So I started wondering why a smart guy like Shockwave would colour himself black-and-purple. Any Autobot coloured black-and-purple is going to stand out. And any Decepticon infiltrating without getting rid of his black-and-purple colourscheme is just ASKING for it. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Then it hit me. If the brave, noble and trusted Longarm Prime starts sporting black-and-purple, people are going to be a lot more willing to trust Autobots with a similar colour-scheme.

"He is coloured black-and-purple, you say? Why, so am I? Are you going to lock me up too?"

That means Decepticons can infiltrate without repainting themselves. BUT it's Shockwave, and he's a DOUBLE-BASTARD. Shockwave ALWAYS plans ahead for ways to take down others with him if he ever gets killed/beaten. If Longarm Prime is suddenly discovered to really be a Decepticon, after all his talk of black-and-purple not meaning you're a Decepticon, every single Autobot with that color-scheme is suddenly going to be suspect. And you know jerks like Sentinal Prime and Ultra Magnus are going to shoot first, ask questions later.

It'll be a full-scale witch-hunt. Primus only knows how many Autobots will be slagged on that fateful, inevitable day...

Of course, Decepticons who infiltrated without changing their colour-schemes are going to get caught in all this too. Shockwave thought of that as well. I guarantee he hand-picked those Decepticons himself, so in a worse-case-scenario at least he'd be cleaning house a little.

So, what does this all mean, ultimately? In truth, not much. Chances are the colour-scheme isn't going to get into the show (although I note the OTHER Target exclusive's colour-scheme has already been in the show). But it's still cool, so one of these babies is getting ordered and sent to my proxies in the US.