Steeljaw (IDW)

Steeljaw is a Transformer from the Generation 1 continuity family.

You hear him howling around your kitchen door, you better not let him in.

Steeljaw lacks the brute strength of Megatron, or the commanding presence of Optimus Prime. However, he compensates for these physical shortcomings with a silver tongue, a cunning mind, and a predator's killing instincts. He combines his natural charisma and the ability to put up a charming façade with unorthodox strategies that wrongfoot his enemies and keep them guessing long enough for him to find and ruthlessly exploit their weaknesses.

In exchange for all that he brings to the proverbial table, Steeljaw demands nothing less than absolute loyalty from the soldiers he commands. Most of the Transformers who follow him—perhaps excepting his sister Sharpclaw—are more than happy to follow such an incredible 'bot... but those who question his pragmatic, amoral approach one time too many might find themselves hunted down with the same lack of compassion Steeljaw affords his enemies.

Fiction

Beast Wars: Uprising

The Maximal Steel Jaw commanded the Pack in contested Tesarus during the Grand Uprising, hunkered down opposite the Micromaster 74th led by Erector. His unique leadership style had his troops mark their Maximal insignia with three slashes, identifying the Pack as loyal to him first, all other loyalties second. His second-in-command, Ramulus, had been with him since the earliest days of the revolution, before even Lio Convoy's proclamation.

All of which explains why he seriously considered disobeying Lio Convoy's orders to advance on Iacon without delay. Abandoning the slow, methodical push through Builder territory to charge the fortifications all at once would be a death sentence for many, if not most, of his men. Still, Steel Jaw accepted the intelligence reports of the Vehicon horde at the back, and decided to make his stand.

The Pack began an artillery bombardment of the Micromaster 74th to shake them up, and then ordered the frontal assault. In truth, a fifth of the Pack was killed in the first few cycles crossing the Builders' mine field. Nevertheless, enough remained for Steel Jaw to rally the Pack and take advantage of the surprise. They charged Erector's lines to break through the Micromasters trying to fortify the position.

In the end, the Pack won, but Steel Jaw was not around to see it, as he was felled by a stray shot. Two-thirds of the Maximals died in the advance, but the road to Iacon was open. Derailment

2005 IDW continuity

Steeljaw was one of Onyx Prime's Maximals. When this bestial horde invaded Cybertron, he was one of the many warriors who wound up battling Arcee. Endless Forever

Last Bot Standing

At the height of the Great War, Steeljaw and his sister Sharpclaw fought for the Decepticons. However, as the destructive conflict degenerated into an increasingly pointless stalemate, it soon became clear that the endless Cybertronian war had left the universe drained of the energon and raw materials needed to repair their otherwise-immortal bodies. One by one, the Cybertronian race followed the planets and people they'd annihilated into extinction, until only a handful of Transformers remained. In time, Steeljaw and Sharpclaw linked up with eleven other ex-Autobots and Decepticons—Nitro, Override, Spine-shucker, Scylla, Wedge, Lunaclub, Treadshock, Riotgear, Cyberwarp, Wildwheel, and Vex—and joined forces with an aged Wheelie, whom they dubbed "The Veteran" in honour of his long memory, although Steeljaw found him annoying. Last Bot Standing #3 Steeljaw promptly set himself up as the "commander" of their remnant faction, although his acerbic sister refused to indulge him. Last Bot Standing #2

To survive in a post-energon universe, Steeljaw discovered a way to process organic matter into "biofuel", a crude but workable alternative to conventional energon; although this inefficient, low-quality fuel required a complete refit of their intake systems that prevented them from processing ordinary energon, Last Bot Standing #3 and left its users perpetually tired and hungry, it was the only viable source of sustenance in a universe otherwise depleted of its resources. As a result, Steeljaw and his followers adopted a ghoulish new way of life—without the technology or resources to construct a more durable starship, the group travelled from planet to planet inside an enormous space capsule, a projectile fired from a specialized launcher according to precise calculations, as they rode out the long voyage in stasis lock. Last Bot Standing #4

Once they arrived on a life-bearing planet, the Cybertronians would round up as many organics as possible, process half of them into a fresh batch of biofuel, then inter the rest in specialized "breeding paddocks" to produce a next generation of livestock. Last Bot Standing #3 Once they'd exhausted one planet's resources, they'd build a biofuel-powered launcher capable of sending a scout, who'd prepare for the arrival of the rest. In this way did Steeljaw and his crew slowly trawl a devastated universe for its remaining resources for so long that millennia without sufficient fuel corrupted and fragmented their memories of both the Great War and how long they'd spent on biofuel. Last Bot Standing #2 Last Bot Standing #4

Eventually, their endless search for new food brought them to the remote world of Donnokt, a desert world on the edge of the universe. The group sent Nitro ahead as their advance scout, and when the rest of the Cybertronians made planetfall Steeljaw ordered a sullen Spine-shucker—now going by the name "Moon"—to reactivate Override and Riotgear to track waht they believed to be Nitro's lifesign. As it turned out, that lifesign belonged to an elderly Rodimus, who'd already found and killed Nitro. When Override and Riotgear found Rodimus outside the town of Fembrance and brought him back to their landing site, Steeljaw was overjoyed at the prospect of inducting another Cybertronian into their twisted "family" despite Rodimus's protests—indeed, it had been so long since the Great War that none of them remembered him. Oblivious to Rodimus's clear disgust for them and their kind, Steeljaw explained that, while Rodimus was unconscious, they found one of the native creatures hiding in his cloak; in a twisted display of goodwill, Steeljaw announced that, while he and Sharpclaw reactivated the Veteran, his followers would fit Rodimus with a biofuel intake while Moon processed Rodimus's friend Shib Wallkis into their first batch of biofuel. Last Bot Standing #2

After consulting with the Veteran, by this point reduced to a severed head sustained by a crude life-support machine, Steeljaw confirmed that Rodimus was who he said he was, but despite Steeljaw's repeated entreaties Rodimus refused to adopt their parasitic lifestyle; when Steeljaw pushed the issue, Rodimus defiantly spat at him. Annoyed, Steeljaw ordered the group to process Shib and refit Rodimus, whether he wanted to or not, while he and the rest of the group hitched themselves to their cattle wagons and headed to the nearest population center to round up the inhabitants. As the group methodically worked their way through the town, Steeljaw's enhanced olfactory sensors picked up the scent of Cybertronian technology—when he and Sharpclaw investigated, they found Nitro's headless corpse, and quickly realized that Rodimus had murdered their scout. When Sharpclaw picked up the scent of more Cybertronian technology, Steeljaw followed; when the two found the Wallkis family household, they discovered a pair of usable energon keys and an ancient Cybertronian data screen containing a message from Rodimus, intended for the natives who'd help protect him for thousands of years. Last Bot Standing #3

When the recharged and rejuvenated Rodimus arrived to stop Steeljaw, Steeljaw angrily confronted the Autobot—all this time, Donnokt had possessed vast seams of extremely volatile energon, and Rodimus had deliberately kept the knowledge to himself while Steeljaw and his followers had spent eons scrounging for whatever they could subsist upon. Rodimus argued that it was too late for their kind—if Cybertronians found out about the energon hidden on this world, they'd simply fall back into their old habits, and that he'd used one of the three energon keys to recharge himself and kill everyone Steeljaw had left behind to keep watch over him. Before Steeljaw could retaliate, however, his acolytes fell to squabbling among themselves over who'd get to use the key, and one of the two remaining artifacts fell to the ground and shattered amidst the confusion. With only one key left, Sharpclaw demanded that they split the last key between them; when Steeljaw refused, however, Rodimus successfully punted the key out of Steeljaw's grip and straight into Shib's hand. As the girl took off atop Sparks, Steeljaw and Sharpclaw pursued her up into an energon mineshaft in the mountains, where they easily captured Shib as she tried to hide.

However, once Sharpclaw got her hands on the last energon key, she refused to share; as a result, Steeljaw savaged his sister and took the key for himself, just in time to intercept Rodimus as the old Autobot pursued the ex-Decepticons into the mountains. As Rodimus's second wind gradually wore off, the supercharged Steeljaw easily trounced his foe and beat him to the brink of death... but when he swore that he'd kill everyone on Donnokt and process them into biofuel, Rodimus just laughed: during the battle at the landing site, he'd annihilated their only biofuel refinery—without that biofuel, there was no way for Steeljaw or anyone else to transition back to processing energon. Furious, Steeljaw impaled Rodimus through the chest and hurled him down to the bottom of the mineshaft. With their race now functionally extinct, Steeljaw decided that he'd rather die with dignity by using his blasters to ignite the energon seam and destroy the entire planet; when Sharpclaw hurled herself in front of his blaster to stop him, he accidentally shot her in the back. As Steeljaw grabbed Shib in one fist and prepared to bring it all to an end, an overcharged Rodimus leapt from the mineshaft and ripped Steeljaw's blaster-arm off before he could fire—determined to make his enemy pay, Steeljaw made one last, doomed leap for Shib before Rodimus blew his head to bits. Last Bot Standing #4

Toys

Main article: Steeljaw (RID)#Toys

Notes

• The Beast Wars: Uprising version of Steel Jaw has adopted a luponoid beast mode by the time of "Derailment" although the narration notes that he used to be an off-road vehicle in reference to his Robots in Disguise counterpart. Given that all of the other Maximals who serve Liege Maximo and "Onyx Prime" possess beast modes, the same is presumably true for the Maximal Steeljaw who appeared in Optimus Prime, but Last Bot Standing dispenses with this concept and simply copies how he appeared in the Robots in Disguise cartoon.
• The Beast Wars: Uprising version of Steel Jaw is a Maximal, as per the Beast Wars cartoon's loose tradition of assigning mammal alt-modes to Maximals. Thunderhoof is designated similarly.
• Uprising Steel Jaw's defaced insignia references his Robots in Disguise incarnation, who slashed the Decepticon insignias of those under his command.