Tarn (G1)
| The name or term "Tarn" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Tarn (disambiguation). |
- Tarn is a Decepticon from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Tarn is an eloquent Decepticon. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful music as he waxes poetic quoting Towards Peace and other philosophical works by Megatron. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his specially modulated vocal processor to cause the Decepticon Justice Division's latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The current leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomises the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon insignia onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.
Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureacrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have lead to him burning out his original transformation cog years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing Nuke can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.
Fiction
IDW Generation 1 continuity
"Yup"
With his phenomenal levels of power and endurance, Tarn was regarded by Prowl as the equal of the Phase Sixers such as Overlord and Sixshot. Remembrance Day
Tarn brokered a deal with Pharma for an ever-increasing supply of transformation cogs from the deceased patients of Delphi, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by the Justice Division. As his demands grew greater, Pharma looked into rather unorthodox means of escaping this arrangement. How Ratchet Got His Hands Back
After Black Shadow was captured by the D.J.D. Tarn mused on the tendency of "phase sixers" to rebel. He paused when he realised Black Shadow was still alive. Playing his music, he discussed his views on the so-called end of the war, noting that as far as he was concerned, the war would end only when Megatron said so. He then began modulating his voice to Black Shadow's spark frequency, causing him to explode. He then ordered the D.J.D. to move onto their next target. He contacted said target on Clemency, warning his comrades that if they handed him over, they could live to watch him die. Rules of Disengagement
Sheltering in a crashed P-6 Worldsweeper, the Scavengers had other ideas and on discovering an unconscious Grimlock in a stasis tube decided to spike him with circuit speeders and use him to distract the Justice Division. Well aware that it was a trap Tarn mused how he could never resist a closed coffin and approached it anyway, but while the brain damaged Grimlock initially fared well against the D.J.D. Tesarus and Tarn soon subdued him and Helex prevented the Scavengers from escaping. In the ensuing battle Tarn was crushed beneath the foot of Crankcase's Cybernought but recovered quickly enough to hear Fulcrum—the D.J.D.'s intended target—deliver a speech about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. With Kaon's discovery of Overlord's energy signature nearby Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to disengage in pursuit, warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto The List. Who's Afraid of the DJD? Aboard the Peaceful Tyranny, Tarn showed concern as Kaon spontaneously began writhing in agony right in front of him, calling on his teammate to tell him what he could do to help. Arm the Lonely
Following a tip-off from the Decepticon mole Brainstorm, the D.J.D. arrived at the Lost Light (in reality, one of two created by a malfunction of the ship's quantum engines) in pursuit of Overlord, near the planet Ofsted XVII. Despite initially promising not to harm any of the crew, discovering that the traitor Deadlock was among them set them off, and after dealing with him, the D.J.D. set about murdering the rest of the ship. The Permanent Revolution Tarn sliced off Ultra Magnus's hand before shooting him through the torso with his fusion cannon, and subsequently dragged Minimus Ambus's corpse out of the Magnus Armor. He also crushed Swerve's head, used Vos' gun mode to shoot Cyclonus in the head, and forced a large section of the ship's crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. slaughterhouse The Road Not Taken
At Nickel's insistence, however, the D.J.D. later returned to the derelict Lost Light in order to salvage its quantum engines. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Galactic Council and the Black Block Consortia, who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. The Permanent Revolution
When the D.J.D. captured Blip for practicing religion, Tarn played his usual role as the group's "face", even though he was beginning to grow weary of his duties. After allowing Helex to have his usual brain-module-in-mouth way with him, Tarn lectured the unfortunate Sparkeater cultist on why religion in any form was incompatible with the Decepticon cause. Tarn allowed Blip to say a few last words before killing him (telling him that, officially, he'd used them to renounce his god), but was startled when he demanded that Tarn remove his mask. Rather than "talk" him to death as usual, Tarn had Blip given over to Helex and Tesarus, reflecting on the true reason why he wore the mask: so that when he allowed the other D.J.D. members to indulge themselves, they wouldn't see him close his eyes. The Permanent Revolution
After returning to the Peaceful Tyranny and praying to a statue of Megatron, Tarn, Helex, and Tesarus were accosted by an irate Nickel, who berated them on their hygiene and the poor state of Blip's corpse (being too thoroughly mangled to extract a transformation cog from). Her concern for their health reminded Tarn of one particularly important aspect of the D.J.D.: appraisals! In his quarters with Tesarus, Tarn expressed satisfaction with the burly Decepticon's recent performance, but rapidly turned violent when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself just as quickly, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII a third time in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's jubilant announcement that they had returned to the ship safe, sound, and carrying the postwar edition of Towards Peace. Watching the addendum, Tarn was shocked to discover that Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons. The Permanent Revolution
The D.J.D. returned to their base at Messatine, where Tarn refueled himself with Nuke. Disheartened by Megatron's words, he attempted to fatally overdose on the "superfuel", but changed plans upon seeing a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his pod. The Permanent Revolution
Tarn led the D.J.D. to a rendezvous with the rogue Decepticon warlord Deathsaurus and his personal army. They met with him aboard his flagship, a stolen Warworld, where Tarn's request for a quiet word in private was understandably misunderstood as an attempt to assassinate him. Though Deathsaurus attempted to kill Tarn pre-emptively (shutting down his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice), the D.J.D. leader got the better of him by revealing he had hijacked the Warworld's inter-Decepticon radio and stunning him with its volume. Speaking to all of Deathsaurus's troops at once, Tarn explained that he wasn't there to kill them, but to ally with them. In exchange, all of them would be taken off of The List. Deathsaurus agreed, but on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D. as payment for having killed dozens of his own soldiers over the years. Tarn refused immediately, and was surprised to find that that was the correct response. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! The Permanent Revolution
Games
Transformers Legends
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Blackshadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. Rules of Disengagement
Notes
- Alex Milne said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is Keith David. That is AWESOME.[1]
- Prowl lists Tarn as being on par with the Phase Sixers Sixshot and Overlord in "Remembrance Day". So far there's no official confirmation that Tarn is himself a Sixer.
