"Conquest is made with the 
ashes of one's enemies."

Allegiance: Decepticon

Function: Decepticon Aerospace Commander

First Fictional Appearance: 
No protoform 

First Comic Appearance: 
Transformers Movie Prequel #3

Profile:  Starscream makes no secret of his ambition to overthrow Megatron as Decepticon Leader.  He is ruthless, cold blooded and cruel.  In that sense the two rivals are very much alike.  But he has a vain side that clearly distinguished him.  He considers himself the most sophisticated and handsome of Deceptions.  He exudes a high class urbane air that provides a certain irony to his murderous tendencies.  He looks down at Megatron for being antiquated in his military strategy.  Starscream believes the Decepticons should rely more on guile and speed rather than brute, destructive force to defeat the Autobots.   Megatron overlooks the potential threat Starscream represents for one very good reason:  Starscream is very good at his job.

Weaknesses:  Starscream overrates himself sometimes and finds himself in situations that are more then he can handle.  His nose dives often overload his gyro-circuitry leaving him disoriented briefly.  But, overall, he is a very tough nut to crack.

Below is listed an excerpt from the Transformers, movie Guide Book, written by Simon Furman.  Therein, Mr. Furman provides this explanation of Protoforms:

"Trans-Scanning, Local Camouflage:  Chameleons by nature, Transofmers are constantly adapting their forms either to blend in on other worlds or to traverse the vast distance between them.  In preparation for deep space travel, a Transformer will shed its current exo-structure, returning to its most basic form, a protoform, before transforming into a protective transition mode.  Transformers can trans-scan a vehicle or life form and reformat their own protoform, adopting a new exo structure.

Regarding the alternate travel mode, space dust and ice coat the transition mode in motion, creating the illusion of a comet or meteor.

Shown below, Autobots (or are they Decepticons?) penetrate Earth's atmosphere, en route to a controlled impact on the planet surface.

Click here or the picture below to see a larger, high-rez version of the image...

robot mode, posed large 1b
robot mode, weapon close-up 1d
alternate mode, rt view 2b
alternate mode, rt view 2c
alternate mode, side view rt 2d
alternate mode, side view left 2f
alternate mode, left view 2g

Depending upon whether you consider the pretender stories to have taken place before or after TF:TM... Starscream was one of the very first characters to take a new form in Generation1 toys.  In 1989 he returned in the form of a "Classic Pretender" Starscream (sorry, no character page yet).

In 1990 he got the ActionMaster treatment. In 1993 he returned in TF:Generation2. This toy was basically the same as the original toy, w/ slightly new color scheme, stickers and accessories. (again, sorry no CP yet.)

Starscream was the first G1 Transformer to make an appearance in Beast Wars.  In the season 1 episode, #3 "The Web" we see Starscream in jet mode in Cheetor's nightmare sequence.  See pictures HERE and HERE.  He even returned "in person" as a ghost which possessed the body of Waspinator in the Season 1 episode, "Possession". We also see him frozen in emergency stasis lock aboard the Ark in "The Agenda," part 3.

Surprisingly, he made no appearances or honorable mention in Beast Machines or RID.

There was a Starscream character in 2002 Transformers Armada.  Although considering the honorable and loyal personality of the Armada character, he is most surely a different individual than the G1 original.  That Starscream was killed (in different ways in cartoons and comics) and returned in ghost form in 2004 TF Energon, and took another great new Supreme Class form in 2005 Transformers Cybertron and in Voyager size part of a TRU 2-pack with Vector Prime.

In my way of thinking, Classics Starscram released in 2006 is a great new version of this G1 original toy.  Though you may have to use your imagination a little further to envision a way that 2007 Movie Starscream and his related Protoform are the same as the G1 original!  Undoubtedly, there will be many more to come!