| “ | And that's why I now prefer to work alone. It's so sad when bad things happen to those close to you. But don't get me wrong -- I fully intend to snuff out your spark. And, believe me, I will make it hurt. But that won't compare to the pain you feel of knowing I'm adding your human to my collection. | „ |
| ~ Airachnid emotionally tormenting Arcee. |
| “ | When you extinguish my spark, make it hurt. You know I would extend that courtesy to you. | „ |
| ~ Airachnid upon being cornered by Arcee. |
Airachnid is a supporting antagonist of the TV show Transformers: Prime, serving as one of two secondary antagonists (alongside Starscream) of Season 1, a supporting antagonist in Season 2 and a minor antagonist in Season 3.
She was a former Decepticon and Megatron's rogue commander who left the group and decided to hunt endangered species just for the thrill of hunting. She originally took the form of a half-spider creature, but recently, in order for her to escape, she took the form of a helicopter. She is also Arcee's arch-nemesis, due to murdering her first partner, Tailgate and hunting her human partner, Jack, like an animal.
Initially, Airachnid continued acting on her plans alone, until her presence on Earth was discovered by the Decepticons. With no real choice, Airachnid rejoined the Deceptions and served under Megatron once more, however, this time with a hidden agenda to overthrow him. When her coup was foiled, Airachnid once again deserted the Deceptions and acted alone until she discovered a hidden hive of Insecticons on Earth. Able to control them, she planned to use her new army to eliminate anyone who opposed her; Autobot, Decepticon and human alike.
She was voiced by Gina Torres, who also played Jasmine in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off Angel and voiced Superwoman in Justice League: Crisis on Two-Earths (later reprising the same role in Lego DC Super-Villains).
What Makes Her Pure Evil?[]
Background[]
- Captured Arcee and physically tortured her in an attempt to know the Autobots' coordinates. When she resisted, Airachnid emotionally traumatized Arcee by killing her partner, Tailgate, right in front of her.
- She would've killed Arcee too had Bumblebee and Cliffjumper not intervened to rescue her.
- After leaving the Decepticons, she traveled the cosmos hunting living species and goes on butchering them to the point where they are endangered, bragging about how they weren't endangered at first until they met her.
- She then collects trophies per species of all the species she hunted down, with at least 6 trophies minimum present on her ship.
Season 1[]
- Planned to kill everyone on Earth.
- Threatened to kill Arcee but beforehand, she toyed with Arcee's guilt by blaming her for the deaths of her pervious partners. She then continued to emotionally torture Arcee by threating to kill her new partner, Jack Darby.
- Chased Jack with the intent to kill him and take his head as a trophy. All the while, she sadistically toyed with Jack's fear by purposefully prolonging their chase.
- Partnered with Silas and M.E.C.H to get revenge on Jack and Arcee for destroying her ship and injuring her. M.E.C.H would lure Jack and Arcee into her ambush, and in return, she promised to give M.E.C.H Arcee's body for study.
- When M.E.C.H kidnapped Jack's mother, June Darby, Airachnid revealed to Jack her plans of revenge were to make Jack watch as she killed his mother. She called it "the sweetest revenge I can possibly devise".
- Despite giving Jack a sporting chance to rescue his mother, she only did it to toy with Jack's fear for his mother's life. She was then purposefully vague on her instructions in order to decrease his chances of succeeding, so when he failed to meet her requirements, she sadistically restrained him to witness "the Horror Show" (her attempt to kill his mother).
- When Fowler ambushes her, she immediately abandons M.E.C.H once she acquires an alternate mode and ends their alliance.
- She only rejoined the Decepticons and served under Megatron due to pragmatic reasons, as Breakdown (indirectly) took her prisoner and the Decepticons would provide her new opportunities.
- Later on, she hinted to Arcee that she was planning to betray the Decepticons when a better opportunity presented itself to her. Going so far as to call her readmission into the Decepticons a "temporary arrangement".
- When she was ordered by Megatron to team up with Starscream to locate an old Decepticon weapon, she restrained and abandoned Starscream to be captured by The Autobots in order to usurp his position as Megatron's Second-in-command.
- She uses the immobilizer on the Autobots and freezes them alive. She then intended to bring them back to Megatron to use as wished: She speculated Megatron would use Bulkhead for target practice, dismantle Bumblebee for spare parts, and treat Optimus Prime as a personal trophy.
- While she does intend to follow Megatron's orders in returning the Immobilizer to the Decepticons, she only reached that conclusion after weighing her options. She believed that worming her way into Megatron's favor to earn his "eternal trust" was more valuable to her than defecting with the Immobilizer.
- During Unicron's awakening, she attempted to usurp Megatron's leadership and abandon him on Earth. Only Soundwave's intervention stopped her.
Season 2[]
- Incited Breakdown by insulting his merit and sadistically making puns related to his missing optic.
- Killed Breakdown and ripped his body apart, even going so far as to brag about it to Starscream and taunting Megatron for sending "simple henchmen". (It's unconfirmed whether the mutilation was before or after killing him, but it's still horrific either way). It's also implied that Breakdown was still online while Airachnid tortured him to death.
- When Starscream proposed a partnership with her and a plan to kill Megatron, she quickly betrayed him by stealing his plan and ordering her Insecticon to kill him.
- Lured Megatron into an ambush and attempted to kill him with her Insecticon soldier. All the while, she observed in sadistic glee and dishonorably handicaped him during the fight.
- Attempted to eradicate both the Decepticons and Autobots with her Insecticon army.
Season 3[]
- Killed Silas (aka CY.L.A.S) after he freed her from her stasis pod. Then Immediately showed complete indifference towards his death.
- Although it was in self-defense, she still nonetheless strived to kill him in the most sadistic way possible by mortally wounding him and attempting to tear out his spark.
- Upon regaining her freedom, she quickly retook control over the Insecticons.
- She once again attempted to use her army to kill every Decepticon, only being stopped by Soundwave banishing her and her army to one of Cybertron's moons, stranding her for the rest of eternity.
- After her condition from the bite became worse to the point she would need to drink Energon to survive, she did not hesitate to drain the Energon from her Insecticon army, claiming dozens of victims until she presumably starved to death.
Trivia[]
- According to Rik Alvarez, plans for Beast Hunters: Predacons Rising involved Airachnid and her Insecticons (which were turned into Terrorcons due to her feeding on them) joining forces with Unicron (now possessing Megatron) to supplement the latter's Terrorcon army made out of Predacon remains and help him in his crusade to kill Primus, but it never came to pass for unknown reasons (presumably due to the lack of time). Had this idea made to the final cut, it would've made her even worse.
- Airachnid is, alongside Starscream, Silas, Unicron and The Fallen, one of five Transformers Aligned Continuity villains to be Pure Evil. She is also, alongside Shatter, one of two Pure Evils from the Transformers franchise to be female.
- She is also arguably one of the most evil and vile female characters in all of Transformers media (even more so than Shatter), due to how she has slaughtered countless alien creatures and several characters like Tailgate, Breakdown and Silas and how she has the goal of overthrowing Megatron and destroying both the Autobots and the Decepticons.
- While she is Pure Evil in the English, Korean and Spanish dubs, her personality in the Japanese dub is completely different from her US interpretation. Said dub shows that she is a bubbly, giggling, high-strung chatterbox that is obsessed with collecting handsome boys as trophies and has a crush on Jack, meaning she has redeeming qualities there and is played for laughs (although the Japanese dub does not count as canon to the original language version or other dubs, so it does not disqualify her status as Pure Evil altogether).
- Airachnid is based on Blackarachnia from Transformers: Animated, Beast Wars & Beast Machines, and inspired by fellow Transformers PEs Tarantulas and Lockdown.
External Links[]
- Airachnid on the Villains Wiki
- Airachnid on the Transformers Prime Wiki
- Airachnid on TFWiki.net
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 Aligned Pure Evils
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War For Cybertron games: Megatron | ||