The Fallen (multiversal singularity)


 * The Fallen is a multiversal Transformer singularity.

At the dawn of time, Primus created the Thirteen original Transformers to crew his planetary form into battle against his eternal nemesis Unicron. One of these 13, his original name now lost to the mists of time, turned against his siblings and his creator and betrayed them all.

As Vector Prime was constructed to safeguard time and space, this Transformer's function was to oversee the primal force of entropy, the aging and dissolution of order in this universe as presage to a new creation. However, this guardian of entropy became obsessed with the darker side of chaos and death, and in the black place these urges led him, the traitor found a new god, more suited to his nature. He turned against Primus and became The Fallen.

Now he is a being of power, darkness, and absolute dedication to Unicron. At the end of the first battle between the two beings, for his treachery, The Fallen was sealed into extradimensional limbo along with his new master.

Did we mention that he is also on fire?

The War Within: The Dark Ages
Approximately 7 million years ago, Optimus Prime and Megatron were lost in a space bridge accident. This accident weakened the barrier between reality and the dimension in which The Fallen was trapped, allowing The Fallen to eventually break free and return to Cybertron. He was intent on initiating "The Unbinding," which would break the Seal of Primus and herald the Second Coming of Unicron.

To accomplish this task, he recruited a trio of Decepticon outcasts, Bludgeon, Mindwipe, and Bugly. As per The Fallen's instructions, the recruits were to round up four Transformers with "unique Sparks," Hot Spot, Jetfire, Blitzwing, and Grimlock. When the recruits faltered, The Fallen stepped in, singlehandedly abducting Blitzwing from his well-guarded holding cell and besting the powerhouse Grimlock.

The four, dubbed enigmatically the "Angels of Dissolution," awakened strapped to a four-paneled apparatus deep within the core of Cybertron, the Well of All Sparks. Though a combined army of forces from several factions penetrated The Fallen's operation, his defeat came only when Primus was roused from his slumber and condemned his wayward creation to an explosive demise.

Cybertron
All that is known of the Fallen in this continuity is that his silhouette is seen standing behind Vector Prime, another of the first 13 Transformers.

Live-action continuity
The Fallen is one of the first creations of the All Spark, and his willingness to destroy an inhabited planet led to his banishment into a different dimension level.

Revenge of the Fallen: The Game

 * Voice actor: James Arnold Taylor

Titanium Series

 * Fallen (6-inch Cybertron Heroes, 2007)
 * Accessories: Display stand
 * This toy was first announced at BotCon 2006. Instead of being based on his comic appearance, he's loosely based on Don Figueroa's design for pre-Earth Megatron as seen in Infiltration and Stormbringer, though obviously with The Fallen's head and deco. He transforms into a Cybertronic tank. Sadly his tank form doesn't hold together well, nor does he have actual hands, just blocks with holes in them.  He wears a faction symbol of his own effigy.  So far, The Fallen is, by a fraction of an inch, the tallest (and the bulkiest) of the 6" Titanium Series figures.

Trivia

 * The Fallen design was created by Pat Lee, his first (and only) original Transformers character. (Simon Furman created the concept, see next item.) The early design concept not only lacked The Fallen's characteristic mouthplate, but differed incredibly from the final product. Envisioned as a medieval, ancient-looking Transformer, he glowed like a furnace, though he was not depicted as being perpetually on fire until Andrew Wildman penciled his appearances in The Dark Ages and the colorists caught on.


 * The Fallen was also used to recycle some of Simon Furman's unused Last Autobot plans.
 * When questioned about him constantly being aflame, War Within writer Simon Furman stated that The Fallen is always on fire "because it looks cool".


 * The Fallen's altmode, a tank, though designed, was never used in-fiction.


 * Very little of The Fallen's backstory is given in his actual fictional appearances, leaving much of The Dark Ages somewhat confusing on its own. Helpful inserts from the More Than Meets the Eye profile books and DK's Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, published around the same time, spelled out more. Eventually, the packaging profile printed on his Titanium figure gave the rest.


 * The proper treatment of his name, with its capital-T "The", is established both in the comics and the Ultimate Guide. The one dissenting source is his on-package bio, which simply calls him "Fallen" (as in, "Fallen forgot his real name long ago"). The reason for this awkward treatment is unknown, though the usual culprits behind toy-name oddities ar      mark issues. A transcription of the bio can be found in the TFU.info link below; however, the transcriber erroneously inserted a "The" before the first instance of "Fallen". (A misprint of a misprint. Way to go.)


 * The Fallen can speak Spanish. "Estoy en fuego!"


 * During San Diego Comic-Con 2008, Simon Furman claimed that a character based upon The Fallen would appear in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. A day later, IDW Publishing writer Chris Mowry corroborated the claim in an interview with MTV Splash Page, calling "The Fallen" the main villian of the film. Less than a week after this, however, Michael Bay reiterated that everything leaked thus far is part of their misinformation campaign and that only a handful of people involved with the production of Revenge have seen the script, contradicting IDW's interviews where their representatives confirm that they have the script. Curiously, on August 5th 2008, after a fan posted on Michael Bay's forum pointing out the contradiction, all references to The Fallen were removed from the aforementioned interviews, as well as any references to IDW Publishing having the script.


 * In Transformers Comic issue 15, the newly-ascendent president of the United States is named Theodore F. Allen. This is likely no coincidence, but it remains to be seen if the wordplay has any significance beyond the fact that he is under Decepticon mind-control.