Depth Charge's History
Depth Charge was a former Peace Marshall that found himself marooned on prehistoric Earth during the Beast Wars.
Depth Charge was in charge of security for Colony Omicron and had friends on Starbase Rugby, a place he rarely spent time on. All of this changed when Protoform X broke free on Omicron and went on a rampage. As the colony's sole survivor, Depth Charge made hunting down "X" his only mission in life. He spent four years hunting X across the galaxy, witnessing several of the maniac's massacres along the way—including at Starbase Rugby, where his friends were all devoured—before he finally captured him and turned him over to the Maximal High Council. He wanted them to destroy Protoform X but the Council decided that Protoform X should be placed in stasis aboard the Axalon and dumped on an uninhabited world.
Believing that Optimus Primal would blow it, Depth Charge continued to monitor the universe for any trace of Protoform X. The sensors on his Starhopper picked up traces of X just as Depth Charge was pulled through a temporal anomaly. The strange radiation of the wormhole-like disturbance sucked in his ship and Transmetalized his superstructure. The resulting crash left him on prehistoric Earth with a Transmetal manta ray body and put him right in the middle of the Beast Wars. His new body gave him a Cybershark drone, which he used to track down Protoform X, now known as Rampage.
His first battle with Rampage did not end particularly well, as Depth Charge did not expect that Rampage had joined up with the Predacons trapped on this world. Rescued and repaired by Optimus Primal's Maximals, Depth Charge was shocked by the presence of the Ark and acknowledged the grimness of their situation, but nonetheless disregarded Primal's request that he join them, so obsessive was his pursuit of Protoform X. In any case, Rampage decided Depth Charge's stay would be permanent by destroying the Starhopper.
His single-minded obsession soon ended up costing the Maximals a major strategic advantage. Optimus Primal had sent Rattrap to the bottom of the lake where the wreck of the Axalon lay in an attempt to retrieve the Sentinel defense system. Though Depth Charge initially helped Rattrap escape an attack from Rampage, he refused to help Silverbolt when the latter asked for assistance in recovering Sentinel from the Predacons. Depth Charge declared that it was their war, and he had his own war with Rampage to deal with. When he finally decided to help out, the lack of Maximal coordination led to Sentinel being seized for Megatron. Optimus Primal hauled Depth Charge into line for his unwitting interference, and they came to an agreement that the rogue Maximal would no longer operate purely as a free agent.
Depth Charge made good on his allegiance to Primal's crew when Megatron led an attack against the Ark while most of the Maximals were elsewhere. Just as the Predacon leader was about to secure his victory, Depth Charge burst into the volcano and almost single-handedly drove the attackers into retreat.
However, Depth Charge's obsessive nature resurfaced when he came across Cheetor trying to dig out a badly damaged Optimus Primal. Disobeying orders, he followed his scanners to the coordinates of Rampage's indestructible spark, not realizing that he was actually detecting the half of Rampage's spark that Megatron was using in his organic Transmetal 2 experiment. Only when he faced Dinobot II, a Transmetal clone of the original Dinobot, did he learn that Rampage's spark inhabited two bodies. Cheetor and Depth Charge worked together to take the alien Transmetal driver from the organic Transmetal apparatus, but were blown away in a massive explosion when Cheetor was caught in the device's overload. Recovering only a small piece of Cheetor's chest plate, Depth Charge assumed his ally had been destroyed and reported to Optimus Primal that the young bot had gone out fighting. Leaving Optimus to deal with his grief, Depth Charge had the alien transmetal driver scanned, then, determined to not allow Megatron to conduct his experiments again, threw it into the lava of the Ark's volcano. Soon afterward, the duality of Rampage's spark once again proved to be Depth Charge's downfall when he was lured into a trap by Dinobot II. Megatron demanded the Driver device back, but only received sarcasm for his trouble. Before the Predacons could make good on their threats to destroy Depth Charge, a strange, feral beast attacked and easily bested them all before being chased off by Optimus Primal's arrival.
When Cheetor returned and Optimus Primal determined that the strange beast was Cheetor, changed somehow, the Maximal leader called Depth Charge in for a little chat, demanding to know what really happened on the mountaintop. As usual, Depth Charge told him where he could stick his questions, forcing Primal to resort to his impressive physical strength and size. Depth Charge finally relented when Primal threatened to extract the data personally from the former's core processor, and apologised that he had destroyed the alien device, not knowing what Cheetor had become.
Later, Megatron and Tarantulas teamed up for their latest crazy scheme: a new disruptor ray cannon powered by a "bi-polar energon source", capable of destroying the Maximals in their base from afar without harming the Ark. However, as the energy source was installed without adequate shielding, the Predacons couldn't get near the machine they had erected. In order to complete the weapon, Tarantulas suggested "recruiting" the two educated anthropoids on whom he happened to have been spying. Depth Charge arrived to assist Cheetor just as Una was captured by Waspinator, and he was forced to go on a rescue mission with Rattrap to retrieve the anthropoid girl. However, Depth Charge was blasted out of the sky by a low-power test of the disruptor array and had to sit out the rest of the mission on the side of a hill. After Rattrap returned with Una, Depth Charge still hadn't recovered from his damage and had to be pushed into the water so he could transform into beast mode and escape. When Megatron attempted to fire the disruptor cannon, Rattrap and Depth Charge discovered that Una had removed the stabilizer crystal from the cannon, thus rendering it dangerously unstable and causing the destruction of the weapon. In the aftermath, Depth Charge suggested going back to finish off the helpless Predacons, but Rattrap pointed out that they weren't in any condition to pick a fight.
Depth Charge was on patrol when the Predacons attacked the Maximal base with a remote-controlled Optimus Primal. Megatron sent Dinobot II out to dispose of him with no success.
After the Predacon base was destroyed by Tigerhawk, Depth Charge spotted the Predacons skulking around the late Tarantulas's lair. His lust for vengeance again came to the detriment of the Maximals when he disobeyed Optimus Primal's orders and opened a booby-trapped hatch, resulting in Silverbolt being severely damaged. However, when he was called forth to stop Megatron from launching the legendary Decepticon warship Nemesis, he followed the order instantly, for even he knew how important it was to stop Megatron. Ironically, it was Rampage who found Depth Charge on this mission and forced him into battle. They fought, their battle intensified by nearby raw Energon crystals throughout the terrain. As Depth Charge attempted to shove an energon shard into Rampage's spark, Rampage released Depth Charge's hands and laughed maniacally, allowing his rival to impale his spark, detonating it and destroying the both of them.
