Helex (G1)

This subject of this article goes by multiple names that apply to other articles as well. See Helex (polity), Crucible (disambiguation).

Helex is a Decepticon from the 2005 IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

He who smelt it.

Helex (aka Crucible) is a member of the Decepticon Justice Division, the group of torturers and fanatics employed by Megatron to hunt down and deal with traitors. As with his teammates, he was renamed after a city when he joined; there may or may not have been previous "Helexes" (Helices?) before him.

His bizarre and enormous form sports two pairs of arms—a big pair and a smaller one at waist level—and a cavernous torso which can be opened when he assumes his alternate mode, interring an unfortunate prisoner within. Claustrophobia is the least of their worries, as his internal heating elements engage and the dissident is treated to the exquisite pain of their internal components melting down in his own personal smelting pool. To top it all, he has a liking for removing a victim's brain module and placing it into their mouths.

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

First appearance: More than Meets the Eye #7

Nothing says disappointment like arms both crossed and akimbo.

Before joining the DJD and taking on the name of his predecessor, the current Helex originally went by the name of Crucible. Do Not Go Gentle

In 2009, following the Surge, Helex and the other members of the D.J.D. arrived near Garrus-9 to eliminate Shockwave. They discovered that Shockwave had planned for this contingency by making sure his crewmembers were also on the D.J.D's list of targets; Tarn opted to ignore Shockwave's barter and take out Shockwave, who was target number one on their list. The gambit failed and the D.J.D. were forced to retreat when backup arrived in the form of Bludgeon and the Monstructor Six. The Ties That Bind

After the end of the war in 2012, the DJD tracked down Black Shadow, who had been bribed to destroy a fleet of War Worlds. Helex partially melted him and left him to get talked to death by Tarn after the other members each got a turn to torture Black Shadow. Afterwards, Helex and the other members were ordered by Tarn to move on to their next target. Rules of Disengagement

Discovering their target's energy signature on the planet Clemency, the D.J.D. threatened the occupants of a P-6 Worldsweeper symbol ship until they gave him up, left sealed outside in a stasis pod. However, instead of Fulcrum—wanted by the D.J.D. for cowardice after failing to detonate himself as part of a K-Squad—the Scavengers had handed over Grimlock, spiked with circuit speeders. The D.J.D. battled Grimlock and the Scavengers; Helex gave a good stomping to Crankcase while shrugging off fire from Spinister. After Tesarus killed Flywheels, he and Helex were blasted to the ground by Crankcase in a Cybernought. With Fulcrum's apparent death and the discovery by Kaon of their next target's location, the D.J.D. left the surviving Scavengers with a warning that they were all now on The List and took off in the Peaceful Tyranny in pursuit of Overlord. Who's Afraid of the DJD?

HELEX SMASH and melt and smash some more and melt and shoot and more shoot and more melt and more smash

The D.J.D. eventually caught up with Overlord on board a quantum duplicate of the Lost Light, and proceed to massacre the Autobot crew. Upon discovering Overlord captive in a slow cell hidden aboard, Helex smirked as Tarn prepared to behead their quarry. During the slaughter, Helex killed Ratchet, Drift, and Hound, and his habit of placing his victims' brain modules in their mouths later helped Megatron, from the "main" Lost Light, to identify the D.J.D. as the attackers. slaughterhouse

After slaughtering Overlord, the DJD turned their attention to the Autobot crew. During the rather one-sided battle, Helex used his gigantic upper arms to rip Pipes in half, while simultaneously firing a pair of pistols with his smaller arms—taking out Red Alert with a head shot. The Road Not Taken

During the execution of Blip, Helex bet Tarn the self-declared spark-eater would bite down on his own brain module given the chance, but he lost the wager. He apparently rinsed his mouth with Blip's cranial fluid, disgusting Nickel, who cleaned out his teeth. After performance reviews, Helex set a course back to Ofsted XVII to retrieve the lost Vos and Kaon, and discovered the updated copy of Megatron's Towards Peace. He accompanied Tarn as they made contact with Deathsaurus and his troops, forming an alliance against the turncoat Megatron. The Permanent Revolution

"How 'bout a nice Helexian punch?"

Realizing they couldn't pursue the Lost Light across the galaxy, the D.J.D. instead went to the Necrobot's planet and set up an ambush there, killing the neutral when he tried sabotaging the trap. Helex was present when the D.J.D. made their initial attack. How Bright Their Frail Deeds After that, Kaon and Helex split off, setting up a base camp outside the Necrobot's residence. They didn't have to wait long for something to happen, when Ten showed up right on their doorstep. Before the Decepticons could land the killing blow, Ratchet and Drift appeared. The Sun in Flight Helex managed to destroy Ratchet's gun by biting it, and was in the process of stuffing him into his smelting chamber when Kaon demanded everyone to fall back after Drift captured the Pet. The two Autobots (and Ten) were then saved by a convenient airlift from Ravage, which prompted Helex to ignore Kaon's concerns and demand everyone open fire on the fleeing ship. Your Fierce Tears

When the Autobots stranded within the Necrobot's fortress finally launched their counterattack, Helex found himself on the receiving end of Ultra Magnus's latest upgrade: the "Maximus Ambus" armor, a mega-sized suit of armor that easily took down the Decepticon. When Megatron finally renounced his recent pacifism and stormed onto the battlefield, Helex and Tesarus withdrew back to Tarn's position. Rage, Rage

With Deathsaurus's forces routed thanks to Swerve, the D.J.D. moved to assault Megatron, who had sealed himself inside a forcefield borrowed from Trailcutter's body. The forcefield did little to hold them off, and Helex joined his comrades as they gleefully strode into the forcefield bubble to take their revenge. Unluckily for them, Megatron never intended to protect himself from the D.J.D., but instead wanted to protect the rest of the planet from his newly mastered antimatter powers. Megatron proceeded to execute the entire D.J.D. in a short, brutally lopsided fight. Helex was the second member to fall, and Megatron personally stripped Crucible of his title even as he ripped his former enforcer to pieces from the inside out. Do Not Go Gentle

Notes

I'm Mister Bucket! The bots pop out of my mouth!

• Helex's alternate mode, though not shown on-page, is based on the harvester units from the Marvel Generation 1 comic.
• According to James Roberts's MTMTE Notebooks, Helex was at one point intended to lead the DJD, before he created Tarn.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Helex (へレックス Herekkusu)