Thundercracker (TF2017)

Thundercracker
Biographical information
Homeworld	Cybertron
Date of birth	At least over 4,000,000 B.C.
Physical description
Alternate Mode	Cybertronian jet, Boeing F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter jet
Gender	Male
Sensor color	Red
Personal information
Enemies	Autobots
Profession	Aerial Combat
Position	Warrior
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Generation 1
Affiliation	Decepticons

Thundercracker from The Transformers (2017 TV Series).

Bio

Thundercracker claims the skies as his arena. He looks down in contempt on those who cannot leave the ground — he considers them lesser beings. He will often attack the flightless beings below him for no other reason than to satisfy his scorn.

His superiority in this realm is the only thing he is sure of. Thundercracker is not entirely committed to the Decepticon cause, and even has some seemingly contradictory sympathy for the organics they terrorize. Fear of retribution from Megatron and the influence of his peers is usually enough to bury these doubts. Regardless, he needs constant reassurance from Skywarp and Starscream (which occasionally take the form of threats) that he's where he needs to be. Sometimes, his heart's just not in the job.

History

Arc 1

Thundercracker was one of Megatron's troops who attacked the Ark during its mission to clear a path for Cybertron through an asteroid field. Deactivated when the Ark crashed on Earth, Thundercracker lay dormant for four million years until the Transformers awoke in 1984, at which point he was given the new alternate mode of an Earth jet. Soon after their revival, Thundercracker joined his fellow Decepticon fliers in battling the Autobots at a drive-in movie theater, but he and Starscream were sent packing when they got a taste of Cliffjumper's glass gas. |The Beginning| Thundercracker then participated in the Decepticon strike on the Harrison Nuclear Power Plant, heralding the assault with one of his ear-splitting sonic booms. After the villains constructed a base of operations from stolen portions of the power plant, they learned that the Autobots' new human ally Sparkplug Witwicky had developed a conversion process that would allow Earth fuels to be used by the Transformers. Thundercracker took part in the attack on Sparkplug's auto repair shop, and although he didn't fare too well in the battle, being blinded by one of Sideswipe's flares, the skirmish ended with the successful abduction of the human. |Power Play|

The three jets were then unleashed upon the human military forces (begrudgingly in Thundercracker's case) who attempted a hopeless attack on the Decepticons' base. The Autobots soon joined the fray, but while Thundercracker and his comrades took potshots at them, they failed to realise that Gears and Spider-Man were using the battle as cover to sneak through and rescue Sparkplug. |Prisoner of War|

Afterwards, Thundercracker helped transport energy gathered from a Decepticon raid on Boulder Dam. |Decepticon Dam-Busters|

Refuelled with fuel created through Sparkplug's conversion formula, Thundercracker was one of the first Decepticons to enter what promised to be the final battle with the Autobots, jetting into their volcano headquarters and using his sonic booms to bring parts of the mountain down around them. Little did Thundercracker and his fellows know, Sparkplug had poisoned the formula, causing them all to collapse at the climax of fight. |The Last Stand| Decepticon logician Shockwave then took command of the crippled Decepticon forces and the Ark shortly thereafter and nursed Thundercracker and his comrades back to full health. |The New Order| They all swore loyalty to Shockwave after he defeated Megatron in combat. |The Worst of Two Evils|

Post Arc 1

Following the disappearance of both Megatron and Shockwave, the Decepticons fell under Soundwave's leadership, and Thundercracker aided in his plan to capture Bumblebee for use as bait in a trap for Optimus Prime. Though Thundercracker's initial sonic attack disoriented Prime, the Autobot leader soon overpowered all three Decepticon jets. |Crisis of Command|

The jets were dispatched to England to investigate a Cybertronian signal that they soon discovered was emanating from an spaceship that had crashed there centuries before. Reports of this mission are contradictory; one account had Thundercracker seriously wounded by a bomb from Bluestreak during an early attack on the Autobots, but another stated that Thundercracker crashed to the ground after his sensors were scrambled by the Autobot Mirage, and still another identified him as the killer of the craft's occupant, the Man of Iron. |Man of Iron|

When Starscream fired upon his teammate Ravage for eavesdropping on his plot to overthrow Megatron, Thundercracker teamed up with Skywarp to capture the Decepticon Air Commander. Starscream argued for a trial by combat, and the subsequent proceedings were manipulated to suggest treachery by the Autobots, prompting the Decepticons to forget his misdoings and launch a vengeful attack on the Ark. |The Enemy Within| That battle was ended prematurely when Aunty, the Ark's computer system, magnetized the walls, immobilizing both factions. |Raiders of the Last Ark|

With Megatron out of action (again), Thundercracker fell under Soundwave's command and assisted him in capturing the rogue Dinobot Sludge as well as the hapless Cliffjumper, Windcharger, and Gears. By setting Sludge against Grimlock in the human town of Doonstown and booby-trapping their own shuttle against Optimus Prime's Autobots when they arrived, Soundwave, Thundercracker, and Skywarp managed to inflict significant casualties on the enemy and won the day for the Decepticons. |Dinobot Hunt| After being left in stasis lock, Grimlock would dream of comprehensively defeating Thundercracker and the other Decepticons before being slain in turn by Starscream. |Victory|

Arc 2

Breaking away from Soundwave, Thundercracker and his fellow jets returned to the Blackrock oil rig, but soon found their makeshift base surrounded by government forces, leaving them trapped for weeks. Shockwave returned to help them make their getaway, then charged the trio with using a power siphon to convert sound energy from a Brick Springhorn concert into more cubes. They were bested in the attempt by the Autobots. |Rock and Roll-Out| Later, Thundercracker helped Shockwave attempt to capture and brainwash Bumblebee into a Decepticon. |Plight of the Bumblebee|

The scattered Decepticon forces were then re-integrated when Thundercracker, his fellow jets, and Shockwave were brought to the new base the returned Megatron had established in Wyoming. |The Bridge to Nowhere| At Megatron's command, Thundercracker was part of a Decepticon unit who headed out to welcome new troops who had crossed the space bridge from Cybertron. No sooner had they discovered that the new arrivals were actually Autobots than they were alerted by Shockwave to a full-scale Autobot attack on their base. Believing that this meant the Ark was undefended, Megatron had his unit attack it instead, only for them to run afoul of the Ark's powerful new guardian, Omega Supreme. The mighty Omega deactivated most of the Decepticons, Thundercracker included, and their bodies were imprisoned in stasis by the Autobots. |Command Performances| Thundercracker's imprisonment did not last too long, however; a malfunction in Starscream's stasis capsule allow him to escape, and before fleeing the Ark, he set Thundercracker and Frenzy's capsules to revive them. Awakening to find themselves in a nearly-empty Ark, the confused pair wandered back to the Decepticon base, which they found to be just as deserted, save for an ill-tempered Shockwave. Before the three could take stock of the situation, they were temporarily mass-displaced to the interdimensional realm of Limbo when Hot Rod, Kup, and Blurr time-jumped from 2005. |Target: 2005| During their brief stay in this strange twilight realm, the three Decepticons — along with Optimus Prime, Prowl, and Ratchet — were drawn into a conflict between the peaceful Cloran and the forces of the evil Zenag, which was ultimately revealed to be only an illusion created by Limbo's native parasites. |Distant Thunder|

Much later, with Shockwave once more in charge, Thundercracker soon found himself pitted against yet another contender for leadership of the Decepticons: Galvatron, once more back from the future. Upon detecting Galvatron's explosive arrival on Earth, Shockwave mobilized the Decepticons to aid the Dinobots in battling the mad time-traveler. As soon as Soundwave and the other Decepticons joined the fray, Galvatron fled, unwilling to kill his own future-troops. |Fallen Angel|

When Megatron went missing after a failed assassination attempted mastermined by Shockwave, Frenzy and Thundercrackerr was minding his own business when suddenly, in a flash of light, Megatron appeared in front of him, having teleported in across the space bridge. Distressed he called for Shockwave, but nobody suffered any repercussions, as the trip had addled Megatron's memories. |Resurrection|

Thundercracker was idling about in Megatron's throne room, where he witnessed the now mentally unhinged faction leader lash out erratically to all those around him. He soon accompanied his fellow Decepticons to a new base in the Caribbean, during which time Megatron disappeared and Shockwave once again assumed command of the Earth-bound Decepticons. |Gone but Not Forgotten|

Arc 3

After Megatron's apparent demise, Thundercracker stood by while his new commander, Shockwave, spoke to Ratbat on Cybertron about the temporary use of Trypticon on Earth. |King of the Hill|

Later, he was among the Decepticons present when Galvatron attacked their new underwater headquarters, ready to try and gun down their near-invincible opponent as he breached their defenses. However, upon doing so, Galvatron told the Decepticons that he had only wished to talk to them, and that Shockwave's choice to respond to his arrival with violence had taken that option off the table. Thundercracker turned to Shockwave, none-too-impressed with how he had handled the matter as Galvatron took off. |Enemy Action|

When the Autobots launched an attack on the Decepticons' island headquarters to rescue a recently captured Buster Witwicky, Shockwave converted the landmass into its rocket-ship mode and had it blast off into space. Thundercracker was standing at the ready, within the ship's control room, as this took place. |The Desert Island of Space|

Thundercracker was later part of a major offensive against the Autobots on the moon, when the crews of the Ark and Steelhaven all gathered together as one big target. Though he and the rest of the Decepticons were forced to retreat when Grimlock and Blaster joined the battle. |Totaled| He was later part of the large platoon of Decepticons that assumed battle stations in response to the approach of rival Decepticon leader Scorponok's faction upon their iceberg base. Though both groups tentatively tried to unite at first, Scorponok and Ratbat's troops were eventually manipulated into battling one another by Starscream. |Cold War|

Trivia

• Graham McTavish reprises his role as Thundercracker.

Changes

• Thundercracker replaces Scavenger on Soundwave's team in Dinobot Hunt.
• Thudnercracker wasn't in Grimlock's dream in Victory!
• The Plight of the Bumblebee! comic didn't make clear who was the other Seeker in the group hunting Bumblebee (most probably Skywarp). So they included both Skywarp and Thundercracker to avoid confusion.
• The episode form of Target: 2006 was renamed Target: 2005, and all references to 2006 were also changed to accomodate.
• Thundercracker and Frenzy didn't appear in the Fallen Angel comic, Resurrection!, Gone but Not Forgotten!, or Enemy Action!
• Thundercracker replaces Drag Strip's role in King of the Hill!
• Thundercracker didn't appear in The Desert Island of Space!
• Thundercracker was not depicted in the UK comic as part of the Decepticon assault in Totaled!