Garrison Kreiger

Garrison Kreiger is a human from the Generation 1 continuity family.

"I.R.O.N. science sneers at Cybertronian life!"

Humans rarely pose much of a threat to the Transformers, but Garrison Kreiger has made overcoming that hurdle his life's work. Driven by his goal of personal power and glory, Kreiger has used his connections from his days as the CEO of I.R.O.N. to slowly amass a thorough knowledge of the Cybertronian race, gathering samples of their technology and biology to determine their strengths, weaknesses... and weapons capable of taking them down. Kreiger's self-made cybernetic implants speak to the efficiency of his reverse-engineering skills, having already prolonged his life by several decades.

Though Kreiger's plans tend towards the grandiose, bombastic, and far-reaching, he is an intelligent, charismatic villain who thinks several steps ahead of the competition. He is just charismatic enough to convince even the most disparate individuals to stand with him, just as long as they're useful to him. The moment they're not, however, they'll be left out to dry while Kreiger consolidates his gains and escapes.

In some universes Kreiger is known as General Blitz.

Fiction

Story of Binaltech

According to Agent Faireborne's investigations, General Kreiger and Count von Rani together led the Concurrence, a cabal of humans who planned to drive all Transformers away from Earth, turning the Solar System into a robot-free "resort". To accomplish this, the Concurrence began creating Decepticon Binaltechs to challenge the Autobot Binaltechs. Expose All of Evil's Designs!

TransTech

During World War II, Kreiger—under his nom de guerre General Blitz—led the I.R.O.N. Army, Kalistan's elite force. Somehow he'd made contact with the Decepticons and was using their super-science to help the Axis-aligned Kalistan in the war, much to the interest of the Allies. 'Blitz' would experiment on that real American hero, Sgt. Savage.

It was he who named Kalistan's team the Invasion, Reconnaissance, Occupation, and Neutralization Army. Hawk has to admit that guy has a flair for the dramatic! Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter, 2016/05/01

IDW Generation 1 Continuity

The guy on the left. Definitely not evil. No, definitely not.

Allegedly the son of German immigrants, Garrison Kreiger joined the United States military before 1939, driven by a desire to "prove himself" in the face of anti-German sentiment. In 1943, he had become a Second Lieutenant in the army and was assigned to the Screaming Eagles, a special tactics unit led by daring do-gooder Sergeant Robert Savage. Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #2

While on a mission in Kalistan, the Screaming Eagles encountered mysterious robotic soldiers fighting for the Axis. One of these robots managed to land a hit on Kreiger, scarring his left eye. But the encounter inspired Kreiger... The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb

Late into the war, the Screaming Eagles wound up in Paris, working with the European resistance. While on a routine patrol, they encountered more of the strange mechanical soldiers, who had been drawn a pair of metal goliaths battling it out. After defeating his opponent, the victor asked the Screaming Eagles for help finding the ship that had brought him to Earth, so that he could die in peace.

Centurion, Savage, and Kreiger tracked the ship to Brasnya, where more robotic troops swarmed them. Savage held the machines off as Kreiger and their metallic associate investigated the ship's ruins. Kreiger found evidence of a mysterious "Talisman" that he figured had been conjuring the soldiers; Centurion confirmed, explaining that it had once belonged to his master. Before Centurion could explain who that master was, there was a loud sound from outside: the remains of Centurion's commanding officer, reanimated by the drones. As Kreiger watched the Eukarian brawl with the creatures, he determined the drones were being controlled by the Talisman. As he did, the drones did something that made the ship and the Sergeant himself vanish without a trace. As he saw a furious Centurion fell his former commander's remains, Kreiger was inspired. He knew the Talisman was on Earth, and he vowed to find it. Of course, with the sergeant gone, he needed a new ally. So he reached out to the devastated Eukarian, offering to help him... Strange Visitors

Over the next several decades, Krieger spent years hunting down what he called "Binaltech". In 1984, he finally found it in an Egyptian pyramid with the help of Dr. Elliot March, whom he promptly killed. In the ruins, Kreiger found the Talisman and began using it to animate and control a horde of robots before sending out a distress beacon. This attracted not only the attention of Joe Colton and his Adventure Team, but also Soundwave. A battle ensued between the team and Soundwave, until the Cybertronian decided to leave, having realized the Talisman wasn't his goal. In the aftermath, Kreiger took the device for himself without giving his "rescuers" so much as a "thank you". The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb

A few years later, a depressed Mike "Atomic Man" Power came to him, seeking further upgrades to his cyborg prostheses. Though professing good intentions, Kreiger instead subjected Power to a battery of cruel experiments involving the Talisman and Power's augmented physiology. In 1994, the renamed Adventure Force confronted Kreiger to stop his experiments, though they arrived just in time to see an Atomic Man with no heartbeat, mistakenly concluding that Kreiger had murdered Atomic Man. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb Power and Glory In fact, Kreiger had actually set up a fortified laboratory in the crater left behind by the Axalon, where he stored the Atomic Man's mangled but still-living body. Strange Visitors Kreiger was dishonorably discharged for his crimes, though it didn't bother him much — he had far greater ambitions by this point. Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #2

Kreiger continued to study the mysterious workings of the Talisman, analyzing its links to Cybertron, Eukaris, Microspace, and the Dire Wraiths. Eventually, he was able to completely reverse-engineer its secret and create numerous replicas of the device. The Iron Klaw Bolstered by his discoveries, Kreiger established the "International Robotics Operations Network". The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb As the decades passed, he began replacing his body parts with cybernetics derived from his study of the Talisman. Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #2 He also managed to recover the bodies of "Optimus Prime" and "Shockwave" and studied them, eventually combining their bodies with several IRON troopers to turn them into an advanced security system for his lab. Power and Glory

By this point, more than a century old, Kreiger disappeared from the public eye a few years prior to 2017. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb Before his absence, however, he ceded control of I.R.O.N. to Tomax Paoli, who became the interim CEO of the company. The Secret of the Mummy's Tomb

Unknown to the world, Kreiger had begun working with a consortium of villainous characters to study and utilize the Talisman for their own ends. Some time after his "disappearance", Kreiger found the Predacons. Using his knowledge of Cybertronian biology, he found a way to mind-control them, using a copy of the Talisman to improve on a previous failed combiner experiment and create Predaking. The brainwashed Predacons became private shock troops for Count von Rani, a Kalistan native who was also the majority shareholder of I.R.O.N. and one of Kreiger's villainous acquaintances. The Iron Klaw

Shortly after Garrison Blackrock accidentally stumbled upon the Talisman, Kreiger was in von Rani's castle, when he received a visit from Tomax Paoli, Kreiger's choice to replace him as CEO of I.R.O.N., and his allies's choice of replacement Cobra Commander. The former Cobra leader had caught Blackrock, and brought him to Kreiger so the man could have a look at him, an opportunity Kreiger took, determined to find out why the Talisman reacted to Blackrock. Before he could get started, however, Baron Ironblood noticed an intruder lurking in the shadows. On Ironblood's warning that the former Joe wasn't working alone, Kreiger unleashed the Predacons. With Snake Eyes apparently subdued, Kreiger questioned Paoli about his success working on "Project: Iceman" in San Francisco, at which point Paoli turned out to be the real Snake Eyes, the other being a robot duplicate. Thanks to Snake Eyes, and the actions of his allies, Kreiger lost both Blackrock and the Predacons.

In the aftermath, Baron Ironblood declared they had no choice but to scrub Centurion and Paoli. The Iron Klaw Visiting Paoli in person, Kreiger warned him of the incoming band of "Revolutionaries", telling him he was merely bait, and didn't care what Paoli told them when caught. After Paoli and Centurion were taken in by the team, Kreiger took part in a conference call with his allies, preparing to travel to Brasnya, stating his presence was "needed" to finish what they were planning. Strange Visitors

Notes

Doctor General Garrison Garrett "Blitz" Kreiger Stromm has almost as many looks as he does names!

• General Garrison Kreiger AKA General Blitz, hails from Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles, an early '90s attempt to rebrand the G.I. Joe toyline to stave off faltering sales. It presented Kreiger as an American soldier in World War II who defected to the I.R.O.N. Army (the main Axis power in that universe) and had become its leader by the modern day. This franchise had a short life, ending when Kenner took over Hasbro's "boys' toys" brands and replaced it with G.I. Joe Extreme. That series continued to feature the Sgt. Savage character, but against a new villain: Count von Rani, aka Iron Klaw, and his paramilitary organization S.K.A.R. The I.R.O.N. Army was referred to in one episode, but not Blitz. It was the TransTech Facebook pages that finally brought more of his backstory into Transformers fiction, as well as inventing a tie between Sgt. Savage's two enemies (previously the I.R.O.N. Army and S.K.A.R. were unrelated).
• In the lone direct-to-video Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles episode, General Blitz is voiced by Transformers alumnus Garry Chalk.
• Due to some funny continuity magic, the IDW continuity contains both the Iron Army (led by General Blitz) and the I.R.O.N. company (led by Garrison Kreiger).

External links

• Garrison Kreiger at the IDW Hasbro Wiki
• General Blitz at the IDW Hasbro Wiki