Fulcrum
- 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
Fulcrum and the other Scavengers subsequently had a series of adventures involving—amongst other things—bursting into song, conjugating verbs, using holomatter avatars to blend in with the natives on Magisteria VI and playing Jenga to decide the fate of the entire universe. Between adventures they passed the time by vandalising Autopedia or playing "Shoot Shoot Bang Bang" and it was during one such game that Crankcase allowed the Weak Anthropic Principle to crash into Tebris VII. Afterwards, Fulcrum and Crankcase 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, Fulcrum backed him up and it was put to the vote in a rare display of Decepticon democracy. Krok elected to sell him along with Crankcase and Spinister, carrying it by three votes to two, but 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 toy pet Roboids, Fulcrum was horrified by Max's revelation that the innocent-looking toys were in fact lobotomised Transformers trapped in beast mode that were being sold to the galaxy at large as torture dolls. Krok confirmed this as being the truth using the "communicator" he was always clicking in times of stress—in reality it was a part of his old friend Radar that detected nearby Decepticon sparks. Confronting Krok, Fulcrum accused him of hypocrisy as he had been treating Grimlock in much the same way and so the Scavengers resolved to make things right. With Fortress Maximus now after Grimlock on the W.A.P. a hundred miles away and 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 to a bomb that Fulcrum had devised, backed up by his fabricated Autopedia profile claiming he was an explosives expert, 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, which even they found a bit dark. How Bright Their Frail Deeds They then traveled to Earth so that Crankcase could meet up with one "CONS4EVA" he'd met online, much to the dismay of Fulcrum who found humans disgusting. He made Crankcase some energon goodies to bring along, but ended up throwing them in the face of CONS4EVA when he sent the Scavengers into a panic by taking on the appearance of Thunderwing. When he learned that the others had invited a human to join them, a horrified Fulcrum launched the ship before the creature had a chance board. Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again!
Kre-O online manga
Fulcrum was among the army of Decepticons summoned by Megatron to attack Autobot City. Two Giant Bases! Everybody Getting Along, Come On, Fight!
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 1939 The Wizard of Oz film.
- Kre-O Fulcrum wears the Commando's flip-down goggle helmet.
