TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED SERIES / CARTOONS

G1 Character Profiles
Shrapnel

Personal Profile: Shrapnel is the stag beetle Insecticon and the leader of the bunch. Shrapnel has the special ability to harness the power of electricity and lightning in the sky with his powerful antennae. He can then harness that electricity and lightning and use it as a powerful weapon against the Autobots. However, the Autobots are immune to this weapon when they're rolling on their tires in their vehicle modes. Shrapnel is the one that produces all of the Insecticon clones that make their numbers greater. He also carries a grenade launcher that shoots explosive grenades that are sure to do massive damage to anything they hit. With all of Shrapnel's great powers, he does have one flaw: he repeats himself at the end of almost every sentence. The Insecticons usually work for themselves, unless Megatron offers them a great ammount of energon cubes to carry out a task for him. And even then, their loyalty is questionable. Like real insects, the Insecticons love to nest and snack on trees. The other Insecticons are Bombshell, the beetle, and Kickback, the grasshopper.

Episodes appeared in: A Plauge Of Insecticons, Traitor, The Insecticon Syndrome, Quest For Survival, The Revenge Of Bruticus, and Transformers: The Movie

Cartoon Bio: Shrapnel and the other Insecticons crash landed on Earth seperate from the Autobots and Decepticons who crashed in the ark in 3,998,016 B.C. Their identity computers adapted them for life on Earth by turning them into insects, so they could blend in with their surroundings in the watery jungle they lived in, known as Demon Swamp. Megatron and the Decepticons later found the Insecticons in 1984 while they were engaged in a fight with Skyfire, Bumblebee, and Brawn. The Insecticons agreed to join Megatron's forces and they all went to attack an oil refinery. After The Decepticons and Insecticons took over the oil refinery, they were attacked by the Autobots. The Inecticons, seeing that they and their new allies were about to be defeated, decided to take the Decepticons' energon cubes for themselves. Megatron noticed this and sent the Decepticons to chase after the Insecticons and punish them for their treachery. This retreat allowed the Autobots to liberate the oil refinery that the 'Cons were occupying. At one point, the Autobot Cliffjumper accused his fellow Autobot, Mirage of being a traitor. Cliffjumper's accusations stemmed from the fact that Mirage stole energon cubes from the Insecticons and took them to a Decepticon land base, where Megatron and the others had stolen electro-cels and were working on harnessing the energy from them. However, Mirage only did this to start another battle between the Insecticons and Decepticons, since the Insecticons would think that Megatron and his bunch had robbed them. While the Decepticons and Insecticons were fighting, Bombshell caught Mirage spying on the battle and implanted a cerebro-shell in his head, making Mirage an Insecticon slave. The Insecticons and Decepticons then realized that Mirage was the cause of their fighting and they agreed to stop, so that they could use their new slave to destroy the Autobots. Mirage, now under Bombshell's control, led Optimus Prime, Cliffjumper, and Ratchet into an ambush. However, the Autobots were able to extract the cerebro-shell from Mirage and make him an Autobot again. The Autobots were able to defeat the Decepticons and Insecticons, but the electro-cels were destroyed. The Insecticons then went with the Decepticons to attack the Nova Power Plant. There, the Insecticons ate the Nova power core, which made them triple in size and strength, making them more powerful than ever before. The Insecticons then discovered Soundwave spying on them and listening to their plans of once again betraying the Decepticons. So, to prevent him from blowing their plans, Bombshell used a cerebro-shell on him to make him serve the Insecticons. Even though the Insecticons now seemed to be all-powerful, the Nova power core the 3 of them ate was incompatible with their stomachs, which made them suffer symptoms similar to a human stomach-ache. The Autobots then learned that if they didn't stop the Insecticons while they were making their next attack, this time on Iron Mountain, a defense astablishment, that their bodies would explode inside Iron Mountain and destroy it, along with all the human scientists within. The Autobots then had to form an alliance with Megatron and the Decepticons to stop the Insecticons with an antidote that Wheeljack and Ratchet invented. With the Decepticons' help, the Autobots were able to shrink the Insecticons back to their usual small size, and Soundwave was cured of being Bombshell's slave. After they were defeated, the Insecticons retreated, with the Decepticons following close behind, seeking vengeance. In the movie, the Insecticons were a part of the attack on Autobot City. Shrapnel and Kickback were run over at the opening gate by Hot Rod and Kup. When the Decepticons retreated to return to Cybertron aboard Astrotrain, it was decided that there was too much wait and that the badly injured Decepticons had to be sacrificed for the others. The Insecticons were thrown out along with Megatron, Skywarp, and Thundercracker. It is unclear however whether the 3 Insecticons thrown out of Astrotrain were the real ones, or just clone duplicates. The 6 injured Decepticons were found by Unicron, who reformatted Megatron into Galvatron, Thundercracker into Cyclonus, Skywarp into Scourge, and the 3 Insecticons, whether the real ones, or just clones, were changed into Scourge's clone henchmen, the Sweeps.

Shrapnel; Quotes:

"In that case, it is my pleasure to ask you to help us destroy these animated scrap piles, scrap piles."
"Let's pay Megatron a little visit, visit. I'm sure he's deceiving us, deceiving us."
"Don't scram your ram, Kickback. That's just Bomshell's stomach rumbling, rumbling."
"Why waste our power, when we can turn the humans' power against them, them?"
"Something's gonna explode, but it's not gonna be yours truly!"
"A little heavy on the electrons, electrons."

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