Star Trek's Spock is easily one of the most influential sci-fi characters ever, hands down. Even actor Leonard Nimoy never escaped Vulcan's shadow—despite having a long, fulfilling career outside of it. Indeed, before he passed away in 2015, Nimoy voiced villains in two separate Transformers films.

In the 1986 animated film Transformers, Nimoy played Galvatron, the reincarnated form of Decepticon leader Megatron. galvanized with the power of the dark god Unicron. Later, in Michael Bay's 2011 live-action film Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Nimoy voiced Sentinel Prime, mentor to Autobot leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). Beginning the Transformers tradition, Sentinel is shown as a villain, teamed up with the Decepticons to conquer Earth and rebuild the war-ravaged world of Cybertron.

Aside from his two voice roles, Nimoy influenced Transformers in the another important way through Spock. Marvel Comics writer Bob Budiansky, who wrote the original biography of the Transformers characters. and much of the ongoing comic, modeled the Decepticon Shockwave after Spock. Spock's defining character trait was his commitment to logic and restraint on his emotions, so Shockwave was written as a villainous version of that: cold, brutally efficient, and ready to usurp Megatron if he felt his leadership performance was lacking.

Like his leader, Shockwave transformed into a gun, but sci-fi laser gun unlike the realistic Walter P-38 pistol that Megatron has become. (Both were toys imported from Japan and rebranded by Hasbro; Megatron began as Takara's Gun Robo and Shockwave as Toyco's 4 Changeable Astro Magnum.) The Shockwave toy debuted in the US market in 1985, the second year of the " The Transformers. But he is often remembered as a character from Year 1 because he appeared from the very beginning in the cartoon. The animated Shockwave was played by the prolific Corey Burton, with a voice modeled after David Warner's performance in TRON.

Shockwave disappeared from the cartoon after season 2 - a deleted scene from the movie killed Unicron, while some unrealized plans for Season 3 made him switch sides to the Autobots. But while Transformers forgot about Shockwave, several of the later reboots have. He is one of the franchise's most recurring characters and part of the "big four" Decepticons along with Megatron, Starscream and Soundwave. While Shockwave has a consistent design (purple color scheme, left arm cannon, and square cyclops head), later Transformers projects have reinterpreted his Spock-like characterization in both logical and illogical ways.