Arcee (G1)/2005 IDW continuity

All right, ladies, the kitten whispers and tickle fights stop now!

An ancient warrior from the dawn of Cybertronian history, Arcee arose from the ashes of her mysterious, traumatic past to become one of the most feared Transformers of her era and beyond. Cold and detached off the battlefield and utterly ruthless in combat, Arcee's single-minded bloodlust put her at odds with both the Autobots and Decepticons for most of the Great War.

But after finding a kindred spirit in Hardhead and making peace (or pieces) with some of her demons, Arcee has turned over a new leaf. After a brief stint in the employ of Prowl, Arcee formally joined the Autobots and struck up a friendship with Sideswipe. In her new role as one of Earth's peacekeepers, her change of spark has allowed her to grow into a more compassionate being and a capable defender of humanity.

First appearance: Spotlight: Arcee

Fiction

Out for blood

I am Sparceetacus.

Arcee of the Darklands Future Glories Lost and her twin brother Galvatron were ancient, hailing from the barbaric age that predated the rise of the Thirteen Primes. In this prehistoric era, both male and female Cybertronians naturally coexisted, and Arcee would later describe herself as "forged male." Post This ran counter to how she felt in her spark, however, and she would later muse that this old identity was a "lie she told herself." Future Glories Lost

Enslaved by the capricious Septimus Prime and his Supplicants of Arrius, the pair carved out a fearsome reputation for themselves as "The Twins" in the gladiatorial arenas of ancient Protohex, battling for the amusement of their master. But as the city's energon dwindled, Septimus ordered the two to fight between themselves until the stronger survived. Arcee gained the upper hand, but before she could finish Galvatron off, the city was stormed by the armies of Megatronus and his Darklanders: the Prime announced that he had annexed their city into his territory, the Darklands, and threw their former master into the ring for the twins to kill.

Having honed their fighting skills in the pits of Protohex, Arcee and Galvatron became the twin vanguards of the Darklander armies, and joined Megatronus as they marched on the neighboring village that would one day become the Crystal City. As battle broke out between the Darklanders and the bestial legions of Onyx Prime, the twins led the charge, but the battle quickly ended when three Titans arose from beneath the surface of the planet. Taking advantage of both sides' stunned silence, Onyx Prime cut his way through the armies of the Darklanders and quickly ratified a truce with his old student Megatronus Origin Myths — for "Onyx Prime" was, in reality, a time-travelling Shockwave, who had deliberately engineered the war to bring the Primes and their followers together; the other Primes, unaware of "Onyx's" true nature, soon agreed to the unification. The First Who Was Named

Kitbashers, grab your Galvatron toys!

At the celebrations that evening Arcee quickly grew skeptical of this alliance, correctly predicting that the remaining five Primes would join their banner and grow drunk on their own superiority. Alpha Trion noted that it would be Arcee's job to keep himself and the other members of the Thirteen in their place. Origin Myths

In the two million years of peace that followed, the surviving Primes formally rallied under a single banner and immortalized themselves as the Thirteen. Arcee and Galvatron remained Megatronus' trusted lieutenants, and when Onyx Prime encouraged expansion to bring the "light" of Cybertronian civilization to lesser worlds, the twins joined their master aboard Omega Supreme and his Omega Sentinels. The First Who Was Named Along with Onyx Prime and Alpha Trion, the Cybertronian fleet set a course for the neighboring world of Antilla and began a bloody, protracted war with the native Antillans — a devastating conflict that only came to an end when a desperate Antillan scientist constructed a doomsday weapon that annihilated all life on the planet. Unlike her twin, Arcee would forever carry deep regret about her involvement in the Antillan war, disgusted that Alpha Trion had chosen to blame the aliens for the conflict in the history books. Our Finest

By that time, however, the twins and their masters had already returned to Cybertron, and the fallout from the battle for Antilla ultimately snowballed into a larger conflict, the First Cybertronian Civil War. The First Who Was Named Arcee and Galvatron both survived the falling out of the Primes, but over the years the twins grew increasingly distant from one another. Eventually, Galvatron would strike out on his own to lead a personal crusade against the forces of the Primes. The Crucible The end of the war coincided with the death or departure of most of the Primes, and in the post-war era that followed the ascension of Nova Prime, Cybertronian society would change drastically. For reasons unknown, naturally-born female Transformers would somehow vanish from Cybertron after the conclusion of the conflict and the departure of the Titans; subsequent generations would never become aware that the concept of "gender" had existed on Cybertron at all, ONoffON to the point where many future Transformers would consider their species to be functionally "genderless." Spotlight: Arcee

"So, you're keen on music?"

Never entirely comfortable with her birth identity, Future Glories Lost Arcee fell in with the mad genius Jhiaxus, Post who sought to recreate certain lost aspects of ancient Cybertronian civilization. ONoffON Not seeing the mad scientist for what he truly was, Arcee asked him to operate on her in the hopes of dealing with her gender dysphoria. Sins of the Wreckers #3 Post Though Jhiaxus—hoping to reintroduce gender to his species—successfully altered Arcee's physiology and gender presentation by directly re-coding her CNA, Spotlight: Arcee he ultimately felt no need to involve himself further with the experiment and deserted her after the surgery was complete. Post The lack of aftercare Jhiaxus provided, combined with the trauma of her experience, led to Arcee experiencing a "maddening maelstrom of contradictory sensory input," which manifested as violent and sometimes erratic behavior. Post Spotlight: Arcee

Though Galvatron claimed that Jhiaxus had been proud of what he'd accomplished, ONoffON Arcee believed that she hadn't measured up to Jhiaxus's standards and abandoned as a reject.Spotlight: Arcee Arcee would be left angry, distant, and distrustful of agendas and experimentation on people against their will. Spotlight: Arcee An Uneventful Night Eventually, Arcee found support in Great War refugee Anode, a fellow transgender Cybertronian who had transitioned from male to female after leaving Cybertron, but when Anode disappeared in 1516 CE, Arcee's violent streak resurfaced and Post An Axe to Break the Ice Dissolution Part 1: Some Other Cybertron she became obsessed with eliminating all traces of Jhiaxus' work from the universe. Driven by an implacable homing instinct towards Jhiaxus's experiments, she cut a swath of carnage across several planets in her obsession before Ultra Magnus took her down and imprisoned her in the Autobot penitentiary on Garrus-9. As was policy for threats of her level, Arcee's spark was separated from her body, and in this limbo, she found a kind of peace.

Fast and the Furious: Cybertronian Drift

That peace was shattered when the Decepticon Secret Service, led by Banzaitron, attacked Garrus-9 to liberate the recently incarcerated Monstructor Six, more of Jhiaxus's experiments. When the Combaticons infiltrated the facility, warden Fortress Maximus freed Arcee as a last resort to stop them. She presented quite the frightening obstacle for the invaders, severely wounding Blast Off and Brawl, but in the end they managed to escape with their target. Jetfire convinced Maximus to allow her to pursue them, Spotlight: Arcee and she followed their trail to the Decepticon Battle Platform Zuska, where she tortured a Decepticon for information on the escapees' location. Spotlight: Cyclonus

Those were the best days of our lives.

Using this intel to locate Banzaitron, Arcee found that the Transformers from the Dead Universe—Jhiaxus among them—had activated Monstructor and spirited him away, decimating the Banzaitron's team in the process. Arcee agreed to help Banzaitron in recovering Monstructor, on the basis that it would lead her to Jhiaxus. Spotlight: Hardhead Tracking Monstructor to Rotan, she and the Decepticons engaged him in battle until Skram arrived with information on Jhiaxus's location. Abandoning the fight, Arcee headed for Gorlam Prime, where she murdered her way through a legion of Micromasters before finally cornering him beneath the planet's surface. There, she was surprised and delighted to find that, as he came from the Dead Universe, and they were in a location close to its influence, Jhiaxus could not die. And that meant she could kill him over, and over, and over... Spotlight: Sideswipe

Arcee did just that for six years, and would later profess that the experience helped her straighten her head out. A Better Tomorrow She would later remember the experience as the first time she'd ever been truly happy. Sins of the Wreckers #3

You know how the saying goes about wearing your spine on your stomach-- wait, that's not how the saying goes? ....scrap.

This demented "therapy" came to an end when Gorlam Prime's portal to the Dead Universe reactivated, hypnotically drawing the native Gorlamites into it. Arcee also felt its lure but Hardhead held her back until the effect faded, and the two Autobots decided to investigate. Heart of Darkness #2 A while later, they detected Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, and Jhiaxus in the vicinity and attacked them. Heart of Darkness #1 Discovering that her arch-enemy had been restored by Galvatron's Heart of Darkness, she vowed to destroy Jhiaxus all over again, but those plans had to be tabled when Galvatron powered himself up by tapping into the Dead Universe via the portal. Convinced by Hardhead to flee and warn the Autobots of Galvatron's return, Arcee was blasted into a chasm by her pursuers, but managed to survive. Heart of Darkness #2

Some time later, as Galvatron was in the process of assembling an army and preparing to enact his grand plan, Arcee and Hardhead came to the rescue of an Autobot escape pod full of survivors from the Kimia Facility. Kings Bringing the survivors aboard, she and Hardhead had to explain at least five times to them all about the Dead Universe, the Heart of Darkness, D-Void, and Galvatron's plans. The rag-tag group made it to Cybertron, by which time Galvatron infected Vector Sigma with the Heart of Darkness, which caused a maelstrom to break out on the planet's surface. Arcee suggested guiding the ship through an underground tunnel, crashing right on top of Galvatron himself, but this failed to take the super-powered villain out, and he quickly engaged and defeated Arcee and Hardhead. Genesis

Under Prowl

She never was one for politics.

Optimus Prime subsequently used the Matrix to purify Vector Sigma, but in the process reverted Cybertron to a primordial state. In this tumultuous new era, Arcee fell into the employ of Prowl, acting as his shadowy enforcer in an era of uneasy peace. The Autonomy Lesson She inaugurated her new role by assassinating Ratbat before the former senator could have Bumblebee killed, but her vicious methods sat ill with Prowl. The World & Everything in It Later, Arcee watched with amusement from a high vantage point as a set of rockets Wheeljack had fired into orbit successfully drew away dangerous energies that would have caused an explosion on the planet's surface. Stick Together

Prowl soon called upon Arcee again to aid him in dealing with Decepticon malcontents, this time confronting Bombshell and his cerebro-shell-controlled minions. After Arcee killed the mind-controlled Sunstorm against Prowl's wishes, the pair pursued Bombshell into underground tunnels, but ran into the Constructicons, whom Arcee took on solo, saving an unknowing Blurr in the process. Prowl, meanwhile, went after Bombshell, but succumbed to his newly improved method of mind control. Under Bombshell's sway, Prowl returned to Arcee's side and "destroyed" the Constructicons by detonating their I/D chips, then sent her after Dirge, who had witnessed the whole thing. Evidently suspecting that something was amiss with Prowl, she secretly allowed Dirge to escape. Devisive Deducing what had happened to Prowl, she met with him later, informing him she "knew his secret" and cautioning him to remember that she was not his killer to order around, A Better Tomorrow but continued to work towards whatever objectives Bombshell was manipulating Prowl for, allowing the Insecticon to think she was on his side so she could discover what he was up to and stop him. Plan for Everything

Arcee later secretly joined "Prowl" and the other Autobot security officers in tracking Dirge to the Decepticons' bolt-hole, but once again, she stood back and allowed him and Swindle to escape during the ensuing firefight. A Better Tomorrow She would later be seen prowling the rooftops of the city, watching Reflector and Ravage through the sight of her weapon and graciously deciding not to snipe them. Night and the City

She didn't exactly have a knack for massages, either.

When the time came for the Decepticons to put the final stage of their plan into action, Bombshell directed Arcee, through Prowl, to exfiltrate Shockwave, Soundwave and their men from their present living quarters in the Decepticon pen. She chose to do so in the most violent way possible, of course, first attacking and killing the pen guards Triggerhappy and Blot and then detonating a shrapnel bomb that disabled all the other Decepticons present. Before departing with their unconscious bodies, she planted another explosive which Prowl then deliberately tripped while leading a "raid" on the pen, making it appear that the Decepticons within had been destroyed by their own booby-trap. Meanwhile, unaware of what had truly transpired, Starscream assumed that all of this had gone down as a result of his blackmailing Prowl with the knowledge he had gained from Dirge, so Arcee decided to drop in and rain on his parade, informing him she knew exactly where he had hidden Dirge, and could take away his "advantage" at any time. The End of the Beginning of the World

I'll cry when I'm done killing!

That, as it turned out, was exactly what she did when riots broke out upon the return of Megatron. Recovering Dirge from his hideaway and informing him of "Prowl's" involvement with the Decepticons, she took him and Swindle to Maccadam's Old Oil House, where a standoff with Blurr ensued. City on Fire Convincing him to listen to her by revealing that she was the one who had saved him from the Constructicons, Arcee handed Dirge and Swindle off to him and cut a path through the rioters for him so he could take them and the information to Bumblebee. The Verge Arcee proceeded to join Prowl, Bombshell, Megatron and the other Decepticons in the Black Room, relaying a message from Turmoil and Skywarp that they were in position. Following the information she had fed them via Dirge, Bumblebee and his team soon arrived; they were overpowered, and Arcee stabbed Sideswipe through the torso, pinning his body to the wall (but avoiding doing any serious damage, cluing him in to her deception). Together, they all watched as the Decepticons' plan was enacted, and a perfected version of Devastator was formed, incorporating Prowl as its mind-controlled head. Before the Dawn Calmly waiting until the most dramatic moment possible—when Bumblebee asked her what her place in the plot was—Arcee then promptly stabbed Bombshell through the head, cutting off his control of Devastator and shutting the combiner down. Calling on Sideswipe to open fire, Arcee armed Bumblebee and apologized for not acting sooner, explaining that she had had to wait until she was close enough to Bombshell to act. Plan for Everything As the battle began to rage, with Ironhide busy with Prowl and Bumblebee busy with Megatron, Arcee and the Dinobots were put in charge of taking on the rest of the Decepticon army. Following Megatron's defeat, as Starscream took control, Arcee and the other Autobots were cast out into the wilderness. Heavy Is the Head

As the Autobots left the city, they were trailed by the Constructicons, who had become fans of Prowl after having combined with him. Arcee wanted to intervene when the Constructicons and the Dinobots came to blows, but Prowl restrained her while Bumblebee's worsening condition stopped the fighting for good. During Bumblebee's restoration, Arcee tried her best to comfort Prowl, who was visibly upset, but Arcee's emotional detachment made it difficult for her to connect. Her failure to empathize with Prowl sent her to Sideswipe next, whose love of violence she thought would give them common ground, but Sideswipe also shooed her away. The Constructicons picked a fight with her next, pointing out her lack of Autobot symbol as a sign that no one wanted her, and Arcee was all too happy to oblige. Their skirmish ended when Ironhide and the Dinobots broke them up, and Ironhide confided in Arcee that he was worried the night would bring madness to their camp as it did to the Aerialbots and Dinobots earlier. Arcee, confident that the madness wouldn't affect her, stayed up all night guarding Bumblebee, and when Bumblebee awoke the next morning in his new body, he found her outside with an Autobot symbol carved into her arm. But suddenly there was a weird glow over the horizon, and the sunrise wasn't for another few hours. Arcee immediately suspected Jhiaxus. Second Exodus

Prowl thinks this is special, despite this being Arcee's fourth body in as many years.

Suddenly, an undead Titan, a Necrotitan, burst free from the ground before them. Dark Dawn Arcee was happy to have a giant target to shoot at, though she wasn't hopeful of their odds of survival. Bumblebee insisted on caution rather than rash action, but before Arcee and the others could act, Soundwave's Decepticons were upon them. Black Metal Their battle was interrupted by Starscream arriving overhead and landing on the inert Necrotitan's shoulder. Arcee offered to shoot him out of the sky, but before she could, the Necrotitan suddenly unleashed a strange, deadly wave that spread in all directions, and leaving Arcee without one of her arms and one of her legs. Winners & Losers Arcee sat quietly as the others freaked out in the wake of the strange wave. Into the Abyss She did not let her major limb damage deter her whatsoever once the Autobots chose to besiege Shockwave's lair (thought it probably helped that she'd somehow grown back her missing arm). Finest Hour Still without one of her legs, she was forced to retreat with the others, leaving Megatron and Bumblebee behind. No Exit

Arcee, the other Autobots, and Soundwave's Decepticons returned to the city, where the Necrotitan had recently advanced, reducing what was left to ashes. Prowl ordered anyone still able to fight (Arcee included herself) to attack the Necrotitan before it could do more damage, but there was little they could do. Thankfully, that was when Metroplex and the Lost Light appeared over them via spacebridge and engaged the Necrotitan for them. Burning Bright With the surprising help of Megatron, Metroplex was able to defeat the Necrotitan, and the citizens of Cybertron and the crew of the Lost Light were reunited. Arcee approached and greeted the female Transformers the Lost Light had brought along. In the calm that followed, Arcee was rebuilt into a new body, and Prowl wondered if she was considering this a fresh start. Before too long, however, their calm was ended by the arrival of Shockwave's army of Ammonites. The Becoming She fought alongside her many comrades against the Ammonites. Black Planet and also got to talk with Whirl about how he ended the Ammonite's war and started their own war, leading her to reflect on how they should have hung out more. Later, after fighting was over, Arcee was in a crowd of bots watching Optimus and Megatron exit the Lost Light. ...And the Damage Done

During the following six months, Arcee attended Megatron's trial along with Whirl and Ratchet. Words Hang in the Air Following the trial, Arcee admitted to Prowl that the recently arrived Windblade and her party of female Transformers from the planet Caminus didn't evoke any particular feelings in her. After Sideswipe opened his big yap, Arcee asked Optimus about what had happened to Hardhead, and eventually volunteered to join his crew for the trip to Earth to find Alpha Trion. The Mind Bomb

To Earth and beyond

As soon as the Ark-7 arrived over Earth, the ship was besieged by the orbital defenses of the Earth Defense Command, who had formed an alliance with Galvatron's Decepticons six months prior. The attack forced the Autobots to hide their ship on the far side of the Moon, with Optimus and a small crew led by Prowl slipping through humanity's defenses aboard Sky Lynx to investigate. Hello Cruel World It wasn't long until they were ambushed by a combined Decepticon/EDC assault, and Prowl sent Arcee and Sideswipe to provide covering fire as the team retreated to nearby Poverty Flat. Prowl also brought Devastator to provide help, revealing the Cybertronian presence to the humans. Detonation Boulevard Arcee and the other Autobots protected the panicking humans until the Decepticons were all teleported away on Marissa Faireborn's orders. As the Autobots returned to Ark-7, Arcee warned Optimus that more might be going on than they knew. The Mind Bomb

The Autobots tracked the EDC's mindbomb signal to their base in the Bikini Atoll, and on their way to assault the base Arcee confided in Prowl that she'd seen Scavenger acting suspiciously, unaware that the police-bot had recently made the excavator a double-agent to keep tabs on Galvatron's activity. In the ensuing frontal assault, she was surprised by the arrival of the Decepticon warship. Full Fathom Five The Autobots fired at the ship until Prowl used the EDC's own defense system to shoot the ship down. As they departed with Alpha Trion, whom they'd recovered from the EDC base, Arcee helped the wounded Kup onto Sky Lynx. I Dream of Wires

....fifth body in as many years.

Though the Autobots brought Trion back to the ship to recuperate form his experience, it didn't take long before the Prime made a full recovery, and Jetfire, Arcee and D.0.C. investigated an alarm in the Ark-7 shuttlebay to find that Prime and Trion had gone for a jaunt on the lunar surface. The Crucible Soon afterwards, Optimus left for Cybertron, he left Prowl in charge and asked Arcee to keep an eye on Prowl. Signals, Calls, and Marches When Prowl took the Constructicons to intercept Spike Witwicky in Japan, Arcee followed using Sideswipe's backpack and prevented Prowl from grabbing Spike and Jimmy Pink. The two humans fled and Arcee pursued them, only to end up being cornered by the Decepticons along with Jimmy. Vs. Though Galvatron claimed they were after the same thing, Spike, Arcee opted to take Jimmy and leave the Decepticons and Constructicons to it, only to be tackled mid-air by Galvatron. During their fight which landed them in the Australian outback, Galvatron lied to Arcee, claiming Prowl had killed Spike's father to draw Spike out, and persuaded her to join him in trying to destroy the Enigma of Combination—a relic of the haughty Nexus Prime, whom the twins had once known; believing that the destruction of the Enigma would also foil Prowl's increasingly shady plans, Arcee reluctantly agreed. ONoffON

...sixth...

She, Jimmy, and the Decepticons arrived in Wanmu, China, to find Devastator already attacking Garrison Blackrock's local Onyx facility. She tried to reach Prowl, but Devastator was set on killing Spike and she was knocked flat by the discarded Enigma of Combination. After Galvatron's soldier Scoop revealed himself as a double-agent acting on Starscream's behalf, he absconded with the Enigma, and Arcee finally reached an enraged Prowl and convinced him to disassemble Devastator. They left on Sky Lynx, carrying a space bridge liberated from Blackrock's custody. The Onyx Interface Conclusion: The Obliterati

Shortly after the formation of the Council of Worlds, and Prowl's official falling out with Optimus Prime, Arcee had functionally taken command of the Earthbound Autobots while Prime was busy on Cybertron. In her new capacity as second-in-command, she held a clandestine meeting with her brother, who sought to use the spacebridge for his own ends, but provided her with an Onyx tablet in exchange: a clue, he insinuated, to Blackrock's true agenda regarding his fascination with Cybertronian technology. Arcee returned to the Ark-7 to get the tablet analyzed and gave Cosmos a mission to Jupiter, to investigate rumors of a Decepticon commune being constructed in orbit. Now and On Earth He soon reported back on the Decepticon station being built there, and she met him on his return, however he fobbed her off with the promise of a report later and headed to a recharge slab. South of Heaven

Not long afterwards, Arcee herself travelled to Cybertron in order to steal and destroy the Enigma of Combination; while her brother believed that the artifact could only be used to create more "abominations," she had come to hate the concept of people being forcibly changed against their will. However, her escape was complicated by Windblade and Chromia, seeking to protect the fragile alliance between Cybertron and their own homeworld of Caminus, and chased her into the Sea of Rust where a Camien team of Torchbearers was scouting. The Torchbearers fumed at not only Arcee's injuring of Windblade, a Cityspeaker, but also her intent to harm an artifact of the Primes. Inadvertent activation of the Enigma recongifured the Torchbearers into a new combiner, the mighty Victorion. The newborn, confused Victorion singled out Arcee for punishment, and so Windblade and Chromia found themselves protecting her against the gestalt. Windblade, surprisingly, was able to calm Victorion down long enough for them to disassemble. Warming to Windblade's combination of diplomacy and willingness to bury the truth to promote lasting peace, Arcee agreed to return the Enigma of Combination and pretend the incident had never happened. An Uneventful Night

She briefly watched Starscream talk to himself before swapping notes with Optimus. When one of Starscream's Badgeless troops was about to stage a massacre at a bar, Arcee stepped in and took the Badgeless to confront Starscream himself, whom she suggested needed to win over those on Cybertron before he went conquering other worlds. The Transgressors

Back on Earth, to her pre-emptive satisfaction, she detected that Prowl was in Alaska, ready to be taken in by her... and then suddenly wasn't. She went looking for Kup for help and was perturbed to find he'd passed out while outside the ship, and this may have happened before. But she didn't have time to care when Prowl disappearing was a major security risk and she needed help finding him! They broke into Prowl's old quarters, with Arcee suspicious how easy Kup managed it, and found some fleshbag called Verity Carlo had been blackmailing the fugitive with a copy of Autobot war crime data! Arcee was livid, thinking Carlo might restart the war if she made such horrors public. She was more livid when a recorded message from Prowl was broadcast, saying to get Springer to look for him, as only Springer was good enough.

The most sensible course of action was to knock out Kup, go to Earth, and violently threaten Verity Carlo into saying what she'd done to Prowl. Verity turned out to know nothing. When Springer and the Wreckers showed up, Sins of the Wreckers #1 Arcee continued to insist it had to be this human anyway... which was around about the time the real culprits, Mayhem, attacked and Prowl broadcast through Kup to explain he was in the hands of Tarantulas, imprisoned in his Noisemaze. Arcee was horrified to realise Prowl had put a backdoor hack in Kup's brain in case he'd needed to manipulate suckers. Despite Arcee blaming Verity for this, Springer pulled rank and led the Wreckers-plus-Arcee in battle against Mayhem, where Arcee was amused to find Springer only got emotionally engaged when there was a fight on. After chopping limbs off Claw Jaw and joining the Wreckers on a raid inside Mayhem HQ, Arcee and the other Wreckers breached the gate to the Noisemaze that lay inside Tidal Wave's body, and crossed to the Noisemaze... Sins of the Wreckers #2

...sev- no, wait, this is the fifth one again. Never mind!

...and immediately fell in screaming pain, unable to stand its sensory onslaught. Tarantulas had the Wreckers taken to his lab, where the guilt-extracting computer Impetus caused her to flash back to her traumatic experience with Jhiaxus, babbling that it was "[her] fault" she'd not seen through Jhiaxus and that she hadn't been "strong enough" to stop him. Sins of the Wreckers #3

Only Hubcap, Tarantulas' man on the inside, having second thoughts got her sprung from jail. Arcee and the Wreckers ganged up on Tarantulas but he fought them all off, forcing Roadbuster to sacrifice himself so they could run. They regrouped and were talked by Prowl into destroying the villain's work first, but were confronted by said spider, Sins of the Wreckers #4 faring as well as before. Only a personal revelation got Tarantulas to cease his attack but, to fulfil the plan, Arcee joined Impactor in keeping the fight going anyway. The Noisemaze began to collapse around them and Arcee was left stunned when Springer, despite great personal risk, radioed to say he was sticking to the plan even if it killed him. Realising why Prowl had chosen him and not her for this, she then convinced Impactor to continue the plan. Though Prowl would risk his life at the last second to save Springer, this was still it: Arcee and Kup returned to the Ark-7, ties to Prowl irrevocably severed. Sins of the Wreckers #5

Brawl liked design number four better.

Back at the Ark-7, she found Jetfire had examined the human code Blackrock had created, discovering that the code was capable of communicating with its other iterations via a quantum signal. Arcee ordered her Autobots to track it down while she, Alpha Trion, and Sideswipe stayed on the ship. The mission went sour fast and Arcee had Sky Lynx return to the Ark where she could use its mighty guns to blow away his pursuers... at which point the Onyx code activated their deflector shields, causing all the firepower to rebound on the ship, and locked them out of their systems, leaving them trapped and on fire! The Nothing Man They found themselves fighting their way through their own compromised defences while Trion claimed they were facing weapons of the Thirteen that they could not stand against. Aphelion Her plan was to get to the spacebridge and call for reinforcements, but a sudden rush of Decepticons through the spacebridge put paid to that! Lagrange Luckily, other actors caused the shield to drop and Arcee ordered her guys to fall back to the ship's bridge and crash it into the moon while she went to overload the engines. The plan failed when she failed to distract the Decepticons through ultraviolence, being battered into unconsciousness by Brawl. Perihelion By the time she came round, the battle at Shanghai was almost over and she gladly fell back with the newly arrived Autobots.

Optimus asked her to run operations soon enough as part of his new strategy, only to learn that Optimus had used the faith that the colonists had placed in him as a Prime to annex Earth into the Council of Worlds for its own protection. Once Upon a Time on Earth While sitting in the med-bay of the Skyroller, she casually mentioned that both she and Sideswipe were fine to a disinterested med-bay. Edge of the Earth She later met, and tried to murder, Galvatron at the Copahua volcano where they pondered if Optimus' time as a combiner could have allowed Prowl's personality to push Optimus towards drastic actions. She later revealed to Optimus that Soundwave had murdered Horri-Bull for the greater good allowing the Prime to blackmail the Decepticon. The Medium and the Message In Monument Valley, she forced Prime to stay behind during the attack on the Nemesis, claiming he was too valuable, before showing zero gratitude when Sunstreaker gave her Sideswipe's jetpack. During the attack, Galvatron managed to force Victorian apart before creating Galvatronus and Sky Reign. It's Beginning To And Back Again

When Superion managed to turn the tide and rip open the Nemesis, Arcee was ready to take Blackrock into her custody before she was fired on by Marissa Faireborn and Ayana Jones. She was ready to kill all three before Skywarp teleported them out of her reach. She was later ordered by Optimus to pursue and terminate Galvatron. As Above...So Below Hitching a ride on Cosmos, she caught up with the Decepticon in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. After casually murdering Astrotrain, she engaged Galvatron. The fight was in his favour until Optimus and Soundwave arrived to back her up. The ancient warrior still managed to hold his ground before Soundwave shot him in the back allowing Arcee to destroy his fusion cannon taking him out of the fight. Galvatron mocked all three of them before agreeing to be their ally so as to fight off Onyx Prime. Arcee was horrified when Optimus shot Galvatron through the spark. She later accompanied him to see the President of the United States where he declared the threat over. No Fair Fights When they returned to Monument Valley, Metrotitan the trio observed transformed to city mode, a form which Optimus dubbed Autobot City. She then observed Metrotitan fire a beam of data into space regarding Optimus' deeds. The Last Autobot

As it turned out, that beam attracted the attention of Sentinel Prime who was not only still alive but also a Titan Master. The Prime left his large Transtector body to fight Arcee while he attended to business causing the femme to protest a body without a head should be not be a good fighter. The fight spilled into a massive cache of Ore-13 located beneath Autobot City. Sentinel then returned with Blackrock who was revealed to be Sovereign. The Titan Master duo tapped into the spacebridge to warp away Optimus Prime and Soundwave with them. Left behind, Arcee, at the end of her rope, contacted Prowl and briefed him on recent events, with Prowl assuring her that he'd take care of it. White Light She then hovered in the background and off to the side during Soundwave's inspirational speech. White Heat

Meeting the cosmic community

Perfect for a stealth mission into Barbie's Malibu Dream House.

Over the next few weeks, Arcee would continue to stay by Prime's side, partaking in his missions of goodwill around the globe. On one such relief mission with Jazz in Portland, Oregon the two were attacked by G.I. Joe forces. Relieved at the chance to blow off some steam, Arcee easily kept the humans at bay until Cybertronian reinforcements arrived, as well as the Space Knight Rom, who promptly annihilated four of the humans, including G.I. Joe leader Joe Colton. Realizing that the alien's Cybertronian appearance would lead to them being blamed for the murders, Arcee and the others pursued him Concorde Hymn to Umpqua National Forest where they forced him to make an emergency landing, with Arcee able to take him out of the fight by punching him in his open chest wound. The Divine Source of Liberty

As she patrolled the halls of Autobot City, Arcee happened upon Snake-Eyes as he began to engage the Heliopolis. She immediately tried to strike the ninja down but received a sword to her eye for the trouble. Though briefly blinded, she soon tried to get back at her attacker before she, Snake-Eyes, and the Micronauts' ship were disabled by a sonic strike from Soundwave in an attempt to calm the situation. After Snake-Eyes was apprehended, Arcee began trying to pick a fight with the ninja but backed off once Optimus Prime intervened to make peace with him. As M.A.S.K. and the Dire Wraiths began their assault on Autobot City, Arcee stood alongside her fellow Cybertronians as well as the Micronauts, Rom, and Snake-Eyes in opposition. The New Colossus When the combined form of Baron Karza and the Wraiths attempted to drag Optimus back into the soon-to-be-exploding mine of Ore-13 under the now levitating Autobot City, Arcee grabbed his arm and pulled him back to safety. Valley Forge

Not long afterwards, Arcee accompanied Jazz and Optimus back to Monument Valley where three were attacked by a vengeful Baron Karza wearing the body of Micronus Prime. After swatting the three Cybertronians aside, Wrath of Karza #1 Karza placed them in a special prison. The Micronauts later freed the Autobots who joined the attack on the Acroyear III army before the three fought Karza himself. The fighting was interrupted when Shazraella arrived wreathed in Time Traveler energy. Wrath of Karza #4 The three Autobots tried to use the distraction to sucker punch Karza before he again enerchanged with Micronus and resumed their duel. Shazraella used her newfound powers to cause the Autobots to shift through alternate modes until she lost control of her powers which prompted Karza to appeal to Optimus for an alliance. Though Optimus agreed, the unlikely alliance was unable to fell Shazraella until Oziron Rael arrived, now one of the Time Travelers himself, and ended the threat. Arcee stood by as Optimus pledged to help the refugees of Microspace. Wrath of Karza #5

As Optimus continued his self-appointed mission on Earth, Arcee quickly became Prime's new right-hand 'bot, unafraid to call out her leader when she disagreed with his choices:in particular, she was openly disgruntled with Prime's new attitude and his acolytes, particularly the Colonist Soldiers who'd chosen to join the Autobots on Earth. To Walk Among the Chosen In her downtime, she continued to visit the comatose Sideswipe, feeling that he was the only person who had ever understood her. A Lonely Pillar on the Plain During a mission to uphold the Tyrest Accord in Mexico City, these young soldiers ran afoul of human protesters wielding Cybertronian-derived weaponry, prompting Arcee and the other veterans to intervene, with Arcee herself brusquely assuring the wounded Midnight Express that he'd be fine after removing his mouthplate.

At least he's not wearing a space diaper.

After meeting with the President at the White House, Arcee joined Prime's team at the Matterhorn as a vast spaceship descended onto Earth. To Walk Among the Chosen Once the ship's occupants, the Junkions, disembarked, Arcee stood off to the side as their leaders Wreck-Gar and Rum-Maj introduced themselves. Once Optimus's team returned to Autobot City to discuss potential courses of action, Arcee was again annoyed by the colonists and their fawning over Optimus before paying Sideswipe another visit. When the Junkions arrived for a tour of the city, Arcee attempted to stop Wreck-Gar from entering Sideswipe's chamber, asking Optimus to stop him from touching the injured Autobot. She looked decidedly unhappy as Wreck-Gar explained the Junkions possessed a positron core that could potentially save Sideswipe, A Lonely Pillar on the Plain but later expressed a cautious interest in the positron core's potential for saving Sideswipe, still feeling some responsibility for him being in his current condition. Behind My Bleeding Back

She continued to spend time in Sideswipe's room to keep him company, passing the time by sparring with D.0.C. Dance Among the Shadows until the Junkions abruptly decided to invade Earth with an armada of ravenous Sharkticons. Reflecting on her own history as a warrior, Arcee told Sky Lynx to keep an eye on Sideswipe while she went to confront Wreck-Gar for control of the positron core. By the time she arrived, the tide had already begun to turn in favor of the Autobots and their allies, and Arcee caught up with Wreck-Gar as the Junkion leader attempted to slink away. Demanding to know the whereabouts of the positron core, Wreck-Gar opened his chest and revealed that he'd smuggled it out of the battle on his person. Future Glories Lost As Rumble and Frenzy looked on, Arcee attempted to beat Wreck-Gar into submission, only for his rebellious Sharkticons to appear and make for their former leader. As the fight spilled over onto their position, a stray shot hit the positron core, blowing it to atoms while reducing Wreck-Gar to a disembodied head. A stoic Arcee stood by as Optimus made peace with the Junkions... and then collapsed in grief by Sideswipe's CR chamber as Optimus sadly watched from afar. Feel Safe Without Regrets The Junkions gradually acclimatized to life in the newly founded "Little Cybertron", but it soon became clear that Wreck-Gar couldn't fix the positron core. However, Rum-Maj told Arcee that they had another device that would allow them to ease Sideswipe's suffering. While mulling over this, Arcee was visited by Aileron, who was shocked when Arcee revealed her true age. As Arcee insisted she was alone, Aileron disputed the notion. The Next Day, and the Next Arcee later spoke to Soundwave as the President visited Autobot City. What It's Really Like

The spelling error kinda takes the lump outta your throat once you spot it.

As time passed and as Sideswipe's condition steadily worsened, Arcee and Sunstreaker made the decision to switch off Sideswipe's life support. To do so, however, they tapped the Junkions for use of this other device—a mnemopathis projector that would project a simulated "last day" for their patient that would allow him to go peacefully. In this "dream world," Arcee was present when Sideswipe seemingly awoke from his coma, and followed her outside where she revealed that Sunstreaker had promised to be present. When Sideswipe announced he was going to cut ties with Sunstreaker, Arcee discouraged the notion, remembering how she'd let Galvatron die (though leaving out his name). The two travelled to Cybertron where, after retrieving Bob from Sunstreaker's apartment, they made their way to the Decepticon ghetto. There Sideswipe broke down the door and began shooting everyone before Sunstreaker arrived and stopped him, with Arcee explaining the relief effort that Sunstreaker had been a part of. After a day of volunteering and helping the inhabitants of Iacon, the two brought Sideswipe outside to marvel at the beauty of postwar Cybertron, where he gradually learned the truth of his situation. Thanking both his friend and brother, Sideswipe allowed himself to pass away.

Stop, drop, and roll, guys!

In the real world, Arcee excused herself following Sideswipe's death, only to be followed by Aileron, who offered some comforting words from her own religion, which believed in reincarnation. After a laugh that the many Arcee and Sideswipe killed might return, Arcee looked at the stars and said a final goodbye to Sideswipe. The Life of Sideswipe As Earth geared up to join the Council of Worlds, Arcee and Sunstreaker brought Sideswipe's body to Cybertron to be buried; that same evening, Alpha Trion told Optimus, Pyra, and Starscream the tale behind the origins of the Thirteen—and the truth behind Galvatron and Arcee's relationship, a fact that Starscream had a hard time swallowing. Origin Myths When Marissa Faireborn was inducted into the Council of Worlds as Earth's ambassador, First Strike #1 Arcee briefly joined Kup and his human friend Ian Noble as they watched the proceedings from atop a nearby building, playfully trading barbs with the old Autobot Unification Day: Dawn before joining Optimus Prime and Pyra Magna as the ceremony began... only for the nefarious Baron Ironblood and his Iron Ring to crash the proceedings, intent on using the ancient Talisman that had once been deployed on Antilla to poison Cybertron itself. First Strike #1

Amidst the chaos, Arcee helped defend human diplomats from the legions of Red Shadows, rescuing both Faireborn and Ayana Jones before rendezvousing with Optimus. Optimus reported that their teammates Garrison Blackrock and Centurion had gone missing, seemingly implicating them as agents of Ironblood, and Arcee joined Kup and the other heroes on a mission into the wilderness of Cybertron to find their teammates. Unification Day: Dawn As they searched the outback, Ian made some not-so-subtle attempts to flirt with an uninterested Arcee until they came under fire from two more Red Shadows, Arcee chopping one of the mutant ninjas in half. It wasn't long until they found that both Blackrock and Centurion had been kidnapped and taken prisoner by the bounty hunter Colditz, and the two Transformers were thrown off balance by a hidden cache of Dragon X explosives and beset by more ninjas. Realizing that Colditz had set up the entire encounter to trick the heroes into killing Centurion, Arcee attempted to stop the out-of-control Transformer by hurling her sword at him, but the Revolutionaries were ultimately able to talk the Talisman-charged Cybertronian into controlling his lethal energies and entering stasis lock. Unification Day: Dusk

Upon returning to Iacon, Arcee joined Optimus Prime and Soundwave and to plan and launch a raid on the holding cell where Scarlett and her team had been incarcerated. Windblade soon discovered that Optimus had gone outside the law, and she and Arcee nearly came to blows before Prime convinced the Camien delegate to stand down. Arcee helped knock out the prison guards and collected the human team's weapons, and together the Cybertronian-human alliance fought their way through hordes of Red Shadows, and began the long trek down toward the Cybertronian core, braving a river of holographic acid before coming face to face with Colton and the other members of the Iron Ring. First Strike #5 In the ensuing melee, Arcee went up against Shazraella, who'd commandeered Antagony's Cybertronian body and threatened to take Arcee's after. She and Shazraella brawled among the ongoing melee until the arrival of Starscream and the other members of the Council of Worlds turned the battle into a chaotic three-way brawl. Ultimately, however, Colton's lackey Garrison Krieger—in reality the Prysmosian Merklynn—had orchestrated the entire invasion to his own benefit; when he unveiled his true nature, he combined his own magic with that of the Talisman and drained the energon from the nearby Transformers to fuel the creation of a "New Prysmos", a beachhead for his future conquest of Cybertron. The deed done, he teleported the weakened and disoriented Transformers back to Cybertron's surface. First Strike #6

Against the Apocalypse

As Cybertron rebuilt from this latest attack, Arcee attended Sideswipe's funeral, and as Optimus Prime mulled over his status as a "divine" Prime, she pointed out that she had stood by when he had killed Galvatron, revealing to Prime that he had been her twin brother. Disarmed by this revelation, Prime attempted to withdraw, but was intercepted by Blackrock, who revealed that Centurion had made a full recovery and gone exploring in the wilderness—and discovered a cache of protoforms. Passerby Decepticon Swift revealed that the Dinobots had recently discovered a hot spot in the wilderness, inspiring Prime to mount an expedition to find it. Seeking allies, Arcee approached Pyra Magna and her fellow Torchbearers for assistance. Though they declined, Pyra Magna reminded the still-rudderless Arcee that the former warrior could keep both Prime and herself in check in this new, postwar world. The Dead Come Home, Part 1 Though Prime's group came into conflict with the rogue Dinobots—their leader Slug under the control of Bludgeon—Arcee followed Sludge into a cavern, where she was attacked by one of the young protoforms... and discovered that the rest were now under the protection of Trypticon. Arcee took a shine to the little protoform, jokingly nicknaming him "Sideswipe" after her departed friend, and watched as Trypticon burst from the ground to demand an end to the fighting. The Dead Come Home, Part 2

Back on Earth once more as Prime presided over the opening of an Ore-13 mine in Kentucky, Arcee chatted with Aileron about recent events, including the installation of Trypticon as Earth's official embassy on Cybertron. Unfortunately, the conversation was cut short when Aileron overheard Slide badmouthing the Prime. Surfeit of Primes Things quickly spiraled out of control as "Onyx Prime" returned to Cybertron aboard his Titan, Nemesis, bringing with him the Liege Maximo and his Maximal army. Although Arcee advised caution, it was Metrotitan himself who chose to bridge to Cybertron—intent on following through the orders of his supposed "Chosen One," Starscream—only to be summarily blasted and fatally wounded by Nemesis, crashing to the ground in a fiery explosion. The Ground

Arcee is a geewunner.

Finally unmasked as Shockwave, his million year-machinations laid out for all to see, Shockwave instructed Liege Maximo to lead the Maximals to the surface to pick off the survivors... unaware that those survivors included a very angry Arcee, who lunged into action to take on his bestial horde in an epic one-woman stand. Though Arcee slaughtered her way through dozens of combatants, she was gradually overwhelmed by their numbers and taken prisoner on Shockwave's orders. Endless Forever Chained and dragged aboard Shockwave's Titan by a sample of gravity-manipulating Ore-4, Arcee was able to exploit the weightless environment to free herself and knock Maximo off-balance; recovering her sword and hurling it at the Ore-4 crystal, Arcee sent the ancient deceiver and the Maximals plummeting to their doom, and herself too... if it hadn't been for Aileron intervening to save Arcee from such a fate. Overcome with gratitude, and finally able to express her true feelings for her friend in the face of a looming apocalypse, Arcee gratefully kissed Aileron. The Falling, Chapter 6: Unforgivable

Though Shockwave was eventually subdued and taken into custody, the Transformers were too late to prevent the full scope of his plan coming to fruition: seeing Cybertron itself as essentially flawed, Shockwave, in the guise of "Onyx Prime," had used the war against Antilla all those years ago to create Unicron, that which would eliminate Cybertron itself and allow the Transformers to begin anew. Our Finest Unstopped and Unstoppable As Unicron began his attack on the galaxy, consuming those "thirteen colonies" affiliated with the Transformers, Arcee joined Optimus aboard the Ark-Zero to assist Rom's homeworld of Elonia. While Wheeljack worked to bring a makeshift space bridge online, he discovered that something was jamming its frequency; when Arcee and Prime investigated, they discovered the inert body of Emissary, ancient Titan of Prima and another victim of Shockwave's machinations. Arcee was able to solve the problem by fatally stabbing the Titan's brain module, killing him instantly and allowing Wheeljack to safely teleport two-thirds of Elonia's population to Iacon. Our Darkest

As Unicron made his way to Caminus, Arcee joined Prime and the recently revived Bumblebee as the trio fought their way into the innards of the planet-eater, seeking to find a way to destroy the monster from within. Their search turned up nothing, outside of the crumbling ruins of one of the Omega Sentinels that had once invaded Antilla, and the Autobots were subsequently chased back out by Unicron's monstrous antibodies as Unicron devoured Caminus. Last Stand Back on Cybertron, Arcee tried to help Aileron through the loss of her homeworld, only to be interrupted by Bumblebee, who suspected that she knew more about the Omega Sentinel than she let on. Arcee confirmed that she had once fought alongside the giants during in the age of the Thirteen and their interstellar expansion, suggesting that one of them must have found Unicron. Stranger Eons

The arrival of Unicron—now accompanied by the corrupted Decepticon Vengeance Division—over Cybertron itself prompted a desperate, last-ditch struggle as Prime and the other leaders of the planet weighed up their options. When Bumblebee himself, having received a cryptic vision from Omega Supreme moments before, arrived to tell the group the truth behind Unicron, Arcee confirmed his story: Unicron was the transformed Antilla, remade into an ultimate weapon against all of the injustices of the Cybertronian race. As Windblade raged against the futility of it all—noting that none of the colonies deserved to suffer for the sins of Cybertron, Arcee grimly reminded her that Caminus and all of the other colonies had been built off the back of Cybertronian expansion. Windblade transformed and flew off as the city began to collapse around them; believing her to be fleeing, Arcee tried to stop her, but the Cityspeaker told her that she had a plan. Our Finest

As Unicron began his final attack on Cybertron, the efforts of the Spectral Knights of New Prysmos offered an escape for the Transformers, harnessing the magic of the Talisman to create a teleportation beam that transported them directly to Earth. Arcee was one of the Transformers to be safely evacuated as Metroplex activated his space bridge; teleported to Victoria Falls in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, she socked Starscream in the jaw to stop his whining before she gratefully embraced Aileron as the two reunited.Road's End As Unicron—now having destroyed Cybertron—teleported above Earth to complete his mission of Cybertronian extinction, Arcee joined Prime and Soundwave on a mission to Mount Rushmore to help corral Slide and the other colonist soldiers, who had renounced their ties to Optimus and gone rogue in a misguided effort to liberate Jazz from G.I. Joe custody. A Sunrise Dark

Returning to Metroplex, the Cybertronians convened for a briefing from Jetfire, where the Autobot flier revealed that—thanks to consuming the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, Unicron's attacks posed an existential threat to the Milky Way itself. Assembly That night, Prime and Arcee talked, and as Prime wondered if the dark legacy of the Primes that Shockwave began had claimed him as well, Arcee simply opined that it was best to love who they could and understood who they couldn't. A Sunrise Dark With the rising of the sun came the approach of Unicron's Maximal army; though Optimus suggested that Arcee stay behind to be with Aileron, she declined, pointing out that for the first time in her life she had someone to fight for. Assembly Instead, as the two prepared to face Unicron, Prime chose to shed the mouthplate that had become a symbol of the Primes so that he could face Unicron as his true self. Post

Joining forces with Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Starscream, the five 'bots hatched a plan to smuggle the Talisman onto Unicron's surface while the other survivors of Cybertron led a frontal assault on the monster planet, using Skywarp's teleportation powers to directly transport the artifact into Unicron's innards and kill him from within. Assembly As the battle began, however, Skywarp was wounded by an incoming Maximal, and deprived of their best shot to destroy Unicron it was Starscream who chose to sacrifice his life to activate the Talisman, leaving Arcee and Optimus free to follow the path it carved through Unicron's armor and into his core, battling antibody monsters along the way. As they fought their way to the core, Optimus claimed that it was his duty as "The Arisen" to defeat Unicron, as the legends claimed... much to the incredulity of Arcee, who had known the 'bot who called himself "The Arisen" in the days of the Thirteen, who was definitely not Optimus. Faced with the black hole that made up the center of the planet-eater, Optimus instructed Arcee to stay behind as he flung himself into the abyss, transmitting himself infraspace, knowing that he couldn't ask her to sacrifice her newfound emotional connection to Aileron. Ultimately, Orion Pax—shedding the title of Prime in the last moments of his life—was able to make peace with the vengeful spirit of Unicron's creator as they both chose to die; as Unicron collapsed in on himself, Aileron swooped in to rescue Arcee from the singularity, and the two lovers joyfully reunited on Earth's Moon. Ceremony

Days after Unicron's defeat, Arcee eschewed Prime's funeral to help with reconstruction efforts, chatting with Marissa Faireborn about her original encounter with Jhiaxus and her long, long personal journey to accept herself and others. And, after many years of searching, she opined, the former warrior had found love and a purpose as she settled into a new life on Earth; years later, now working as a teacher, Arcee told her class of Cybertronian, human, and Elonian children—including "Sideswipe"—the story of Optimus Prime, the complex legacy he had left behind, and the power of the stories that surrounded him and the lineage of the Primes. Optimus believed in a better future, she told her students, and he believed in the ability of others to change... such as Arcee herself, who had made peace with herself and the universe and proven that she had finally become everything that she was always meant to be. Post

Notes

• The extras in Spotlight: Arcee reveal a few alternative color schemes Alex Milne and Simon Furman tried to get approved for IDW's version of Arcee, one blue, two red. Hasbro nixed all three, insisting on Arcee's usual coloration to differentiate her from other female Transformers.^[1] In 2014, new female Autobots were finally introduced, but it seems unlikely they were part of IDW's planning back then.
• While IDW Arcee was firmly established as an Autobot in Spotlight: Arcee—in the opening blurb, in dialogue and in the form of an Autobot insignia constantly present on her chest (outside of the flashback to her being experimented on)—it is the only IDW issue to suggest that she was ever a formal Autobot. Starting with Revelation and continuing thereafter, she was depicted without the chest insignia, and Robots in Disguise #18 appears to retcon matters such that she was never Autobranded at all!
• Given the Generations: Thrilling 30 toy tie-ins involved in "Dark Cybertron", it was logical at the time of publication to assume that Arcee's new body in "Dark Cybertron" Chapter 10 was based on her then-upcoming Generations toy, but the toy that was eventually released (a good six month after said issue) bore little resemblance to the comic. It turned out this was because production on the comic was so far ahead that artist Alex Milne had to draw Arcee into this issue based on only concept art of the toy, which he further modified to incorporate characteristics from Arcee's IDW design.^[2] Further exemplifying the changes the toy underwent, Arcee's reddish-orange coloration in this issue was at the request of Hasbro,^[3] only for the finished Arcee toy to be colored in her standard pink. The comics didn't end up reconciling the designs, with Andrew Griffith giving Arcee a new Earth body in Robots in Disguise #28, and restoring her pink color scheme in The Transformers vol. 2 #35.
• Speaking of, Griffith was inspired by a mid-2010s Lotus Elise for Arcee's Earth alt-mode.^[4]
• According to Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #1, Arcee is 33 feet tall and weighs 15 tons (10.1 metres and 13.6 metric tonnes).

Conceptual origins

Simon Furman has traditionally not been a fan of female Transformers or the idea of gendering Transformers at all, stating on several occasions that he doesn't understand why robots would have women. Arcee's origin in the IDW continuity attempted "to apply a rationale to the whole issue;"^[5] under his pen, the Transformers of the IDW continuity were treated as a genderless race, albeit one that used male pronouns out of convenience. Thus, Furman's original treatment for Arcee was that she was one of these "genderless" robots that had been genetically altered, implicitly against their will, and that her new gender separated her from other Transformers. When Windblade was introduced to the IDW mythos, author Mairghread Scott stated that Windblade's femininity would not be treated as an aberration, noting that Arcee's origin could be seen as offensive to women, and especially those who are transgender. Furman's insistence that Cybertronians are genderless, not male by default, extended to a post he wrote,^[6] though the two authors later talked in private and settled the beef. (Scott would seemingly hew closer in 2014 to Furman's original concept for the character during the few instances in which she wrote for the character, with Arcee expressing a dislike for 'bots who "[change others] against their will"... but this kind of thing happens a lot in comics, so don't sweat it.)

Following Windblade's debut, author John Barber would sporadically revisit Arcee's origin story owing to her increasing role in the Robots in Disguise and Optimus Prime comics. For example, in "The Becoming" after surgically rebuilt into a new body of her own volition, Arcee is seen experimentally flexing and touching her arms while genuinely asking Prowl what he thinks of her look. Windblade introduced its protagonist as an inhabitant of the colony planet of Caminus, where male and female Transformers naturally coexisted; though this was initially presented as a result of allopatric speciation, with the Camiens having evolved this trait after millennia of isolation from Cybertron, it wouldn't take long before Robots in Disguise revealed that those ancient Cybertronians who had colonized Caminus did understand the concept of gender, and that female Transformers had somehow disappeared from Cybertron at some point after the reign of the Thirteen. A subsequent conversation between Arcee and Galvatron in The Transformers vol. 2 #37 revealed that Jhiaxus had been attempting to restore this facet of Cybertronian society, and internal narration from Arcee's point of view in Sins of the Wreckers #3 revealed that Arcee had, at least to some extent, consented to Jhiaxus's experiments, as she did not see the malevolent scientist "for what he was." Other comments regarding the incident suggested that Arcee's prior identity was a "lie [she] told herself" ^[7] and that she recognized her current self as who "[she] was always meant to be."^[8]

Despite years of such remarks, it would not be until the very last issue of the original IDW continuity that would finally lay out exactly what had happened between Jhiaxus and Arcee, with Barber receiving assistance from fan Jenevieve Frank for nuance. In an exchange with Marissa Faireborn, Arcee explicitly confirmed that she had always been transgender; describing herself as "forged male," Arcee had voluntarily sought out the assistance of Jhiaxus to aid in her transition. Her violent behavior following her encounter with the mad scientist was explained as not a product of the transition itself, but from the lack of aftercare Jhiaxus provided, with the pair likening the effect to the Cybertronian equivalent of "bad meds."

According to Jenevieve Frank, the way the exchange was written in context with all the prior writing on Arcee's trans journey was meant to get across that Jhiaxus's response to Arcee seeking gender affirmation surgery was to convince "her that she needed specific procedures to conform to his idea of female Cybertronians"^[9] (what a jerk) "...and was coerced into medically unnecessary procedures," hence reframing her blazing streak of vengeance seen in Spotlight Arcee.^[10] She notes that transitioning can be "wonderful & life affirming, but it's HARD and traumatic too."^[11] She sees what she and Barber did not as a rejection of Spotlight, but an attempt to embrace it, and that while Arcee could have had "authentic transmasculine or nonbinary narratives," the disappearance of her dysphoria in Phase 2 signified that she was a trans woman,^[12] which was also easier practically speaking to work in with all the action going on.^[13] The parallel in Arcee's story from this framework with real trans women's lives getting messed up "by arrogant transphobic doctors who blamed their ignorance and mutilation on their patients rather than confront their own culpability" is entirely intentional,^[14] as is Arcee turning to Anode akin to trans women helping each other due to the ignorance by larger systems.^[15] This peace and community she had was "literally snatched away from her,^[16] due to Anode's disappearance in Lost Light #1. The later Arcee in Spotlight is one who had "learned that she DIDN'T NEED to struggle," that Jhiaxus was to blame for her medical problems, not herself.^[17] Frank also notes that Barber's trans narrative for Arcee would not have been possible "without Mairghread Scott, James Roberts, and Nick Roche's contributions in their own books over the past 6 years."^[18]

References