Sonar (BW)

Sonar is a Maximal from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

President of the Female after the Fact club.

Sonar's superior senses allow her to be the best reconnaissance agent the Maximals have. She's quite a bit self-conscious and any perceived slight, even by fellow Maximals, is met with ferocious reprisal. That goes double for any Predacons foolish enough to insult or attack her.

Fiction

Toy bio

Sonar was another result of Megatron's Transmetal 2 cloning experiments. Sonar's toy bio

3H comics

Now make out!

In the midst of the Spark War, the few remaining factions on Cybertron were summoned by the Oracle. Sonar and the Wreckers, like the other factions, were given a mission to complete, though it required travel to another world.

After gathering the rest of their ranks, the Wreckers prepared to leave the planet, but it wouldn't be easy. Sonar was surprised to learn that Apelinq wasn't joking when he claimed that he and Rodimus had found an old, abandoned Autobot shuttle. However, the Vehicons had found it as well, and their forces surrounded it. Though Sonar was worried, Apelinq reassured her that with reinforcements, they could still take the shuttle. Sure enough, the arrival of Cyclonus, Skywarp, and Rotorbolt helped even the odds. She joined them in the skies during the following battle, implementing her a sonic attack.

Shortly after lifting off from Cybertron, however, she was attacked by Devcon, a stowaway. Departure Once the former Peace Marshal calmed down, Sonar moved to another part of the shuttle. A choice with consequences: the shuttle was sabotaged by an unknown traitor, and an explosion began ripping through the craft. Packrat, in an attempt to save the fore of the ship, separated it from the aft section. Unfortunately, this meant sacrificing Sonar, Spittor, and the Deployers, who were left behind to die. Betrayal

Prevenge

Voice actor: Samantha Newark (English)

Sonar was abducted from her home universe via a trans-dimensional portal. She subsequently found herself in a metal corridor, where she met Ironhide. The Spychanger mistook her for a Predacon, and attacked her. Sonar was able to dodge Ironhide attacks, questioning why he would yell out their names before performing them every time... The pair came to understand that they were both on the same side, and proceeded to take on a group of alloygators that stood between them and the rest of the maze they were in. Making their way through the labyrinth, they met up with Blades, Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Sureshock, Ravage, and Snarl, all of them having similarly being abducted from their places in the multiverse. The group's captor then made his presence known, and after rather embarrassingly threatening the group with a sick Sharkticon, ordered the lot to fight to the death. The group refused, and forced the Skuxxoid to reveal himself as the architect behind the whole plot. The villain was disposed of in short order, but the abductees found themselves with no way to get back home. Sonar suggested that, since the laws that governed the place they were in seemed to be inherently ridiculous, they should come up with a ridiculous solution to their problem. They settled on all laughing together, as characters in a cheesy cartoon are prone to do at the end of an episode. Strangely enough, this worked, and everyone was returned to their point of origin, although Sonar was less than pleased about having to return to the middle of an explosion. Prevenge

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

Wait, it isn't Wear Half-a-Pants to Battle Day?

Sonar was one of the protoforms jettisoned from the Axalon on prehistoric Earth. She was activated and put in chronal phase by Razorbeast at Magmatron's request, but was protected from Magmatron's Predacon shell-program by Razorbeast's viral code. The Gathering #2

Accompanied by Air Hammer, Night Glider, and Prowl, Sonar sped towards Razorbeast and the small group of new Maximals accompanying him. She and a phalanx of other Maximals finally reached them, just in time to fight off an army of Predacons. The Gathering #4

Beast Wars: Uprising

Having a helicopter alt-mode, Sonar was on the Maximal team in the fateful 1924th match of the Games, battling against Terragator until they were interrupted by Lio Convoy's assassination of Supersonic and call for an uprising against the Builders. Broken Windshields Sonar, along with the rest of her team, fled the match. Head Games

2005 IDW continuity

A Eukarian and leader of the Cloud Walkers tribe, Sonar gathered with the other tribal leaders in Talon Valley to discuss the Cybertronian combiners who had invaded three weeks prior. She agreed with Manta Ray of the Wave Walkers that this did not concern their tribes but only the land-dwellers, but was met with protest from former Cloud Walker Airazor, who argued that the airborne inhabitants wouldn't stay safe for long. When representatives from Cybertron arrived through the Eukarian spacebridge, Sonar was quick to mistrust them and accuse them of lies, again earning her the ire of Airazor. She panicked when Chela, the planet's Titan, awoke to destroy the Cybertronians, believing it was the end of the world. Windblade vol. 2 #6

Toys

Beast Wars

Keeps her soul in her cleavage.

• Sonar (Basic Transmetal 2, 1999)

• Known designers: Yuichiro Hira (TakaraTomy), Masakatsu Saito (concept artist)

Part of the first wave of fourth-year Beast Wars Basics, Sonar transforms into a grey Transmetal 2 bat with a flip-out blade weapon on her left wing/arm. Her spark crystal is located in her chest/beast mode tail.

Along with fellow Transmetal 2 figures Optimus Minor, Scarem, and Tigerhawk, she has access to an additional pair of limbs in robot mode: her beast mode hind legs can flip down to give her two pairs of arms.

This toy was sold in Japan in theaters as an "import" in Hasbro packaging with a Japanese sticker on it, in conjunction with showings of the 1999 Summer Toei Anime Fair.

Presumably, Sonar was to have been the basis for the unreleased Beast Machines Screechwing toy.

• More information on Sonar at TFU.info

Notes

 

• The colors used in her packaging art, with a lot more reddish-brown plastic and paint, appear to come from an earlier color scheme that was planned for the figure. This color scheme lasted far enough into the development of the figure that carded examples of it exist.
• Sonar's toy bio, lacking pronouns, is effectively "genderless". The 3H comics seized on this opportunity to add another female Transformer to the ranks, and all subsequent fiction featuring the character followed suit. Sonar is the first instance of this kind of semi-retcon phenomenon, and many more would follow over the years.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Sonar (ソナー Sonā)