Joshua Red

Joshua Red is a human from the 2005 IDW continuity portion of the Generation 1 continuity family

Apparently doesn't know the textbook definition of insanity.

Joshua Red is an agent in the covert government organization Skywatch who just can't win.

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

Joshua Red was part of a team sent to Mount St. Helens in 1985 after an anomalous explosion attracted the attention of Skywatch. He and his group unearthed Ravage and Laserbeak, and this discovery likely played a large part in his becoming the head of Skywatch. Spotlight: Soundwave Over the next nine years, the team continued to excavate the mountain, discovering Bugly's deactivated body and a fortified bunker of extraterrestrial origin. A portion of this structure was refitted into a secret research designed to study the workings of the mechanical aliens. When Eagles Scream

Red personally recruited college graduate Ayana Jones into Skywatch after her paper on ancient aliens attracted the attention of the organization. Mayday profile

In 2006, Skywatch began a joint venture with with Joe Colton, his contact Garrison Kreiger, and Kreiger's Cybertronian servant Centurion on "Project: Hot House:" a research and development program aimed at reverse-engineering weapons capable of taking down mechanical lifeforms. Using the Talisman that had been recovered in Egypt two decades ago, the trio hoped to create a debilitating weapon powered by its energy. To activate the artifact, however, they would require the services of Robert Savage, who had a history with the Talisman, and thus engineered a situation designed to lure him into the base by reactivating Bugly, allowing the panicked Decepticon to flee into the badlands beyond. When Savage took the bait, the trio invited him into their primary research lab under the pretenses of showing him around... only for Centurion to hurl him into the Talisman, activating its power to vaporize Bugly and inadvertently hurling Savage years into the future. When Eagles Scream

Only a few months later, Red was informed by one of his Soviet contacts about an incident in Brasnya, and he received a report from a Skywatch underling that the Eureka excavation was on schedule but wouldn't yield anything for some while, and their captives Ravage and Laserbeak were ready for action. Escalation #6 Red oversaw the release of a reconditioned Ravage to pick up the Transformers' scent in Brasnya. Devastation #1 However, during the beginning of the first mission with Ravage and Laserbeak, Red learned about the crash of the Ark-19 and the Autobots' battle with Sixshot in Florida and attempted to have their two "Seekers" called back, saying that the news "changed everything". Unfortunately, a competing signal from Soundwave kept the recall from being successful. Devastation #4 Determined to have some Cybertronian warriors at their disposal, due to feeling that they were now at war and unable to rely on anyone coming to their aid, Red ordered the activation of Grimlock (one of the "Eureka Six") over Doctor Weston's protestations. Devastation #6

As the preparations for Grimlock's activation reached completion, Doctor Weston once again warned that he thought Red's insistence on rushing the matter could prove disastrous, especially since their previous two attempts at controlling Cybertronians had failed. Red lectured back that, with Earth having become an alien battleground, they needed some sort of defense, and "Thunder-Lizard 1" was it.

He gave the final activation order, and Grimlock came online... then immediately started smashing up the Skywatch facility. When Weston reported that he didn't know what happened and couldn't re-establish control, Red reluctantly ordered the Skywatch security guards to take Grimlock down. After they proved to be unsuccessful and Grimlock eventually escaped, Red then ordered Weston to cover up all traces of the experiment and find out what went wrong and how to fix it. Finally, he asked for a status report on their other remaining captives—Thunder-Lizards 2-5. Spotlight: Grimlock

After the other Thunder-Lizards had been activated, Red had Weston give him a demonstration of their capabilities. The demonstration went well, and Weston reported that they had improved on the inhibitor webs and the software kinks they had been experiencing had fixed themselves, though Weston wasn't sure why. Red wasn't reassured by any of Weston's information, and he worried with suspicion that their previous failures would nonetheless continue happening.

Later, after learning about Grimlock's recent reappearance in Fallon, Red ordered that the city be sealed off from any communications or travel in or out, and that Thunder-Lizards 2-5 be sent to deal with Grimlock. Maximum Dinobots #1

When he learned that, during the fight against Grimlock, Skywatch's neural control over the Thunder-Lizards started inexplicably dropping, he decided to do what he felt he should have done back when they lost control of Grimlock—have a talk with the last member of the "Eureka Six". Maximum Dinobots #2

Red had the techs inter-splice a bomb in Shockwave’s cerebral workings to ensure his compliance with their wishes. Shockwave’s mission was to retrieve the Dynobots, Ravage and Laserbeak within twenty-four hours, or risk the bomb’s detonation. Shockwave acknowledged and accepted his assignment, and the cyclopean Decepticon also left Agent Red with the troubling implication that the threat of the bomb wouldn’t stop him from menacing the planet. As Shockwave departed, Red received word of the arrival of the Machination Headmaster army from the Skywatch agents at the perimeter of Fallon. Maximum Dinobots #3

The situation continued to deteriorate, as unknown to Red, Shockwave made contact with the long-missing Soundwave. The two Decepticons made a bargain: Shockwave would tell Soundwave how to reverse the transformation lock the communications officer was currently suffering from, and Soundwave would copy the disarm code to the bomb in Shockwave’s head when it was transmitted. They put their plan into action by sending Skywatch agents on a wild goose chase to pick up Ravage and Laserbeak, who were pretending to have been disabled by Shockwave. Meanwhile, Shockwave headed towards the Machination’s main HQ in Dallas, where Scorponok was currently engaged in battle with the Dynobots. Maximum Dinobots #4

He's... he's already thinking of trying it again, isn't he?

Wanting to witness this battle personally, Agent Red boarded a helicopter and headed towards Dallas. Shockwave leapt into battle with both Scorponok and the Dynobots, simply wasting time until the twenty-four hour period allotted to him by Red was used up. Seeing that the time was almost expended, Red ordered the disarm code for the bomb to be transmitted so the Decepticon could continue fighting. The code was intercepted by Soundwave, who relayed it to Shockwave, currently tussling with Grimlock. Red’s hold on him now broken, Shockwave simply decided to end his battle with Grimlock and walk away, but the Dynobot commander instead used a grenade to detonate all the stowed artillery in the storage area where they had been fighting. The explosion took out both Grimlock and Shockwave and knocked Agent Red’s newly arrived helicopter for a loop.

By the time Agent Red and his Skywatch personnel had recovered and returned to the scene, it had been scrubbed of almost all Cybertronian evidence by Ultra Magnus. Skywatch was left to sift through the ashes and try to figure out what exactly had happened on this site. Maximum Dinobots #5

Joshua Red was replaced by Colonel Daniel Witwicky. The Man of Steel