The Fallen
This article is a featured article, and considered to be one of the most informative on this wiki.
| This article is about the servant of Unicron. For the first episode of Cybertron, see Fallen (Cybertron episode). |
- The Fallen is a Transformer in the Generation 1 continuity family (and possibly in more).
The Fallen is a powerful entity from Cybertron's earliest age, far beyond living memory. He commands dark forces and is a master of time-lost secrets, things that the Transformers were not meant to know. He burns with the awesome dark powers of his master, Unicron.
The Fallen's true name is lost to the mists of time. He was once one of the thirteen original Transformers, a force created by the light god Primus to carry out his grand designs and defend all of creation against his eternal nemesis Unicron. As Vector Prime was constructed to safeguard space and time, so was this robot's function to oversee the primal force of entropy, the aging and dissolution of order.
However, this guardian of entropy became obsessed with the darker side of chaos and death, and in the black place these urges led him, he found a new god, more suited to his nature. He turned against his siblings, his creator, and his universe, and betrayed them all to Unicron. Now he was a being of darkness, wreathed in flame.
The Fallen paid for his treachery; when Primus first triumphed over Unicron, The Fallen was sealed into extradimensional limbo along with his new master.
Did we mention that he is also on fire?
Fiction
Dreamwave comics continuity
The War Within: The Dark Ages
Approximately 7 million years ago, Optimus Prime and Megatron were lost in a space bridge accident. This accident weakened the barrier between reality and the dimension in which The Fallen was trapped, allowing The Fallen to eventually break free and return to Cybertron.
The Fallen immediately set about initiating the "Unbinding", an event which required four particular Transformers, who would function as "angles in the geometry of dissolution". To help him round up the required Transformers, the Fallen recruited a trio of Decepticon outcasts, Bludgeon, Mindwipe, and Bugly, who hungered for a command of the occult. The Fallen promised them all manner of dark powers in exchange for serving him. Leading his three followers to a hidden room within Cybertron, he named Grimlock as the first of the angles to be gathered. Fragmentation
The Fallen and company proceeded to construct a strange machine within the Well of All Sparks in preparation for the Unbinding. Unfortunately, Bludgeon and friends got impatient for more than The Fallen's praise and demanded a more tangible reward: the arcane power he had promised them. The Fallen responded by grabbing Bludgeon’s head and giving him a mere glimpse of what he sought: images of a fiery vortex, demonic faces, stabbing swords and a human skull engulfed Bludgeon. The Fallen stated that this was but a peek inside a dark door he would fully open if they served him well. This left Bludgeon suitably inspired to begin hunting down their targets.
Bugly and Mindwipe leaked information to draw the Protectobots out into combat with Devastator, while Bludgeon hatched a plot to snare both Grimlock andJetfire. Escalation Bludgeon, Bugly, and Mindwipe ambushed Jetfire as he attempted a cross-faction meeting with Shockwave. When Grimlock crashed the party earlier than they expected, however, The Fallen himself had to intervene and caught Grimlock’s blazing energo-sword in his bare hand. Revelation
Grimlock took one punch from The Fallen yet still got back up, so The Fallen grabbed him by the shoulders and unleashed a huge blast of energy that put the Dinobot leader out cold. He dragged Grimlock and Jetfire away and commanded his followers to gather the third angle while he handled the fourth. The Fallen singlehandedly abducted Blitzwing from his well-guarded holding cell in Autobot headquarters, shrugging off attacks by some of the Autobots' best warriors and causing their weapons to corrode away into uselessness with a mere gesture. Bludgeon's team, meanwhile, succeeded in acquiring Hot Spot from the Protectobots.
All four angles were strapped to the device in the Well of All Sparks. Launching into full B-movie villain mode, The Fallen theatrically monologued to the awakening Jetfire that they were casualties in the war of the Gods, and would be used to break the Seal of Primus, after which "all chaos will follow". Confrontation
The Fallen continued his villainous monologue, apparently directing it not at Jetfire but at Primus himself, as the four Transformers' unique sparks were drained to unlock the Seal of Primus. A combined army of forces from several factions defeated the Chaos Trinity and penetrated The Fallen's operation, while Jetfire arranged a force-field to contain the energy of Primus. The God of Light himself was subsequently roused from his slumber; with a gesture of his radiant hand, he engulfed his wayward creation in a torrent of searing energy that was then sucked back into the Seal of Primus. Conflagration
Fun Publications Cybertron comic
The silhouette of The Fallen is seen standing behind Vector Prime, another of the first 13 Transformers. Vector Prime: In the Beginning
IDW Transformers movie comics
Defiance issue 2 Defiance issue 3
Revenge of the Fallen
Some time before or after the Well of All Sparks incident, for whatever reason The Fallen has reappeared on a different universe's Earth.[1] He is so going to get revenge, you betcha. Revenge of the Fallen
Toys
Titanium Series
- Fallen (6-inch Cybertron Heroes, 2007)
- Accessories: Display stand
- Instead of being based on his comic appearance, the Fallen toy is loosely based on Don Figueroa's design for pre-Earth Megatron as seen in Infiltration and Stormbringer, though obviously with The Fallen's head and deco. He transforms into a Cybertronic tank. Sadly his tank form doesn't hold together well, nor does he have actual hands, just blocks with holes in them. His side-mounted cannons can peg into his forearms in robot mode, or be held in his fists. He wears a faction symbol of his own effigy. So far, The Fallen is, by a fraction of an inch, the tallest (and the bulkiest) of the 6" Titanium Series figures.
Trivia
- The Fallen design was created by Pat Lee, his first (and only) original Transformers character. (Simon Furman created the concept, see next item.) The early design concept not only lacked The Fallen's characteristic mouthplate, but differed incredibly from the final product. Envisioned as a medieval, ancient-looking Transformer, he glowed like a furnace, though he was not depicted as being perpetually on fire until Andrew Wildman penciled his appearances in The Dark Ages and the colorists caught on.
- The Fallen was also used to recycle some of Simon Furman's unused Last Autobot plans.[1]
- When questioned about him constantly being aflame, War Within writer Simon Furman stated that The Fallen is always on fire "because it looks cool".
- The Fallen's altmode, a tank, though designed, was never used in-fiction.
- Very little of The Fallen's backstory is given in his actual fictional appearances, leaving much of The Dark Ages somewhat confusing on its own. Helpful inserts from the More Than Meets the Eye profile books and DK's Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, published around the same time, spelled out more. Eventually, the packaging profile printed on his Titanium figure gave the rest.
- The proper treatment of his name, with its capital-T "The", is established both in the comics and the Ultimate Guide. The one dissenting source is his on-package bio, which simply calls him "Fallen" (as in, "Fallen forgot his real name long ago"). The reason for this awkward treatment is unknown, though the usual culprits behind toy-name oddities are trademark issues.
- The Fallen can speak Spanish. "Estoy en feuego!"[2]
- During San Diego Comic-Con 2008, in an interview on July 25th, Simon Furman claimed that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen would feature a character called the Fallen, which was a character they created for Dreamwave's The War Within: The Dark Ages.[3] Three days later, IDW Publishing writer Chris Mowry corroborated the claim in an interview with MTV Splash Page, calling "The Fallen" the main villain of the film.[4] Less than a week after this, however, Michael Bay reiterated that everything leaked thus far is part of their misinformation campaign and that only a handful of people involved with the production of Revenge have seen the script, contradicting IDW's interviews where their representatives confirm that they have the script.[5] Curiously, on August 5th 2008, after a fan posted on Michael Bay's forum pointing out the contradiction, all references to The Fallen were removed from the aforementioned interviews, as well as any references to IDW Publishing having the script.
- In Titan Transformers Comic Aftermath Part 2, the newly-ascendant President of the United States is named Theodore F. Allen. It remains to be seen if the wordplay has any significance beyond the fact that he is under Decepticon mind-control.
References
- ↑ Simon Furman stated that The Fallen, a character he created for Dreamwave's The War Within: The Dark Ages, was the villain of Transformers 2 at San-Diego Comic-Con, July 25, 2008.
- ↑ Fanclub-exclusive Mini Mayhem strip, March 19, 2007
- ↑ Simon Furman confirms The Fallen is a character in an interview with Comic Book Resources (Fallen details removed)
- ↑ MTV Splash Page interviews Chris Mowry (Fallen details removed)
- ↑ A post made by Michael Bay on his forum
