[Character Profiles] Cyclonus

I am probably not alone in feeling that Cyclonus has always held a certain allure ever since first encountering him as a child growing up watching the original Transformers cartoon.
He and Galvatron were such a contrast in character and interplay to Megatron and Starscream. Whereas the later were characterized by what amounted to a competition between brute force and guile, Cyclonus and Galvatron's relationship featured an interplay between honor and insanity, which is far more complex to say the least. In my presentation of Cyclonus throughout Pete's Super Robot comics, I have made it a point to stretch the boundaries of the interplay between honor and insanity to the extreme.

That said, I admit that this was not my intention from the outset, due to the persistent lack of a Galvatron and a Cyclonus toy in my possession at the same time. Sure, if you check the much older and Polish comics on the site, you'll see G1 anime color Galvatron make some appearances, but no Cyclonus. That was before I ultimately decided to get rid of pretty much my entire G1 collection in favor of the more modern variants (I think I only left a couple of G1 reissues; Devastator, Skids and Piranacon to be precise!). And while generations classics Cyclonus was a welcome addition to the collection, I utterly hated the design of the classics Galvatron and simply did not bother even picking him up. This left Cyclonus to feature in my comics all by himself. Strangely enough, even then I could not shake the feeling that he would be doing something very similar to what he did in the first episode of Five Faces of Darkness - namely seeking to restore the lost glory of the Decepticons. Of course, not having a Galvatron for Cyclonus to look for, I opted for him searching "the surrounding star systems, hoping in vain to locate the remnants of what was once a mighty Empire" - without going too much into detail as to what those remnants were (lost troops - or just Galvatron?)

In what has to be one of the few times I successfully managed to develop a plot arc (and a darn good one if I do say so myself!), Cyclonus' quest came with a twist. In season 3 of the cartoon, the Decepticons on Charr were reduced to starvation and even Rodimus Prime felt sorry for them; Cyclonus and his Sweeps were the only ones who remained powerful (probably due to being Unicron's spawns) enough to be active threats. However, in my photo-comics, beginning with The Untimely Death of the Universe, the Decepticons are actually doing quite well, led by Shockwave. They occupy Cybertron in an uneasy truce with the Autobots. All the Transformers are ruled by the Triumvriate of Shockwave, Thunderwing and Cyclonus who are in constant consultations with Autobots like Optimus Prime who are in semi-retirement, having forgone their role as military commanders (since the war is over). Shockwave has effectively used logic to deduce that a compromise with the Autobots allows the Decepticons to pursue their agenda through diplomacy and make marginal gains. These gains are not as spectacular as something that Megatron, Galvatron or Starscream might dream of - but they are real, systematic gains as opposed to the big dreams of the great leaders which came to nothing during the war. In this situation, the last thing Shockwave wants is the resurection of the old Decepticon army under leaders like Megatron or Galvatron. Thus, in my comics, Cyclonus carries out his quest in secret.

Why does he do so? This is the key thing about Cyclonus's character for me - and the first of my personal commentaries (through my stories) on the interplay of honor and insanity in Galvatron and Cyclonus' relationship. On the surface, honor and insanity seem to contrast, but if we look at Cyclonus' behavior in my comics, we see that he pursues what Shockwave would no doubt regard as an illogical and therefore insane goal motivated by honor. That is to say; there is no denying that Shockwave has made real progress in securing Decepticon gains - unlike Galvatron and Megatron before him - but by Cyclonus' warrior code of honor - these gains are made at the expense of honor, and thus not really gains at all. Cyclonus would rather return to the old days when the Decepticons were banished to Charr and on the defensive, but at least fought honorably than enjoy the prestige of being a co-ruler of Cybertron in an uneasy truce with his enemies. Is this honor - or is this just another name for insanity?

Fortunately for Cyclonus' ambitions, things come to a head in my comics when Starscream shows up and makes a bid for power. Cyclonus does not support Starscream - in fact I think Cyclonus probably shares the majority Decepticon opinion of Starscream as a treasonous backstabber partially responsible for losing the Great War since his actions constantly undermined Megatron's authority. That said, when Starscream confronts Shockwave, Cyclonus ostensibly stands by the side of the Autobots who are likewise pledged to defend the Pax Cybertronia, but nevertheless begins to slowly reap the benefits of the ensuing chaos on Cybertron for his own ends. He takes advantage of the fact that Shockwave himself made a tactical error (which even Shockwave later acknowledges with no irony) when he tossed one of the three members of the Triumverate council, Thunderwing, into the Pits for minor insubordination.

Cyclonus plays off the divisions amongst the Decepticons - in a sense, I think part of the reason why he secretly longs for Galvatron's return is that where we (the audience) see insanity, Cyclonus sees power. Power is the only thing that keeps the Decepticons inter grated and in line as a fighting force. Shockwave has diplomatic power, but this means that he relies on the Autobots to maintain order in his own ranks. Cyclonus certainly doesn't think this has a future. And in a sense Cyclonus is proved right, because despite what appear to be marginal real gains in Decepticon power under Shockwave, Shockwave's lack of true brutal power doesn't deter traitors like Starscream or malcontents like Thunderwing from destabilizing the situation. Shockwave seems unable to hold his very complex logical construction together in reality - this is best illustrated by the fact that not only is his rule threatened from within but from factors outside of his control like the Chogokin rebellion. Cyclonus knows that if Galvatron were around - none of these would be an issue and the main focus of the Decepticons would be defeating the Autobots and ruling the planet.

This is probably why Cyclonus is so happy to have finally found his "Armada." Now, I admit that just as with the idea of seeking the "remnants of Empire" this is pretty vague - but the Armada reference is taken directly from Transformers: The Movie, where Unicron announces the creation of Cyclonus "and his Armada". What exactly is meant by this is not really explored even by me, though I guess it sort of means Cyclonus has a lot of jet-clones. Of course, people who recognize the toy-line know that in my comics, what Cyclonus has really found is Galvatron - which is revealed by mean quite soon...I actually really loved the idea of the Combiner Wars Cyclonus design because of the Galvatron head in his abdominal cavity. I found this to be brilliant. In my mind (and I think I venture this explanation somewhere in my comics), Cyclonus found the remains of Galvatron after he was buried in ice in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon and salvaged his head. He restored Galvatron to functionality be integrating the head with his own body and retooling himself into a Combiner Torso which allowed Galvatron to live again as a combiner.

Of course, this (in my mind) also kicked up the interplay between these two characters to a whole new level. Now Cyclonus was Galvatron's vessel - in a very physical sense. He had always carried water for him, so to speak, always done his bidding and been his willing puppet (even subjecting himself to Galvatron's arbitrary insanity often), but now he goes the distance and actually sacrifices his own autonomy by giving Galvatron direct control over his own body. It's like binary bonding, only through the Combiner process. Normally, in Marvel and G1 continuity in general, the mind of the Combiner robot is made up of the personalities of the robots who form it. Not so with Combiner Galvatron - it's all Galvatron - in full control of Cyclonus and any victim-limbs he can find! I am really glad he was designed this way, because the fanfiction potential here was just crying out to be used. When I initially started this story arc of Cyclonus seeking the "lost Empire" and Galvatron, I had no idea it would end up like this - but boy am I glad they designed Combiner Wars Cyclonus the way they did!

All in all, I managed to make my Cyclonus rather duplicitous. On the surface, he was loyal to Shockwave and therefore cooperated with Optimus Prime and the Autobots, on the other hand, he was constantly out there secretly searching for Galvatron. The fact that no suitable Galvatron toy came out for so long, and in the end, Combiner Wars Cyclonus came out with Galvatron's head inside of him was really very fortunate. It allowed me to keep the resolution of Cyclonus' search in real suspense. Cyclonus has no idea when, if ever, he would find his master - so in his day to day interactions, despite his dreams, he acted in a reality where Galvatron was just that: a dream - and thus he did what he could and was sincere in his cooperation with Optimus Prime - at least that's how I wrote the character. He is never backstabbing, and while his quest for Galvatron certainly had the potential to undermine the entire Pax Cybertronia, so long as it was fruitless, it could be viewed as Cyclonus succumbing to his insatiable nostalgia for bygone times. Then - all of the sudden - with Combiner Wars - the plot arc finds its exciting resolution and what up till then had been a murky dream - suddenly becomes a menacing reality! Cyclonus no longer leads a dual existence caught between present duty and nostalgia: now - he is one!

This is actually clear if you observe how the character develops in the comics. In the Untimely Death of the Universe,  Mobile Suite Wars, Disintegration and Tears of Time he doesn't really appear all that much - and when he does it is either to wander space in nostalgic aimlessness that seems to go nowhere (plot wise), to stand behind Shockwave while Shockwave gives orders, or to cooperate with Optimus Prime, Grimlock or some other Autobot against the Chogokin rebellion. It seems all this time that Cyclonus has no plot arc, but a plot-dead end point. He's just Decepticon cannon fodder dreaming about the past and standing around in the present. Then - (thanks to Combiner Wars) this whole situation is resolved and Cyclonus jumps back into things to become one of the leading characters of the whole comic! Now he's no longer going off alone to seek out lost glory - he's actively recruiting the rest of the Decepticons and even those like Blitzwing who have become Wreckers (and thus effectively joined the Autobots) to his designs.

Of course all of this was also reflective of a change in mood that I was undergoing at the time. You might notice that in the Untimely Death of the Universe, there were hardly any Transformers. As almost all Transformers fans know, there is a cycle in fandom - it is hard to get a fix on it, but it's there. It's a cycle between nostalgia, a yearning for novelty, and fatigue. Depending on what stage of the cycle you are in, you sometimes want things to be "the way they were" in G1 or you start to really get into what you thought was awful and hateful in the new stuff, or you just get really bored with how Transformers is constantly rehashing the same things. Untimely Death of the Universe was me at the tale end of my fatigue with Transformers and fascination with "other super robot anime." Transformers slowly returns to the focus of my interests so that by the time we reach Mobile Suite Wars, the Transformers are playing an equally prominent role to the other Mecha. Tears of Time is my actual goodbye song to the Gundam universe (not that it will never return, but it's been a long time since I built anything!). After that, I got back full throttle into Transformers (to the point now where there are no more other Mecha in my comics). Blitzwing's point about being tired of Decepticons being political lackeys and yearning for "a life of purpose" is pretty reflective of my mood at the time: I just wanted a good old fashioned Transformers Carpet Wars story!

And what better way to achieve that then by bringing Galvatron back - the real autonomous non-gimmick Galvatron? Of course, I had to wait a while longer (this wait is chronicled in The Fires of Hades which takes the Transformers story in a direction rather unrelated to Cyclonus' story arc as discussed here), but in the end Hasbro again came through with a fantastic toy which seemed to be tailor made to the needs of my plot arc - namely Titanmasters Galvatron! This toy offered the perfect segue into the next act of the saga. Since Combiner Wars Cyclonus had Galvatron's head inside of him and it was driving him mad, then it made sense that he would eventually be driven to the edge of bearing the burden of his code of honor and loyalty because of Galvatron's insanity and - well -tear the monster out! This whole plot point was made possible by the fantastic design of the Cyclonus Combiner Wars toy and the Titanmasters Galvatron - if not for the concepts that went into these; this probably would not have happened - I would have been stuck with a mock-nostalgia re-enactment of something out of Five Faces of Darkness, with Cyclonus finding Galvatron in some lava and then maybe having a less symbolic, simplictic confrontation where they duke it out.

This was a great feeling - it was something I had hoped for and failed to achieve in my fanfiction in the past (mainly due to the lack of a blog or cloud space!). See, I'd been making photo-comics since at least 2003 or 2004, and many of my originals were in Polish and on the Polish transfomery.pl website (now sadly defunct!) When that page went down, most of my early work went down with it. I wanted to do a reboot for a long time, but the problem was that I wanted to create a long continuity comic. I imagined that the story would flesh itself out over time eventually, but despite knowing this, I kept trying to figure out a story arc that would run a million pages. Eventually - I gave up on this and just started the whole thing again from The Untimely Death of the Universe and now, with Titanmasters Galvatron, with Combiner Wars Cyclonus - the whole thing started to look like a pre-planned story arc...just as I hoped it would. How exciting!

It's just great to know that Galvatron, in my comics, was not brought back in two panels, but in long drawn out and totally unsure, unplanned stages! This allowed for the relationship between him and Cyclonus, and the symbolic nature of the interplay of honor and insanity to take shape over the course of a wide spectrum of stories. Galvatron, for his part, was of course utterly insane as soon as he appeared - and in a way, Cyclonus's nostalgia hit the wall of reality that is the fate of all nostalgias. Slowly, Cyclonus begins to realize that he hasn't restored glory to the Empire, he's restored a lunatic to rule over the Decepticons. And this is another thing in my comics that I think worked out well: sure, Shockwave's method was completely different from Megatron, Galvatron and Starscream in that it used realistic diplomacy to advance Decepticon aims.


If Cyclonus thought that by bringing back Galvatron he could maintain the gains that Shockwave made despite forgoing diplomacy for lunacy - he was wrong. Galvatron's return coincides with Grimlock's taking command of Autobot forces on Cybertron (as Prime is preoccupied with Earth) and leading them to victory against the Pax Cybertronia and then literally expelling all Decepticons from the planet. So where do they go? Where they've always been under Galvatron's rule: to Charr. Is this really progress? Cyclonus starts to realize his nostalgia has led the Decepticons to despair!

The best thing is that just as I had Cyclonus longing for Galvatron's spectacular return before I knew about the Combiner Wars and Titanmasters designs, so too Cyclonus is shown as being aware of the horrible future he has ensured the Decepticons before Titanmaster Galvatron was even announced to the public - this really makes the events that follow hit harder (or at least I think so). In fact, I am kind of disappointed in myself that I didn't take this whole thread with Bombshell further. Sometimes I have ideas that want to develop into longer stories but don't. This was one of them. At the time, I was making my comic in short 7-10 page episodes. This one was titled Cyclo-analysis. I imagined this as fertile ground, with Bombshell getting a chance to do what I am actually doing in this blog post - psychoanalyzing Cyclonus and Galvatron's relationship. Sadly, beyond these few lines of dialogue, nothing really developed. And now Bombshell is in storage and the only Insecticon I have kicking around is Kickback (hah hah!)

So what does the future now hold for Cyclonus? How will his relationship with Galvatron develop in my photocomics? Well - Cyclonus's initial ambition to restore the greatness of the Empire has finally been fulfilled to a large extent since he took part in restoring the "First Megatron" to prominence, and so far the First Megatron is indeed making a powerful performance of his tenure on Earth as seen in Grim Tidings! As for Galvatron, he's been summarily stomped out of his leadership roll by Starscream's treason (in a sceen which not only draws inspiration from an inversion of Galvatron's destruction of Starscream in Transformers: The Movie, but also from Rodimus Prime's defeat of Galvatron in Transformers: The Movie!), humiliated by Terrorcon space pirates and handed over to the Autobots for destruction. I plan to feature Galvatron (with a big twist!) quite prominently in my newest photo-comic which is coming soon, while Cyclonus...well...Cyclonus....has had a great run. I don't know what the future holds with the character, but I feel really satisfied with his story arc in my comics.

This is one example of a character arc that has really come around well when I consider all my plans and imaginations for Cyclonus from way back in 2012 when I started his "quest for lost Empire" (don't let the dates of blog publication fool you; this is mainly an archive of older comics - new stuff is in the works since rather recently!). So, while my photo-comics are full of convoluted stories with little to no plot - I am happy to say that Cyclonus seems to be the shining example that I was able to pull of a Transformers story with a relatively coherent plot line - at least with regards to one character!