Characters / The Transformers: Till All Are One

These are the characters that appear in the comic book series The Transformers: Till All Are One.

For characters in its sister series, some of which may be represented here, see The Transformers: Robots in Disguise and The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye.

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Main Characters

Windblade

"Voiceless"

• Action Girl: Not initially, as she leaves much of the combat they see to her bodyguard Chromia, but once she's exiled becomes a formidable fighter in her own right.
• Anti-Hero: Though she isn't fond of it, she has to make more and more morally compromising decisions to ensure a new fair world, albeit one under Starscream.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Quite expressive too.
• Broken Pedestal: She becomes very disillusioned with Optimus due to his actions over in RID, and even more so by the time of Optimus Prime. Her eulogy of him in the final issue shows how she eventually became reconciled to the contradictions in his character enough to acknowledge both the good and the bad of what he was.
• Cool Plane: She transforms into a VTOL jet fighter with turbofans in her wings.
• Cool Sword: Has an energy sword with a turbofan in the hilt.
• Depending on the Artist: Her design has been reinterpreted by both toy makers and artists.
  • Her original hasbro toy had a primarily black jet-mode, and her pelvis and upper legs from black and red respectively. Her face was silver
  • Stone's design inverted her pelvis and upper legs making them red and black respectively. She made Windblade's wings and back more red, making her alt-mode a primarily red deco. Windblade's face was changed to powder white. This became the basis for her Takara toy.
  • Howell kept Stone's leg colors, but her wings and back were changed to primarily black, making her alt-mode more in line with the original Hasbro design, while her robot mode is still Stone's design.
• Facial Markings: Windblade, like other cityspeakers, get unique facial markings that resemble kabuki make-up.
• Fembot
• Grand Theft Me: Both the victim, and guilty, of it.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Similar to Drift's original getup.
• Heroic Willpower: Vigilem's mind spans time and space. If not for a last second distraction, she would have won their mental duel.
• Magnetic Hero: She quickly draws together a group of loyal friends in the first series which grows to the point that by Till All Are One, she has a third of the planet in her corner.
• Miko: The function of the cityspeakers.
• Naïve Newcomer: For one thing, she thought Starscream would be a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Elita One rages that by awakening Vigilem, she played a role in the freeing of Liege Maximo and has doomed Cybertron to his revenge.
• Power Trio: Portrayed to have had one, until Nautica decides to go on the Lost Light instead.
• Red Is Heroic
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Chromia's Red, though she can be headstrong on occasion.
• Voice for the Voiceless: For Metroplex, who is still mute from damage.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Initially. The realities of life on post-war Cybertron soon beat it out of her though.
• You Are in Command Now: After Starscream willingly confesses to his crimes, she's put in charge of a united Cybertron. And after the Unicron crisis sees Optimus, Starscream and Soundwave dead (and Shockwave imprisoned) she becomes the leader of the Cybertronian race on Earth

Chromia

"Homeless"

• Action Girl: As Windblade's bodyguard she sees a lot of action fending off threats to the cityspeaker.
• Adaptational Villainy: She's more gruff in this incarnation and it was she who was behind the bombing that killed three people. She also tried to convince Windblade to activate Metroplex's space bridge, which would have killed everybody on Cybertron.
• An Arm and a Leg: In the climax of the first Windblade miniseries Starscream slices one of her arms off.
• Barrier Warrior: Carries a shield and knows how to use it.
• Big Entrance: Well, they tried. It failed because Nautica didn't have any experience with threatening people.
• Big Sis Mentor
• Bodyguarding a Badass
• Cool Big Sis: They might not be related, but they surely have this dynamic.
• Depending on the Artist: An intentional example.
  • Chromia's character model was created by Stone, but her toy, while similar, has a number of differences (most notably where her wheels end up in robot mode). When she appears in Combiner hunters under Sara Pitre-Durocher's art Chromia looks more like her toy, as this comic was made to sell the Combiner Hunter fembots, meaning she had to be changed to look more toy accurate.
• Easily Forgiven: Much like in RID, some really heinous stuff can be looked past if one's willing to try and be a better bot with the new peace, Windblade even goes drinking with at least 4 war criminals, as such she does allow Chromia to stay on as body-guard even after she found out that Chromia was behind the blackouts and bombing.
• Expy: Of Prime Arcee.
• Fembot
• Fish out of Water: Even with her highly cynical nature, at points Chromia is just as caught off-guard by Cybertronians as Windblade. Case in point, in Unicron, when she sees a massed Decepticon fleet, she asks Windblade just how bad the war actually was.
• Karma Houdini: Despite being behind the bombing that killed three innocents and nearly killed Windblade, Chromia gets away with essentially a slap on the wrist. Subverted in Till All Are One #4 when she publicly confesses to protect Windblade from Starscream's blackmail, and is jailed.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Windblade's Blue, despite her coloration.
• Rogue Agent: It's not a straight example but Starscream frees her in TAAO #9 to hunt down and kill Liege Maximo for him.
• Ship Tease: She is constantly seen operating with Ironhide, and there appears to be an unspoken closeness between the two. Chromia instantly grew concerned when Windblade teased her claiming she would tell Ironhide she referred to him as mopey, and risked her own life to save him from being destroyed on Velocitron. This seems to have ended after her arrest following her public admission of terrorism, causing her to be sullenly arrested by a relunctant Ironhide. This is of course a not-so-subtle reference towards the fact the two were in a relationship back in the original cartoon.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Starscream frees her so she can hunt down Liege Maximo and gain some measure of redemption for them both - except Liege Maximo dies after being outsmarted by Arcee in Optimus Prime, and Chromia never even appears in that story.
• Those Two Gals: With Nautica, before she joined the Lost Light.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Disappears after the end of TAAO, and during the finale of Optimus Prime Windblade asks what happened to her and her crew to Onyx Prime, who doesn't give an answer. Unicron reveals she and her crew had found Liege, but were set on by Maximals, who crippled their ship and left them unable to get in contact until long after Liege is dead.
• Yandere: Violently protective of Windblade to the point where she planted a bomb that killed a few innocent bots (and also greatly injured Windblade) in a attempt to scare Windblade away from Cybertron.

Allies

Blurr

"Aimless"

• Adaptation Personality Change: The Blurr of IDW, while still affable and fun loving, is a lot more serious and better adjusted that his old Motor Mouth Keet self from G1. His fast talking is more friendly banter than a verbal tic that strings all of his words together.
• The Bartender: His chosen role in life post-war. As such tends to be a source of information when Windblade needs it due to hearing things from his customers.
• A Day in the Limelight: Issue #5 of the second Windblade series sees him racing to earn the allegiance of the world of Velocitron.
• Good-Guy Bar: He owns one.
• Defector from Decadence: Left the Autobots during the events of Robots in Disguise, due to personal differences with Bumblebee and Prowl, and remains unaffiliated since.

Waspinator

Everyone Hurtzzz Wazzpinator

• Butt-Monkey: Fully aware of his status as such.
• The Chew Toy: He actually repeats his page quote in Dark Cybertron:
  Why universe hate Waspinator?
• Non-Standard Character Design: Much like Rattrap, Waspinator's design has a much less humanoid robot mode.

Metroplex

• Badass in Distress: He's near death when Ultra Magnus and company find him.
• Big Damn Heroes: Space-bridges himself with the Lost Light back to Cybertron to battle the Necrotitan.
• Determinator: Even with his body paralyzed, he managed to get a message to Chromia to free Windblade from Vigilem.
• Eye Scream: One of his eyes is missing, leaving a big, gaping hole in his face. He gets new optics in TAAO #5.
• Fingore: Missing his thumb, which the Lost Light bumps into in Spotlight: Trailcutter. It turns out to be a Chekhov's Gun laced with one of Shockwave's ores, which Megatron teleports back to him so he can heal and finally defeat the Necrotitan.
• Genius Loci: He's the last remaining city on Cybertron, following Iacon's destruction in Dark Cybertron.
• Gentle Giant: Despite being the size of a city made for giant robots, with a mind that transcends space and time, Metroplex is amazingly caring towards fellow Autobots. He once broke cover to protect the throttlebots from Sixshot. Optimus himself in RID warns Starscream that Metroplex will not allow him to abuse the people of Iacon (The city might turn against you very literally) and of course in this miniseries he reminds Windblade that You Are Not Alone.
• Handicapped Badass: He's grievously damaged from the events of Dark Cybertron, and Shockwave's ores could only heal so much of the damage.
• He's Back!: In issue 5 of TAAO, he transforms back to robot mode with new optics and a voice.
• Hive Mind: All Titans are connected and aware of one another.
• Humongous Mecha: The largest Autobot in the IDW-verse.
• Last of His Kind: Implied, with many of the Titans having suffered from a lack of sufficient fuel for their massive bodies. The Titan Hunters killed many of the survivors, and several of the MIA Titans, including Caminus, willingly sacrificed themselves to make home worlds more inhabitable for their children. Several more pop up over the years, but by the end of Unicron Metroplex is emphatically the last of the Titans.
• My Greatest Failure: Feels he should have killed Vigilem instead of exiling him.
• The Nicknamer: He calls Windblade "Wind-Voice" due to her being his city speaker.
• Teleporters and Transporters: Has a built-in Space Bridge that the Decepticons coveted and searched out for millions of years. After a jump-start, it allows him to teleport himself and the entire Lost Light back to Cybertron.
• Time Abyss: The first and oldest of the Titans, the rest of whom were said to have accompanied the Knights of Cybertron in their voyages into the universe. Metroplex is literally millions of years old, having been built long before the war.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Titans do not perceive time and space as humans or regular transformers do. As such, his conversations with Windblade (and he can talk about multiple topics at once) include numerous vaguely prophetic sayings. There's been one in the two first issues: "And the stars grew distant and lonely in their orbits. We saw but could not touch their wandering grace... and some are light and fleet of foot and some are as fierce as beasts and some were paired forevermore though fools called them least". In the last issue of the original it becomes clear that he's talking about the other Titans who became colonies, and the Transformers born from them. The second passage in particular refers to such Transformers later seen by Windblade: Fleet of Foot (two cars racing on a Velocitron-like planet), Fierce as beasts (Fuzors), Paired forevermore but called least by fools (the two Micromaster Combiners - who are pairs of robots who merge to form their alt mode).
• The Voiceless: Apparently his vocal processors have been damaged since his Spotlight issue, so Windblade or another Autobot reads the pulses of light from his brain and speaks for him. Averted in TAAO #5 as he got a new voicebox offscreen.
• You Are Not Alone: Pulls this on Windblade when the reveal of Chromia's action fully hits her.
• You Are Not Ready: Said Nautica 'didn't deserve to know' about whether the Knights of Cybertron even existed.

Cybertronian Securities

Ironhide

"Faithless"

• Advertised Extra: Of all the characters given preview pictures, Ironhide has the least impact on the original miniseries.
• Cool Old Guy: As per tradition.
• Crisis of Faith: Put his faith into a vision he saw of the future, where Cyberutopia had finally been achieved. Unfortunately for him, the planet where this happened, Gorlam Prime, was destroyed during Dark Cybertron, meaning the vision was false.
• Ship Tease: He is constantly seen operating alongside Chromia, and there appears to be an unspoken closeness between the two. Chromia instantly grew concerned when Windblade teased her claiming she would tell Ironhide she referred to him as mopey, and risked her own life to save him from being destroyed on Velocitron. This seems to have ended after he was relunctantly forced to arrest her following her public admission of terrorism. This is of course a not-so-subtle reference towards the fact the two were in a relationship back in the original cartoon.
• The Eeyore: He's downright mopey, according to Chromia.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The Council of Worlds specifically evokes this trope when they put him in charge of Starscream's secret police, The Badgeless. Even amongst the ex-Decepticons his reputation for honesty inspires several of them to join him.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Says something to this effect to Starscream in issue 5 of TAAO. It works.

Sparkstalker

• Adaptational Heroism: To go with his status as an Ascended Extra Sparkstalker in the IDW comics has been revamped into a much more heroic figure than previous portrayals.
• An Arm and a Leg: A scuffle with Sandstorm ended with the Autobot blowing off both Sparkstalker's legs.
• Ascended Extra: While at first he was one of the least important of the Firecons, here he's the only one who get's their personality fleshed out and a supporting role.
• Breath Weapon: Firecons all have an inborn ability to breath fire, hence the name.
• Category Traitor: The Decepticons have not taken his palling around with the Autobots well, nor the Camiens. Even him encouraging Acid Storm to at least talk to some religious bots earns him a few derogatory words. Despite this he still hangs out with them, even if he isn't interested in the resurgence.
• Expy: He's Gigan, but pinker and more chibi.
• Heel–Face Turn: Post Punishment he's thrown his lot in the the neutrals and Camiens, moving away from the Decepticons.
• Mundane Utility: It is said that the Firecons breathed fire so hot it burned an atmosphere and sentenced thousands of Autobots to a burning grave. That their fire was reverse engineered into horrific weapons that incinerated Autobots from the inside out. Sparkstalker also uses his fire to weld things, as you do.
• Ship Tease: After trading barbs with Lightbright, the two end up working together and later dating. The two eventually become an Official Couple via Conjux Endura, resulting in one of the few official heterosexual Cybertronian couples in the comic.
• Sour Supporter: To contrast the more optimistic (Tall) Tankor, Sparkstalker giving aid to the Camiens consisted of him snarking, and complaining, but doing his part in helping them get back on their feet.

"Tall" Tankor

• Adaptational Heroism: The most genuinely heroic version of the character to date. Previous Octane/Tankor roles had him as a Dirty Coward or a good guy out of convenience. Here he's made a genuine Heel–Face Turn.
• Adaptation Name Change: The character was initially conceived as Octane but Hasbro lost the Copyright to the name when the 2000s rolled around. Tankor was initially supposed to be called Octane when introduced into IDW back when Roche and Roberts were writing a spotlight but ultimately that was nixed and he debuted under McCarthy's pen as Tankor.
• Heel–Face Turn: The one genuine example from back in RID. Unlike Sqwawkbox and Swindle who soon went back to being shady, Tankor put that behind him for good to help Cybertron.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With "Fat" Tankor.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the more calm and rational blue oni to the other Tankor's red. When disrupting a bar fight Tall Tankor was trying to defuse the situation whilst Fat Tankor was goading them on.

"Fat" Tankor

• Adaptational Early Appearance: Even putting aside this version being a Decomposite Character and appearing before Rhinox, this version of BM Tankor appears while the Autobots and Decepticons are still around.
• Adaptational Heroism: Like his fellow Tankor. There's no hint that he's trying to overthrow Megatron and become the sole sentient on Cybertron.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Is neither the "TANKOR, DESTROY!" or "evil mastermind" of his Beast Machines counterpart, being a sort of middle ground of perfectly normal intelligence.
• Decomposite Character: While we haven't seen Rhinox in ten million years, there's no hint that Rhinox and Tankor are one in the same. Events in Optimus Prime confirm they're separate individuals.
• Embarrassing Nickname: "Fat" Tankor. The only reason he allows it is because he thinks everyone is calling him "Fast" Tankor.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With "Tall" Tankor.
• Irony: He's named Tankor, has a tank alternate mode, a Shoulder Cannon and missiles in his chest wants peace and an end to the Great War.
• Lightning Bruiser: As noted by the nickname he thinks he has, he's pretty fast for someone his size.

• Non-Standard Character Design: Like Strika and Obsidian, his Beast Machines design contrasts with the others.

Cybertronian Administration

Starscream

"Powerless"

• Agent Peacock: He's certainly flamboyant in his mannerisms, and incredibly terrifying as well.
• Big Bad: Since his take over back in RID, Starscream has been a thorn in Windblade's side he's had the Terrorcons mining Metroplex for Ore's and is planning on militarizing the state
• Broken Pedestal: To Windblade.
• Byronic Hero: Most apparent in Till All Are One. Starscream is scheming, paranoid, and power-hungry for sure, but buried underneath all of that there are some good intentions. He's trying to do the right thing, or at least what he views as the right thing and in his own way he does value Windblade.
• Combat Pragmatist: He's Starscream. He doesn't have the time to fight fair.
• Composite Character: He's Transformers: Generation 1 Starscream in a body based on Transformers: Armada Starscream written in the vein of Transformers: Prime Starscream.
• The Conscience: His hallucination of Bumblebee.
• The Dreaded: Waspinator is terrified of him.
• Evil Is Petty: "I think you [Elita One] underestimate the depth of my pettiness."
• Heel–Face Turn: Nudged along by Bumblebee and his experiences with Windblade, willingly confesses to everything he's done since taking power in the TAAO Annual, finally earning his sobriquet as the Chosen One by uniting all of Cybertron against him and paving the way for Windblade's election.
• Galactic Conqueror: He isn't one, but he'd really like to be.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He feels this way about killing Chela. While his grief over it may be fake, his reasons were less "I need to kill this thing because it's in my way" and more "there's a giant monster trying to kill me so I gotta do something."

• Moral Pragmatist: As the leader of Cybertron Starscream is trying his best to run a small galactic coalition. That's not to say he's ethical or any less ruthless, but he is doing his best to try and get the planet to some form of success. He indulges in not only Pragmatic Villainy but often perfectly valid methods to achieve a better future. While still in it for his personal power Starscream is trying to keep the peace.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Gets quite touchy and personal with Windblade at the medbay.
• Not Me This Time: He's still an antagonist, but he wasn't the one who tried to bomb Windblade and drain the cities power.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Over the course of his IDW tenure, Starscream finally has this down and it keeps him on the ambiguous end of Ambiguously Evil. He's selfish and completely self serving, but he's not Stupid Evil. He's not behind the bombing and blackouts because if the maintenance looks bad, then he looks bad even if he can shuffle off the blame, because of this, he rationalizes that his mining operation was just a minor bump for Metroplex. At the end of the series, Windblade talks him down and into uniting the colonies by appealing to his ego and how all the people would see him as the true savior, ensuring him to take up his role as chosen one.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Starscream really has his head in the game in this series, able to take on and best Windblade, Slug, and Chromia at different points.
• Self-Deprecation: In issue 9 of TAAO, he reveals his belief that he's beyond saving and will always make the wrong choice. Subverts this in the TAAO Annual, where he finally does make the right choice, confessing to all his crimes so that Cybertron will vote for Windblade over Elita One in the Cybertronian elections.
• Shame If Something Happened: Longtooth makes the mistake of saying he still has footage that would prove the group's innocence recorded in his head. Starscream reminds the camera-bot that the footage is only dangerous to him as long as Longtooth's head remains on his shoulders.
• The Starscream: Although he's actually in charge. As the series shows, he has his own in Rattrap.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Since his mindmeld with Windblade.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Played with, he's managed to get the public under his control to an extent, though there are still numerous people in every faction who doubt him. As RID showed, keeping up the appearance is very difficult and Starscream always has to watch himself.

Rattrap

"Ruthless"

• Adaptational Villainy: The original Rattrap was basically a hero that liked to complain about things, and an alternate version of him appearing in the Timelines story "Beast Wars: Uprising" seems to essentially be Cybertron's answer to Edgar Friendly. This Rattrap? He's a scheming backstabber who does Starscream's dirty work.
• Canon Immigrant: From Beast Wars.
• The Dragon: To Starscream
• Dragon with an Agenda: One he claims is noble, and his sneaking around is to keep Starscream in check.
• Dirty Coward: More so than his original incarnation who played the coward act but was actually very much brave and heroic. This Rattrap is very much a coward.
• Good Is Not Nice: By his own admission.

  I like to do good more than be good.

• I Just Want to Be Special: One of the main reasons he aligned himself with Starscream. He got tired of fighting Decepticons in backwater planets and getting no glory out of the deal.
• In Name Only: Other than looks and a name, he's pretty much unlike the original Rattrap.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Provides Windblade with a briefcase full of knowledge on all of Starscream's misdeeds since taking power. When he willingly confesses to all of them in public, Windblade is elected leader of Cybertron and has Rattrap arrested.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Has a less humanoid design than other Cybertronians.
• The Starscream: To Starscream himself!
• You Dirty Rat!

Terrorcons

• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Cutthroat is pretty powerful and takes a considerable amount of pride in his abilities, able to keep both (Tall) Tankor and Windblade at bay. Until they flank him and she sticks a sword through his wing.
• Breath Weapon: Cutthroat and Sinnertwin can do this.
• BFG: Sinnertwin and Cutthroat both possess them.
• Elite Mooks: They're able to give Windblade and the Bar people a decent fight, better than the Badgeless.
• Mythology Gag: They appear in their TF Prime designs.
• Took a Level in Badass: Six months ago Rippersnapper was thrown around by Broadside like he was nothing, now he takes on Slug and wins.

Badgeless

• Affably Evil: A few, the one helping Chromia guard the Enigma in Combiner Hunters was quite pleasant.
• Ambiguously Evil: From what we've seen the organization is fairly diverse, from thugs looking to take advantage of the new found peace, to just regular police officers, to fanatics, similar to Scoop, who worship Starscream as the chosen one.
• Depending on the Artist: They lack badges, have a face obscuring mask, and tend to have a black/grey color scheme with orange highlights, and that's the biggest consistency. From there the Badgeless are usually drawn as uniform flight enabled soldiers sharing a body type (ala the Autotroopers), but other times they are more diverse individuals with similarities in design, but clearly different alt-modes. Even the standard jet-design has been reinterpreted by different artists, as being bulkier or with smaller wings.
• Faceless Goons: Invoked. Their anominity makes them more uniform, and no one can identify them from what faction they were from before, just what they are now. Their armor is even outfitted with holographic technology, making them all seem so similar.
• Mooks: They're basically a bunch of jobbers, and their very first appearance has them take on the standard "fight heroes and lose to show how tough they are," and it's pretty glaring since the previous enemy team, the Terrorcons, had much more success putting down Windblade's friends.
• Police Brutality: They're a bunch of Faceless Goons working for Starscream, this revelation isn't too surprising.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Averted. The heroes tend to stay away from killing them, and Windblade even has to order Chromia to take them down non-fatally. Less heroic characters tend to off them like the mooks they are, from Menasor smashing through them, to Rattrap slitting the neck of one to steal his key-card.

Combaticons

Onslaught

• Big Bad: For the first four issues of TAAO his revenge scheme kicks the plot into gear.
• Blood Knight: Starscream mentions that Onslaught is looking for an excuse to restart the War because he can't cope with peacetime.
• Combining Mecha: Thanks to the Enigma of Combination, becomes part of Bruticus in Till All Are One #4.
• Mind Rape: Airachnid casually does this to him as a bribe for Blast-Off to comply.

Blast-Off

• Ascended Extra: Both in the IDW continuity, where he's had the least screen time of all the Combaticons, and in the franchise as a whole, this is Blast-Off's biggest role.
• Characterization Marches On: In his previous role in Spotlight Arcee, Blast-Off was quite happy to revel in the pain he caused when they assaulted Garrus-9. TAAO pushes him away from that to make him the Token Good Teammate.
• Combining Mecha: Thanks to the Enigma of Combination, becomes part of Bruticus in Till All Are One #4.
• The Dragon: He's the second in command of the Combaticons and the one doing the heavy lifting when they launch their combination gambit.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: He's in love with Onslaught and whilst Onslaught trusts him more than the others, Blast-Off spent the war disappointed that he never returned his feelings.
• Love Makes You Evil: The revelation that he's in love with Onslaught casts a new light on their interactions in issues 1 through 4 of TAAO.
• Only Sane Man: Not that there's much competition for this role amongst the Combaticons.
• Token Good Teammate: TAAO establishes him as the least violent and malevolent of the group. He's the only one who wants to put revenge and the war behind them.

Vortex

• Blood Knight: Vortex is always spoiling for a fight or even just a chance to cause pain. When the Combaticons finally blow their ruse in TAAO #3 he's glad that there's finally violence. Tellingly he was the first Combaticon to revel in Bruticus's power.
• The Brute: Under Costa's and Scott's pens Vortex is reimagined as one of the more combat efficient and fight happy of the Combaticons, even moreso than Brawl on occasion. He's written as a Blood Knight always eager for a fight.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Vortex is written as the least sympathetic Combaticon in the IDW continuity and this is milked for a lot of black comedy.
• Combining Mecha: Thanks to the Enigma of Combination, becomes part of Bruticus in Till All Are One #4.
• Psycho Party Member: The only completely Combaticon who's never given any sympathetic moments. Vortex is a violent sadist through and through and the only member of the group to completely embrace the power that Bruticus brought. He dips into Token Evil Teammate territory when the Combaticons are convinced to be law abiding protectors of Starscream, though that's only temporary.
• Sadist: Starscream refers to him as such, referencing his infamous tendency to drop flightless bots from high heights to kill them.

Brawl

• Adaptational Intelligence: He's still a violent brute, but Brawl's a much more coherent and witty speaker here. He's able to rattle off Decepticon political rhetoric, and even if he doesn't believe in them, he's still able to sway a crowd.
• Blood Knight: Why do you think he was so eager to follow Galvatron?
• Combining Mecha: Thanks to the Enigma of Combination, becomes part of Bruticus in Till All Are One #4.
• Demoted to Extra: He's one of the most important Cybertron-based Decepticons with Needlenose in season 2 of the Ongoing. In Till All Are One however, he's largely sidelined in favour of Onslaught and Blast Off.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Brawl does not appreciate Soundwave's new ideas, especially those in regards to peaceful living. He's willing to throw his lot in with Galvatron's more battle-hungry ideals.
• Fantastic Recruitment Drive: While he lets Needlenose do the talking, Brawl is a significant contributor to the Decepticon re-recruitment drive, channeling his anger into a Decepticon rallying speech.
• Hidden Depths: In a conversation with Windblade after his experiences in Bruticus, he reveals that being forced to relive Swindle's near-death experience has led him to fear death... and realise the true scale of the war, and he urges her to win the election so that there will never be another war.
  • More lightheartedly, he secretly enjoys the Cybertronian equivalent of light, fruity cocktails. When he meets with Windblade, he insists to her that, if the guys ask, he only drinks straight Engex before revealing a dainty glass topped with a parasol.
• Jerkass: Oh, yes! Particularly shown in The Transgressors, where he threatens some Camiens for the "crime" of selling pro-Prime pamphlets, bullies Needlenose into buying them new drinks (which Brawl spilled) and starts a bar fight.
• Kill All Humans: Happily announces his intent to do so.
• Super-Toughness: Brawl can take a beating and keep going. When fighting Arcee, he gets shot and impaled twice, and he's still able to stand up and drag Blast-Off out. During his time on earth he was easily able to No-Sell a lot of punishment, and even after his brain was fried, he was up and running eventually. Given the fact that his alternate mode is a tank, this is probably justified.
• Tank Goodness: His traditional alternate mode. Formerly a Cybertronian model, issue #29 draws him resembling an M1 Abrams.
• Took a Level in Badass: With his role expanded, Brawl has more of a chance to do some real damage. Years before Arcee took on most of the Combaticons and ran him through. Here he becomes one of the few to best her, and crushes her with a shoulder check.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Played With. RID depicted Brawl as much smarter and charismatic while TAAO turned him back into the Dumb Muscle. However, after the Bruticus incident, a private conversation with Windblade show's him to be more aware and introspective than he lets on.
• Transplant: He's literally picked up and returned to Cybertron to rejoin the other Combaticons in Till All Are One. Galvatron is actually saddened by this as he found Brawl useful and the kind of person he would like.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Played With. When he's knocked out during the battle for Earth, Ironhide takes him to safety, only for Brawl to shoot him and try to kill the Autobots. However, his dialogue implies that he thought he was being carted off to prison rather than saved.

Swindle

• An Arm and a Leg: After getting run over by Astrotrain.
• Arch-Enemy: Ultra Magnus was this for him in the early Simon Furman stories and previous Ongoing.
• Character Development: He's as self-serving as ever in the early part of Season 1, but after Blurr saves his life pointedly goes against the other Decepticons in saving the lives of Blurr and several other wounded Autobots. He even helps Blurr rebuild his bar after the fighting is over.
• Combining Mecha: Becomes part of Bruticus in Till All Are One #4 despite still being technically brain-dead.
• Defector from Decadence
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Downplayed when he sells Rewind some Decepticon grade snuff-films. He's fine with making money but notes the contents of the films are gruesome.
  • In conversation with Windblade lets her know even he won't sell people out the way Starscream does.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: While not a monster, and shown to possess at least some standards of decency, any and all of his positive qualities are promptly buried upon the chance to make a buck.
• Honest John's Dealership
• In the Back How Starscream kills him.
• Killed Off for Real: Averted. While Starscream seemingly kills him in Combiner Wars, he's only rendered brain-dead and is spirited away by Rattrap and Wheeljack to see if he can be revived to reveal his evidence against Starscream.
• Motor Mouth: Not as noticeable as, say, Swerve, yet still present.
• Oh, Crap!: His exact reaction when he realises that he's been set up on Caminus and that Menasor is consequently about to go berserk.
• Out-Gambitted: Believes he's pulling a fast one in creating an improved Menasor and pillaging Caminus for its resources - but realises far too late that Starscream has set him and Menasor up as the fall guys.
• Non-Standard Character Design: His large purple optics stand out.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Go on. Guess.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He was the Big Bad for much of the story on Earth. Not so much here.

Bruticus

• Adaptation Personality Change: In most Generation 1 fiction, Bruticus is typically portrayed as incredibly unintelligent, at times requiring someone else to give him basic commands before he would even move. Here, due to Swindle being brain-dead, Onslaught being occupied with combing through Swindle's memories, Brawl being terrified at being forced to relive Swindle's "death", Vortex reveling in Bruticus' power, and Blast Off trying to keep all the Combaticons focused, the resulting Bruticus was formed incredibly unstable and madly rampaged uncontrollably through Iacon in a manner not unlike Menasor.
• Adaptational Badass: Downplayed. While not to the extent of his reimagining in Transformers: Wings of Honor, Bruticus is nonetheless much more of a threat than most of his previous depictions.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Starscream tells Bumblebee that he needs Bruticus and Menasor on his side to keep his power.
• Eye Scream: Much in the same way as Wings of Honor Bruticus's eyes are his weak-spot and a well placed rocket through the visor takes him down.
• Mind Rape: As a result of Airachnid messing with four of his five components, he now believes he's loyal to Starscream.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Is completely forgotten about after TAAO ends, even by the time of Unicron. It's entirely possible he dies when Unicron eats Cybertron.

Caminus

Camiens in General

• Alien Blood: They bleed blue Energon like in Prime as opposed to the pink/purple of G1 due to having lower frequency Sparks.
• Does Not Like Guns: Camien Culture is against projectile weaponry, they feel it is wasteful.
• Fantastic Caste System: Averted. Unlike Eukaris, Cybertron, and Velocitron, who all divide and categorize their society based on their alt modes, Caminus's divisions come from how they socialize rather than how they were born, and while this has caused problems, it hasn't resulted in a hierarchy keeping society down.
• The Fundamentalist: Averted. They are incredibly religious, but their religion hasn't lead them down any dark paths like Star Saber. Even the one's out converting others are quite respectful and preach out of a general desire to spread what they think is the word of god rather than condemning any who disagree.
• The Good Kingdom: Caminus is a fairly small neutral Colony. Though unlike the Warring Cybertronians, they are peaceful and moral. As per the trope, they are under threat of being subsumed by the Cybertronian Empire.
• Puppet State: Invoked. The Unnamed Rulers of Caminus do pass laws and legislate, but everyone, including them, know that the Mistress of Flame is the true power on Caminus, as she is their high priestess in a society that is staunchly religious. The Rulers even await her judgement on important political matters before moving forward.
• Robot Religion: The entire planet runs on a Theocracy. They deify the original 13, and worship their founder, Solus Prime, as their main Goddess.

The Mistress of Flame

• Ambiguously Evil: Subverted. Despite being solicited as such, the Mistress of Flame is presented as just, and stays allied with Optimus's ideals rather than Starscream's.
• Blasphemous Praise: She claims to know the identity of the Thirteenth Prime. The Torchbearers who would come to form Victorion viewed this as sacrilege and left her service soon afterward.
• Caped Mecha: She wears a large red cape and follows the tradition of distinguished important bots adorned with this clothing.
• Compressed Vice: Her Fantastic Racism comes up in the TAAO annual, and nowhere else.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Long ago, she travelled to the planet Antilla with a future Torchbearer and a translator. Onyx Prime was there, and his Maximals killed the translator while the 3 fled. The Mistress never told anyone about this.
• Everyone Has Standards: While strong in her beliefs to the point of being Holier Than Thou she's extremely wary of Elita One, derisively referring to her as "a pink shelled fanatic."
• Fantastic Racism: In the TAAO Annual flatly refers to Airazor as "beast" in conversation.
• Good Is Not Dumb: In TAAO #9, she proves Starscream's equal in political manipulation.
• Holier Than Thou: Downplayed. She's very religious and uncompromising in her beliefs, but she tries to coexist with others. There are times, such as her conversation with Optimus over his potential divinity and empire expansion, where the Mistress's adherence to doctrine is perhaps a less than noble aspiration.
• Killed Off for Real: As Unicron consumed Caminus, she let his Maximals to overwhelm her so that the Camiens could escape to Cybertron.
• Large and in Charge: She's incredibly tall, almost twice Windblade's height, and cuts an imposing figure amongst the other Bots.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Caminus may have its problems but she's consistently depicted as one of the wiser and more compassionate planetary leaders. When negotiating for Chromia's release she is respectful of Starscream's position and the difficulties with it, all the while very firmly putting pressure on him because of his past decisions. Subverts this with Windblade when the latter snaps and speaks ill of the Primes - the Mistress has her banished from Caminus as a result.
• Staff of Authority: She carries a massive hammer in honor of their founder Solus Prime.

Lightbright

• Age Lift: Her original incarnation was essentially a child, in this continuity her design has been tweaked and now resembles an adult.
• Ascended Extra: In Animated she was just a cameo character with no lines. She's been developed a lot in this series.
• Canon Immigrant: From Transformers: Animated.
• Ship Tease: With Sparkstalker. The two eventually become an Official Couple.
• Number Two: Seems to be Windblade's in the realm of Cityspeaking.
• Voice for the Voiceless: She and Hot Shot are Cityspeakers, like Windblade. They read the impulses of Caminus, trying to voice their dying Titan's concerns. She later helps heal Metroplex after Titans Return.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Lightbright believes in the best in other Bots, and even accepts the Decepticons with open arms.

Torchbearers/Victorion

• Always Identical Twins: Stormclash & Skyburst, who differ only in minor coloration details.
• Arm Cannon: Pyra Magna seems to have a double barreled blaster in her wrist.
• Awesome Ego: Pyra Magna and Victorion have a VERY high opinion of themselves. They back it up.
• BFS: Victorion possesses a massive sword built from the weapons of her components. It's hilt invokes the Lightning Bug from the G1 cartoon episode "Cosmic Rust."
• Combining Mecha: The six women team of Torchbearers merge into the mighty Victorion.
• Conflict Ball: They spent the first six months of their debut holding one. Basically it was an excuse to invoke Let's You and Him Fight with different heroes.
• Does Not Like Guns: Averted. Victorion wields a blaster, but while that can be chocked up to her being created on the spot, Pyra Magna seems to have a wrist blaster, an oddity amongst her people.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Stormclash and Skyburst
• Identical Twin ID Tag: In addition to mirrored details on their torso and legs, Skyburst has individual eyes while Stormclash has Cool Shades.
• Palette Swap: All the members of the team are based off the models of existing (male) characters' toys, with new colors and new heads (And occasionally new detailing).
  • Pyra Magna is based of Hot Spot.
  • Stormclash & Skyburst are BOTH based of Alpha Bravo. In fact the only thing that sets them apart is some very specific color placements. Handwaved as they are twins.
  • Dustup is based of Dead End.
  • Jumpstream is based of Breakdown.
  • Rust Dust is based of Groove.
• Religious Bruiser: The Torchbearers are Camiens who seek out and protect Cybertronian relics which they see as holy. When she's first formed, Victorion goes crazy and attacks any who she sees as a threat to the Enigma of Combination.
• Robo Family: Stormclash and Skyburst are twins.

Caminus

• The Cameo: In issue 8 of TAAO, he appears as one of the three Titans to oversee the exile of Vigilem.
• Facial Markings: His face had red marks under the eyes. The Cityspeakers have adorned their face with these markings in honor of him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He had himself disassembled to save his people.
• Tragic Dream: He wanted to save his people, and sacrificed his body to make the planet habitable. Ultimately the planet's resources depleted anyway, and it became uninhabitable despite his sacrifice. Subverted when Cybertron makes contact and brings much needed Energon.

Velocitron

Velocitronians in General

• The Big Race: The Speedia 500 is the big Velocitron race, but it's unimportant to the story. The main race our heroes must enter is the Benefit 500, in order to get an audience with Override.
• Canon Immigrant: Many are from Transformers: Cybertron, where Velocitron first debuted. Though there are characters from other series like Prime, G1, and even the Transformers: Exiles version of Velocitron.
• Crapsaccharine World: They're a very prosperous society relaxing in their own decadence. However their wealth of resources is a the result of a dangerously unstable planet, and their societies single-minded obsession with racing has stagnated them.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The entire planet and all its inhabitants are unceremoniously eaten off-screen before the beginning of Transformers: Unicron.
• Fantastic Caste System: In their racing motivated society, Racers are the most respected class on the planet, provided they prove themselves. They are the ruling class, the one's that can race to make the laws. Then there are the pit crews and doctors, then the non-racers, then the low class slow bots who're looked down upon.
  • Knock Out also mentions that there are organics in their solar system who they refuse to talk to.
• Foil: As a society, they function as one to Caminus. Caminus has, in Windblade's words, turned energy conservation into an art form and has great respect for the Titans. Velocitron is wasteful with its energy and didn't give any thought to Navitas until contact was established with Cybertron.
• The Needless: They felt no need for rejoining Cybertron and their fellow colonies due to their sun giving them all the energy they needed. Blurr convinces them to rejoin by offering them new race tracks.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Averted. While some races are fair, the main race in the narrative, the Benefit 500, actively encourages dirty tricks amongst the racers in a display of ruthlessness to win, the only real rule is that it has to be entertaining. Even Windblade changing the very track they were racing on is fair game.
• Ungrateful Bastard: When Windblade and Chromia see their treatment of Navitas, they're quick to label the Velocitronians as this. They're not wrong considering Navitas gave them life and they neglected him to the point of brain damage.

Override

• Canon Immigrant: From Transformers: Cybertron.
• Demoted to Extra: Other media centered around Velocitron features Override as a central character. Here her presence is minor, and the main interaction is with her ambassadors.

Knock Out

• Adaptational Heroism: He's still a vain jerk, but he's a neutral in this continuity, rather than a Decepticon. His medical expertise is just be another facet of Velocitron's Speed obsessed society, and he isn't the Mad Doctor of Prime.
• Agent Peacock
• Berserk Button: As in Prime, don't mess with his finish.
• Beware the Silly Ones: The bot who messed with his finish? It was an undead Titan. He destroyed it in a blind rage.
• Camp Gay: He's still the effeminate bot he was back in the Prime Cartoon, but the comic canonizes his attraction to Breakdown.
• Canon Immigrant: From Transformers: Prime.
• Early-Bird Cameo: First appears in vehicle mode at the end of the first miniseries.
• Happily Married: Breakdown is his Conjunx Endura.
• Sole Survivor: He and Moonracer are among the few Velocitronians who survive Unicron's arrival.

Moonracer

• Heroism Equals Job Qualification: She got her position by keeping pace with Delta city for an entire day, an act that amazed many and thus made her worthy to be an Ambassador. Moonracer agrees with Ironhide in that it doesn't qualify her for the position, but that's just how things work on Velocitron.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She feels her society is stagnating, and pursues the negotiations with Cybertron because she feels it will benefit their people.
• Sole Survivor: Along with Knock Out.

Breakdown

• Adaptational Heroism: While he was one of the more noble Decepticons back in Prime, he was still a Decepticon. He's much calmer here and is trying to better Knock Out.
• All of the Other Reindeer: It's mentioned that by Velocitronian standards, he's rather slow.
• The Big Guy: He's quite tall.
• Canon Immigrant: From Transformers: Prime.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Happily Married: To Knock Out.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. He went conspicuously unnamed for over two years due to the G1 version of the character already existing in IDW continuity, but it was eventually confirmed that he is also named Breakdown. It helps that IDW's Breakdown was already Put on a Prison Bus at the end of the Combiner Wars event.

Clocker

• Demoted to Extra: Much like Override, he's usually a key player when it comes to Velocitron. He only appears once here as Moonracer's assistant.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: His corpse is found on Unicron at the beginning of Transformers: Unicron.
• Kid Sidekick: Though they're not superheroes, he fulfills this role to Moonracer.

Navitas

• Amnesiac God: He's not a god but he did bring life to Velocitron through a hot spot. However he's been neglected and exploited so much that when he meets Windblade, he forgets who she is mid-conversation.
• Foil: To his brothers though not by choice. All other Titans are revered by their colony worlds. Poor Navitas was neglected for millions of years to the point of brain damage.
• Genius Loci: The city of Delta is built on his back. Windblade is able to manipulate the race track through his connection to it.
• Meaningful Name: In Latin, his name means "get up and go". Fitting for Velocitron.
• Pet the Dog: In issue #1 of TAAO, Windblade mentions he's getting help from other Cityspeakers and his mental health is greatly improving.

Devisiun

Devisiuns in General

• Reimagining the Artifact: In this case, Micromaster Combiners. Their Metrotitan crashed, and died, on the planet Devisiun. The intense gravity from a binary star split their sparks so they were born in pairs, transformed in pairs, and are basically a single being.
• The Remnant: Barely a hundred of them survive Unicron's arrival.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The little planet of adorable combining robots colonized their world by paving over the native civilization.
• Sugar Apocalypse: The original inhabitants of the planet Devisien lived in a whimsical paradise... and were brutally massacred and driven to the brink of extinction by the Cybertronian colonists.

Vanquish and Fireshot

• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed. While it's yet another case of a Decepticon(s) being reimagined as a more heroic character(s), Vanquish and Fireshot haven't really had any significant pieces of fiction beforehand, much less any where they've had a notable villainous role. Their main negative qualities are from their bios, and a continuity hiccup that was retconned to being a different character entirely.
• The Dividual: For the most part they're inseparable, though Fireshot gets to go on a solo adventure without his brother over the course of the Titans Return arc.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: It is implicitly a thing most if not all Devisiuns do.
• Identical Stranger: What do you mean there was another Vanquish who was full-sized and died? That's absurd, next thing you'll be telling us Hot Shot wasn't always a City Speaker.

Eukaris

Eukarians in General

• Canon Immigrant: They're all from the Beast Era, be it from the cartoon, the comics, or the toys.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The end of the first issue of Transformers: Unicron has them all dying as Unicron starts eating the planet.
• Fantastic Racism: While Onyx Prime took the Beastformers from Cybertron because the Grand Cybertronian Taxomy lead to this trope, the Eukarians eventually subdivided amongst themselves. Now the Land, Sea, and Air dwellers all look at each other with distrust because of their alt-modes.

Tigatron

• Adaptational Badass: While Tigatron was always badass, this one is much more willing to use his beast mode to its full combative potential.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Last of His Kind: After Unicron eats Eukaris, he and Airrazor are among the few survivors.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Obsidian all but says this to him considering he insisted Windblade stay plugged in which reawakened Vigilem.
• Official Couple: With Airazor.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Proves himself to be this several times.
• True Neutral: To Eukaris. He left the Fur Walkers to be with Airazor meaning the two are the best to be representatives to Cybertron as they have no tribe.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He mentions in issue 1 of TAAO that he still believes that Cybertron can grow across the galaxy and be free from Starscream's power plays.

Airazor

• And Then What?: She asks this of Sonar. If, as Sonar believes, the Cybertronians are conquerors who will they come after once they've beaten the land dwellers?
• Beware the Nice Ones: She scratches out a Titan's optic in beast mode.
• Last of His Kind: As with Tigatron, she wasn't on Eukaris when it got eaten.
• Odd Friendship: Seems to have one with Obsidian.
• Official Couple: With Tigatron.
• True Neutral: To Eukaris. She left the Cloud Walkers to be with Tigatron meaning the two are the best to be representatives to Cybertron as they have no tribe.

Dinobot

• Blood Knight: He hopes the Cybertronians are conquerors to fight.
• Demoted to Extra: He's appeared twice despite being a popular character in the cartoon.
• Mythology Gag: He calls Rattrap "vermin", his preferred insult for him in the cartoon.
• The Rival: To Cheetor.

Cheetor

• Demoted to Extra: He was one the three characters to survive the whole Beast Era. He's appeared twice.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Front and center in the chaos as Unicron starts snacking on Eukaris.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: While understandably hesitant to rejoin Cybertron, he's open to it if the other colonies are doing so. When giving Windblade advice, Rattrap outright tells her to ignore everyone else and focus on Cheetor and Blackarachnia because only they will listen.
• The Rival: To Dinobot.

Blackarachnia

• Adaptational Heroism: The original Blackarachnia was a ruthless Predacon who eventually committed a Heel–Face Turn. Here she starts off as a neutral party in the conflict on Eukaris, though she's one of the more heroic characters encountered.
• Adaptation Personality Change: The original Blackarachnia was a Femme Fatale who was conflicted about her role in the universe, and prone to lashing out. Here she's an oracle who's more subdued and confident about her beliefs.
• Big Good: Downplayed. She's above the planetary Factionalism, and takes in bots who've been cast from their tribes. It is she who pushes most for the contact with Cybertron, even after the death of their Titan.
• Canon Immigrant: It's noteworthy that her aesthetic draws heavily from Transformers: Animated rather than any Beast Era design.
• Mad Oracle: Subverted. Initially she plays the trope straight as an arrow; being reclusive, enigmatic, giving vague prophecies and being prone to insane laughter. However, despite being creepy and oracular, she's actually quite sane.
• Seers: According to Airachnid, all Fate Spinners are telepathic and use that information to construct prophecies.
• Telepathy: According to Airachnid, all Fate Spinners are telepathic and use that information to construct prophecies.

Airachnid

• Adaptational Badass: She was always dangerous but here she's a qualified mnemosurgeon.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Though she's lost her helicopter mode in favour of a spider mode meaning she can't fly.
• Adaptational Heroism: Heavily downplayed. This Airachnid is fully willing to perform Mind Rape on anyone for the flimsiest of reasons or for a paycheck and is still a brutal sadist who tortures her own kind. The only reasons she qualifies is that she doesn't go around killing off whole species to relieve boredom and that she's not trying to undermine/kill Starscream.
• Canon Immigrant: From Transformers: Prime.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Blackarachnia. Both are Fate Spinners but Blackarachnia uses Telepathy (on subconscious thoughts) to create prophecies that will guide people towards a better future. Airachnid uses Mind Rape to alter conscious thoughts to her own benefit.
  • To Chromedome. While he's addicted to the thrill of mnemosurgery he only uses it in the most dire of circumstances and has standards of how it should be used. She doesn't view mnemosurgery as anything but a tool, will do it casually whenever the mood strikes her and has zero standards about using it for her benefit.
• The Exile: She's no longer welcome on Eukaris.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: There's not so much as a hint of her before issue 10 but her iconic pincers are on that issue's cover as well as her hands above Onslaught and Blast Off.
• Foil: To the previous evil mnemosurgeon, Sunder. Both are insane and have pushed the limits of the craft but he's addicted to it and embraced the "fatal injection" while being selective of whose mind he invades. Airachnid views mnemosurgery as a tool to master and is totally indiscriminate in whose mind she assaults to get the knowledge she needs.
• For Science!: What got her banished from her homeworld.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Maybe. She mentions that not every Fate Spinner can see the future (her being one of them) so she tried a more scientific method of creating prophecies.
• Mind Rape: She does this to every Combaticon but Blast-Off as the lie she implanted in their brains needs a willing linchpin to prevent the other four from picking up on the inconsistencies.
• They Called Me Mad!: While they were right to do so, her mnemosurgery skills were apparently enough to fix Swindle's brain damage.
• Token Evil Teammate: Of the Fate Spinners. She tried cutting open brains to collect data to create prophecies. Starscream approved.
• Uncertain Doom: She's arrested after Starscream's confession, but what happens to her when Unicron eats Cybertron is unknown, though she isn't seen after everyone's brought to Earth.

Chela

• The Cameo: In issue 8 of TAAO, he appears as one of the three Titans to oversee the exile of Vigilem.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: According to legend, Chela fought Primus' "opposite" alongside his brothers Metroplex, and Metrotitan.
• Eye Scream: Starscream blows up his brain, and the explosion ruptures his optics from the inside out. Screamer blasts through one of his eyes in order to escape the dying Titan.
• Non-Standard Character Design: He's a Titan but he doesn't look anything like the standard body type, being a Beast-former instead of a Standard-former.
• The Phoenix: A magnificent deified bird with a bring orange/yellow coat. He's designed after one but he is not immortal.
• Pride: According to Metroplex, it was his Fatal Flaw.
• Time Abyss: According to Alpha Trion, Chela is one of the first three Titans.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His duty is to protect Eukarians from Cybertronians should they ever return to try and exterminate the beasts. When they come to forge a peace with the Eukarians, he attacks.

Carcer

Carcer in General

• Ambiguously Evil: They are a fairly brutal yet reasonable faction who claim peaceful intentions, but are suspicious of outsiders. Contrast the silly antics of Lancer and Greenlight with the militarism of Obsidian and Strika.
• Arm Cannon: Unlike most Transformers, theirs are incorporated into their arms like in Transformers: Prime.
• The Atoner: They're all members of, or descendants of members from, Liege Maximo's tribe. They've taken up being his jailers.
• Everyone Has Standards: They may have followed Liege Maximo and lied for the greater good but they were appalled by Megatronus' murder of Solus Prime.
• Reverse Arm-Fold: Everyone does this. It reinforces their appearance as a disciplined fighting force.
• Will Not Tell a Lie

Carcer/Tempo/Vigilem

• The Bad Guy Wins: Despite his death, he was ultimately successful in freeing his master, Liege Maximo.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Against Windblade, he wins.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: In combat he deploys two swords from his wrists.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Shockwave explains to Optimus that he underwent a procedure "not unlike" Shadowplay before he was sent off into space, to make him more amenable to keeping the Liege imprisoned.
• Cool Mask: This Titan has a retractable face mask.
• Cybertronian Resources: After he dies, Elita mentions they're going to cannibalize his parts to rebuild Iacon before he'll be turned back to starship mode to resume his role as Carcer.
• Defiant to the End: When Elita One states that she wouldn't allow him or Liege Maximo to run free, his mocks her failure to do so with his last words.
• The Dreaded: Even Metroplex is scared of him.
• Grand Theft Me: Both the victim, and guilty, of it.
• Meaningful Rename: The Titan was originally named Tempo when it left with its crew of philosophers. In the present day, the Titan is named Carcer, the Latin word for "prison," and inhabited by soldiers. Possibly subverted if this is a different Titan entirely. Later played straight as the other Titans meant to show Vigilem that he was a prisoner in his own body and a prison for Liege Maximo.
• Mysterious Past: Carcer was originally a Titan called Tempo who housed pacifistic philosophers. When we finally meet them Elita notes that years of hard times and survival sharpened them into a deadly fighting unit. Of course this all comes into question when Windblade reveals that Carcer was the title of a completely different Titan. Subverted when it turns out masking as Tempo was just a trick by Vigilem and he was rebranded Carcer as a sign of his imprisonment.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Carcer means jail or prison in Latin
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In four words to Elita One, "Then you have failed.".

• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: He saves Cybertron from the undead Titans so he can destroy it.
• Token Evil Teammate: A few hints and rumblings hint that this Titan was one of the more malicious ones. Indeed Vigilem is probably the only one who serves an evil master and agenda.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards his master, Liege Maximo.
• Villainous Virtues: Loyalty. Vigilem devotes himself tirelessly to Liege Maximo's ambitions, even dying for him to ensure his escape. During his battle with Windblade to control her mind he's not fighting for his own sake but rather so he may live to serve his master once more.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He transforms and has some back and forth with Windblade before Elita destroys his brain. His mind lives on a little longer, before Windblade destroys that too.

Elita One

• Adapted Out: Her romantic history with Optimus Prime is completely gone in this depiction. In fact when they do meet, they don't even like each other.
• Adaptational Villainy: Though downplayed, especially compared to characters like Rattrap and Getaway, Elita is reimagined as a strict leader and a skilled manipulator and politician. Compare that to the snarky, mother figure in love with Optimus from the original cartoon.
• Berserk Button: Lying and trying to undermine her.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: While it takes a lot to actually get her angry, Primus help you if you do. Her angry face alone is pretty horrifying.
• The Chessmaster: In TAAO #9, she goes from being scolded by Starscream, Tigatron, Moonracer, Fireshot and the Mistress of Flame to having them under her thumb in seconds.
• Demoted to Extra: She was one of the major antagonists of Til All Are One but once that series was canceled she became a secondary character in Optimus Prime.
• The Dreaded: Played for laughs when Ironhide says he doesn't want to meet her personally. Played quite straight when being face to face with her is all it takes for Lightbright, Sparkstalker, Breakdown and Fireshot to bolt.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: One crest on her head is cracked while the other is intact.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Though she ends up with very good publicity, it's clear the Council of Worlds have all begun to fear or even hate her. While they can understand her reasoning with Vigiliem how she went about it was so needlessly obstructive that it nearly cost them their planet. It's to the point that even Starscream has more allies amongst the council than her.
• I Gave My Word: She swore to keep Vigilem and Liege Maximo locked up forever as well as hiding that they even existed. Even a Titan Apocalypse can't motivate her to break it.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Her reasons for hiding Liege Maximo's existence are pretty reasonable. She doesn't really know any of the other colonists, she's kept him under wraps for millions of years and the ruler of Cybertron openly lied to her face when they first met.
• Killed Off for Real: During Unicron, she ignores what everyone else is doing and tries to attack the planet-sized robot which has already shrugged off an entire Decepticon fleet. It ends about as well as you'd expect.
• Large and in Charge: She seems to be in Optimus and Megatron's size class.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Metroplex's opinion of her for allowing Vigilem to remain alive.
• Pragmatic Hero: What does she do when Vigilem wakes up? Why blast his brain until there's nothing left.
• Revenge Before Reason: When Baron Ironblood's army invades Cybertron, Elita's response in the aftermath is to threaten to repay mankind in whole for the act. Marissa Fairborne shuts her up by asking what she expects an entire planet of humans - who it should be noted have anti-Cybertronian weaponry at their disposal - would do if she did.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Everyone assumes that she released "Carcer" of her free will to save Cybertron. She's in no hurry to correct this misconception.
• Tranquil Fury: "I would tell you to get off my ship... but we're well past that."
• Will Not Tell a Lie: She enforces this idea with the policy "Better Death than Lies." Though, as befitting a potential threat such as her, she can and will omit the truth. She also says she has no obligation to correct any lies she hears.

Obsidian

• Badass Bureaucrat: As Elita's right hand and member of the Council of Worlds Obsidian possesses a sharp wit. In the first issue of TAAO alone he establishes himself as a very difficult political opponent to Starscream.
• Beware the Honest Ones: While Elita contents herself with Metaphorically True, Obsidian embraces this trope as the Living Lie Detector of Carcer. When Obsidian's placed on the council he condemn's Optimus's actions toward annexation, and begins to challenge Starscream's own authority and the corruption within the justice system. Obsidian even brings in Ironhide in to act as a third party because of Ironhide's trustworthiness.
• Canon Immigrant: From Beast Machines.
• Co-Dragons: He and Strika are Elita's top advisors meant to give advice, and kill on command.
• Creepy Good: He's got a very definitive villain design (darker colors and lack of humanoid attributes) and a terse threatening air about him, but Obsidian is one of the more moral characters in the series and especially in Carcer. It's telling that in most of his interactions, baring those with Starscream, he's friendly in a businessman like way.
• Creepy Long Fingers: His long slender red fingers are carry over from his Beast Machines character design. Though here he actually has hands rather than the fingers protruding from his wrist stumps.
• Killed Off for Real: Dies during Unicron when the Decepticon Vengeance Division swarms Carcer.
• Non-Standard Character Design: His alien Beast Machines design stands in contrast to the other more humanoid ones amongst his colony. His arms are larger than his torso, he has no feet, and his mobility comes from the rotors on his back.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Inverted. Of all the council members he's shown himself to be competent in the field of politics and willing to actually do something with the power he's given and Windblade finds a surprising ally in him. In addition Obsidian was the one to try and convince Elita to de-escalate the conflict with the Cybertronians and tell them the truth about Carcer though he is overruled.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Obsidian voices disdain at Optimus Prime for having annexed Earth without the Councils or even the Earthlings's knowledge.

Strika

• BFG: She's got the biggest blaster amongst Elita's soldiers and it looks absolutely massive in Vehicle mode.
• Brawn Hilda: Beefier than Roadmaster, and larger than any other soldier under Elita's command.
• Canon Immigrant: Strika originated in Beast Machines but her design here also borrows elements from Transformers: Animated.
• Co-Dragons: She and Obsidian serve directly under Elita, Strika herself greets foreign threats with her BFG and is willing to execute on command.
• Mythology Gag: She informs Starscream that "[she] doesn't attack, [she] terminates," as she transforms to aim a cannon at him. Terminate was the Activation code (the code a bot says to make them Transform) back in the Beast Machines cartoon, though there it was implied not to be an actual Activation code, but rather a battle cry.
• The Worf Effect: Issue 7 of TAAO has her catch Devastator's fist and mock him while doing so. So of course she fails to stop Liege Maximo from escaping in the next issue.

Spoiler Character

Liege Maximo

One of the Thirteen Primes, who took part in the War of the Thirteen Primes and left Cybertron imprisoned aboard Vigilem. He's freed by his Titan when the former is awakened.

• Adaptational Attractiveness: His original G2 design was a gigantic Lovecraftian monster. Here his design invokes both the classic and MCU Loki.
• Badass in Distress: Subverted: he looks to have been captured by Onyx Prime to face judgment for his crimes over in Optimus Prime, but he's actually carrying out Onyx's plan.
• Deadpan Snarker: His comment to Strika suggests this.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Elita warns that he'll do this.
• The Dreaded: Elita One projects a casualty rate of 33% of the population if he returns.
• The Dragon: To Onyx Prime - or, as he's better known, Shockwave.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Offers sincere thanks to Vigilem for freeing him and swears to avenge him.
• Evil Counterpart: Flashbacks in Optimus Prime make it pretty clear he became one to Alpha Trion over time. Both were storytellers and both would bend the truth of those stories to achieve their results. However, Trion only embellished tales to achieve noble goals (like getting the Primes together to found Crystal City) where Maximo actively started doing so to manipulate others for his own benefit. And Shockwave's.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He started the War of the Primes, which led to the rise of Nova Prime and Functionism - which in turn led to the rise of the Decepticons and the Great War. This is downplayed in the recent Optimus Prime arc "The Falling" where it's revealed he was being manipulated by Shockwave the whole time.
• Horned Humanoid
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: If Elita's story is to be believed, he originally told helpful lies before he began lying for his own power and reached out to Megatronus. Optimus Prime subsequently confirmed Onyx Prime/Shockwave was manipulating him into this very result.
• Killed Off for Real: Falls to his death in "The Falling" (appropriately) after Arcee wrecks the gravity-manipulating Ores powering his flagship's teleporter. Rather gruesomely, he impacts Devastator's shoulder and just explodes from the inside out.
• Locked Out of the Loop: He was following Shockwave's instructions in manipulating Megatronus into killing Solus Prime, but Shockwave (masquerading as Onyx Prime) didn't tell him his plans or reasoning until after he had escaped Cybertron.
• Magnificent Bastard: None of his followers suspected that he was out for himself until Megatronus killed Solus Prime. Except he was just following Shockwave's instructions.
• No-Sell: He's utterly immune to Soundwave's telepathy, unlike every other character present.
• Obviously Evil: In "Origin Stories", while he doesn't turn on the other Primes, it's not surprising that the guy with red eyes, a perpetual smug grin, who got his job by betraying and murdering two other guys, and was introduced by the also Obviously Evil Onyx Prime, will one day turn out to be a total bastard. Lampshaded in flashbacks in Optimus Prime, when Prima easily figures out his involvement in Megatronus' killing of Solus Prime.
• Red Baron: Is continually referred to as "The Prime of Lies" on his reappearance in Optimus Prime.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: When Megatronus stormed through his territory, rather than mess with the large, violent, nigh-unstoppable warlord, Liege ran to Onyx Prime for help.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Unfortunately, the can was loyal to him and set him free.
• Shout-Out: His design invokes Loki. Fitting considering his traditional personality.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: He teleports away when Vigilem dies.

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