Crankcase (G1)
| The name or term "Crankcase" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Crankcase (disambiguation). |
- Crankcase is a whiny Decepticon Triggercon skidplate from the dumb Generation 1 continuity family.
Nobody likes Crankcase, and he hates everybody and everything. Once a geeky collection of circuits and servos, Crankcase began life as a menial janitor in the Fuel-Spill Section of the Ministry of Energy and Nutrition on Cybertron. The bullies of his youth put a huge chip on his shoulder, where he now carries a set of heavy guns. He'd rather use them on those too weak to retaliate, and then laugh in their faces while their energon runs out. This makes him momentarily happy; then he goes back to an endless series of griping complaints about every facet of his miserable existence. A complete jerk and slag-piece, he fits fairly well into the Decepticon military, but adds very little to it. The Autobots certainly wouldn't want him. They already have Gears and Huffer.
Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
Marvel The Transformers comics
Crankcase was under the command of that vapor-brained Megatron millions of years ago on Cybertron, but they couldn't even beat up a bunch of pipecleaner pacifists right. His crew completely lost the source of all knowledge and information, the Underbase, thanks to interference from that chrome-brain, Optimus Prime. The Flames of Boltax! Things only got worse after that. Oh sure, we don't know anything that actually happened to Crankcase for over four million years, but they definitely must've gotten worse. In the present day, he had a useless job serving the equally useless Decepticon Triumverate. What a bunch of bloated losers. Sure, a clone of Megatron came along and managed to inspire Crankcase to turn on those louts, but he wound up having to do most of the work in actually blowing them away while their backs were turned. All Megatron had to do was deliver a speech and everyone suddenly loved him again. Though Crankcase said he would be glad to die as a warrior rather than endure the mockery of a life he had under the Triumviate, none of the Decepticon leaders could ever accomplish anything lasting, so who Crankcase was serving didn't matter. The Fall and Rise of the Decepticon Empire.
"Megatron" promised battles, but instead sent Crankcase off to find other warriors for the cause... Great, now he was a glorified recruiting agent. Soon, Megatron blew himself up and was replaced by another Megatron, but then the new one blew himself up too, and Crankcase was ordered by the Decepticon High Council to go to that miserable mudball Earth and retrieve one of the contestants for the 'Con leadership. Of course, as he suspected it'd happen, the guy didn't take it kindly to be retrieved, and instead beat Crankcase and his compatriots up, commandeered their ship, and had the bright idea to attack the Ark. Rage! You didn't have to be a pessimist to know how that one would work out: grossly outnumbered, the Decepticons were quickly overpowered. Still, battered and damaged, they retrieved Thunderwing and convinced him to retreat and fight another day. Wouldn't you know, the Decepticon Council of Elders thought this was stellar performance, and nominated him as the new Con leader. Just goes to show, you have to be a loony to be in charge. Assault on the Ark! Then his Triggercon "friends" abandoned him to go running off with some Mayhem Attack Squad. Slag-suckers—like joining a group with an even stupider name than the Wreckers is going to be some sort of edge in combat. Odds were their commander would end up going mad with power and beat the circuits out of them, anyway. Matrix Quest
Later, some pathetic "God" possessed an even more pathetic Autobot and gathered Crankcase with a bunch of other Transformers to battle Unicron. The Void! Right—a swarm of mecha-ants attacking a guy the size of a planet. That was really going to work. Anyway, some Autobot made a really long and self-important speech, picked up some nick-knack he found lying around and managed to blow the evil planet-bot to smithereens. someone was probably expecting Crankcase to clean up the mess afterwards. Not a chance. On the Edge of Extinction!
Some schmuck named Bludgeon took over the Decepticons after that, and began plotting to betray the Autobots, who had since entered a predictably doomed alliance with the Decepticons. Crankcase went along with his little band of conspirators, and the bunch of them managed to swindle the Autobots out of a bunch of their spaceship. With the Autobots stranded on their decaying world, the Decepticons were free to pick a new world to plunder. Exodus! The weak little inhabitants of Klo put up no fight whatsoever, which was really pathetic. The Last Autobot? Then the Autobots showed up and got massacred, which was even more pathetic. THEN the Autobots all started coming back to life thanks to the Last Autobot showing up and using his mystical mumbo-jumbo on their corpses. The revived Autobots were soon back to doing annoying things like caving in Crankcase's entire skull. He knew it would come to this, he just knew it. End of the Road!
Trigger-Happy!
At some point, a Decepticon Civil War broke out between Megatron, Scorponok and Shockwave on Earth. Crankcase and Ruckus found themselves on Megatron's side and had stolen Scorponok's battle plans, but the Autobots also wanted to get their hands on the plans and prepared to ambush them. Fortunately, Crankcase and Ruckus were warned of the ambush thanks to Backstreet panicking and giving away his position by firing, giving the Decepticons plenty of time to escape. Trigger-Happy!
Marvel UK future timelines
On Cybertron in 2009, Crankcase and the Triggercons joined Galvatron in slaughtering an Autobot resistance cell. The group then confronted Rodimus Prime, with Galvatron successfully goading his nemesis into a frenzied fight, hoping to corrupt the Matrix in the process. Crankcase tried to intervene, only for Galvatron to order him and Ruckus back; their interference being counter to his plans. Rodimus was talked out his mania however, and he and his remaining allies managed to escape. Aspects of Evil!
Another Time & Place
So once Bludgeon realized he was a lousy leader, his brilliant solution was to revive a leader that was even worse: Megatron. Crankcase (having his head un-smooshed by some idiot) got dragged along to Hydrus Four, where Bludgeon had the lame idea of using nucleon to revitalize their old commander. "Great, another leader who talks with his fists," thought Crankcase. Crankcase was so sure everything would go wrong, he wasn't even impressed when the Decepticons captured the Dinobots with the Holocaust Trigger and didn't even have to raise a weapon. Big whoop. Oh sure, Crankcase took his turn torturing their captives like all the other Decepticons, but he just knew the Dinobots would get free and ruin everything, he just knew it. So it was no surprise to Crankcase when he came across the Micromaster named Roadhandler about to free Grimlock. The Dinobot commander charged Crankcase and hit him with enough force to embed the Triggercon in the far wall. Another Time & Place
Transformers Comic-Magazin
Crankcase and the Triggercons were engaged by the Triggerbots and Sparkabots while attacking one of Earth's many cities. Transformers in Action: He Who Laughs Last ...
Marvel Generation 2 comic
Some idiot un-smooshed Crankcase's head, so he remained an active member of Bludgeon's army. That was stupid. It was only a matter of time before he would get injured again, like from the Cybertronian Empire's acid rain, so what was the point of repairing him? No one ever listens to Crankcase, though, so he went ahead and died when the Cybertronians caved in his chassis. New Dawn
It figures that Megatron was in charge again by this time. Crankcase had no luck under Megatron before, what chance did either have now? The Power and the Glory You didn't think they'd win a battle against Jhiaxus, now did you.
Classics
Crankcase's complaining must've pissed off someone important, because he was assigned waste disposal duty on Bludgeon's team. Great — like he didn't have enough to grumble about already. What's worse, he was commanded to dispose of Abominus, who Bludgeon had branded a traitor. The only thing worse than hauling garbage is hauling garbage that might suddenly wake up and eat you. At Fight's End
Regeneration One
Crankcase signed up to Soundwave's "Neo-Decepticon" insurgency at Fort Scyk. Like that would ever end well. Counterpoint
Crankcase was still hanging out at Fort Syck when the resurrected Scorponok returned to Cybertron with a Gene Key capable of turning Autobots into Decepticons. After the former Headmaster killed Misfire for questioning him, Crankcase and the others had little choice but to follow him. Natural Selection, Part Three Scorponok assigned Crankcase to guard the Civil Defense Hub alongside Roadblock, Runamuck and the Gene Key-tainted Guzzle, but they were surprised by Grimlock's resistance group and Crankcase was shot down by Crosshairs, though the Autobot was only shooting to disable and not to kill. Natural Selection, Part Five
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Crankcase was constructed cold. Arm the Lonely
Crankcase was stuck on Nebulos with a bunch of other incompetent Decepticon redshirts that quickly got their skidplates handed to them by that Pretender Thunderwing. Yeah, like nobody expected that to happen. Stormbringer #2 Stormbringer #3
He survived Thunderwing's attack, and after the end of the war, found himself on the planet Clemency with a handful of other Decepticon Scavengers and a head wound. While there, they were contacted by the Decepticon Justice Division, looking to torture and kill one of them for crimes against the Decepticons. Confused since there were only six of them and the Division mentioned seven, they discovered a stasis-locked Grimlock inside a P-6 Worldsweeper. 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, the D.J.D. 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. Crankcase was quickly smothered by Helex despite Spinister's assistance and was tossed aside. Crankcase complained how hopeless their situation was until he saw an artillery of Cybernoughts within the Worldsweeper. Commandeering one which he christened the Mighty Mega Puncher, he quickly took out Tesarus, Tarn, and Helex, but Kaon managed to electrocute the Cybernought and electrify Crankcase inside. Tarn quickly transformed and blasted the Cybernought, destroying it.
Crankcase recovered when the fighting was over and the D.J.D. had left for another target, whereupon they dragged out of Fulcrum that the reason the D.J.D. had been after him was for committing an act of cowardice during the war, and Crankcase recovered Krok, who had his face destroyed by Vos but was still functioning. The group decided to fix Krok, set off for Cybertron, and use Grimlock, who was revealed to be almost brain-dead, as a bargaining chip when they got there. Before they left, they scavenged parts from Flywheels, who had been killed during the fight. Who's Afraid of the DJD?
Later, during an attempt to rescue Misfire from the Galactic Council on the planet Constancy, Crankcase succumbed to the effects of Tyrest's universal killswitch along with Krok and Spinister. Arm the Lonely
Crankcase and the other Scavengers went on to have a series of adventures involving—amongst other things—being cursed to speak in song, using holomatter avatars to blend in with the natives on Magisteria VI, getting caught in a perspective trap and somehow getting turned into toys. Between adventures they passed the time by vandalising Autopedia or playing "Shoot Shoot Bang Bang", a game Crankcase had invented and copyrighted, though Fulcrum pointed out that he didn't understand how trademarks worked. Krok was somewhat disconcerted to find that Crankcase was playing since he was supposed to be piloting the ship and the Weak Anthropic Principle crashed into Tebris VII. Afterwards, Crankcase and Fulcrum took a break to sit back and watch "The Self-Hating Decepticon", a comedian who had grown popular since the end of the war.
Once he had recovered from the crash, Krok picked himself up off the floor and revealed that he had brought them to Tebris VII to meet a Monoformer called Demus who had made him an offer through The Big Conversation, a Decepticon networking site. This prompted a futher round of squabbling amongst the Scavengers that only narrowly avoided erupting into a full-blown fight when Demus made contact, inviting them to come and meet him at his scrapyard to discuss the deal. Demus revealed that he wanted to offer the Scavengers half a billion Shanix each in exchange for Grimlock. When Misfire objected, the matter was put to the vote in a rare display of Decepticon democracy and Crankcase elected to sell him along with Krok and Spinister, carrying it by three votes to two. However, they would never get the chance to make the deal as Demus was then summarily executed by the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, Fortress Maximus. Some Of My Best Friends Are Autobots
On the run from Fortress Maximus in a warehouse full of Demus's "Roboids", the Scavengers discovered that the innocent-looking toy pets were in fact lobotomised Transformers trapped in beast mode that were being sold to the galaxy at large as torture dolls. Knowing that Maximus would be listening in, Crankcase distracted him by contacting Misfire about Grimlock. With Fortress Maximus now after Grimlock on the W.A.P. a hundred miles away, the Scavengers resolved to save him but with Spinister and Misfire mode locked thanks to Demus's extreme transformation phobia, they were forced to unbox six Equinoids on which to ride to the rescue.
Having convinced Fortress Maximus that the other Roboids' lives were in danger thanks in part to Crankcase's facial paralysis making him an excellent bluffer, the Scavengers escaped Tebris VII in the Weak Anthropic Principle and set out on a new mission: to find and help all the other Decepticons out there who had been damaged by the war... after just one more game of "Shoot Shoot Bang Bang". Animals
Some time later aboard the Weak Anthropic Principle, the Scavengers watched a video that was being broadcast to the galaxy at large of Lost Light crewmembers apparently counting down the time to their deaths and making funerary requests, which Crankcase said was a "bit dark". How Bright Their Frail Deeds
TransTech
In the TransTech city of Axiom Nexus, Ruckus, Needlenose, and Crankcase assaulted what they thought was an energon refinery, but it turned out to be a waste fuel storage depot. Eyuw. Around Cybertron #1
Toys
Generation 1
- Crankcase (Triggercon, 1988)
- Crankcase transforms into a four-wheel-drive off-road vehicle of indeterminate model. Similar to the other Triggercons, he has flip-out weaponry, which in his case are two double-barreled laser cannons which deploy from his robot mode backpack/shoulders using a gear mechanism. In vehicle mode, they flip out from his camper and through his windshield. The windshield HE JUST HAD WASHED, thank you very much. Some people...
- None of the Triggercons (or Triggerbots) were released in Takara's Transformers lines. Figures that he gets forgotten as usual...
Notes
- A live-action movie series homage character, Crankcase, was released as a Walmart exclusive as a late part of the live-action movie toyline. The redeco was originally intended to be this Crankcase, and part of the 2008 Universe toyline. Notably, his head can smoosh as part of his transformation.
Foreign names
- French: 4x4
- French-Canadian: Grincheux ("Grinch")
