Spark

Botanica is a Bellarian.

The spark is the core of Transformer life, an electrically charged mass of positrons formed from the supernatural substance known as Rarified Energon. Sparks come in a wide range of colors—while most are some shade of blue, green, yellow, orange, white, and red sparks have all been observed. While their appearances may vary, every spark functions as a combined heart and soul for an individual Cybertronian: like a heart, a Spark "pulses" at a certain frequency to animate a mechanical bodyframe; like a soul, a spark is generally accepted to contain some part of a Transformer's immaterial being, which persists after death by transcending into the afterlife. Indeed, most Cybertronian religions hold that each spark contains an infinitesimally small portion of Primus's divine essence. To protect their sparks, which usually can't survive outside of a compatible body for very long, most Cybertronians possess a specialized "spark chamber" somewhere in their body.

Most forms of Cybertronian reproduction involves the creation of a new spark—in many realities, supernatural artifacts such as the Vector Sigma supercomputer or the AllSpark can generate sparks at will, which can be implanted into a suitable receptacle to create a new Transformer. These newborn sparks contain the hard-coded design schematics that act as a Transformer's "genetic code", which dictates a Transformer's appearance and sometimes even their alternate modes. Sparks can be safely stored in stasis pods, "frozen" within photonic crystals, or even transplanted from one body to another with no ill effects, but they are susceptible to weaponsfire and exotic forms of radiation. When a Transformer's body can no longer support its spark, it is "extinguished" and the Transformer is considered dead. As long as the spark is intact, however, it is possible to repair a Transformer, re-implant its spark, and effectively bring them back from the dead.

Conceptual history

The Marvel comic introduced the brain module as the "core" of Transformer life.

Although the Beast Wars cartoon was the first piece of Transformers media to introduce and codify the nature of the spark and its role in Cybertronian physiology, various works of "Generation 1" fiction had presented a number of similar concepts and ideas to prove that the Transformers were true "living beings" and not just simple machines acting out preprogrammed directives. Issue #10 of the original Marvel comic introduced the brain module as the core of Cybertronian life, which could only be manufactured and activated with the help of the life-giving Creation Matrix—without one, the resulting Transformer would be a mindless, emotionless automaton, functional but not truly "alive". Although the word "spark" did appear offhandedly in some Generation 1 comic stories (a "spark of life", a "life spark", "Let no spark remain flickering in a single Autobot microchip!", "For as long as a spark exists within a single Mechabot..."), these were clearly metaphorical statements and otherwise unconnected to the concept that would eventually evolve. The original Generation 1 cartoon introduced the laser core as a crucial component of Cybertronian anatomy, and the later episodes "Starscream's Brigade" and "B.O.T." featured personality components that governed a Transformer's ability to think, speak, and emote.

Early drafts of The Transformers: The Movie featured "Life Sparks", which were small glowing versions of the Transformers to whom they belonged. In one early draft, Life Sparks are said to depart the body of a Transformer upon death and dissipate into nothingness unless they are contained within another vessel. In this version of the script, Optimus Prime's Life Spark took the place of the Matrix of Leadership; upon his death, he bequeathed it to Ultra Magnus, who became the next Autobot leader for a time. Megatron requested to have his enshrined in an urn at the Decepticon Hall of Heroes only for his pleas to be ignored; his Life Spark then drifted into space, and Unicron eventually recreated it as Galvatron. Although this idea was discarded from the finished film entirely, a vestigial reference persisted in the UK comic story "Target: 2006" where author Simon Furman misinterpreted "Life Spark" as the name of a character who was rebuilt into Cyclonus.

The concept of the spark as we know it today was first detailed in the Beast Wars episode "The Spark".^[1] Compared to brain modules and laser cores, Beast Wars couched the idea of sparks in explicitly supernatural terms and all-but compared them to a tangible "soul" that served as a Cybertronian's animating life-force. Sparks remained prominent throughout Beast Wars; events in seasons two and three further established that all Transformers—be they Maximal, Predacon, Autobot, or Decepticon—possess sparks. Sparks played a major role in the follow-up Beast Machines cartoon, which gave more information about the Transformer life cycle: each spark was a fragment of the immaterial Matrix, the "Allspark" through which all sparks arose from and eventually returned to.

The BotCon 1999 prose story "Paradox" was the first to connect sparks to the benevolent creator-god Primus, noting that each Spark contained an infinitesimal fraction of his divine lifeforce. In 2004, Dreamwave Productions' Generation One continuity introduced the supernatural "Well of All Sparks" as the mechanism through which new sparks entered the material world from the essence of Primus at Cybertron's core. In addition to the physical AllSpark artifact from the first live-action film, the ability to generate sparks at will has since been backported to two artifacts from the original Generation 1 cartoon: the Vector Sigma supercomputer and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership—this latter retcon is almost assuredly based on the role the Creation Matrix played in the original Marvel comics.

Since their introduction, sparks have featured in basically all continuities in some way, shape or form. This includes new works set in the long-running Generation 1 continuity family, which has successfully introduced the concept into modern Generation 1 stories like IDW Publishing's various comic continuities and contemporary universes like the Aligned continuity family and Cyberverse.

Unusual sparks

Immortal sparks

Many versions of Starscream have somehow cheated death, persisting as a kind of "ghost" even after the complete destruction of his physical form. The Beast Wars episodes "Possession" and "Bad Spark," attributed this behaviour to the presence of an immortal, indestructible "mutant spark"—as a disembodied spark, he retained his memories, personality, and the ability to move around under his own power; he could travel through space and time and even possess other Transformers.

In the Beast Wars cartoon continuity, Maximal scientists attempted to replicate Starscream's aberrant spark—their reckless experimentation created the murderously insane Profotorm X, who later took on the name "Rampage". Like Starscream, Rampage's spark could not be extinguished through the simple destruction of his body, though it could be "split" by carving with an energon crystal. Megatron kept part of the spark in a case lined with energon crystals, and squeezing the case caused Rampage great physical pain. Rampage's spark turned out to not be completely indestructible, however; when Depth Charge pierced his spark with "pure" crystalline energon, it created an explosion strong enough to destroy Rampage's physical body and the portion of the spark that he carried within his body, seemingly killing him for good.

Multiple sparks in one body

In rare cases, a Transformer may be able to take the spark of another Cybertronian into their body—essentially using their body to sustain this second spark while still maintaining their own sparks and personalities. In the Beast Wars cartoon, Optimus Primal temporarily housed the spark of Optimus Prime; he grew into an enormous, exponentially more powerful "Optimal Optimus" form, and Megatron later pulled off a similar stunt by doing the same thing with the original Megatron. When the aberrant disembodied spark of Starscream had earlier possessed Waspinator the only physical change was the body's allegiance emblems shifting from Predacon to Decepticon. Based on information from the series there is no basis for determining whether this phenomenon is a result of a single body housing two sparks, a Beast Era body housing a Generation One spark, a body being implanted with an especially "powerful" spark conceivably like those of Optimus Prime and Megatron or some combination of these. The Beast Wars comic miniseries The Gathering implies that Generation One sparks may be intrinsically more powerful than Beast Era sparks.

The Prime Master Transformers are specifically noted to carry the sparks of the Thirteen within their bodies; when they link with another Cybertronian, they bestow a portion of that power upon the Autobot or Decepticon in question by granting them supernatural power boosts and sometimes completely altering their personalities. It is unclear if these Prime Masters have sparks of their own, or if they are solely powered by the sparks of the Thirteen they carry.

Spark powers

Main articles: Transmetal 2 and Outlier (group)

Some rare Cybertronians possess spark-based powers that set them apart from average Cybertronians. Most prominenetly, Maximals and Predacons who had been mutated into Transmetal 2 forms by the Transmetal driver all possessed abnormal sparks with supernatural powers. As Cheetor mutated into his Transmetal 2 form, tendrils of energy emerged from his spark chamber that changed his body; after fully becoming a Transmetal 2, he was able to telekinetically holster and unholster his pistol using his spark powers.

In other continuities, Cybertronians with strange powers like technopathy or teleportation are known as "outliers". The exact relationship between these powers and the nature of the spark is not clearly understood; in More than Meets the Eye #36, Sentinel Prime attempted to create an army of outliers by dousing the recently-arisen sparks at the Alyon hot spot with radiation, but the attempt was thwarted early and it is unclear if his experiments succeeded.

Biological sparks

In rare cases, sparks can even graft themselves into an organic body. During a climactic battle against Optimus Primal, Megatron's beast mode body somehow divided himself between his organic and technological components; his spark wound up inside a purely organic form and suffered no ill effects. When Megatron disentangled his spark from this form, the "Savage Noble" creature survived the process and became a mindless animal.

In the Lost Light comic, Scorponok genetically engineered a number of strange organic lifeforms with sparks like the Treecons; using the knowledge encoded within the Magnificence, he was able to extract the still-living spark from a Decepticon and implant it into the body of a genetically engineered humanoid creature he called "the Firstborn". Scorponok planned to engineer an entire race of spark-powered organics; he precipitated his plan on the theory that their sparks would divide and carry on to the next generation, and that he could one day "harvest" the sparks from their bearers and use them to repopulate the dying Decepticon race. As only one being was created before his plan was thwarted, it is unclear if this plan would have succeeded.

Cryak's spark was able to exist, apparently indefinitely, within the body of a cybernetically enhanced Voin ape, although the experience drove her insane.

Technorganic sparks

Transformers who are reformatted into technorganic forms through the power of the Oracle possess unusually-colored sparks that generally match the color of their robot-mode eyes (for instance, Rattrap possessed red eyes and a red spark). Whenever the technorganic Maximals transformed, they would glow with the light of their spark color; after being infused with extra power from the Allspark during the final battle against Megatron's Vehicons, their sparks became visible as if parts of their torsos were translucent.

Technorganic Transformers appear to be able to sense and communicate with the sparks of other Transformers through a process that appears analogous to telepathy. According to dialogue from "Revelations Part III: Apocalypse" this ability is related to the sparks' mutual connection to the Allspark. While Blackarachnia's spark was outside of her body, her consciousness did not remain in the "real world". Instead, she experienced a conversation with the meditating Optimus Primal—not a hallucination—which took place on an abstract "higher plane of existence" perhaps within the Allspark itself.

Branched sparks

Main article: Twin

Much like a human zygote, a spark can, either naturally or through artificial induction, split into two healthy but inextricably linked sparks. The resulting Cybertronians are considered twins and possess a "branched" or "split" spark. Some Cybertronians born with branched sparks, like the small Transformers who inhabit the planet Devisiun, may combine with their spark-sibling to form a single combined alternate mode, though most possess independent transformations. Still others, like Skids and Mudflap, can combine with their sibling or assume an independent vehicle form as needed.

Individuals who share a branched spark have been known to experience a phenomenon known as "vicarious perception", where one twin can feel the pain of the other. In extreme situations, the death of one twin can even kill the other.

Mitotic sparks

Main article: Multi-component Transformer

Cybertronians who possess a mitotic spark inhabit and control multiple Transformers simultaneously. Unlike combiners, who are five individual beings who can temporarily unite their minds and bodies into a single gestalt entity, mitotic Transformers possess one consciousness and will spread across many separate bodies, usually somewhere between two and three independent forms who often possess their own alternate modes. This unusual power grants them great flexibility on the battlefield and supreme durability—a mitotic Transformer can generally survive the destruction of one body.

Some mitotic Transformers like Sky Lynx possess multiple interlinked Transformers who can all combine into one single shape; others like Magmatron and the Duocons possess multiple non-transforming alternate modes who combine into a single robot. Exarchon possesses a more dangerous version of this talent—he can forcibly overwrite the minds and personalities of other Transformers and subsume them into a "collective" of mind-controlled bodies.

Prime Spark

Main article: Prime Spark (Spark)

The Prime Spark has been entrusted by Primus to at least three Transformers from different dimensions and time periods: "Generation 1" Optimus Prime, Armada Optimus Prime, and Optimus Primal. When they all encountered each other at moment of their respective deaths, the assembled leaders realized that their sparks all resonated as one. Ask Vector Prime would go on to elaborate on the concept, and it could be considered a loose precursor to the idea of "multiversal singularities" that Hasbro and Fun Publications would later introduce.

Embers

Grimlock's red ember is visible on his chest.

The Cybertronians who inhabit the backwards universe of Shattered Glass possess red, electron-charged "embers" instead of blue, positron-charged sparks. Beyond this, there are no observable differences between embers and the spark of the dimension-hopping Cliffjumper during his visit to this strange reality.

Anti-sparks

As each Transformer possesses a portion of Primus's divine life-force, so too is Unicron powered by an animating force all his own—a malevolent "anti-spark". Transformers who use Dark Energon as a fuel source invariably corrupt their being by binding Unicron's anti-spark to their own. Dark Energon has the power to resurrect dead Transformers as mindless, undead Terrorcons, invariably hostile creatures who possess a portion of Unicron's own anti-spark in place of their own spark.

The Vehicons of Beast Wars: Uprising possess anti-sparks, though theirs are only loosely related to Unicron, the result of experimentation with the energies of Galvatron. In this universe, Vehicons with anti-sparks are able to assimilate other Cybertronians and forcibly transform them into more Vehicons.

Anti-sparks should not be confused with the Dark Spark, the supernatural antithesis to the Matrix of Leadership.

Point One Percenters

Main article: Point One Percenter

In some realities, a small number of Cybertronians possess enhanced green sparks. These rare ‘bots are known as “Point One Percenters”, so named for their extreme rarity. Point One Percenters possess enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and durability compared to the baseline Cybertronian average, though just how strong a Point One Percenter is varies from one to the next. Some possess additional abilities; "loadbearing" Point One Percenters, for instance, were the only Cybertronians capable of safely wearing and operating the mighty Magnus Armor.

Titansparks

The enormous Transformers known as Titans are said to possess unique sparks; in the 2019 IDW continuity, these are specifically identified as "Titansparks". What exactly differentiates Titansparks from ordinary Cybertronian sparks isn't entirely clear, though Drift claims in the More than Meets the Eye annual that these "super sparks" supposedly span multiple planes of existence and allow Titans to "commune with the divine". These unique sparks appear to be the differentiating factor between Titans and other giant Cybertronians—Leviathan is extremely large, roughly the size of a combiner like Devastator, but she is specifically noted to be no different from someone like Bumblebee.

Sparkless Transformers

Within the traditional Cybertronian worldview, a Transformer needs a spark to be considered truly "alive"—the spark gives them the ability to think, feel, and emote. Traditionally, Cybertronians without sparks are either mindless drones, who operate on a set of preprogrammed directives, or zombies, unliving shells forced back to life through science or sorcery. Across the multiverse, Cybertronians frequently utilize nonliving machines in their starships and buildings, which vary in both complexity and functionality—sophisticated artificial intelligences like the Diagnostic Drones, Deployers, or T-AI are by all appearance fully sentient beings, but lack sparks.

The Japanese Generation 1 continuity regards Transformers built without the assistance of Vector Sigma, such as the Dinobots and the Predacons, to lack sparks, resulting in more bestial and less intelligent personalities.

In Transformers Animated, Starscream was brought back to life with a fragment of the AllSpark in place of a normal spark, and Titan's tie-in comics would reveal that comic-original character Afterburn was really a sparkless drone. Although he showed emotion, initiative and thought beforehand, Optimus Prime wrote him off as not having been a "real" bot after learning of his true nature and viewed it as pointless to mark Afterburn's death.

In rare instances, Transformers have somehow managed to transfer an engram of their mind into a new, Sparkless body—in Age of Extinction, Megatron's mind survived the destruction of his original body, then invaded KSI's sparkless "Galvatron" prototype and turned it into a new body for himself. The resulting "Galvatron" was by all accounts a sentient being with free will, but lacked a spark—but does he count as a "real" Cybertronian lifeform, or is he just an advanced copy?

Fiction

Generation 1 continuity family

Beast Wars cartoon continuity

Most Cybertronians can open and close their spark chambers at will.

All Sparks stem from the mystical dimension known as the Allspark, a metaphysical matrix that contains the joined sparks of all Transformers who ever lived or ever will live. Each spark passes into the material world to learn and grow; when it is extinguished, it adds its knowledge to the totality contained within. Seeds of the Future The physical mechanism by which new Sparks enter the material world is not clear. Different sources have alluded to the existence of "Matrix" and "Pit" facilities where Maximal and Predacon sparks are respectively created, but details are scarce and sometimes contradictory. Beast Wars Universe The Razor's Edge

Though the intrinstic essence of the spark cannot be altered through any known means, shell programs can be used to overwrite a Transformer's personality. In extreme cases, shell programs can create entirely new beings with no apparent relation to the Maximal or Predacon they might've once been. Double Jeopardy Discovery

Beast Wars cartoon

Newly born sparks were placed within a protoform. On long-range exploration and colonization missions, they would be stored within stasis pods, which would keep both the protoform safe until it could acquire a beast mode using the pod's built-in DNA scanner. The Spark Most sparks were susceptible to energon; the radiation from raw energon could short out mechanical bodies and damage the spark, Beast Wars (Part 1) and pure energon could completely destroy the spark. Nemesis Part 2 Traditionally, stasis lock was a way to preserve the spark by shifting into an energy-conserving low power mode until sufficiently repaired. Code of Hero

The Transmetal driver changes the color of Cheetor's spark.

The Decepticon Air Commander Starscream possessed a mutant spark; Possession when Maximal High Command sought to recreate this power, they got the murderous Protoform X. Bad Spark The original Starscream found his way to the Beast Wars and possessed Waspinator's body for a time, but Blackarachnia soon exorcised the errant spark by detonating an energon cache beneath Waspinator. Possession When Rampage awoke on prehistoric Earth, Megatron later used an energon knife to carve out a piece of the experiment's spark, Bad Spark and tortured him by using a cage of energon crystals to squeeze half of his spark. Bad Spark

During a desperate battle to save the original Optimus Prime, Optimus Primal made the drastic decision to carry Prime's spark in his own body until the other Maximals could repair his body. Carrying two sparks at once drastically altered Primal's body into a powerful "Optimal" form, which carried over even after he returned Prime's spark to its correct vessel. Optimal Situation Not to be outdone, Megatron would later pull off a similar feat with the spark of the original Megatron. Master Blaster

The enigmatic Vok took an interest in the Cybertronians that had contaminated their experiment and abducted Airazor and Tigatron to extract their sparks. Other Visits (Part 1) Their Transmetal driver had a drastic effect on Cybertronian sparks; it displayed the ability to mutate both Maximals and Predacons into powerful Transmetal 2 forms, which all displayed abnormal Spark-based powers like telekinesis or enhanced healing. Feral Scream Part 2 The Vok eventually created Tigerhawk from the sparkless bodies of their captives, and Tigatron and Airazor took the chance to merge into one spark and inhabit Tigerhawk as a new composite entity. Other Victories

Beast Machines cartoon

After the end of the Beast Wars, Megatron escaped Maximal captivity, returned to Cybertron ahead of his captors, and used this head start to construct an army of sparkless Vehicon drones. Descent Eager to ensure that his would become the only spark on a Cybertron stripped of free will, a "single elegant machine" of his own devising, Megatron successfully took over the planet with a transformation virus and extracted the sparks from every other Cybertronian. He stored the disembodied sparks inside the former Council Citadel, where he one day planned to abosrb them into his own spark. The Siege Megatron laboured to purge himself of his now-hated beast mode but refused the simple option of simply transferring his spark to a purely mechanical frame, noting that doing so would leave his spark vulnerable. Survivor When Optimus Primal and his Maximals finally returned to Cybertron, they were beset by the Vehicons and infected with the virus. Their escape from the Vehicons led them to the the Oracle, who recognized Primal's "receptive spark" and reformatted the four into technorganic bodies. The Reformatting Whenever Primal used his powers to reformat another Cybertronian into a technorganic form, his spark would shine from his body. Forbidden Fruit Home Soil

Though Megatron first sought to crush the Maximals through sheer numbers, he conceded that free will and the capacity for lateral thought had its uses and made the decision to place three of his captured sparks into Vehicon bodies, using shell programs to create the Vehicon Generals. Fires of the Past Primal felt something familiar about the general Tankor's spark, Mercenary Pursuits and the Maximals soon discovered the truth: Tankor was really Rhinox, just as Jetstorm and Thrust were really Silverbolt and Waspinator. Discovery Descent Though the Maximals believed that the shell program had corrupted Rhinox's spark and turned him into an amoral villain, Optimus maintained that his former compatriot had voluntarily chosen to stand with Megatron and they had to respect this decision. Apocalypse

Megatron's spark ensnares and consumes other sparks from his collection.

When a clash between the Maximals and Megatron resulted in the anti-organic energies of the Key to Vector Sigma meeting the anti-technological energies of the Plasma Energy Chamber, End of the Line Optimus sacrificed himself to ensure the powers did not destroy Cybertron. His spark went on a vision quest in the afterlife for a time before he returned to his body. Fallout At the same time, Megatron attempted to purge his organic form once and for all by transferring his spark into a new mechanical form. However, his spark was instead transferred into the "Savage Noble" creature that had coalesced from his body's organic elements. Megatron posed as a Maximal to gain access to the Council Citadel and uploaded his spark into the Grand Mal, the body he'd intended to wear. Prometheus Unbound Megatron later moved the sparks into a spark containment unit inside his body, where he brought forth the sparks of the legendary generals Strika and Obsidian and implanted them into Vehicon bodies to act as his new enforcers. The Strike Optimus Primal baited Megatron with access to the Oracle so that the Maximal leader could learn where Cybertron's sparks now resided. The Search Megatron used the knowledge he'd gleaned from the Oracle to begin absorbing the captured sparks into his own; his spark grew to an enormous size before Nightscream depolarized it with a powerful sonic scream. The Siege

Megatron's depolarized spark was unable to inhabit a material body for very long; it bounced across Cybertron, randomly possessing dead bodies before Rattrap was able to re-polarize the spark and trap it inside a helpless Diagnostic Drone. Spark of Darkness With the Grand Mal still in their possession, the Maximals made defending Cybertron's sparks their priority as Megatron ordered his generals to recapture them. The Downward Spiral Communing with the sparks, the Maximals tapped into their own sparks for a power boost when the battle turned against them. Though the Maximals managed to defeat the Vehicon Generals, Megatron had managed to transfer his spark into a new combat-ready body, Optimus Primal's "Optimal Optimus" form, and extracted the sparks of every Maximal save Primal himself. When Legends Fall

In the following battle, Megatron emerged victorious and absorbed every spark into himself. At the cusp of his ascension however, Primal managed to manipulate the technorganic matter to shove Megatron and himself into Cybertron's organic core. As Primal reformatted the core itself and initiated the Great Transformation that saw the entire planet transformed into a technorganic world, Megatron's stolen sparks were all released and promptly returned to their original bodies. Seeds of the Future

Transformers Legends anthology

A portion of the original Megatron attempted to manipulate his successor into returning his disembodied spark to his original body. After the end of the Beast Wars, the Maximals ensured that this spark was returned to its original vessel to preserve the timeline. A Meeting of Minds

During his time as Cybertron's ruler, Megatron's disembodied spark flashed between the material world and the Allspark, which presented itself as a metaphysical "tree". Rhinox explained that all sparks can only "ascend" through the eight realms as far as they can share their self with the world around them. Singularity Ablyss

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

During the Golden Age of Cybertron, Transformers referred to sparks as their "Life Force" or "Laser Core". The term "spark" did not come into usage until after the end of the Great War and the rise of the Maximals and Predacons. Beast Wars Sourcebook

Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

Sparks were a feature of robotic life in the Precursor World that preceded the G1 World. Seeking to bring his Primus Vanguard through the rebirth of the universe, Primus attempted to use his Golden Noah to collect and ferry the wayward sparks of members of the Blue Order after they were done in by the Straxuses's betrayal. God Neptune comic 1 In this world, at least the leaders of the Primus Vanguard were able to transfer their spirits to other objects, such as when White Gallant Convoy lived on within God Neptune's Neptune Sword. Blue Big Convoy was able to do the same with the Matrix Sword, God Neptune comic 2 which allowed Straxus to use his spark energies to create an experimental clone. Cybertron Magna Convoy prequel comic

Primus's efforts were in vain, as the only beings that would ultimately make it over to the new world were himself and Primacron. But thanks to the Matrix that carried Primus's essence, Primus himself was able to act as a conduit between the life from the previous universe and the present universe. As such, Primacron used Primus to create living robotic beings such as the Junkions, the Lithone, and many others. Primus was able to escape Primacron's clutches, eventually settling on the planet that would later be known as Cybertron. There, he was discovered and exploited by the Quintessons to create another kind of robotic life with sparks: the Transformers. As Vector Sigma, Primus acted on the behalf of several to grant true life—sparks—to various Transformers. Generations Selects Special Comic Finale Transformers created without Vector Sigma were of low intelligence, being considered as more akin to animals. The Road to Legends' Revival Chapter 3

However, the existence of sparks was unknown to Transformers in general, with them believing that the personality component contained the essence of a Transformer Starscream's Brigade and that their "personality data" was executed by a unique energy signature referred to abstractly as "lifeforce" which was propagated throughout their bodies by laser cores. GT Units Online! This was the case till Wheeljack, inspired by a conversation with Primacron in 2011, Controverse investigated the existence of the Transformer soul. His research led him to open up his personality component in 2025 and discover his own spark within. From this time onward, sparks were common knowledge, although the particulars of where sparks went to after death were still a mystery. The Road to Legends' Revival Chapter 2

In some cases, an individual's spark was used to animate another being, such as when Brawl's personality component gave life to the rudimentary human-made robot, B.O.T., in 1985 B.O.T. and when 2005's Ravage was used to give life to a copy of his future self. Ghosts of the Past Around 2030, Violengiguar was created by the Vok from an aggregate of deceased Decepticons' sparks. LG-EX Big Powered Prologue Part Two

In the BT World that split from the G1 World in 2005, the Transformers learned of the spark earlier when the Protector's spark possessed the body of Nemesis Prime. Binal Time

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Traditionally, the spark of a Cybertronian is created when a protoform is imbued with enough energy to bring it to life. The spark can uses its hard-coded genetic instructions to reformat the protoform into a suitable robotic body with an alternate mode, or it can simply animate a pre-built body. In ancient times, it was believed that the energies of the Matrix of Leadership were the font of all life and that all sparks possessed a connection to Primus himself, but as Cybertronian society developed a more atheistic worldview this was eventually dismissed as superstition. In the years before the war, scientists attempted to deduce a rational explanation for the origin of sparks.

The spark is suffused throughout the body; when a Transformer dies, their corpse releases a measurable energy burst, which was speculated to be the spark leaving the body. Certain sparks were known to have aberrant properties that counted special powers among them. A spark was known to sometimes split, resulting in the creation of siblings. The Decepticon Shockwave managed to artificially replicate this to create clones, but this process was noted to be overall inferior to natural spark separation. More than Meets the Eye

During his Unbinding ritual, the Fallen gathered four Cybertronians with unique sparks, specifically those with great "genetic potential": Grimlock, Blitzwing, Jetfire, and Hot Spot. Conflagration While Blitzwing would eventually mutate into a Triple Changer and Hot Spot was already a member of a combiner team, an unproduced issue of The War Within would've revealed that Grimlock's spark was part of a "lineage" that dated back to the Thirteen themselves, though Jetfire's significance will forever remain a mystery.

Marvel Comics continuity

Classics

The nature of the Cybertronian body and spark is highly dependent upon the rarified energon that shapes it—the "base element" of Transformer life is present across the multiverse and is responsible for the highly varied, heterogeneous properties of the Cybertronian species. Though each spark reflects the nature of Primus, Rarified Energon is finite in nature and must be carefully guarded, so Primus tasked Nexus Prime of the Thirteen with guarding this miraculous substance so that it could not be used for evil. Crossing Over: Part 6

The Last Autobot considered his Mini-Con creations to be "children of his own spark", though it is unclear if this sentiment is literal or metaphorical. The New World

Regeneration One

The malevolent Dark Matrix creature discovered a way to consume the vestigial sparks of warriors who had made the pilgrimage to Primus's chamber, and grew more powerful with each new spark he consumed. The War to End All Wars, Part 5

Following the second crash of the Ark, a damaged Shockwave willingly wired himself into the craft's systems to preserve his spark. Natural Selection, Part Two When the Wreckers crashed on Earth, Megatron ordered his horde of zombie Decepticons to bring them to him in a state where he could see dread in their optics before he snuffed out their sparks. Loose Ends, Part 2 When Optimus Prime later engaged Megatron in battle the Decepticon leader swore to open Prime's spark chamber with his teeth. His own spark was ripped out of his chest and crushed seconds later by an apologetic Prime. Loose Ends, Part 5

After the Cybertronians had been separated from Primus and the larger multiverse, they lost their biological immortality. Millenia in the future, Rodimus Prime had become the last Cybertronian; when he finally died, the vestiges of his spark energy provided the final catalyst for the Demons to complete their millennia-long metamorphosis and emerge as a new generation. The War to End All Wars, Part 5

Transformers '84

Prior to the initial launch from Cybertron, the sparks of the wounded Dynobots were separated from their bodies and held within a magnetic containment field aboard the Ark until their bodies could be mended; their minds, on the other hand, were removed from their bodies, uploaded onto crystalline containment vessels, and stored in the mind bank that held the engrams of multiple Autobot reservists. When the Ark later crashed on Earth, AUNTIE rebuilt the Dynobots with alien alternate modes and re-uploaded their sparks into their bodies. Secrets & Lies #2

Not long afterwards, AUNTIE would bring five more Autobots back to life as an ad-hoc defense against a berserk Grimlock; as these facsimile warriors contained only copied mind engrams and not their sparks, they were not truly alive, but possessed all of the memories and tactical knowledge they had possessed in life. Secrets & Lies #3

2005 IDW continuity

Across the galaxy, multiple mechanical races possess sparks, including the Quintessons, Prey Junkions, The Next Day, and the Next and the Transformers themselves. The durability of a spark and its role in mechanoid physiology varies from species to species; Pentius's spark contained a semblance of his memories and personality, which reasserted themselves when his disembodied spark found its way into Trypticon's body, Belly of the Beast while the Junkion Wreck-Gar could readily survive as a disembodied head after the apparent destruction of his spark. The Next Day, and the Next Machine races that did not possess sparks, like the Catharsians, derive their sentience from a "warm-wired" physiology. Chasing the Infinite

On Cybertron, the spark, brain module, and transformation cog constitute Rossum's Trinity, three vital, interconnected organs essential to Transformer life. The Chaos of Warm Things The light from a spark illuminates a Transformer's optics, Zero Point and affects the colour of the energon in their systems; while most Cybertronian sparks pulse at a high frequency and turns their energon purple, Camien Transformers evolved lower-frequency sparks and "bleed" blue energon instead. The Last Autobot Cybertronian science has identified at least eight known spark types, Twenty Plus One though some proposed variations like estriol-positive sparks have been discredited and abandoned. After Megatron

In ancient times, Vector Sigma created sparks by sending energy pulses across the planet, igniting "hot spots" that birthed clusters of newborn sparks. After the "first flash", Cybertronians harvested these new sparks; they could either be implanted into a mass of sentio metallico to become a healthy protoform The Sound of Breaking Glass or "frozen" indefinitely within a photonic crystal. The Lopsided Triangle Though most unharvested sparks evaporated soon after their first flash, a particularly strong spark like a Point One Percenter could remain buried underground for some time. Remembrance Day

Although various Cybertronian religions held that sparks would burn forever as a result of the Cybertronian race destroying the death god Mortilus in ancient times, You, Me, and Other Revelations the truth was that sparks were as mortal as any other life-force and could potentially burn out from old age or a disease like cybercrosis. The Fecund Moon Several Titans carried perpetually-regenerating hot spots within their bodies and used these to colonize distant worlds during the reign of the Thirteen. A 'Bot and Her City Exotic technologies like positron cores were once used to treat spark-related aliments but these miraculous devices were considered lost after the First Cybertronian Civil War. A Lonely Pillar on the Plain At some point after this war, the enigmatic Necrobot began a tradition of harvesting the residual spark pulses from corpses and using that energy to create blue flowers to mark the graves of the many Cybertronians who had been killed in the conflict—a tradition that would only grow in complexity in the years to come. The Not Knowing

By Nova Prime's era, the hot spots weren't producing as many sparks and occurred less and less frequently, and the looming population crisis threatened Nova's vision of a grand galactic empire. In desperation, Nova's scientists found a way to tap the Matrix of Leadership itself, and discovered a way to generate a limitless supply of new sparks from the mass of photonic crystals embedded within its frame. The Divided Self Realizing that not all Cybertronians would approve of this act, the government established a cover story: they were creating life through "spark-splicing" experiments that supposedly used energy from existing sparks to ignite new ones, which were then implanted into pre-built bodies. The Fecund Moon This "Silver Harvest" single-handedly revitalized the Cybertronian race, and Transformers who were born this way were said to have been "constructed cold". The Divided Self During this time in Cybertron's history, wealthy Cybertronians who wanted to experience a new alternate mode could visit a Relinquishment Clinic to have their spark temporarily transferred into an empty body using a spark extractor; the donor's spark was held in a secure whiteout vacuum. Post Hoc

During the reign of Sentinel Prime, a lone, hand-shaped hot spot ignited in Alyon. Realizing that this portentous shape would only embolden the waning Functionist Council, the Autobot leader deliberately kept the spot a secret and had his men experiment on the sparks by bathing them with radiation in an attempt to turn them into outliers until Orion Pax and a group of time-travelling Autobots drove them off. All Our Parlous Yesterdays

When the war finally broke out, the Autobots were able to recover a stockpile of leftover sparks frozen within photonic crystals; these became the basis for an expansive program of "Made to Order" warriors, purpose-built soldiers literally raised from birth to fight and die for their cause. The Lopsided Triangle The Decepticons possessed their own M.T.O.s, but where they sourced their sparks from is not entirely clear. The Not Knowing The Decepticon Justice Division leader Tarn possessed a fearsome Outlier power—using only his voice, he could synchronize his voice with the sparks of his victims and extinguish them using only his voice. Rules of Disengagement

Reminds me of the reptile cages at the zoo...except less stinky.

In the early days of the conflict, Prowl and Mesothulas collaborated on a number of inventions for Autobot use, including spark extraction, which they viewed as a humane method of keeping prisoners under control. Sins of the Wreckers #2 The technology saw use at the Garrus-9 detention center, where the Autobots incarcerated Arcee. Arcee found this limbo peaceful but was later reunited with her body to deal with the Monstructor six; despite Optimus Prime's orders, the Autobots couldn't break through his destructive programming to safely extract the sparks for rehabilitation. To control her behavior, a "g-force crush" device was installed in her spark chamber, which could be operated via remote control. Spotlight: Arcee

After being possessed by Vekktral, Ultra Magnus managed to resist enough to open his spark chamber so Rom could kill them both. Shining Armor #5

Kup's sparkhousing was unstable due to age and Ore-8-induced radiation poisoning. While stranded on Tsiehshi, he finally experienced sparkcore stabilizer failure which threatened to blow him up. Trailbreaker saved him by extending a force field around the crashing spark. Later, Kup recovered in a CR chamber fitted with a placeholder powercore to maintain his spark. Spotlight: Kup

Some years after the end of the war and the rebirth of Cybertron, two hot spots re-emerged. The first was discovered by the crew of the Lost Light while investigating Cybertron's lost moon, Luna 1; when Rung set foot on the lunar surface, it ignited a particularly large hot spot that contained over one billion unborn sparks. The Fecund Moon The sparks were not harvested in time, however, and the hot spot quickly burned out. The Sound of Breaking Glass

The second hot spot occurred on Cybertron, in the abandoned Alyon region. As the Transformers were mostly concentrated in Iacon at the time, the rogue scientist Bludgeon was the first to find the site and began experimenting on the sparks—using some of Trypticon's corrupted energon, he was able to implant newborn sparks into the bodies of unliving creatures like turbofoxes and the countless Sweep corpses that littered the wasteland to create mindless abominations. Around this time, Slug, the other Dinobots, and a group of Camiens discovered that the hot spot had already activated while transporting a cargo of unborn Camien sparks to plant in the Alyon region, and saved the unborn sparks by chasing Bludgeon off. Redemption

Later, however, Bludgeon returned to Alyon, slew the guards that Starscream had posted to keep the sparks safe, and stole the sparks before using a replica Void Scepter to raise Trypticon. Once he'd been defeated, however, Trypticon announced that he wished to protect the sparks, took them into his own body, and allowed them to use his own sentio metallico to develop into full-fledged protoforms. Though Slug had perished during the initial hunt for Bludgeon, Starscream was able to bring him back to life by implanting a new spark—one of the mutant Sweep sparks recovered from Bludgeon's possession—into his body. Salvation

Scorponok utilized the Magnificence to create the Firstborn, a spark-powered organic capable of sexual reproduction that would reproduce with others of its kind and create a new generation of Decepticon sparks. Kill All 'Cons

In a subsequent struggle with the Darkling Lords, the Spectral Knight Galadria was able to cast a magic spell that healed Ironhide's spark. The Curtain Not long afterwards, Wheeljack used some fresh sparks harvested from Trypticon's hot spot to create new bodies for Optimus Prime and Bumblebee to inhabit after they'd been rescued from infraspace. Unstopped and Unstoppable

During the final battle against the Functionist Council, Team Rodimus opened twelve Matrices of Leadership at the hot spots on Functionist Cybertron; Vector Sigma shunted the excess energy to the orbiting Luna 1, which reignited the hot spot. A Spark Among Embers Over the following years, the new sparks harvested in the "Bronze Harvest" were brought online and became known as the Lunarians. Taking after their progenitor Rung, they possessed an unusually high number of Point One Percenters to the point where the term would likely have to be changed in the coming years. How To Say Goodbye And Mean It: Part 2

Characters by spark type

1. ↑ In "Elegant Chaos", Brainstorm's time-machine is coded for two spark-types: ferrum-negative and vitreous-positive, since Tailgate and Rewind can both use it. By extrapolation, Rodimus, Brainstorm, Megatron and Rung are either of those two.

Ask Vector Prime

In Primax 185.0 Beta, during a war between the Decepticon Empire and the Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere, Galvatron sought to turn his homeworld into the ultimate weapon, intending to transfer his spark into Cybertron and become Grand Galvatron. As the transfer occurred however, the Decepticon's spark was destroyed through the sacrificial efforts of The Autobot and the Dreadnoks. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/04

Beast Wars: Uprising

Traditionally, the Vector Sigma supercomputer was the source of Cybertronian life, which continually generated new sparks. During the Great War, however, Vector Sigma was extinguished. Broken Windshields

When Unicron attacked Cybertron, he was repelled by a small number of Cybertronians who possessed unusually powerful Point One Percenter sparks. Inspired by the sight—and foreseeing a day when the Point One Percenters would be needed again—Deluge and a number of other Cybertronians began studying the properties of sparks in the hopes of artificially creating a new generation of Point One Percenters. His work after the end of the war yielded only two successes, however: the immortal Rampage and the deceptively powerful Trans-Mutate. The Inexorable March

The Great War came to an end when the Decepticon leader Thunderwing claimed the Underbase, absorbed its contents into his own body, and used its power to fuse his spark with the other members of the Mayhem Attack Squad. Not All Megatrons With the Cybertronian race damaged, divided, and teetering on the brink of extinction, the Autobot scientist Cerebros bartered with the Human Confederacy and received the Energon Matrix as an alternate method of generating sparks. His fellow Builders used the device to create the Maximals and Predacons, proxy armies who would carry on the war in a series of ritualized Games, and hid the artifact away inside Lio Convoy once they'd grown their population to a sufficient number. Broken Windshields

After Lio Convoy went rogue and kickstarted the Grand Uprising, Eject created a clone with his own Matrix. The clone, Galva Convoy was influenced by a dark source and eventually utilized the G-Virus to corrupt the Matrix within him and birthed the Vehicons who had "anti-sparks". Micro-Aggressions Not All Megatrons

Second-born intellects were mechanical entities created by organic beings and not animated by sparks. When the highly advanced second-born intellect Lord Imperious Delirious learned of the Cybertronian race, he initially believed them to be an entire race of beings like himself; when he learned that they possessed sparks, however, he was instinctually disgusted by the idea of "energy beings" animating mechanical shells and began a genocidal campaign against the Cybertronian species. Derailment

Of Masters and Mayhem

Thunderwing performed several arcane experiments on his spark, which enhanced its power and turned it green. Learning of this, Shockwave had the spark extracted and placed it into what would become the Matrix of Malice. When the combiner Thunder Mayhem incorporated this Matrix into itself, Fractyl suspected that the additional spark was what gave the combiner such power and stability. In the process of making Wreckage to defeat Thunder Mayhem, Fractyl hoped that the introduction of greenergon, which radiated the same signature as Thunderwing's spark, would react with Toxitron's spark and produce a similar power boost. Deadly Aim

When the Teklaans began rebuilding Cybertron's ruined biosphere, Cergo remarked that understanding the Wreckers' sparks was necessary to resurrect the Cybertronian race. When Bluestreak was convinced to turn against the aliens and joined Wreckage, the combiner highlighted his spark as proof that he was not a thing, but a true being, unlike the static Teklaans. Lively Pursuit

Prime Wars Trilogy cartoons

In a bid to resurrect Solus Prime, Megatronus began draining the sparks of every Cybertronian to reconstitute her. Collision Course When his scheme was halted, thanks in part to Solus herself, the majority of the drained sparks were returned to the living universe—including the spark of Optimus Prime, who had been previously killed by Megatronus. Saga's End

Power of the Primes marketing material

The Prime Masters were diminutive Cybertronians who each held the sparks of one of the original Thirteen Primes. Power of the Primes

2019 IDW continuity

New sparks emerged from the AllSpark, War's End Part Two ascending to the surface via the Well of All Sparks. By the Age of Expansion, the Cybertronian government had constructed the Pyramid atop the Well, so that new sparks could be diverted directly into the forges that would provide the new sparks with living metal harvested from the surface of Cybertron. In ancient times, these included Titansparks; however, after the War of the Threefold Spark, Nominus Prime decided that forging new Titans and keeping them fuelled would exceed the limits of the Nominus Edict and restart the cycle of conquest and colonization that he sought to avoid, and as a result deliberately had all new Titansparks diverted to a secret chamber underneath the building, where they would remain in indefinite stasis. Titans

When a Transformer grew tired of living, they would traditionally go "immersant", a kind of prolonged stasis that segues into some kind of death. During this journey, the spark begins to travel to the next world, a gradual dissolution of the self as the spark returns to a place where "all are one". Escape Part Three All but immortal, this leisurely perspective on life and death made it difficult for short-lived organic species like the A'ovans to comprehend the Cybertronian worldview. Escape Part One

An unknown alien race captured and modified Exarchon into a new breed of life entirely, something no longer wholly Cybertronian: although he still possessed a spark, it now acted like a living virus that could infect potential hosts, snuff out their own sparks, and turn them into receptacles for his consciousness. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon: Part One When he used this ability, it involved opening his own spark chamber, which manifested a torrent of swirling black energy that ensnared his victims. Enigmatic Exarchon's ultimate plan was to use his abilities on the AllSpark itself, becoming Cybertron. War's End Part Two

Clones, like the Skywarp drones produced during the War of the Threefold Spark or the Insecticon clones created by the Insecticons, lacked sparks. Escape Part Three Soundblaster, a more advanced breed of clone, possessed a "demi-spark". War's End Part Four

When faced with the looming threat of a returned Exarchon, the Decepticons masterminded a plan to bait him with the last surviving Titanspark and trap the Threefold Spark in its cage. War's End Part Two After being compelled by Mindwipe, Exarchon used his abilities on the Titanspark, being sealed in its cage which was quickly destroyed by Pyra Magna. War's End Part Four

War for Cybertron Trilogy cartoon

The Allspark was the source of all Cybertronian life, and generated sparks as it travelled across the planet. With the devastation wrought by the Great War, the mindless zombie hordes known as the Sparkless attempted to reanimate themselves by feeding on the sparks of the living. Siege episode 5 After the Allspark had been ejected from Cybertron, Megatron willingly drained the sparks of both Autobots and Decepticons in order to hasten the construction of his new starship, the Nemesis. Earthrise episode 2

In one alternate timeline, the AllSpark was extinguished, although the Maximals and Predacons who inherited Cybertron still possessed sparks generated through some unknown method. Dinobot's spark persisted after his death; acting on the will of the AllSpark, it displayed the ability to take on a semi-corporeal form as it guided Optimus Primal to the AllSpark. Kingdom episode 4

2021 IDW Beast Wars comic

The artificial intelligences aboard the Axalon and Darksyde reconstructed Maximals and Predacons with techno-organic material to protect the sparks of their crews from harmful energon radiation. Savage Landing Part 1

When an enraged Skold turned on Terrorsaur after he'd murdered Razorbeast, she killed him by ripping his spark from his chest. Maximals Strike Back, Part 2

2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon

Megatron used his spark energy to turn six Autobot protoforms into Decepticons. The Decepticons After becoming Galvatron, the Predacon leader used his spark to forcibly turn them into loyal servants. Surprise Attack!

Unicron Trilogy

Unicron Trilogy cartoon continuity

Unlike most Cybertronians, the Mini-Cons possessed unique "Digital Entity Frames" instead of sparks. This mass of energy functioned similarly to a Cybertronian spark, but was connected to the Linkage dimension that served as a repository of their souls. Linkage Part 8

After being shot by the Requiem Blaster, Sacrifice ninety percent of Smokescreen's body was damaged beyond repair but his spark was intact allowing Red Alert to extract it and build Smokescreen a new body. Regeneration After his death, the Mini-Cons were able to summon Optimus Prime's spark back to the physical plane via the Matrix of Leadership. Miracle

After seizing the Omega Lock and three of the Cyber Planet Keys, Retreat Starscream began absorbing the spark of Primus into himself which eventually caused him to grow to titanic proportions and enhanced his physical abilities. Starscream

Once all four Cyber Planet Keys were placed in the Omega Lock, Primus's spark was fully restored. End

In their final battle, Optimus Prime stabbed Rhisling directly into Galvatron's spark, finally ending the Decepticon's threat. Unfinished

Dreamwave Armada comic

After his defeat, Megatron's essence was imprisoned within Unicron's spark core, where the Chaos-Bringer attempted to subsume his essence. This Evil Reborn

At some point in the brief peace that followed, Cybertronian scientists conducted experimental research to determine a connection between Energon and the "core life force" of the Transformer race. More than Meets the Eye #3 Snow Cat's Spark Rewriter could forcibly convert Autobots into Decepticons. Omni-Potent

Movie continuity

Live-action film series

Sparks were generated by the AllSpark, a sacred artifact of unknown origin which could bring any machine to life by imbuing it with a spark. Transformers This spark contains a Transformer's memories and feelings; this manifestation of their metaphysical being has been compared to a human soul. Sparkless robots composed from the same elemental metals as the Cybertronian race, like the human-built drones mass-produced by Kinetic Solutions Incorporated, were considered to be "soulless" and not truly alive, even if they displayed the ability to speak and think independently. Age of Extinction

Megatron was said to devour the sparks of his fallen foes, Optimus Prime Versus Megatron Transformers (novel) and the mercenary bounty hunter Lockdown was fond of tearing the spark chambers of his victims from their lifeless bodies. Age of Extinction

While searching for the AllSpark on Earth, Optimus planned to put the artifact beyond Megatron's reach by inserting the artifact into his own spark chamber, which would assuredly kill him but deny Megatron the opportunity to raise an army from Earth's machines. Ultimately, however, Sam Witwicky saved the Autobot leader by forcibly inserting the AllSpark into Megatron's exposed spark chamber and killing him instead. Transformers

Two years later, the Decepticons revived Megatron by inserting a shard of the AllSpark into the remains of his spark chamber, and the Decepticon leader soon felled Optimus Prime by shooting him through his own spark chamber. Sam was able to reignite his spark by inserting the Matrix of Leadership into Prime's empty chamber; not long afterwards, a wounded Jetfire deliberately sacrificed himself by ripping out his own spark chamber so that Optimus could use his parts, and the Autobot leader eventually killed The Fallen by crushing his spark. Revenge of the Fallen

After his second defeat in Chicago, Megatron's consciousness manipulated KSI into producing a new body for him and its lack of a spark proved an invaluable asset when he later fought Optimus as "Galvatron". Thanks to a Vortex Grinder in place of his spark chamber, he was able to fight Optimus and win. After Optimus left Earth to confront the Creators, Optimus asked his family on Earth to think of a star in the night sky as his soul. Age of Extinction

IDW movie comics

After the failed Ejoornian invasion of Cybertron, Ratchet's post-mortem on one of them led to him discovering that they possessed internals eerily similar to the Cybertronians, including what may have been a spark core. Defiance #2

Following the destruction of the AllSpark in Mission City, Starscream conspired to use Sector Seven's data on the artifact to create it. The Reign of Starscream #2 After using slave labor to construct the Replica AllSpark, Starscream sacrificed five Autobot sparks to ignite it but the device remained inert. The Reign of Starscream #5

Animated continuity family

Animated cartoon

The AllSpark was the wellspring of sparks; life began when a spark was created, Five Servos of Doom and when a spark expired it returned to the Well of All Sparks. Transform and Roll Out Traditionally, Autobot protoforms were forged from the protomatter mined from the Sonic Canyons, incubated in the Matrix Chamber of the Cyber-Ninja Corps, and eventually exposed to the lifegiving energies of the AllSpark to bring a new Transformer online. The AllSpark Almanac II

A spark could be preserved indefinitely by putting the Transformer into stasis lock; during the Great War, the Omega Sentinels Omega and Sigma Supreme were both able to permanently transform into their starship forms at the cost of their higher functions. TransWarped The AllSpark Almanac II Toward the end of the conflict, the young martial artist Prowl attempted to save his mentor Yoketron by transferring his spark into a blank protoform, but Yoketron voluntarily allowed his spark to fade. Five Servos of Doom Lockdown delivered Yoketron's stolen protoforms to the Decepticons but they found no method of igniting a spark in them without the AllSpark. Endgame, Part I

As the Autobots had deliberately jettisoned the AllSpark into space to keep the artifact out of Decepticon hands, Transform and Roll Out the victorious Autobots turned to Vector Sigma as an alternate method of generating new sparks. The AllSpark Almanac II

The hard-coded design schematics in Yoketron's spark reshape a protoform's protomatter into his image.

Sari Sumdac's unique AllSpark Key could reignite extinguished sparks Transform and Roll Out and even generate new sparks under the correct circumstances—when she used the key to enhance Bumblebee's stinger weapons during a battle with the Dinobots, the AllSpark energy gave the human-built robots sparks, granting them sentience and the power to transform into robots. Blast from the Past

Upon his reconstruction via the AllSpark Key, Megatron used it to drain Starscream's spark as punishment for his earlier betrayal. When Megatron later claimed the AllSpark, he inserted it into his spark chamber before his equilibrium sensors were short-circuited by Isaac Sumdac. Though impressed by the human's ingenuity, Megatron quickly recovered, proclaiming that the spark was the core of all Cybertronians and that compared to it, such things as armor-plating and servo mechanics were superficial. Megatron Rising - Part 2

After the destruction of the AllSpark, its individual shards were scattered across Detroit; these "AllSpark fragments" caused havoc by interfering with human machinery and occasionally bringing them to life as new Transformers. One shard brought Starscream back to life and acted as a substitute for his extinguished spark; Starscream was then able to subdivide this crystal even further and used each fragment to animate an army of clones. A Bridge Too Close, Part I In the battle for Megatron's space bridge, Ratchet used a handful of AllSpark fragments and the AllSpark Key to jumpstart Omega Supreme's spark. A Bridge Too Close, Part II Megatron used a similar tactic when he brought the Lugnut Supremes online, using the same AllSpark fragments that had revived Omega Supreme. Endgame, Part I When Prowl and Jazz used processor-over-matter to summon together all the AllSpark fragments, Prowl recognized that they could not summon the totality of the pieces in time to save Detroit forcing him to surrender his spark back to the AllSpark, granting it the power it needed to protect the city. Endgame, Part II

Titan Magazines

Afterburn was a sparkless drone sent by Megatron to bring down the Autobots from within. Although Afterburn displayed signs of an independent personality, when the truth of his nature came to light after his death Optimus told Bumblebee that he was never truly alive. Megatron's Revenge

TransTech

The Decepticon Topspin possessed the unusual power to manipulate sparks—without any kind of mechanical assistance, he could telepathically remove the spark from a body, implant it into a new shell, or even rip it to its component atoms with a single thought. After arriving in the multiversal city of Axiom Nexus, Topspin fell into the employ of Alpha Trion, who saw Topspin's power as a way to facilitate his escape back to his native reality. Topspin's profile in Club magazine #25 Using this power, Topspin was able to incapacitate various Transcendent Technomorphs native to the reality and swap their sparks with those of his various acolytes, secretly building up a powerbase in high places that would assist Trion's master plan. Blackarachnia's profile in Club magazine #25 Topspin could not bring himself to destroy the helpless TransTechs' sparks, though, and hid them away inside life-sustaining containment capsules. Rook - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/12/02

The GoBot Cy-Kill was fascinated by the concept of Sparks, and considered Transformers to be hybrids of machinery and energy in the same way that GoBots were hybrids of machinery and organic tissue. While stranded in Axiom Nexus, he stole six sparks; Renegade Rhetoric (1), 2015/10/15 upon returning to his home reality, he used those stolen sparks to create a new version of the GoBot combiner Puzzler. Renegade Rhetoric Thrustinator recruited the Spy Changers of Primax 085.0 Eta to travel to Cy-Kill's reality to rescue the six hostage sparks. Renegade Rhetoric (2), 2016/07/14

Shattered Glass

Fun Publications Shattered Glass continuity

In this backwards universe, Transformers are created when the malevolent Omega Terminus supercomputer implants an negatively-charged "ember" into a newborn Transformer. Though he was originally built as an artificially-intelligent warrior who lacked an ember, Grimlock later received one from the Omega Terminus. Under its influence, he rapidly evolved into a fully-sentient Cybertronian and unlocked the power to transform into a robot mode. Dungeons & Dinobots

After the dimensionally-displaced Cliffjumper arrived in this negative universe, the native Decepticons were confused when they analyzed his body and found evidence of a "backwards", postiron-charged energy matrix. Shattered Glass

IDW Shattered Glass comic

And it was all yellow.

Before the Great War, Starscream would've used his unique spark to communicate with the dormant Metroplex, but Jetfire's last-second betrayal forced him to bind vital information regarding his Titan research to his spark to keep it out of the hands of the Autobots. The process was only a partial success, however, and Starscream's internal files were left damaged and corrupted for many megacycles until he returned to Cybertron and attempted the data transfer again. This time, the process succeeded, but his efforts drew the attention of Goldbug's Autobots. Shattered Glass #3 After killing Starscream and ripping out his spark, Goldbug was able to use the information encoded on his spark to awaken Metroplex. Shattered Glass #5

Powered by Starscream's spark, Metroplex reactivated and began a lumbering march towards New Kaon. This began merging his and Starscream's minds into one before Jetfire and Soundwave managed to remove it. As Metroplex, bereft of a power source, fell back into stasis, Jetfire fled with the spark to the Static Zone. Shattered Glass II #5

Aligned continuity family

The Covenant of Primus

Of the original Thirteen Transformers, it was Optimus Prime, the thirteenth and final Prime, who possessed a spark closest to that of their progenitor Primus. During their first battle against Unicron, their plan was that this unique spark would hopefully react with Unicron's anti-spark and knock both of them offline—a plan that ultimately worked, but not before Unicron nearly crushed the sparks of the remaining twelve with apocalyptic visions of doom and despair.

After the War of the Primes, Solus Prime's body was returned to the core of Cybertron, leaving the Well of All Sparks behind; once the Well was "ignited" through the sacrifices of Micronus and Onyx, the well became the passage through which new sparks created by the AllSpark would emerge into the physical world. when the Quintessons invaded Cybertron and ushered in the Age of Wrath, their malign influence was such that newborn sparks were born without names and defaulted to bland alphanumeric designations.

In the subsequent Golden Age, miniature Wells would be ignited on Cybertronian colony worlds like Archon and Velocitron to provide the inhabitants of those planets with a steady source of new sparks.

During the Great War, Primus entrusted Optimus Prime with a portion of his spark, which also restored Optimus Prime's long-forgotten memories of his time as a member of the Thirteen. The Covenant of Primus

Aligned novels

In a galaxy predominately populated by mechanical beings, alien races like the Quintessons used the term "spark" to refer to the life-force of any given creature, biological or robotic. Retribution

Through Shockwave's experimentation, the Trypticon research station was given a spark and imbued with life. Exodus

During a later encounter with the Quintessons on Aquatron, the aliens fed several Autobots and Decepticons to their legions of Sharkticons and harvested their sparks to power a space bridge to Cybertron. Retribution

Prime cartoon

Before the war, new sparks were generated by the AllSpark. During the war, Optimus was forced to jettison the artifact offworld so that Megatron could not use its powers for evil. Predacons Rising

Over the protests of Starscream, Megatron inserted a shard of Dark Energon directly into his spark. Darkness Rising, Part 2 The shard managed to keep him alive after being at ground zero of a Space Bridge explosion, Masters & Students before another shard, plunged directly into his spark, restored his body to full functionality. Out of His Head

Dreadwing and Skyquake shared a split spark. This allowed the former to feel the latter's emerging from stasis and subsequent death. Loose Cannons

A variant of Terrorcons, born from a mixture of Dark and Synthetic Energon, could only be destroyed if their spark was extinguished. Thirst

After Megatron perished, Deadlock the lasting consequence of his abuse of Dark Energon was revealed with Megatron's polluted spark now severed from the AllSpark and bound to Unicron's Anti-Spark, allowing the Dark God to possess Megatron's corpse.

In order to prevent Unicron from devouring the physical AllSpark, Optimus Prime merged the AllSpark with the Matrix of Leadership and thus his own spark. Unable to separate the three, Optimus willingly surrendered his life to allow new generations to exist on Cybertron. The AllSpark rejoining the Core caused it to ignite and birth a multitude of new sparks. Predacons Rising

Robots in Disguise (2015 cartoon)

Before Optimus could pass into the afterlife, the Thirteen intercepted his spark and brought it to the Realm of the Primes. Decepticon Island (Part 1) To provide Optimus with the power needed to defeat Megatronus, the Primes empowered him using their own spark energy. Battlegrounds, Part 1 When they eventually took that power back, it left Optimus substantially weakened for some time. Overloaded, Part 1

Rescue Bots Academy cartoon

The Sparksayer was an ancient piece of lost technology which could scan the spark of a Cybertronian and grant them an appropriate tool. Power Up And Energize

Ask Vector Prime

Any part of The Source—Primus, Unicron, the Chronarchitect and even supernatural substances like Angolmois Energy or Dark Energon—can be harnessed to create Cybertronian life. Vector Prime noted that it was not the origin of a spark that mattered, and firmly believed that even sparks generated from "evil" sources like Dark Energon had the capacity for good. Ask Vector Prime, 23/07/2015

In one Cybertronian folktale regarding a friendly contest between a Metrotitan and a Malignus, the prideful Malignus tried to scan entropy itself, which only destroyed his body and scattered his spark to the cosmos. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/07/17

The Hate Collectors who dwelt within the abandoned Cauldron were particularly drawn to the Prime Spark carried by many iterations of Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/09/29

Cyberverse cartoon

By Cheetor's account, his spark had been brought out of the AllSpark to serve as its guardian. Dark Birth

When Starscream had acquired the AllSpark and used it to birth a race of scraplets, Trials he believed that they held the sparks of the Ancients, Dark Birth though Cheetor would later denounce his creations as sparkless abominations. Starscream's Children After witnessing Cheetor's affinity for the AllSpark, Starscream attempted to extract the guardian's spark and merge it with his own. When he tested the procedure on Bumblebee however, Cheetor managed to stop the transfer and escape with his friend. Spotted

Upon gaining full control of the AllSpark, Starscream merged it with his spark. His first act was to extract the sparks of his Seekers, merging them with his own. He would have done the same to the other Autobots and Decepticons before Optimus Prime managed to use the Matrix of Leadership to punch the AllSpark out of Starscream, saving everyone. I Am The Allspark

After Bumblebee and Cheetor had returned the AllSpark to Cybertron's core, Shockwave willingly extracted his own spark and used it to corrupt the AllSpark. Without hesitation, Cheetor did the same, his spark purifying Shockwave's malignant energies from the AllSpark. Battle For Cybertron IV

When the Quintessons invaded Cybertron, they trapped the populace in a virtual reality while their sparks were drained to fuel Starscream's metamorphosis into a Quintesson Judge. The End Of The Universe I Before Hot Rod's resistance managed to free the Cybertronians, some of their sparks had been completely drained. The Scientist

Toys

Masterpiece

• Rhinox (June 2024)
  • ID number: MP-59

Masterpiece Rhinox comes with a Beast Wars style spark with it's display stand. The spark can also be cradled in his hands.

Merchandise

ReAction

• Optimus Primal Hyper Steel (2023)

• Accessories: 2 swords, spark

Part of the long-running series of ReAction 3.75-inch "retro" action figures, this Target exclusive semi-clear plastics version of Optimus Primal comes with a spark accessory (not found in other decoes of the figure) he can actually hold in his hand thanks to a small thumb-hole.

Notes

• Beast Wars writer Larry DiTillio envisioned Maximal and Predacon sparks as small fragments split from Nexus Zero. When a spark is split from the Vok nebula, a "good" one travels to the Matrix and an "evil" one to the Pit.^[2]

Foreign names

• Japanese: Spark (スパーク Supāku)
• German: Mastermodul (Armada)
• Mandarin: Huǒzhǒng (火种, "spark")
• Portuguese: Centelha ("sparkle"), faísca ("spark"), fagulha ("spark"), chama ("flame")
• Swedish: Gnista ("spark")
• Latin Spanish: Chispa ("spark"), Spark
• Serbian Искра / Iskra ("spark")

See also

• Reproduction
• Death
• Transformer afterlife
• Laser core
• Personality component
• AllSpark
• Vector Sigma

References