Characters / The Transformers More Than Meets The Eye Former Crew

Former Crew

The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye Character Index
Team Rodimus | Rest of the Lost Light Crew | Former Crew | Allies | Vis Vitalis Crew | The Scavengers | Decepticon Justice Division | Luna-1 | Past Characters | Other Characters | Other Villains

Red Alert

Best ears in the business.

The ship's hyper-paranoid head of security. He's constantly fearful that others are planning against him and spends a lot of his time spying on his fellow crewmembers.

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• Brainwashed: Was a 'guest' of the Institute at one point. And again by Sentinel Prime, who turned him into a sleeper agent "just in case".
• By-the-Book Cop: A staunch believer in this.
• Cassandra Truth: No one believes him, not even Rung, initially... until he proves him otherwise.
• Double Tap: During the DJD raid on the second Lost Light, his quantum duplicate goes out this way against Helex.
• Driven to Suicide: At least it seems that way. Turns out he really did try to commit suicide.
• He Knows Too Much: Though he did actually attempt suicide, he's kept in stasis to prevent knowledge of Overlord escaping.
• Losing Your Head: He actually tore his own head off. Apparently on older 'bots, it's easy to do, if you know how...
• Mission Control: Becomes this to Fortress Maximus in season 2.
• The Paranoiac: Out of the 208 original Lost Light crew members, Rung is the only one he trusts. It's implied at times that he doesn't even trust himself.
  • Properly Paranoid: Some of his fears have proven to be accurate. Specially since "Shadowplay" shows us that he's been tampered with by the Institute, more specifically, a victim of mnemosurgery.
• Put on a Bus: He's rendered comatose following his bungled suicide. After he's brought back out following the conclusion of Remain In Light, he decides to stay behind on Luna-1, along with Fortress Maximus and the remains of the Circle of Light to guard the place and Chief Justice Tyrest.
• Sanity Slippage: Much in the same vein as Ultra Magnus, he handles the transition to peace extremely poorly, suffering a relapse of his earlier, more extreme paranoia.

Fortress Maximus

The receiving end. How does it feel to be on it?

Former warden of the Garrus 9 Prison and an Autobot war hero. Due to a traumatizing encounter with the Decepticon Overlord, he's emotionally unstable and prone to lashing out.

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• Adaptational Wimp: Big and badass as he is, he's no Titan, unlike most incarnations of Fortress Maximus.
• An Arm and a Leg: Overlord sawed his arms and legs off.
• And I Must Scream: His horrific torture at the hands of Overlord rendered him comatose. By the time the Wreckers found him, his brain was wired into Aequitas' outer lock and his eyes were melting in his head.
• Anti-Hero: After becoming the new Tyrest Accord Enforcer, he proves to be a very brutal and ruthless cop. He's still going after criminals, but he has no problem blowing their brains on the spot and threatens the fairly-innocent Scavengers. He rethinks this strategy after Spinister leaves him a way to cure the beast-form Cybertronians Demus lobotomized, making him realize not all Decepticons are amoral scumbags.
• Armed Legs: Has a pair of large, double-barrel cannons in his legs. They not only get used, they also get commented on by other characters.
• Ax-Crazy: Goes on a rampage in "Interiors."
• Badass Boast: He claims that he walked out of the Simanzi Massacre smiling.
• Badass in Distress: During his time as Overlord's prisoner.
• Bearer of Bad News: He has the unfortunate "honor" of being the one who has to tell the crew of the Lost Light that Tailgate has died.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: More like unstable and prone to bursts of rage, but you get the idea.
• Berserk Button: Anything relating to Overlord.
• The Big Guy: lampshaded by himself when he said he's too wide to get through some areas of Delphi.
• Body Horror: What he went through in LSOTW. MTMTE is about his recovery.
• The Bus Came Back: Twice.
  • He's been in a coma since the fall of Garrus-9, and in issue 4, he comes back into the story.
  • In issue 45 the story checks in on him again as he chases down Demus and comes into conflict with the Scavengers.
• Child Soldier: He's a Warborn, meaning he qualified as the Cybertronian equivalent to this.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Subjected to it by Overlord. To his credit, Max didn't divulge the information Overlord wants, even when threatened with the murder of his men.
• Dissonant Serenity: He mentions having walked away from Simanzi, one of the worst and most violent parts of the war where Max himself killed thousands of Decepticons (if not more), with a smile.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He overcomes his personal issues and is last seen still operating as the new Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord. He also makes peace with the Scavengers and Grimlock.
• Hero Antagonist: During the second Scavengers arc.
• Horrible Judge of Character: In part due to his aggressive attitude, and in part due to having Red Alert as his mission control, but Fortress takes the Scavengers as being legitimate threats.
• Humongous Mecha: During "White Light", he pilots a Titan (which, by bizarre coincidence, happens to look like him).
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: At first, blasting Demus' head open seems like overkill. Then Fortress reveals just what Demus had been doing, and where those Roboids of his really come from.
• Memetic Badass: In-universe. Guns in his legs and all.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: After waking up from a coma, Max introduces himself to Sonic and Boom and then kills them.
• My Greatest Failure: How he feels about Garrus-9.
• Put on a Bus: Following the events of Remain In Light, Ultra Magnus chooses Max to succeed him as Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord and he remains behind on Luna-1 with Red Alert and the remains of the Circle of Light to guard the place, and Chief Justice Tyrest.
• Rabid Cop: During his career as Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Due to his run-in with Overlord, though there's indication his troubles go back a lot further.
• Sucksessor: Issue 45 shows that he may not have been the best choice for Enforcer after Ultra Magnus stepped down; he's become much more brutal and rule-breaking than Magnus, executing some criminals on the spot rather than arresting them. Averted as it turns out Demus was selling off Transformers in Beast Mode and "domesticating" them to sell as "Torture Dolls" for organic races to vent their frustrations on and tried defending himself to Fortress Maximus along with Demus working for the Grand Architect.
• Supporting Leader: He's left in charge of the Lost Light while Rodimus takes a team down to Luna-1 in Remain in Light.
• Taking Up the Mantle: At the end of Remain In Light he agrees to become the new Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, becoming Ultra Magnus' true successor instead of Star Saber.
• Worf Effect: Was the victim of this in The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers. Part of his character development in this series deals with the aftermath and trying to overcome it.

Trailcutter

I'm a forcefield specialist. An ambient warrior. I can manipulate the environment to my will.

A rowdy forcefield specialist who deeply resents his own skills. Due to damage to his fuel intake moderation chip he's an alcoholic who suffers from low self-esteem and status anxiety.

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• A Day in the Limelight: In his Spotlight issue.
• The Alcoholic: And how! When Tailgate met an extremely drunk Jackpot, Mainframe apologized for his inebriated friend. When Tailgate asked if Jackpot had been drinking, Mainframe replied with "Worse. He's been drinking with Trailcutter." The two then went to see Ratchet to see if he could preform CPR on Jackpot's fuel intake moderation chip.
• Alone with the Psycho: Invoked. After being injured, he stays behind with Vos while First-Aid goes for help. Trailcutter's fully aware of how dangerous the 'con is and he puts up his forcefield to hold him off while he waits. Unfortunately, in doing so he traps himself under the forcefield with a recovering Kaon, and by the time the bots return Trailcutter's in pieces.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite having just battled the undead forces of the D-Void, he dismissed a number of strange entities and myths (Sparkeaters, The Necrobot, Luna-1, etc.) that later turned out to be real.
• Barrier Warrior: His speciality.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In his Spotlight.
• Character Tics: "Forcefield face," his tendency to bite his lip and slightly scrunch his face when creating a forcefield.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Forcefields are his game and little else.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In Issue #34, Kaon rips him limb from limb before tearing out and crushing his brain module.
• Deadpan Snarker: Gets a hell of a zinger when Red Alert comments that he's wasted as head of security:
  Trailcutter: Heh. Til recently I was just wasted.
• Drowning My Sorrows: According to Riptide in Issue #29, Trailcutter suffers from low self-esteem, crippling status anxiety and "when all is said and done, there's only so long you can plaster a smile on a broken soul". Hence the drinking.
• Decoy Protagonist: Seemed poised to become a regular supporting character in the second season. Then he trapped himself in a forcefield with Kaon.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Megatron seemed to think so.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: No matter what he does, he never seems to get any acknowledgement for it. Then Megatron takes the helm.
• The Farmer and the Viper: When he donates energon to a dying Vos, Vos attacks him, and then Kaon finishes him off.
• Guile Hero: Relies on stealth and cunning when he briefly loses his forcefield abilities.
• Hypocrite: Drunkenly rants about how Fortress Maximus thinks he's so great because of the guns in his legs. Several issues later, he has Brainstorm install guns in his own legs.
• Killed Off for Real: Word of God confirms this.
• Mauve Shirt: Becomes this courtesy of Kaon.
• Never Gets Drunk: Megatron permanently activates Trailcutter's Fuel Intake Moderation chip so that he will never be able to get drunk or take pleasure from drinking again.
• Nice Guy: According to Ultra Magnus, anyhow. Being constantly inebriated might have something to do with why he hasn't often appeared as such.
  • Was willing to go through with a risky energon transfusion for a stranger, after learning that said stranger was not just a Decepticon, but a member of the DJD.
  • In fact, he was so well liked, after his death, the crew's final usage of the time crevice was to go see Trailcutter one last time at a party at Swerve's.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His attempt to help Vos gets him killed when the latter viciously attacks him, causing him to inadvertently seal himself in his "Panic Bubble" with Kaon, who then brutally rips him to shreds.
• Percussive Maintenance: Gets his FIM chip permanently activated this way.
• Promotion, Not Punishment: Gets drunk, sneaks into the medibay, tries to chug the captain's medical supplies, slams said captain with a forcefield, breaking open a potentially hazardous object in the process, and what does Megatron do? Calmly waits for the forcefield to shut off, permanently reactivates Trailcutter's FIM chip with a blow to the back of the head, and decides to give him a purpose by promoting him to Head of Security, while cheerily informing Trailcutter that he owns his ass and that a lapse in security will be his ruination.
• Stepford Smiler: Nautica and Riptide peg him as one.
• Sudden Name Change: Originally called Trailbreaker. In-universe, Whirl suggested it. Out of universe, it's Writing Around Trademarks.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The teaser cards list him as "The Catalyst." His decision to go through with the energon transfusion for Vos allows the DJD to regroup and learn that a version of the Lost Light still lives with Megatron aboard it...
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He develops a begrudging respect for Megatron after the events of issue 29.
• Wall Crawl: His magnawheels allow him to drive on walls and ceilings.

Pipes

I'm trying to be impulsive!

A naïve, hopeful explorer who joined the crew to explore strange new worlds. Has a tendency to get horribly damaged.

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• Butt-Monkey: Got a bit sucked out into space, a bit sick, a bit shot (twice), a bit shrugged halfway to death, a bit stomped to death.
• The Cutie: A nice, friendly little guy.
  • Kill the Cutie: Courtesy of Overlord, who just casually stomps on Pipes as though one would a cockroach.
• Deadpan Snarker: Gets in a pretty good jibe when Magnus walks into Swerve's.
  Pipes: Fists clenched, jaw set, frown bigger than his face... Thank Primus he's in a good mood.
• Determinator
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Nothing really fancy, but he was dying fast and decided to make his last moments count by activating the alarm as he reminiscences on his experiences aboard the Lost Light.
• Hasa Type: Tells to Drift that he like boats. He probably would have like Riptide.
• Hot-Blooded: He's trying to be more impulsive. This does not go well.
• Gut Punch: His death at the hands(or rather, foot) of Overlord.
• Manchild: He acts surprisingly childish at times, unironically saying things like "checkity-check".
• Mauve Shirt: An especially sudden, sad one.
• Naïve Newcomer: He spent pretty much all of the war stuck in one place. He's fascinated by something as simple as snow.
• Running Gag: Expect something nasty to happen to him every time he shows up. Stops being funny when it gets him killed.
• Sacrificial Lamb: The first victim of Overlord's rampage.

Ambulon

Here we go again... We've been through this a thousand times...

An earnest ex-Decepticon medic who switched sides to escape horrifying experiments being performed on him. Is ashamed of both his past and his useless alt-mode.

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• Badass Normal: His alternate form is, for all intents and purposes, useless. Doesn't stop him from ramming Overlord with a hovercart, or defending the medibay against the legislators. He must take after Ratchet.
• Blessed with Suck: For all that his alternate form is useless, not needing it did save him from a horrible transformation-related death, courtesy of Pharma's plague.
• Butt-Monkey: As noted throughout this entry, life hasn't been that kind to him.
• Car Fu: Against Overlord.
• Combining Mecha: Ambulon was meant to be a leg for a combiner group, hence his name.
• Chekhov's Gun: After Luna-1, his corpse was repaired by Ratchet and placed in the Lost Light morgue. When the Protectobots, Mirage, and Riptide need to escape the ship, but are short a member since Rook was killed, they realize they can use Ambulon's body as a replacement, if non-functional limb to form Defensor, much like how the Constructicons were able to do so with Scrapper's corpse.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Getting sliced in half with a chainsaw.
• Defector from Decadence: A former Decepticon.
• Early-Bird Cameo: First mentioned in the "Bullets" prose story which came with the LSOTW TPB.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: At the hands of Pharma. Lengthwise.
• Heel–Face Turn: Switched sides sometime ago.
• Guns Akimbo: Pretty often.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A little rough around the edges, but ultimately a good person and compassionate medic.
• Killed Off for Real: Courtesy of Pharma's chainsaw.
• Mauve Shirt: He makes a few sporadic appearances, mostly in the background, alongside Ratchet and First Aid. And then Pharma slices him in half.
• Meaningful Name: Ambulon, from the verb "Ambulate". He thinks it's stupid.
• Meaningful Rename: According to the letters page, he used to have a much better name.
• Mythology Gag: When we finally see his alt-mode it's been designed with a Combiner Wars-esque connection peg.
• Nonstandard Character Design: The only character on the ship with a peeling paintjob. Ratchet notes his Robot mode is an oddity as it lacks Vehicle Kibble on the account that he turns into a leg.
• Perpetual Frowner: Considering his past, can you blame him?
• Power Trio: With Ratchet and First Aid.
• Red Herring: With all the hints in Issue #4, you'd be forgiven for thinking he's the mastermind behind the plague. It's actually Pharma.

First Aid

I think that sometimes — just sometimes, mind — life persists.

A friendly and bookish medic who becomes Ratchet's protégé. Despite many eccentricities, he's a skilled doctor who's known for keeping cool in stressful situations. Has a totally harmless hobby of collecting Autobot badges.

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• Adaptation Personality Change: Many versions of First Aid are pacifists. This one, not so much.
• All There in the Manual: His appearance in Last Stand of the Wreckers is only available in the trade paperback and hardcover version of the mini-series, in the "Bullets" short-story.
• Apocalyptic Log: The narrative device used to introduce him at the start of the events in Delphi.
• Bittersweet Ending: He continues working as a doctor, but is left deeply shaken by Ratchet’s death, feeling that he could have done something to prevent it.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A mild case. A really good doctor, better than his ward manager; even came up with a novel way to jumpstart "faders", and keeps his cool even under lots of pressure, but has some personality quirks, as noted by one of Rung's reports, which was actually used to demote him from doctor to nurse before being reinstated after the events of Delphi.
• Combining Mecha: As of Combiner Wars, he now forms one of Defensor's limbs.
• Early-Bird Cameo: His first appearance in the IDW universe before being properly introduced in More than Meets the Eye, was in the LSOTW bonus short story "Bullets."
• Fan Boy: Of Fisitron's Wrecker Files, and Springer as well.
• Gangsta Style: How he fires guns.
• Heroic BSoD: It's implied by Rodimus at the end of Remain In Light that he had such a moment after supposedly killing Pharma. He gets over it somewhat by the second season.
• Hikikomori: After the events of Dark Cybertron, he's become a shut-in, the only thing bringing him out is a dead body.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: It is irrelevant whether Pharma actually died, the fact that he went ahead and shot Pharma in the head did change him.
• The Medic: Along with Ratchet and Ambulon.
• The Mole: Averted. Getaway approached him to back his mutiny, and unlike the rest of the Protectobots, First Aid agreed to, but was forced to leave the Lost Light to escort Mirage to Cybertron before it could take place. Once he returns and sees the results of said mutiny, he heavily regrets even entertaining the idea in the first place.
• My Greatest Failure: In the epilogue, failing to prevent Ratchet from dying of old age becomes his.
• Not So Above It All: Takes part in Tailgate's "alt-mode party" to trick Rung into Transforming in "Little Victories"
• Power Trio: With Ratchet and Ambulon.
• Put on a Bus: He and the soon to be Protectobots leave the Lost Light to escort Mirage back to Cybertron, leading into the events of The Transformers: Combiner Wars.
• Sixth Ranger: He's not officially a member of Team Rodimus, but he's been involved in a lot of their adventures thanks to initially being Ratchet's nurse and later the head doctor of the Lost Light. And while he is Put on a Bus, once The Bus Came Back, he is the only Protectobot to retain individual focus thanks to being the only one of them to escape Getaway's brainwashed forces alongside Riptide and a comatose Thunderclash, the three of them arriving at Mederi just in time to help Team Rodimus out, with First Aid even being one of the bots chosen to open a Matrix.
• Sole Survivor: By the time of the epilogue, he’s the sole survivor of the Lost Light’s medical crew.
• Take Up My Sword: Ratchet is training him to be his replacement, which comes to pass in Our Words Will Always Rhyme.
• The Bus Came Back: Came back to the Lost Light with the rest of the Protectobots in Issue #10 of Lost Light.
• Transplant: He leaves with several other members of the crew to represent the ship during Cybertron's first contact with Caminus. In the meantime, he also serves as Mirage's doctor. He winds up taking part in the Combiner Wars.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He delivers one to Ratchet, believing Ratchet's pride is getting the better of him by refusing to let him help treat Ambulon. When it's revealed Ambulon was already dead and Ratchet was actually working on an escape plan, First Aid starts to apologize, but Ratchet agrees with everything he says and promises that if they survive, First Aid will take his place.

Defensor/The Protectobots

• Adaptation Deviation: The Protectobots' designs are, for the most part, based off of their Combiner Wars toys. There are some notable coloration and design differences though. Hot Spot's head is black with a silver mouth plate and has his chest colors inverted, Groove has noticeable handlebars protruding from his back, Streetwise lacks his visor and has wheels on his forearms, First Aid's car hood splits in two on his back, and Blades' tail fins fold inwards to resemble shoulder plates.
• Ambadassador: Rodimus, Magnus and Megatron send them as the representatives of the Lost Light to witness first contact with Caminus and the beginning of the Cybertronian Council of Worlds.
• And I Must Scream: Getaway locked them in a memory loop when they caught up with the Lost Light and learned what he'd done.
• Ascended Extra: Their last major role before Combiner Wars was in Spotlight: Bumblebee.
• Blue Is Heroic: Defensor and Hot Spot.
• Combining Mecha: Into Defensor.
• Detachment Combat: Defensor launches Blades through Devastator.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After the hell they go through on the Lost Light, they’re rescued and are last seen reuniting with First Aid in the epilogue.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Implied. When Mirage mentions having been approached by Getaway in case he ever needed help getting Megatron off the ship, the Protectobots sans First Aid and Rook all claim they were never approached. Since Getaway made a habit of using his Nudge Gun on those that refused to back his mutiny, the implication is that all of the Protectobots were approached, but like Team Rodimus they all refused, the only exception being First Aid, and got their memories erased as a result.
• Never Heard That One Before: By the time they've caught up with the Lost Light, Rook's gotten a little tired of hearing Red Alert recounting the Delphi story.
• Not Quite Dead: They’re seemingly gunned down by the brainwashed security team, but the epilogue reveals they survived.
• Out of Focus: Apart from First Aid, none of the Protectobots get much characterization in their role. Rook espcially as he's killed off in his return issue.
• Remember the New Guy?: All five of the original Protectobots had shown up before Combiner Wars, but Rook... just sort of appears when Starscream zaps them with the Enigma of Combination. Lost Light issue 10 spoofs this by saying he actually was just some guy who happened to be passing at the time.
• Robo Speak: Defensor speaks in this manner.
• Put on a Bus: They haven't been seen since they left Cybertron in issue #44 of Robots in Disguise.
• The Bus Came Back: They eventually reappeared in Lost Light #10, after a two year absence from the comic.
• Transplant: They were all members of the Lost Light crew before they went to represent the ship at first contact.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Rook. He's the first actual casualty of the Mutineers arc when Getaway makes Atomizer choose to kill either him or First Aid to stop the currently-incapacitated Protectobots from being able to form Defensor (and to ensure Atomizer's cooperation by making him just as culpable as Getaway himself.
• The Worf Effect: Despite being an Enigma of Combination-created combiner, Defensor ends up being taken apart fairly easily by Star Saber.

Mirage

• The Bartender: Opens "Visages" (quotation marks included) on the Lost Light after he's disappointed by Swerve's and the scandal of everyone being poisoned by Brainstorm.
• Chekhov's Gun: His vision from Spotlight: Mirage.
• Combining Mecha: Prowl uses the Enigma on him to make him part of Optimus Maximus.
• Cool Car: Turns into the Cybertronian equivalent of a Formula 1 car.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Is sliced into pieces by Star Saber.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: People suspect his visions are really this.
• Invisibility Cloak: His thing.
• Put on a Bus: He hasn't been seen since he left Cybertron with the Protectobots in issue #44 of Robots in Disguise.
• Regretful Traitor: Getaway approached him before he had to leave the Lost Light on whether he'd back his mutiny, and Mirage agreed to it, but was forced to leave the Lost Light before it happened. Once he comes back, he admits so to the Protectobots when First Aid expresses concerns, accusing First Aid of being a Megatron sympathizer. He only begins to regret supporting Getaway once he learns from Riptide what Getaway has been doing to the missing crew members.
• The Rival: Swerve does not take it well that Mirage opens a bar and schemes to sabotage him.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When he invisibly smacks a glass against Getaway's head then turns visible to mockingly say "bomp" to him.
• Too Dumb to Live: Mirage tries to talk Star Saber down despite knowing he used to work for Tyrest, and doesn't even try to make himself invisible or even pull out a weapon. It predictably results in him being sliced to pieces.
• Transplant: He was on the Lost Light before he joined the flight back to Cybertron due to First Aid being his doctor and needing to be taken to a Cybertronian hospital.

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