[TF] Seven Sexy Soundwaves
Ah Soundwave! You remember Soundwave, right? The stalwart, stoic guy with the cool voice and all the mini-cassettes inside? Sure you do, he's Michiyamenotehi Funana's favorite obscure Transformer! The crowd goes nuts when he takes the stage and our cries and screams are music to his ears. Often imitated, never equaled, no one could forget his signature style.
This article is about various uses of Soundwave's character model, including Soundwave's various 'looks' and some generics/recolor characters who are not Soundwave but share his bodyframe.
This is Soundwave in the 1984 cartoon, chances are that when you think of Soundwave you think of him. He had an awesome voice!
However if you were a Transformers fan past 1987 (when the cartoon ended) chances are you were reading the Marvel Comic and you remember Soundwave this way: Bright purple and with a pretty, pretty mouth.
A lot of the Marvel Comics character models got funky colors in their character reference sheets which caused them to appear in funny colors throughout the rest of the comic. Soundwave in particular kept flashing back between this and a more toy-based blue depending on the issue.
God bless Nelson Yomtov.
However if you think sex is boring without frogs and get your underwear out of vending machines you probably remember Soundblaster.
In 1987 the Transformers cartoon branched into two pieces. In America we had a 3-episode miniseries which ended the series. In Japan they had 3 more series, the first of which was called Headmasters.
(It is terrible.)
In Headmasters Soundwave died during a duel with his Autobot counterpart Blaster and was rebuilt into Soundblaster (or if you were in Malaysia New Soundwave) He sports a brand-new black paintjob and his toy was reissued in these colors with an expanded chest-compartment capable of holding two of his cassettes at once. (The expanded chest compartment even shows up on his character model, look!)
In some continuities (universes) Soundblaster is a separate character. But not many.
If you were part of the online fandom during the late 1990's you might even remember this guy who is not Soundwave. Probably.
This guy appears in a flashback during the Beast Machines cartoon as a Transformer who sacrifices himself to save a kid-appeal ethnic stereotype.
Here's a picture:
This is a re-use of a computer-model Mainframe Entertainment created 2 years prior for "The Agenda", a Beast Wars episode which featured Soundwave's comatose semi-corpse as a background prop. Here's a picture of Soundwave's corpse:
Mainframe made several changes to the computer model when it appeared in Beast Machines, mostly stripping off details. Model re-use like this was pretty common for the Mainframe TV series; we saw bits-and-pieces of Soundwave used for several other background characters (most noticeably his head) but this guy used his whole body (minus his shoulder-canon) and though colors were changed, the end result is still really, well... Soundwavey.
But it's not him. Probably. If it was him he'd be 6' tall though, so it's probably not him.
I call him Squarewave out of a need to call him something when referring to him.
And then there's this guy, who is not Soundwave at all. Heck, he's not even from Generation 1!
The 2004 Armada cartoon featured a lot of classic G1 character-models re-used as background characters, much like Squarewave above. This is one such model. He appeared in the episode "Dash" as one of the final guardians trying to prevent a kid-appeal-yellow car type from gaining access to Galvatron's lair. Notably: He succeeded where all others had failed. Go Generic Soundwave!
I think he looks rather nifty! I call him Sinewave out of the aforementioned need to call him something.
We now move back to characters who are Soundwave, sort of.
Sir Soundwave is Soundwave's Shattered Glass (mirror universe) double. He is a beat-laying urban poet with a chilled-out attitude. Also he wears a headband sometimes.
This guy has actually had three toys, can you believe it? In 2007 Takara released a MP3-player version of Soundwave in 3 color schemes. 'classic', Soundblaster-colored and "Sonic White" Soundwave whose cassette-deck mode was solid white (like an iPod, get it?) and sported only a few blue highlights. When Transformers started doing its Shattered Glass thing in 2009 they appropriated this funky color scheme for their mirror-U Soundwave. Then in 2012 there was a Botcon toy of Sir Soundwave -- this time turning into a van and sporting an awesome headband. His blues are much brighter.
Then Takara (the company which produced Transformers in Japan) saw the Botcon toy and was all "Ooh, we likey!" and recolored the classic G1 Soundwave like it, adding more neon green and bright blue. It is gorgeous.
See, Takara needs Soundwaves. Fans love the classic cassette-tapes so they keep releasing club-exclusive recolors as new characters. There are like 50 of them now and most of them have actually appeared in TF fiction. Takara quickly realized that if they bundle the tapes with re-releases of Soundwave and Blaster fans will buy these much more expensive toys just to get the cassettes. It's like printing money! So they've been releasing these guys with slight paint-deco variants for several years now, with new cassette partners. (A magenta comics-inspired version is just a matter of time.)
So it was sort of a relief when Takara found out about Shattered Glass, and Soundwave was #1 on their list of SG toys -- finally, a Soundwave re-release fans actually want instead of buying the set for the cassettes in spite of the pricey Soundwave toy!
And then there's this guy. This is a Transformer who died during the early days of the Autobot/Decepticon war on an alien planet and was later revived to join Galvatron's army in IDW's Heart of Darkness miniseries.
I assume he's a Decepticon though we can't tell which faction he originally belonged to.
Generics using Soundwave's bodyframe are fairly rare, so this is kinda cool, at least to me.
The neatest thing? He's actually a recolor of Soundblaster, not Soundwave. (You can tell from the popped-out chest.) That's a first!
(I call him Soundscape out of the need to call him something. It's just a nickname, do not confuse this with an actual name.)
Well that's it! Seven Sexy Soundwaves Straddling the Spectrum.
I think that's every use of Soundwave's character model in TF fiction, but there might be one or two more luring about. Let me know!
Takara, are you paying attention?
This article is about various uses of Soundwave's character model, including Soundwave's various 'looks' and some generics/recolor characters who are not Soundwave but share his bodyframe.
This is Soundwave in the 1984 cartoon, chances are that when you think of Soundwave you think of him. He had an awesome voice!
However if you were a Transformers fan past 1987 (when the cartoon ended) chances are you were reading the Marvel Comic and you remember Soundwave this way: Bright purple and with a pretty, pretty mouth.
A lot of the Marvel Comics character models got funky colors in their character reference sheets which caused them to appear in funny colors throughout the rest of the comic. Soundwave in particular kept flashing back between this and a more toy-based blue depending on the issue.
God bless Nelson Yomtov.
However if you think sex is boring without frogs and get your underwear out of vending machines you probably remember Soundblaster.
In 1987 the Transformers cartoon branched into two pieces. In America we had a 3-episode miniseries which ended the series. In Japan they had 3 more series, the first of which was called Headmasters.
(It is terrible.)
In Headmasters Soundwave died during a duel with his Autobot counterpart Blaster and was rebuilt into Soundblaster (or if you were in Malaysia New Soundwave) He sports a brand-new black paintjob and his toy was reissued in these colors with an expanded chest-compartment capable of holding two of his cassettes at once. (The expanded chest compartment even shows up on his character model, look!)
In some continuities (universes) Soundblaster is a separate character. But not many.
If you were part of the online fandom during the late 1990's you might even remember this guy who is not Soundwave. Probably.
This guy appears in a flashback during the Beast Machines cartoon as a Transformer who sacrifices himself to save a kid-appeal ethnic stereotype.
Here's a picture:
This is a re-use of a computer-model Mainframe Entertainment created 2 years prior for "The Agenda", a Beast Wars episode which featured Soundwave's comatose semi-corpse as a background prop. Here's a picture of Soundwave's corpse:
Mainframe made several changes to the computer model when it appeared in Beast Machines, mostly stripping off details. Model re-use like this was pretty common for the Mainframe TV series; we saw bits-and-pieces of Soundwave used for several other background characters (most noticeably his head) but this guy used his whole body (minus his shoulder-canon) and though colors were changed, the end result is still really, well... Soundwavey.
But it's not him. Probably. If it was him he'd be 6' tall though, so it's probably not him.
I call him Squarewave out of a need to call him something when referring to him.
And then there's this guy, who is not Soundwave at all. Heck, he's not even from Generation 1!
The 2004 Armada cartoon featured a lot of classic G1 character-models re-used as background characters, much like Squarewave above. This is one such model. He appeared in the episode "Dash" as one of the final guardians trying to prevent a kid-appeal-yellow car type from gaining access to Galvatron's lair. Notably: He succeeded where all others had failed. Go Generic Soundwave!
I think he looks rather nifty! I call him Sinewave out of the aforementioned need to call him something.
We now move back to characters who are Soundwave, sort of.
Sir Soundwave is Soundwave's Shattered Glass (mirror universe) double. He is a beat-laying urban poet with a chilled-out attitude. Also he wears a headband sometimes.
This guy has actually had three toys, can you believe it? In 2007 Takara released a MP3-player version of Soundwave in 3 color schemes. 'classic', Soundblaster-colored and "Sonic White" Soundwave whose cassette-deck mode was solid white (like an iPod, get it?) and sported only a few blue highlights. When Transformers started doing its Shattered Glass thing in 2009 they appropriated this funky color scheme for their mirror-U Soundwave. Then in 2012 there was a Botcon toy of Sir Soundwave -- this time turning into a van and sporting an awesome headband. His blues are much brighter.
Then Takara (the company which produced Transformers in Japan) saw the Botcon toy and was all "Ooh, we likey!" and recolored the classic G1 Soundwave like it, adding more neon green and bright blue. It is gorgeous.
See, Takara needs Soundwaves. Fans love the classic cassette-tapes so they keep releasing club-exclusive recolors as new characters. There are like 50 of them now and most of them have actually appeared in TF fiction. Takara quickly realized that if they bundle the tapes with re-releases of Soundwave and Blaster fans will buy these much more expensive toys just to get the cassettes. It's like printing money! So they've been releasing these guys with slight paint-deco variants for several years now, with new cassette partners. (A magenta comics-inspired version is just a matter of time.)
So it was sort of a relief when Takara found out about Shattered Glass, and Soundwave was #1 on their list of SG toys -- finally, a Soundwave re-release fans actually want instead of buying the set for the cassettes in spite of the pricey Soundwave toy!
And then there's this guy. This is a Transformer who died during the early days of the Autobot/Decepticon war on an alien planet and was later revived to join Galvatron's army in IDW's Heart of Darkness miniseries.
I assume he's a Decepticon though we can't tell which faction he originally belonged to.
Generics using Soundwave's bodyframe are fairly rare, so this is kinda cool, at least to me.
The neatest thing? He's actually a recolor of Soundblaster, not Soundwave. (You can tell from the popped-out chest.) That's a first!
(I call him Soundscape out of the need to call him something. It's just a nickname, do not confuse this with an actual name.)
Well that's it! Seven Sexy Soundwaves Straddling the Spectrum.
I think that's every use of Soundwave's character model in TF fiction, but there might be one or two more luring about. Let me know!
Takara, are you paying attention?