other Transformers so that Unicron could feed on the loser's Spark. He was freed along with countless others when Optimus Primal orchestrated a prison break.

IDW comics continuity


Jhiaxus was Nova Prime's chief theoretical strategist and pioneer of gestalt technology. It is implied that he left with his leader aboard the original Ark spacecraft and subsequently was lost in the Benzuli Expanse. He created the first combiner robot, Monstructor, in an attempt to engineer the ultimate Transformer. Unfortunately, the combination process drove its members insane. They proved too volatile to remain free, and were eventually imprisoned by Omega Supreme after Jhiaxus's departure. Amongst his other experiments was the introduction of gender to the Cybertronian genome, produced by his tampering with the CNA of Arcee, having the slight side effect of turning her psychotic. His present ministrations involve the prepping of the Nega-Core, in anticipation of the Expansion.

He suspects Galvatron of having his own agenda, though he admits that Galvatron serves their purposes well. The point will be moot, however, once his and Nova Prime's (now Nemesis Prime) far-reaching plans are unfurled...

Robots in Disguise

 * Jhiaxus (Deluxe, 2003)


 * Jhiaxus is a redeco of the deluxe-sized Jetstorm toy in orange and gray. His jet-mode cockpit has a spring-loaded extension, giving him a bird-like head in this form that is articulated at the neck to "search" for targets. Both jet and robot modes feature spring-loaded "energy blast" missiles. He also has an alternate robot mode, which folds his legs into a "flight cone" and reveals jet thrusters.


 * This mold was also used for Sonic Attack Jet, Robots in Disguise Storm Jet, and Universe Skywarp.

Trivia

 * Jhiaxus's name is a pun on "gee, axe us", a phrase which expressed writer Simon Furman's dread of the G2 comic's cancellation by Marvel.
 * Generation 2 Jhiaxus's robot mode design seems to be based loosely on the Seekers. He keeps the air-duct boobs, the cockpit torso, the ear-vents, the wing placement, one shoulder-mounted jet engine (including Starscream's stickers), and a nosecone on the back of the head.
 * In the IDW continuity, Jhiaxus' obsession with improving the Cybertronian form has led to him altering even his own body. This has resulted in a chassis that strongly resembles an entirely different Starscream.