It's stupid asking a question that nobody here can answer but anyway... Was there a 'real' Longarm Prime before Shockwave infiltrated cybertron? And then Shockwave killed to assume his identity? Or am I just thinking too much about things?
No, because Sentinel gave Shocky his new name in Autobot boot camp. Shockwave just took on the appearance of an Autobot, and he basically just acted like some random guy. I doubt Longarm existed before. Good question though.
Hell, apparently Shockwave DID kill Highbrow to assume his position (hinted at by DJW). And apparently Shockwave based his autobot alter-ego from some robot from the annals of history. So I guess you can be considered half-right there.
It's been a while since I watched it, but I had thought 'Longarm' received the rank of Prime in that scene. Was that in an episode, or in the comic, or something else? I never got around to reading the comics.
The whole basing his name off of someone else was mentioned in his toy bio, which just confuses things even further.
He got his name 'Longarm' in Autoboot Camp, was given to him by Sentinel. He took his identity from history files, as stated in his toy bio. Derrick Wyatt has hinted he has secretly killed Highbrow (the intelligence officer from Ratchet's flashbacks) to work his way to the top. Maybe there was a real Autobot with the same abilities as 'Longarm', so it would be coincidence Shockwave would get the same callsign handed to him, or maybe he just took the appearance of a random bot.
boot camp. it seems they all go there before getting assigned in the military. Arcee might have given us a hint what their names are like for civilian Auatobots when SHockwave was fiddling with her memories.
IIRC, this information was gathered from Derrick J. Wyatt's twitter. I think his info can be trusted.
He couldn't have...that rank was above Sentinel's (Minor) at the time. He received just his name. --Moony