Fulcrum
| This article is about the Generation 1 Decepticon. For the Kre-O Decepticon, see Fulcrum (Kre-O). |
- Fulcrum is a Decepticon from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Chatty and (he hopes) disarming, Fulcrum is by his own admission a big fan of his own survival. Dying, less so.
Fiction
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Long ago, Fulcrum joined the Decepticons, agreeing with their goal of cleansing the galaxy of organic races, who were too backward to see their own inferiority. His own "superiority" came into question, however, when he was the Project Manager in charge of cyberforming B'lahr 39, the Autobots attacked and he legged it as far and as fast as he could.
A few weeks later, he got caught. Convicted of cowardice, he was sent to Styx to die by Traitor's wheel - which got changed to dying as a K-Class bomb on the planet Clemency when the order came down that all Decepticon prisoners were to be re-engineered as such. As the moment came to jump and die, he was sullen and silent, ignoring the perky K-Squad member Torque, until the moment came to jump.
This time, his own cowardice actually saved him - his systems, paralysed by fear, failed to trigger the auto-transformation to bomb mode and he crashed to the ground without exploding. Still, although he didn't die, he was damaged and knocked into stasis lock for an unknown period of time. Who's Afraid of the DJD?
With the huge number of Decepticon corpses produced by the battle simply left where they lay, Fulcrum finally awoke to find that a group of Scavengers — Krok, Misfire, Crankcase, Spinister and Flywheels — were attempting to steal his energon, armor and even his fuel pump. After he had managed to persuade them that he was not a zombie, he joined up with this ragtag crew and soon after they discovered a P-6 Worldsweeper "Symbol Ship". Exploring further, they discovered that the ship was full of extremely disquieting scenarios including malformed, aborted protoforms, bleeding rooms coated in skin, disembodied brain modules and a strange kind of wooden robot. Uniquely among the Decepticons present, Fulcrum expressed enthusiasm to find out the mysteries of the ship, and even in general, noting that for the first time in their lives they were free. This optimism was soon scotched when they were contacted by the Decepticon Justice Division who informed them that there was a traitor in their midst and they had 15 minutes to give him up so the other six could watch him being tortured and killed. Fulcrum assumed that the D.J.D. had miscounted the life signs aboard the Worldsweeper until Krok discovered that the ship also contained the deactivated Grimlock in a stasis pod. Rules of Disengagement
The Scavengers decided to stay behind and battle the D.J.D. by putting Grimlock out in the open and releasing him from his pod when the D.J.D. got close. At the last moment, their leader Tarn revealed they were actually after Fulcrum but before the Decepticon could explain, the D.J.D. arrived. Krok released Grimlock anyways and the fight began. Fulcrum devised a plan to run to the top of the Worldsweeper, jump off, and detonate on the ground in bomb mode to destroy all the D.J.D. members. Before he jumped off, he told Tarn that he was sickened by organizations like the D.J.D. and that the Scavengers, aside from that Fulcrum had just met them and being weaklings, were still better than them. He then jumped off and only succeeded in making a small crater. The D.J.D. left for higher priorities and told that all the Scavengers and Grimlock were now on The List for aiding Fulcrum. Fulcrum recovered and found out that Spinister had removed his explosive charge in case he detonated when they had been scavenging him earlier. Fulcrum then told them about why he had been targeted by the D.J.D. but the group was too busy paying attention to Grimlock, who was revealed to be almost brain-dead. The group decided to fix Krok, set off for Cybertron, and use Grimlock as a bargaining chip when they got there. Before they left, they looted Flywheels, who had been killed during the fight. Who's Afraid of the DJD?
Later, on the planet Constancy, he was part of a mission to free Misfire from Galactic Council death row. This went wrong for two reasons: Misfire stopping for snacks and the strange illness that knocked out the rest of the team. Arm the Lonely
Notes
- James Roberts previously created a Decepticon named Fulcrum in his fan-published novel Transformers: Eugenesis. Whether this Fulcrum is intended to represent the same character or is merely a re-use of the name is currently unknown.
- Fulcrum is K-Class, a designation of Transformer that has a bomb alt mode and 'doesn't do fear.' Fulcrum missed the memo on the fear part.
- Everyone comments on his chin.
- Did you know? Cowardly Fulcrum was project manager on B'lahr XXXIX, named after Cowardly Lion actor Bert Lahr, from the Wizard of Oz (1939).
