Skywarp/Cartoon continuity

Skywarp was the teleporting purple jet guy in your favorite 1980s cartoon.

The Transformers cartoon
Skywarp was one of the elite Decepticons that served Megatron on Cybertron millions of years ago. In the early days of the Decepticon rebellion, he and Thundercracker both faced the powerful protectors of Cybertron's cities, the Guardian robots; even millions of years later, the powerful Guardians struck fear into Skywarp's laser core.

Four million years ago, Skywarp and his fellow Seekers were stationed a mega-mile out from the bridge to Iacon when Autobots Wheeljack and Bumblebee returned from pilfering energy conductors. Once Wheeljack broke through their defenses, Skywarp and Thundercracker transformed to their tetrajet modes and followed the Autobots. They managed to get a good shot in against Bumblebee, but soon both Autobots escaped termination by taking the chase underground. Skywarp later joined Megatron in attacking and boarding the Autobot ship on their search for energy. After crash-landing on Earth, the Decepticons and Autobots laid dormant for four million years, until volcanic activity stirred the ship's computer back to life. Skywarp was the first of the ship's Transformers to be reformatted and awakened by Teletraan I, in the form of an Earthly F-15 fighter jet. Once active, Skywarp immediately dragged his master Megatron's body into the reformatting rays of the Autobot ship's computer, and soon all the Decepticons were revived.

Since the Decepticons were so badly short-staffed during their early days on Earth, Skywarp was usually involved in whatever crazy plot for universal domination Megatron was hatching. This included attacks on an off-shore oil rig, Sherman Dam and the ruby crystal mines of Burma. On the last raid, Skywarp and Thundercracker caught a pair of snoops — Bumblebee and the human, Sparkplug Witwicky, and were knocking the little Autobot around for fun, pondering how to giftwrap him for Megatron, when an explosive the pair had planted detonated and caved the mine in around them. When the Decepticons escaped the Burma operation with a cache of energon cubes, Skywarp requested permission from Megatron to teleport in order to scare off Autobot pursuers. Teleporting behind the airborne duo of Ironhide and Bluestreak, Skywarp pasted the ornery old Autobot with a heat-seeking missile, knocking him out of the sky. Subsequently, when the Autobots laid siege to the Decepticons' staging base, Skywarp wielded his leader in pistol mode against their attackers.

When Bumblebee was caught spying on the Decepticons' new space bridge, Skywarp and Starscream captured him for Megatron. After Bumblebee was reprogrammed to lead the Autobots into a trap, Skywarp biffed Prowl from behind, causing him to fall down in an almost pushing-down-stairs-like fashion.



After the Decepticons acquired an antimatter formula, they were en route to Autobot Headquarters when Sunstreaker and Sideswipe intercepted them, practicing their jet judo maneuvers. Skywarp was being thrown off-course by Sideswipe's antics until Starscream knocked the Autobot warrior loose. During the battle, Megatron charged himself up with the Decepticons' new toy, and transformed into an "anti-matter gun" to obliterate the Autobots. When Megatron was knocked from Starscream's grip, Skywarp snatched him up to get in on the action, but before he could start blasting, Spike Witwicky attacked his leg with a jackhammer. He scooped up the puny fleshling and was about to blast him with the anti-matter gun (and, incidentally, probably blow his own hand off in the process) when Chip Chase attached a computer override device invented by Wheeljack, which allowed Teletraan I to take brief control of his body. Skywarp started firing Megatron's anti-matter power at the other Decepticons, overheating the unstable power supply and forcing the Decepticons to retreat.

Skywarp was later part of a Decepticon raid on a factory, apparently in a very playful mood with his teleporting power. First he 'ported behind some human guards to taunt them before making them scatter with laser fire. Then, when Thundercracker blasted open some power lines to begin filling his energon cubes, Skywarp "cut in line" by teleporting between Thundercracker and the energy to fill his own cube first. When Optimus Prime showed up to stop them, Skywarp fired a heat-seeking missile at him, only for Prime to deflect it with a punch. The Autobot was eventually defeated, and Skywarp ran off with some energon cubes.

When the Decepticons began draining heat energy out of Earth's core using a crystal shaft in the Arctic, Skywarp got a bit bored at the lack of real action. He was in the middle of taunting Rumble when the two of them accidentally caused a miniature avalanche in one of the caves. By sheer happenstance, this led to the Decepticons recovering the long-lost Skyfire from an icy tomb. Skywarp helped perform repairs on the giant flier, though it was probably better for all concerned if somebody with actual knowledge had performed these repairs.

During a battle at Great Falls hydroelectric power facility, the newly constructed Dinobots arrived to rescue the beleaguered Autobots, who had been captured by the Decepticons. Skywarp foolishly attempted to beat the flamethrowing Slag with a mere pair of heat-seeking missiles, and ended up being grabbed out of the air by the mighty jaws of Grimlock, who chomped on his wing and threw Skywarp into his fellow Megatron loyalist Soundwave. Soon afterwards, during an operation in Peru, Skywarp got to be Megatron's favorite Seeker for the day after Starscream and Thundercracker stole poor-quality steel for their latest super-weapon. He had fun taunting the egotistic Starscream when Megatron called him to battle, leaving the other Seekers behind on mere guard duty. Later, Skywarp helped Megatron steal a giant meteor, although its unstable power proved too dangerous to use for energon cubes.

Skywarp was in a playful mood during the Decepticons' raid of a solar power plant in India, cracking wise and hoping to play a game of catch... with the maharaja he had captured as the ball. He had even more fun in a quick free-for-all with the Autobots, a distraction so that the Decepticons could kidnap one of the Autobots' fleshling friends as a guinea pig for Doctor Arkeville's mind-control experiments. Skywarp enjoyed himself so much, he got in a fight with Starscream on the way back to headquarters about how brilliant Megatron's plan was. Thundercracker had to jump out of the way while the two of them roughhoused in the elevator. Thanks in part to Arkeville's hypno-chip slaves, the Decepticons were able to bring Cybertron into Earth's orbit, creating massive environmental disturbances that produced millions of energon cubes. What's more, transporting energon to Cybertron was now just a short flight away. Unfortunately, the devastation was greater than Megatron had anticipated. While Skywarp was on a return flight from Cybertron, a tidal wave broke off the access tower to the Decepticons' undersea base, flooding it. Skywarp was present at the final battle before the Autobots knocked Cybertron out of orbit, and fled when Megatron abandoned his troops to escape with the energon cubes. With Megatron seemingly destroyed as his star cruiser exploded with the cubes on board, the Decepticons were left rudderless. While working on repairs for their undersea base, tempers flared as Skywarp picked a fight with his favorite target, Rumble, and his pint-sized partner, Frenzy. Skywarp bit off more than he could chew, however, as Frenzy's surprising strength overcame Skywarp as he tried to crush the mini-cassette beneath his heel. Thundercracker and Soundwave started to get involved in the fracas too, but Megatron soon arrived to put his house back in order.

Like all Decepticons, Skywarp provided his power chip rectifier to Megatron for his single combat with Optimus Prime. When the Decepticons attacked another rocket base, Skywarp and Thundercracker attempted to double-team Optimus Prime, but only succeeded in destroying the very rockets they came to plunder. Later, the Decepticons attacked a mining camp to lure the Autobots out into the open, and Skywarp stood guard over the humans being used as bait. After they used the opportunity to kidnap Gears for his special circuit board, Skywarp later helped fill the energon cubes from Megatron's Solar Needle. As the Decepticons took over New York to create the city of New Cybertron, Skywarp was seen loading cars into Mixmaster's drum for reconstruction. He and Thundercracker were later damaged after trying to take some potshots at Optimus Prime, only to miss and crash straight through a building in the process. He also served in a later assault on the Ark, distracting the Autobots long enough for Megatron to sneak inside and mess with their recharging chambers.

Rather stoic in recent weeks, Skywarp was back to his cheery but malicious self when he and Starscream went after some electro-cells at the Experimental Energy Research Laboratory. While breaking through the roof of the installation, Skywarp merrily remarked on the joy of opening presents. During a fight with the Autobot named Mirage, one of Skywarp's insignia was ripped off, and later planted to help turn the Insecticons against the Decepticons. During a battle with the Autobots over the Immobilizer, Skywarp unleashed his new toy: a bouncer bomb. This weapon ricocheted through the trees, explosively bouncing from one side of the battlefield to another. Unfortunately, the Decepticons were also subject to its "friendly fire" until Megatron shot the blasted thing down.

Skywarp's teleportation power did come in useful when he was needed to sneak up on the Autobots with the Transfixatron. One quick zap and they were all frozen in vehicle mode. However, he failed to zap ALL the Autobots, which ultimately led to the undoing of Megatron's scheme. Skywarp was present during the Decepticon alliance with Sub-Atlantica, and was part of their attack on Washington D.C. He and Thundercracker strafed the Autobots while in battle on the Great Lawn. When the Decepticons stole the ninja robot Nightbird, Skywarp used his grapples to pull the roof off the demonstration amphitheater, allowing Starscream and Thundercracker to swoop in and grab the robot.

Skywarp and his flying buddies once attempted to triple-team Optimus Prime in battle, but failed to do more than provide Optimus with a chance to toss a good quip. Strangely, Skywarp was later seen throwing what looking like a standard pineapple grenade at the Autobots. It was effective enough, but looked as out of place as an AK or a tommygun in Transformer hands. When the Decepticons made yet another attempt at harnessing some sort of power from the Earth's core, Skywarp defended their drilling operation from the Autobots. He and the Seekers attempted to bomb the Autobots from the air, but a scattering of explosive missiles from Bluestreak's shoulder launchers took them out of the fight.

During the assault on Iron Mountain, Skywarp was briefly taken over by Bombshell's cerebro-shells during a tiff between Megatron and the Insecticons. He also joined the Decepticon expedition to Dinobot Island, to loot and plunder its various sources of energy. Skywarp was eager to do battle with the Dinobots when they arrived to defend their new home...which just goes to show Skywarp's kinda stupid. When the Autobots eventually arrived to help drive the Decepticons off Dinobot Island, they were aided by a band of dinosaurs themselves, prodded onward by Grimlock. Skywarp and Thundercracker found their lasers ineffective against the charging brutes, and were forced to retreat with the rest of their army.

During some aerial dogfighting with the Autobot ace, Powerglide, Skywarp took a nasty hit to the wing. He must have managed to limp back to base, because he was present for Megatron's interrogation of the Constructicons a short while later. When the Decepticons went after Wheeljack's latest super-weapon, the Negavator, Skywarp and the Seekers strafed the Autobot convoy in a box canyon. Their efforts were blocked by Smokescreen's disruptor beams and magnetic smoke, which left the Seekers unable to see or navigate in any way. Skywarp and Thrust ended up in a three-way collision with each other and a canyon wall. Once, the Decepticons were pre-emptively celebrating the destruction of the Autobots after Megatron acquired the Heart of Cybertron. They got over-energized on energon cubes and passed out in the desert. Five'll get you ten, whoever passed out closest to Skywarp woke up with a Scraplet drawn on their face in permanent marker.

Skywarp was a participant in the ultimate prank against the Autobots. Using Autobot costumes left over from last Halloween, Skywarp and some others raided an oil refinery for fuel, only to be driven off when the "heroic" Decepticons arrived to stop the "evil" Autobots. The entire scene was filmed by Shawn Berger and used to smear the Autobots' good name so severely that they were forced to abandon Earth entirely in a rocket cruiser. Ha HA! The fleshlings didn't appreciate the joke when they found out the punchline, but Skywarp and the Decepticons were too busy enslaving Central City to care. As bad luck would have it, though, the Autobots managed to make their way back to Earth, and drive off the Decepticon occupation. Killjoys.

When the Decepticons set up a temporary base of operations at the airport, Optimus Prime sent in the Dinobots to clear them out. Skywarp and the other jets were caught off-guard initially, but the Decepticons had learned from previous encounters that the Dinobots were more vulnerable in their robot modes. By feigning defeat, Skywarp and the others lured the Dinobots into a false sense of security, and they transformed back to robot mode. Skywarp and Megatron then unleashed a barrage of energy, igniting the jumbo jets on the tarmac and causing the Dinobots tremendous damage. The Decepticons finally scored a decent victory against the Dinos, and they owed it all to a dirty underhanded sneak attack. It was a good day to be Skywarp.

Skywarp joined the Decepticons on a mission to Great Britain, after which, like most of the Decepticons, he was rendered temporarily invulnerable due to exposure to electrum. Invincibility didn't make him any better a prison guard, though, as even Beachcomber was able to overpower him and escape from the Decepticons' undersea headquarters. Skywarp was seen delivering the Insecticons' share of the energon harvested from their clones using Megatron's energon transference process. Since the meager three cubes the Insecticons got were a small pittance compared to how many were actually being generated, Skywarp was surely snickering to himself as he handed them over. When the space bridge materialized in the middle of a baseball stadium, Skywarp and Soundwave got into a friendly game of catch...with flesh-creatures as the ball. Then the Autobots had to show up and ruin their fun.

When Skywarp and the Seekers kidnapped a group of Earth's world leaders, they ran into the Aerialbots during their getaway. Skywarp nearly nailed Slingshot with a loop-the-loop, coming down on him from above, but was shot down by Skydive. A while later, Skywarp and Thundercracker were guarding the space bridge when Starscream, recently banished from the Decepticon ranks, arrived. Refusing him access without proper authorization, Skywarp quickly accepted that having a null ray shoved in his faced was good enough authorization for him, and the pair allowed Starscream to travel to Cybertron.

Starscream's schemes resulted in the creation of the Combaticons, who soon joined with the main Decepticon force, but when they went missing, Megatron ordered Skywarp to visit their headquarters to check up on their progress in the latest Decepticon scheme. Upon finding a trail of Combaticon parts leading from the base, Skywarp just gawped at the debris until an exasperated Megatron had to instruct him to follow the trail. He and Starscream found Swindle at the end of the trail, dumping off junked Combaticon parts, and dragged him back to base. Soon after, Skywarp took part in the Decepticons' attack on Autobot Headquarters using their orbit disruptor cannon.