You cannot stop me, Autobots. I am… Trypticon. I am… your death.
This is the line that best captures the essence of the vengeful titan Trypticon. Metroplex’s iconic adversary, “Trypticon,” was initially drawn out to be a horrific murdering machine. Trypticon was the first Decepticon metropolis to emerge in any of the continuities. But is he just a weapon for conflict? Or are all those layers of extraterrestrial metal hiding something deeper than simply resentment?
Who is Trypticon?
First and foremost, Trypticon is a Titan, a term used in the world of transformers to describe the enormous robots that have the ability to morph into entire cities. In 1986, Trypticon made its debut as a toy intended to portray the opposite of the Autobot Metroplex. He can be seen in a number of publications, including Generation 1 and Classics, among others.
Along with various comic book universes, he also features in some American and Japanese television series. However, his character progression has been extremely contradictory throughout all of the iterations; why then is he such a fan favourite? Is it the authority he embodies? Or is it because his supporters can never understand his perennially pessimistic mindset?
Trypticon in the animated universe
In American continuity
Trypticon is portrayed in the animated television series “Transformers” as a dimwitted creature who can only kill and is not even smart enough to talk in complete phrases. He first appeared in the third season of the show, where it is revealed that in the year 2005, the “Constructicons” and “Octane” constructed him from a human metropolis. His missions in this series began with an assault against the Ark and the minibots, where he was able to destroy an Autobot facility that was concealed under a volcano. After this triumph, Trypticon became eager for more, and he quickly made up his mind to challenge Metroplex at Autobot City.
This venture of his didn’t end well. With the help of ‘Blurr’ and ‘Wheelie’, Metroplex defeated Trypticon. Trypticon was thrown onto the Pacific Ocean, and thus, began the running gag that water is the only thing that Trypticon might fear.
Following this, Trypticon was sent to Dinobot Island to recover where the Triple Changer Octane abducted him. He was then made to steal middle eastern monuments for Abdul Fakkadi of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya. This too, ended badly for him. When Perceptor realized who was responsible for the thefts, the Autobots consisting of Metroplex and Rodimus Prime made Trypticon bathe his sins away a second time.
Furthermore, Trypticon clashed with Metroplex once again in a game of musical cogs, where both the robots unleashed their transformation cogs on each other. But even though this time he managed to land the first blow, he stood defeated in the end.
In the Japanese continuity
Trypticon appeared in several Japanese series such as “The Headmasters cartoon”, “Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga”, “Scramble city OVA” and “Zone OVA”. All of these were a part of a continuous storyline which had elements quite different from the American continuity.
When Scramble city first came out, its take on Trypticon resulted in a huge continuity error. In the OVA, he was seen battling Metroplex in the late 1980s, which would be twenty years prior to his creation, according to the American series.
Thus, in this continuity, Trypticon’s construction took place around 1986 or 87’, instead of 2005.
But this error was never resolved in any of the classic media and only in 2017 was an explanation achieved in the “Transformer’s: Legends” manga. Trypticon was apparently blown to bits by Metroplex in the 80s. But the full-tilt survived and preserved in it most of Trypticon’s life functions. This allowed him to be reincarnated twenty years later.
During the construction of Metroplex, Astrotrain and Reflector had spied on Trypticon in order to enhance Metroplex’s abilities to enable him to stand up against Trypticon.
Trypticon’s first appearance showed him wreaking havoc on an island, Utopia, after the Decepticons conquered it. He almost annihilated Superion and then found himself facing Metroplex. Full of rage, Trypticon launched himself towards his rival, only to pass right through his silhouette and fall off a cliff into the water. Turns out, the Autobots had devised a plan as Metroplex was still in the works. It was merely a hologram created by Hound and made life-sized by Perceptor.
Soon after this, Metroplex was finally constructed and was dispatched to help the Autobot combiners defeat the Decepticons. Once the villains were defeated, Megatron activated Trypticon to fight Metroplex… for real this time.
Trypticon was still serving the Decepticons well into the year 2011 but he had grown to become a caricature of himself. He was confronted and defeated by Daniel and Wheelie when they lured him into walking on an unstable rope bridge, which resulted in him, very surprisingly, getting drowned in a river.
Despite this, he was used in battles and was commandeered to fight the Headmasters by Cyclonus and Scourge. But once the battle commenced, the pair soon realised the reality of their chances and fled the scene leaving Trypticon to be destroyed. He was then rebuilt and was seen serving the Decepticons until their eviction from planet Earth.
In the Zone OVA, we see Trypticon join forces with Violen Jygar and fight as one of the deadly Decepticon Demon-Generals. Being promoted, he started using a club as a weapon and enhanced himself with a new attack: the Energon Z Beam. Trypticon was sent on a mission to steal the Zodiac from the Autobots on Earth. The battle was so intense that Trypticon almost killed Sonic Bomber with the help of his Energon Z Beam, but was defeated when Dai Atlas unleashed the power of the Zodiac. He was killed instantly.
Aligned continuity
In the aligned continuity, Trypticon was brought to life as a space station. In the series, he even got a reptilian body when his T-Cog was destroyed. He was defeated by Aerialbots and Optimus Prime, which resulted in him being stuck in deep stasis while the Decepticons’ Energon reserves were siphoned off by the Autobots. Following this, he was forcefully transformed into a spaceship by Megatron and was stuck in this state for countless years.
When he finally awoke, Megatron wittingly put dark Energon into the ship and as a result, Trypticon’s body was stuck in that state for the remainder of his days.
The storytelling in this series makes the fans feel sorry for him. One wonders, is Trypticon a villain because he wants to be? Or was he born into it and simply doesn’t know any other way to live?
Transformers Cyberverse
Trypticon’s character arc here is the most well received. Although he is depicted to be pure evil and a corrupt mastermind, fans really resonate with his way of thinking. His dark mental state only adds to his conspicuous nature. Here, Trypticon is the main antagonist of the TV film “The Immobilizers”. He leads a clan called the Mercenaries and with the aid of Soundblaster, targets planets and loots them, resulting in their destruction. He is also the archenemy of the Dinobots.
This sadistic persona of his comes out most clearly when his minions fail to defeat Volcanius. Trypticon drops his affable persona and reveals his true nature: he doesn’t care about them at all unlike his claims and leaves them to die when he himself destroys the planet of Cybertron.
After Cybertron, he goes on to annihilate countless other planets as he travels across the universe. And while Trypticon has some occasional comedic moments, he is still taken as a serious threat and is the most dangerous person in the universe. Most of it usually happens during his jovial façade as a good boss and becomes less and less comedic and more sinister and serious as the story continues, abandoning any traces of his façade. He also has one of the highest kill counts in the show with the exception of Quintessons and the Scientist, going up to several billions.
He has also been an impactful character in the comic books
Trypticon has graced the pages of many comic adaptations such as the “Marvel comic” continuity, the “Dreamwave comics” continuity, the “Devil’s Due G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers comic” continuity and the “IDW comics” continuity.
In the Marvel comics, Trypticon was under the order of Ratbat to attack the arc with the help of Wipe-Out. But his performance was ill-efficient, his energy expenditure was too high whilst fighting the Dinobots and Ratbat had to recall him back to Cybertron.
In the UK version of the comics, we can see Trypticon taking on a group of evil zombies alongside Flywheels and Wreckers.
In the Dreamwave comics, Trypticon was introduced as a Decepticon military project and was created during the Dark ages. When he was still under construction, Trypticon went rogue and nearly killed Prowl. He is also seen taking part in the fight against Fallen.
In the G.I. Joe Vs Transformers comics, Trypticon defended the Decepticon army’s base against the combined forces of Autobots and G.I. Joe strike force as a part of Serpent O.R.’s forces.
Trypticon in Video games
The character of Trypticon also shows up in video games such as “War for Cybertron”.
In the PS3/ Xbox 360/PC versions, the story goes as follows:
On discovering the corruption that is omnipresent at the heart of the Core, Optimus Prime orders an evacuation of the Autobots. In retaliation to Megatron using his space station to blow up the ships, Prime sends Jetfire, Air Raid, and Silverbolt to destroy the station; flooding it with coolant so that the jets would blow up. In their act, they realise that the station itself was alive and was none other than Trypticon.
Trypticon’s orbital gun emerges and targets locations on Cybertron, taking down Zeta Prime’s Vaults, the Hall of Ancients, the Code Archives and the Stellar galleries. He then targets Optimus Prime. The fliers hope that they can prevent Iacon’s destruction by destroying Trypticon’s conversion cog, reverting him to his robot mode. Unfortunately for the aerial Autobots, his robot mode turns out to be a gigantic, metal dinosaur.
Following this, Jetfire destroys his jetpack, and Trypticon plummets to the planet below. Optimus, Ironhide, and Bumblebee go to investigate the crash and fight the mighty titan, destroying his shoulder-mounted weapons system by overloading them with Energon batteries. The Autobots then shoot his exposed heat vents to destroy a set of three power cores along his shoulders and back. Finally, Optimus puts Trypticon to sleep.
In the DS Version, Megatron conquers Trypticon Space Station to manufacture Dark Energon to aid in his planet-wide conquest. However, Megatron needs to access the Core of Cybertron in order to continue to power their Dark Energon supply. Upon defeating Autobot leader Zeta Prime, and later Omega Supreme, Megatron succeeds in his quest.
However, not too long afterwards, newly ascended Autobot leader Optimus Prime feeds the Core from the Dark Energon, and orders a planet-wide evacuation of the population from Cybertron. Megatron uses the Trypticon Space Station to fire upon the evacuating Autobot masses, prompting a strike from Optimus’ team.
Eventually, the Autobots manage to crash Trypticon onto Cybertron but only for him to emerge as a city-sized Decepticon dinosaur. Luckily, Optimus and his men defeat the titan and end the threat of Dark Energon for good.
What makes Trypticon so powerful?
Across all variations of Trypticon, the only thing that stands consistent is his power. Comparable to almost no other creature except for Megatron in the Transformer’s universe, Trypticon is always depicted as an enormous force of nature – sometimes nearly as big as the city he was transformed from.
He holds insurmountable strength and is able to jump across distances as big as 20 miles up in the air due to his rocket backpack. He can even escape Earth’s gravitational pull and launch himself into space, where he can exercise his interstellar and FTL abilities. His mouth can spew plasma bombs and he hides an inbuilt particle beam cannon in his sinus cavity. He can hypnotise enemies with the help of his optical sensors, and can gain control over any Transformer.
In the city mode, Trypticon unfolds into landing and repair bays, equipped with state-of-the-art communication centres for local and interstellar transmissions. His anti-gravity repulsor disks prevent any intruder from approaching him past a thousand feet unless Trypticon allows them to.
But apart from this aspect, almost every reiteration of this character has differed in some context or the other.
Infamous Marvel comic writer Bob Budyanski had designed a character profile for Trypticon where he was characterised as a ‘killing machine’ that was merciless. He hated anyone and everyone but most of all he had hated himself, he couldn’t stand being anything more than an armour and some weaponry, fighting someone else’s wars, for reasons he didn’t believe in. His hatred for his condition was so colossal that he often hated the Decepticons themselves, unable to separate friend from foe. His actions were always a direct result of his imminent self-loathing and apathy towards war.
But disappointingly enough, his character profile was completely ignored in the making of the Transformers series. Here he was depicted as a dumb slave of the Decepticons and all he knew was to attack and kill and destroy. He was so mindless that he could only communicate in half-formed phrases of rage.
On the other side of things, in the Marvel comics, he was seen to exhibit more intelligence than in perhaps any other continuity. He was seen mocking his enemies with witty catchphrases and employing strategies instead of relying on brute force.
In the Dreamwave comics, we get to see a side of Trypticon which is much more in line with his character profile, although he is great at his job of serving as a killing machine for the Decepticons, he actually doubts their motives. He hates the role that he plays and the only reason he still works with them is that he believes he may one day take leadership of the clan. But even this inspiration is not enough for him to think differently about his futile existence.
The future of Trypticon
The latest appearance of Trypticon has been in Transformers: Cyberverse (2018 – 2021), in which he is again defeated by the Autobots like most of his retellings, but unlike any other, Cyberverse’s Trypticon first time acted as the main supervillain. This goes to show the shift in narrative from being a mere weapon for the Decepticons in earlier sagas.
Trypticon’s complicated character arcs that completely stray apart at times, if looked at as a whole, present him as an undeniable unit of power. But what does one do with this power? That is precisely what is explored in the Transformer’s universe. It can be said that the many forms of Trypticon are simply the many ways someone (or something) can react to being held prisoner in their own capabilities.
But what does this entail? Will there be other Trypticons and will they also be sentient beings? Will we see more of him as a villain? Or will his backstory be turned around into one of an anti-hero? Will we get to witness Trypticon being thrashed onto the Pacific Ocean? One can sure hope so!