Fulcrum

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Fulcrum is a Decepticon from the 2005 IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
The benefit of being a bomb is that you never have to deal with the fallout.

Chatty and (he hopes) disarming, Fulcrum is by his own admission a big fan of his own survival. Dying, less so. As a K-Class trooper, he's supposed to have a reputation for being fearless, but Fulcrum missed the memo on that part. While he's more friendly and approachable than most Decepticons, he's still quite disgusted by organic species. What a chin on him, though!

Fiction

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2005 IDW continuity

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First appearance: More Than Meets The Eye #7

Fulcrum was forged; Arm the Lonely inspired by the Decepticons' technoist ideals of cleansing the galaxy of "inferior" organic species, he joined the Decepticon faction some three million years ago, during the early years of the interstellar Constellate. Who's Afraid of the DJD? As a "techie", Fulcrum served under Deathsaurus, the Decepticon responsible for overseeing the cyberforming of recently conquered planets in the Decepticon Empire. Journey's End Eventually Fulcrum rose to become the project manager in charge of cyberforming B'lahr 39. When the Autobots attacked, however, Fulcrum's cowardice led him to desert his post and flee as far and fast as he could. Who's Afraid of the DJD?

A few weeks later, Deathsaurus and his retinue caught up with him, Journey's End and Fulcrum was convicted of cowardice and sent to the Decepticon prison colony Styx to await his execution. Though he was initially slated to die via Traitor's wheel, the need for fresh bodies led the Decepticon high command to put out a new order: every Decepticon prisoner would be re-engineered into a K-Class suicide bomb. After his refit, Fulcrum and fellow K-Squad member Torque were deployed to Clemency during the war for the Nightmare Engine. As the moment came for his squad to jump and die, he was sullen and silent, ignoring the perky K-Squad member until the moment came to leap.

"If I only had my heart..."

This time, however, Fulcrum's 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. Although he didn't die, he was badly damaged and was knocked into stasis lock for many years. For his crimes, Fulcrum's name was added to the infamous List of the dreaded Decepticon Justice Division. Who's Afraid of the DJD?

Fulcrum remained comatose until shortly after the end of the Great War, when a group of Decepticon Scavengers—Krok, Misfire, Crankcase, Spinister, and Flywheels—landed on Clemency to scrounge energon and spare parts from the casualties. Mistaking Fulcrum for one of the many dead bodies, Rules of Disengagement the Scavengers, after first defusing Fulcrum's explosive payload, Who's Afraid of the DJD? set about stripping him down for parts. In the process, however, they inadvertently reactivated the not-quite-dead Decepticon, and, after first persuading them that he wasn't a zombie, and then convincing them to give him back his fuel pump, Fulcrum joined their crew.

That evening, the other Scavengers brought Fulcrum up to speed on recent events; shocked by the idea that the Great War had ended, Fulcrum learned that Krok's group had simply assumed that the Autobots had won and avoided returning to Cybertron. The next morning, the Decepticons set out to scavenge some more, and stumbled across an abandoned Worldsweeper-class warship. Further exploration revealed that the ship was full of abandoned genetic experiments: malformed, aborted protoforms, bleeding rooms coated in skin, disembodied brain modules, and a strange kind of wooden robot. Fulcrum was intrigued by the mysterious vessel, but his optimism was soon scotched when they received a transmission from the Decepticon Justice Division, who had tracked him to Clemency. After being told that they had fifteen minutes to give up the "traitor" in their midst so that the other six could watch him die, Fulcrum assumed that they'd miscounted, until Krok discovered that the ship also contained a valuable cargo: a comatose Grimlock in a stasis pod. Rules of Disengagement

I CAME IN LIKE A WREEECKING BOOOMMMBBB

The Scavengers decided to stay behind and battle the Division by juicing Grimlock up on circuit speeders, and releasing him when the DJD got close. As Tarn's ship touched down, however, he revealed that they had come to finish off Fulcrum, and before Fulcrum could explain the fight began in earnest. The battle went poorly for the Scavengers, and so Fulcrum decided on a suicidal gambit to turn the tide. Clameering to the top of the Worldsweeper, Fulcrum made an impassioned speech to his enemies; telling them that he was sickened by the DJD and its ilk, who had betrayed the noble ideals of the Decepticon cause, he leapt, transformed into bomb mode... and failed to detonate.

Before the DJD could move to finish him off, they received a transmission alerting them to a higher-priority target. When Fulcrum came round and learned that Spinister had disarmed his bomb mode, Fulcrum revealed to them why he'd been targeted by the DJD; by that point, however, the others were more preoccupied with Grimlock, whose brain-damaged condition was now evident. The group agreed to repair Krok, who'd been wounded in the fight, and set off for Cybertron, hoping to use Grimlock as a bargaining chip when they arrived. Before leaving, however, they scavenged what they could from Flywheels, who had been killed in the battle. 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

The Scavengers never made it back to Cybertron; after learning that Starscream had seized leadership of the planet and Megatron had defected to the Autobots, the Scavengers abandoned their plans to return home and spent the next few years aimlessly wandering the galaxy. In between various zany adventures—including an escapade where Fulcrum saved the universe with a game of Jenga, they aimlessly passed the time by vandalising Autopedia and 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 further 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.

On a steel horse they ride.

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 to board. Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again!

Fulcrum and the others made their way to Frayus, looking for some ununtrium to scavenge out of a Decepticon Conclave base. Upon exiting empty-handed, they found themselves witnessing a war between the Black Block Consortia, the Galactic Council, and Deathsaurus's Warworld forces. Not wanting to cross paths with his old boss, Fulcrum and the Scavengers beat feet towards the tele-portal back up to the W.A.P. in orbit. Unfortunately, the portal was missing. Fortunately, another portal opened up and was all, like, "VOOOOSH", so the Scavengers took the exit they could. Journey's End

Joined by Nickel, the Scavengers' next stop was Troja Major where they took a job from Agonizer to retrieve the Magnificence. Following a lead, they headed to the planet Confluence and found themselves under attack by Treecons. After Grimlock dealt with them, Scorponok appeared, defeated the Scavengers and took them prisoner aboard his Worldsweeper. Having beaten them to the Magnificence and determined they weren't a threat to him, Scorponok triggered a berserker rage in Grimlock and unleashed him on Fulcrum and the others. The Ties That Bind

Nickel and Misfire managed to calm Grimlock down and the group hatched a plan to get the jump on Scorponok. Making it look like Grimlock dismembered and killed the rest of them, the Scavengers' "remains" were left unattended and Fulcrum and the others were left to reassemble and tool-up. They found Grimlock on the bridge with Scorponok and Flame, holding them at gunpoint and snatching the Magnificence back. When Scorponok refused to divulge his plans, Fulcrum asked the Magnificence, who began to reveal them. Annoyed at having his thunder stolen, Scorponok unveiled the Firstborn to the Scavengers and his larger goal to breed organic Decepticons, something that particularly disgusted Fulcrum. Scorponok extended an offer to join him in this enterprise and when the Scavengers declined, he disabled them all by remotely manipulating their sparks. Nickel managed to stymie Scorponok with a pre-recorded lethal voicemail she had on-hand from Tarn, and the group took the Firstborn and ran. They managed to find a transmat suite, with Grimlock shoving them through the portal and staying behind on the Worldsweeper to cover their escape. Fulcrum and the others found themselves transported inside what appeared to be Grimlock's old cell in Garrus-9. Kill All 'Cons

Nautica ended up freeing Fulcrum and the others from the cell. The God War The Scavengers quickly discovered they were NOT in Garrus-9, and after comparing notes with Nautica, sussed out that something fishy was going on. The group located an underground morgue and after linking up with Rodimus and his team, discovered that they were in fact on Mederi, a galactic euthanasia clinic. After determining that the Knights of Cybertron mistook Mederi for Cyberutopia and putting the Lost Light 's quest to bed, the Scavengers and the rest of Team Rodimus regrouped on the surface. Fulcrum noticed something approaching from the sky, and everyone was horrified to see a horde of sparkeaters descending upon them. You Are Here Created from the rest of the Lost Light's crew, the sparkeaters attacked Team Rodimus and the Scavengers, with Fulcrum recommending a hasty retreat. The sparkeaters' advance on them was briefly halted when Grimlock arrived in a shuttle along with other survivors to aid their friends against the horde. The Lost Light itself with the traitorous Getaway at its helm attacked those on the ground as well. After a plan was hatched to retake the Lost Light, Fulcrum ended up with a group that barricaded themselves inside Mederi's "Ward Zero", working on a cure for the sparkeaters. A Dance Before Dying

The sparkeaters were eventually treated using "concussive medicine", just in time for Fulcrum and the others to notice a massive rift in space just outside Mederi. Lūstrāre Everyone boarded the reclaimed Lost Light and were sucked into the rift, where they discovered five duplicate Cybertrons, landing on one. There, they were surrounded by soldiers of the Black Block Consortia and addressed by the Grand Architect. Ultimately, the Architect had Fulcrum and the others transported to a massive cell, where the full extent of his plans were revealed to them. The duplicate Cybertrons formed part of a "God Gun", which would be turned on a massive threat that the Architect had been preparing to defeat. After the God Gun tore another rift in space open, hundreds of ships poured out from the Functionist Universe, pursuing the Last Light captained by the returned Megatron! Farsickness Following close behind the ships was Functionist Cybertron itself, now transformed into a giant avatar of Primus in robot mode and used as the Functionist Council's ultimate weapon. Megatron rescued Fulcrum and the others from the Grand Architect's clutches and brought them aboard the Last Light. There, the Scavengers were dumbstruck to learn that Megatron actually knew their names and was delighted to see them. The Return of the King

After Rung was revealed as the true Primus and the Grand Architect defeated, all that remained was to deal with the Functionist Primus. The Unremembering A plan was hatched to use multiple Matrices created by Rung to overload Functionist Primus' hot spots and destroy the Functionist Council. Fulcrum and Nickel were dispatched to the Alyon hot spot to defend Riptide as he opened his Matrix. Ultimately, the Functionist Council was defeated and the day was saved. A Spark Among Embers

Fulcrum and the Scavengers went along on the Lost Light final "lap of honor", where they voted with the rest of the crew to attempt a quantum duplication upon their return to Cybertron. After the Lost Light had safely returned, they attended a farewell party in Swerve's, where they accepted an apology from Fortress Maximus for his attempt to kill them back on Tebris VII. The Scavengers left the party together, headed back to Troja Major.

In another universe, a duplicate Lost Light materialized, with Fulcrum and the others ready to go on another round of wacky adventures. How To Say Goodbye And Mean It: Part 2

Kre-O online comic

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Fulcrum was among the army of Decepticons summoned by Megatron to attack Autobot City. Two Giant Bases! Everybody Getting Along, Come On, Fight!

2019 IDW continuity

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Fulcrum was a confirmed member of the Ascenticons. The Change In Your Nature Part One

Notes

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  • James Roberts previously created a Decepticon named Fulcrum in his fan-published novel Transformers: Eugenesis. However, this Fulcrum is a completely diiferent character, merely a name reuse like Quark.
  • Did you know? Cowardly Fulcrum was project manager on B'lahr 39, named after [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Cowardly Lion|{{#if:||Cowardly Lion}}]] actor [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Bert Lahr|{{#if:||Bert Lahr}}]], from [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|{{#if:the 1939 The Wizard of Oz film|the 1939 The Wizard of Oz film|The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)}}]].
  • Kre-O Fulcrum wears the Commando's flip-down goggle helmet.

Foreign names

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  • Japanese: Fulcrum (フルクラム Furukuramu)
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