Additionally, he has a photographic memory on account of the data storage capacity of the magnetic disks in his chest compartment, and he is armed with a shoulder-mounted laser cannon and hand-held concussion blaster.

These spy characters include Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Ratbat, Rumble, Frenzy, Slugfest, Wingthing, Autoscout and Overkill, all of whom are under Soundwave's command in the original television series.

In the original Transformers cartoon, Soundwave was Megatron's most reliable aide, frequently sent on important reconnaissance missions with his cassettes, and often playing a key role in many schemes against the Autobots.

Soundwave participated in Megatron's assault on the Autobots' spacecraft, the Ark, and met the same fate as the other occupants when the ship crashed on prehistoric Earth, leaving everyone trapped in stasis.

After awakening on Earth in 1984, Soundwave played a crucial part in generating energon cubes and devising strategies to construct a new spacecraft for the Decepticons to journey back to Cybertron.

One of Soundwave's most notable misadventures came in season 2 when, operating a plan conceived by Starscream, he brainwashed humans with ultrasonic vibrations, leading to a confrontation with his Autobot Communications Officer counterpart, Blaster, and to a lasting rivalry between the two.

Using reconstructive technology from the planet Master, the leader of the Decepticon Headmasters, Zarak, successfully rebuilt and resurrected Soundwave and renamed him Soundblaster—essentially identical to his former self, except for his predominantly black color scheme.

Refitted by Destro, Soundwave was intended to become a battlefield communications station, but when he and the other Decepticons eventually broke free of their control he was damaged in a battle with the Autobots and his parts were captured by the US Government for study.

In Dreamwave's 21st century re-imagining of the Generation 1 continuity, Soundwave was recruited to the Decepticons 9 million years ago through Megatron's underground gladiatorial games, and made head of communications.

Even in the face of failures such as this, and later the loss of Megatron in an early space bridge experiment, Soundwave's loyalty to the Decepticon cause never wavered, as he remained true to the faction under Shockwave's leadership.

Soundwave's body crashed back to Earth in the Arctic, where he remained inactive for several years, until rogue military scientist Adam Rook, calling himself "Lazarus", recovered and reactivated him, putting him under his control with a program he had developed while studying the Transformers before their explosive departure.

Horrified to discover they were not planning to use it in a power-play but instead to reanimate Thunderwing (who previously devastated Cybertron), Soundwave attempted to stop them but was trapped in stasis-lock in cassette player mode.

Continuing to operate under Shockwave, Soundwave then moved to serving Ratbat, and co-led the defense of Buenos Aires against the Underbase-empowered Starscream alongside Fortress Maximus, only to wind up being deactivated by the villain.

Under writer Simon Furman, Soundwave - coloured blue - was a fairly major player, portrayed in a manner much more consistent with his profile - that of a manipulator and blackmailer, reading others' minds and using their secrets to his own ends, always working towards his own goals.

Sent into battle by Prowl, the Dinobots routed the main Decepticon forces while Springer lead the Autobot survivors, Broadside, Inferno, Skids, and Carnivac to defeat Starscream.

Soundwave would also play a brief but important role in the text-only novel Alignment, writer Simon Furman's take on what happened after the Transformers: Generation 2 comic series ended.

Subsequently, he was the ringleader of the conspirators (along with Ravage, Ramjet and Direwolf) who gave some of their spark energy to resurrect Megatron in a more powerful body, allowing him to defeat the forces of the Liege Maximo.

He is appalled by the barbarity of Megatron and Shockwave battling in hand-to-hand combat for leadership of the Decepticons, especially as the entire spectacle is being broadcast on live television for human entertainment by Robo-Master.

When the future Autobots and Decepticons join forces and repel an alien invasion of Cybertron he begins to propose a lasting truce to Ultra Magnus but stops himself, observing that too much has occurred between the 2 factions and their differences are irreconcilable.

Unlike the Generation One Soundwave, he speaks like a modern disc jockey—using terms like "He got served" and "Peace out, bots", and calling the battlefield, "The Floor", giving him more of a personality than his normally emotionless G1 counterpart.

Soundwave first makes his appearance in the episode Titan, offering to lead Megatron and his minions to the planet Gigantion, however, in a scene featuring Sideways and Starscream aboard the Atlantis, a purple cassette player with the Decepticon symbol is on board playing music to ease the tension between the two evil robots.

Later, he and Sideways attempted to intervene in the epic battle between Galvatron and Starscream in order to claim the Planet Keys and Omega Lock, only to be sent into another universe by the distortion caused by the two fighters' conflict.

Dispatching Laserbeak to recover the Dead Matrix from its place in storage, Soundwave threw the talisman into the black hole that had been created by the collapse of Unicron, allowing the Chaos Bringer's Spark to escape and infiltrate the planet Yst, which he corrupted and transformed into his new body.

When the film was released on DVD a special on-line content from Best Buy showed early animation footage of Blackout as a blue helicopter with a head that resembled Soundwave.

The only human ally they don't kill, Dylan Gould, has Soundwave disguise himself as a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG that belonged to Sam's girlfriend, Carly, to get close to the Autobots.

However, the excessive usage of the key to enhance Soundwave caused an unexpected side-effect: Developing almost Cybertronian sophistication at an alarmingly increasing rate to the point of becoming self-aware, refusing to take orders from Sari (or any other human) anymore.

Soundwave was defeated when Sari recruited the help of Scrapper, Snarl and Wreck-Gar to fight the brainwashed Autobots, and was smashed apart along with Ratbat by Optimus using Laserbeak's guitar mode as a makeshift axe.

In this story, having crashed to Earth in an escape pod, Heatwave recovers Soundwave and helps his fellow Decepticon get back online and assume an Earth-style alternate mode.

Cliffjumper, Crasher, Frenzy, Heatwave, Ravage and Soundwave are sent on a mission to Burpleson Air Force Base to stop the Autobots from controlling the GODS defense system.

[48] Unlike his previous incarnations, Soundwave rarely speaks, instead recording archive audio and videos from other sources and repeating it when needed, displaying it on his face, which is composed entirely of an electronic screen.