profile - that of a manipulator and blackmailer, reading others' minds and using their secrets to his own ends, always working towards his own goals. When Megatron and Shockwave were both briefly believed deceased, he assumed leadership of the Decepticons during Optimus Prime's Crisis of Command and then the Dinobot Hunt story arcs, manipulating events to weaken the Autobot leadership and cause maximum casualties. When the two commanders returned and vied for leadership of the Decepticons, he turned the situation to his own advantage by working both sides of the field. He also enjoyed a rare victory in this period when he, Dirge and Kickback took over a NASA complex in an attempt to contact Cybertron with the facility's deep space radio equipment. The Autobots arrived, but a series of miscommunications between Prowl and Jetfire resulted in the transmission being sent, allowing the Decepticons to claim victory. Towards the end of the UK series, a storyline began which separated from the regular ongoing American continuity, covering the exploits of the proactive Autobot Earthforce. In these stories, Soundwave sold Decepticon secrets to both the Autobots and Shockwave's group of Decepticons. Wildrider was blamed for this intelligence leak, and Soundwave silently allowed him to be killed rather than be discovered. After Starscream successfully removed Megatron and Shockwave from power, he and Soundwave entered into joint leadership of the Decepticons. Issue #279 of the Marvel UK Transformers comic featured a story called "Divide and Conquor!" where Soundwave lead the bulk of the Decepticon forces on Earth against the Autobot Earthforce headquarters while Starscream attacked an oil tanker. Sent into battle by Prowl, the Dinobots routed the main Decepticon forces while Springer lead the Autobot Survivors, Broadside, Inferno, Skids, and Carnivac to defeat Starscream. Soundwave attained leadership of the Decepticons in the future world of 2008, following the death of Shockwave (who had seized power when Galvatron traveled back in time). Soundwave led his era's Decepticons back to 1989 to participate in the Time Wars when the fabric of reality began to crumble, but as the conflict came to a head they fled back to their own time. Since it was later established that the damage done to the time stream may have resulted in their future being erased from the timeline, the final fate of the future Soundwave is unknown. Soundwave returned to the pages of the US Transformers comic books for the