Flame (Marvel)

Flame is a renegade Autobot from the Generation 1 continuity family.

"SCIENCE TANK MODE!"

Flame is a disgraced Autobot scientist, and with fairly good reason. His brilliance is overshadowed by an obliviousness to risk, as he stubbornly pursues his grandiose ideas. His sole concern with other beings is whether they think he's right, and if they don't he only becomes more obsessed with accomplishing his goals, no matter who or what must be sacrificed. This has driven him to an eons-long reclusion spent secretly enacting his master plan. On the rare occasion when he actually has contact with others, his mannerisms are flamboyant and histrionic, and he is never without either a grin or a grimace.

He transforms into a "firetank" with a high-powered flame thrower and a very fetching red, yellow, and orange colour scheme. Also he has a zombie army, so try not to die around him.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

His grant proposals were always rejected, no matter how much hysterical glee he showed.

Flame was a member of the Iacon Academy of Science and Technology on Cybertron. Flame proposed adapting Megatron's plan—turning Cybertron into a mobile war world—so that it would instead become a mobile spaceship for exploration. Emirate Xaaron spoke out against the plan, as the fusion reactor required for the planetary engine would be highly dangerous.

Flame was removed from the academy and denied funds to continue his research. However, he embezzled money from the academy and continued his research in an old lab in the city of Kalis.

One day he was careless and the lab was destroyed in an explosion. The Autobots thought Flame was dead, but in reality he had survived and discovered that the explosion uncovered the entrance to the experimental engines that Megatron had built.

Flame took advantage of the accident, allowing the world to believe him dead while he secretly pursued his goal. He worked on repairing the engines for four million years, striving for the day that he would prove himself to have been right all along. That day came into sight in the year 1988, when he finally began to activate the massive systems, but venting the fusion reactor ignited a subterranean gas pocket and destroyed a portion of Kalis.

Looks like Flame... got the point. CSI: Kalis!

While this did not disrupt his operations, it did draw attention, so he activated his defense plan: Using the Decepticon engine-control computer (with modifications), he broadcast a signal by which he could reanimate any corpses within an area that seemed to correspond to the city limits. This quickly turned Kalis into a "zombie"-infested wasteland where neither Autobots nor Decepticons dared tread.

As it happened, the headquarters of the Autobot resistance movement had recently been moved to a new Autobase in Kalis. So Flame's old rival Xaaron was there when the reactor-venting explosion and subsequent zombie assault occurred. This was another happy accident for Flame, who gloated in taking Xaaron and the Wreckers prisoner so they could witness firsthand the fulfillment of his plan. Legion of the Lost!

Xaaron, of course, was no less averse to Flame's risky venture than he had been millions of years earlier. Xaaron managed to escape from his cell and attack Flame, but the latter's firetank mode sent him running. Xaaron even considered converting to his own "combat mode" despite his fear that doing so might kill him, as it had been so very long since he had done it before. But in the end, Xaaron was able to distract Flame out of his murderous rage by pointing out that the reactor was nearing meltdown.

For a moment, it seemed that Flame would listen to reason, but when the two were actually in the control room about to shut the reactor down, his jealousy resurfaced, and he refused to let Xaaron stop his plan. The standoff was handily ended by the Wreckers, who had been joined by Ultra Magnus, the Sparkler Mini-Bots, and even the Decepticons Flywheels and Trypticon. Flame summoned his zombies, but it was one of them who proved his undoing: The corpse of the Wreckers' old leader Impactor had, due to contact with his former troops, been acquiring a resistance to Flame's control. As Flame tried once again to kill Xaaron, Impactor sent a spear through Flame's head. Impactor then entered the reactor chamber and shut it off while its lethal radiation destroyed him a second time. The engines still exploded, but the damage to Cybertron was minimal compared to what could have happened if the reactor had blown up as well. Meltdown!

2005 IDW continuity

First appearance: Last Stand of the Wreckers #5

Not so smiley now, is he?

Flame led the Autobots into battle on Babu Yar against Gideon's Decepticons, and most of his troops were massacred by the hideous chemical weapon known as "Gideon's Glue". Bullets Surviving the battle, Flame was eventually detained on the planet Elba in the Autobot's Garrus-9 prison facility, where he was one of the many 'bots tried by Aequitas for a variety of war crimes: illicit spark transplants on Babu Yar, desecration of corpses on Klo, and torture by circuit-boarding on Elpasos). During the trial, Prowl, Chief Justice Tyrest, Xaaron, Nightbeat, and others watched in intrigue and disgust. Last Stand of the Wreckers #5 Tyrest realised that all the defendants in the trials, including Flame, were constructed cold and came to believe that such individuals were an evil sub-species destined to carry out such acts of barbarism. The Divided Self

"It's every non-1984 character for himself!"

Flame was found guilty and imprisoned for his crimes; he remained there until the Surge, when the rogue Decepticon Overlord stormed the facility and seized control of the prison. Shockwave successfully bargained with the renegade for his freedom, and as part of the deal he was allowed to pick thirty-one other inmates to go with him, Scorponok and Flame among them. However, Shockwave had ulterior motives: every one of his choices was on The List, and when the Decepticon Justice Division came calling, he tried to sell them out for his own survival. Flywheels and Flame, eavesdropping, were suitably alarmed. Alerting Scorponok to their predicament, the three of them ejected themselves out an airlock to escape. The Ties That Bind Scorponok and Flame was subsequently discovered floating in space by the mysterious "Grand Architect," who recruited them into his service. Kill All 'Cons

Flame and Scorponok became key associates in the Architect's scheme to advance the evolution of the Transformer race through secret genetic experiments carried out in different regions of the galaxy. Chasing the Infinite Realizing that the artifact known as the Magnificence could help in this endeavor, Flame and Scorponok used the transwarp system known as the Warren to abduct Grimlock from his cell, as the Autobots had chosen to store the Magnificence inside the Dinobot leader's chest. Scorponok tortured Grimlock to the point of brain damage, forcing him to release the Magnificence. The Ties That Bind Under as-yet-undivulged circumstances, the Magnificence somehow went missing and eventually found its way into the hands of Mengel, a Catharsian trader and another one of the Grand Architect's many affiliates. Chasing the Infinite

Wherever you go, I'll be with you
Whatever you want, I'll give it to you

One evolutionary path that the Grand Architect had been pursuing was the "Infinite," a new breed of Transformer capable of transforming into anything. The project was met with setbacks, however, so when Mengel used the Magnificence to successfully bring an Infinite protoform to term, the Grand Architect sent Scorponok and Flame to Troja Major to retrieve the Infinite, recover the Magnificence, and eliminate the blacksmiths who had procured the sentio metallico for these myriad experiments. Flame's men went planetside to retrieve the Infinite; it managed to escape, however, and used its chameleonic powers to conceal itself somewhere amongst the Howling Town. An irritated Flame led a squad of goons to a bar, where they encountered some of the blacksmiths he'd been sent to dispose of: Wipe-Out and Anode. An Axe to Break the Ice

Flame proceeded to irritate Anode with his use of needlessly ambiguous language, until she managed to punch him and escape with her friends. Once they were gone, Flame was informed about the wayward Infinite, which had been found and killed by the Black Block Consortia. In the meantime, he went to meet directly with Mengel to see if she still had what she called the "Resus Cradle", not believing her claims that she'd sold it off.

As it transpired, she did, and Flame took it. One brief exchange of words with the Black Block Consortia later, Flame returned to the Worldsweeper and presented both the rejuvenated Infinite and the Magnificence to a pleased Scorponok. Chasing the Infinite

Whenever you need someone
To lay your heart and head upon

With the Magnificence in his grasp, Scorponok began working on his own set of experiments independent from the Grand Architect's larger goals; able to bypass the Magnifience's morality lock due to his prior experience with binary bonding, he eventually developed a organic Decepticon. Kill All 'Cons In the meantime, Scorponok and Flame rebased to the planet Confluence, using some of the engineered "Treecons" to guard their ship. When the Scavengers came searching for the Magnificence, they were easily captured and imprisoned by the duo. Locked in the ship's brig, Flame and Scorponok explained how they had come to acquire the Magnificence from Grimlock, before leaving the Scavengers to their fate with the berserk Dinobot. The Ties That Bind Flame watched as Grimlock, restored to his full cognitive faculties, demanded an audience with Scorponok... only to reveal that his seeming dismemberment of his friends was a ruse. As Nickel paralyzed Scorponok with some help from the Magnificence, the Scavengers stole the Firstborn and fled, prompting Flame to unsuccessfully call for reinforcements in the hopes of stopping them. Kill All 'Cons

Transferred onto the Architect's flagship, Flame's medical skills were drafted into constructing the Architect's new body. When the Lost Light and her crew were taken as prisoners, Flame directed the ship to Docking Bay 1 before the Architect convulsed from a mental attack. Farsickness Flame later made his way to the bridge in time for the Functionist Council's avatar of Primus to enter their universe where he casually reminded his master that they should probably stop gaping and open fire. When the Architect later decided he had to speak to Team Rodimus, Flame accompanied him, learning that the Architect was in fact Adaptus. The Return of the King

Once Adaptus's claim was verified, via the revelation that Rung and Tyrest were respectively Primus and Solomus, Flame pointed out, again, that the faux-Primus was decimating their forces. Before Adaptus could give his next order, a vengeful Solomus attacked him, resulting in both their deaths. Flame then decided to cut his losses only to find the cell door locked. With no other options, Flame threw his lot in with the Lost Light crew, being brought aboard and taking part in the group brainstorm of how to defeat the Functionists, being pleased to learn his theory about morality locks was correct. The Unremembering

After the crew had worked out a plan, Flame contacted what little remained of the Architect's fleet and briefed them on the plan, delegating the Infinites to act as the muscle in the assault against "Primus". A Spark Among Embers

Kre-O online comic

Remember after the fire, after all the rain
I will be the flame
I will be the flame

Flame was with Pharma and Jet-kun as Onslaught declared himself the Combaticon leader. New Military Unit Combaticon! Bruticus, Combine!

Transformers vs. G.I. Joe

Once an Autobot, Flame left them after uncovering scriptures at the University of Iacon telling of Metatron, the angel of light, and Ultra Magnus, the angel of darkness. Having fallen to the darkness, he took up residence in a dark temple deep underneath Kalis and began performing mystic rituals, even learning how to bring dead Cybertronians back to life. For this reason, he was approached by Shockwave with a request to resurrect Soundwave, but Shockwave learned that Flame's "miracle" was not what it seemed when Soundwave came back unable to sense or display emotions. Black Cybertron

Toys

Generations Comic Edition

Hot Rod called and he said your fire motif was a bit much.

• Emirate Xaaron, Autobot Flame (2024)

• Accessories: Cannon
• Known designers: Evan Brooks (Hasbro), Takashi Kunihiro (TakaraTomy)^[1]

Generations Comic Edition "Autobot Flame" is a retool of Studio Series Gamer Edition Megatron, with a new head, chest, pelvis, and thighs. Like Megatron, he still transforms into a Cybertronian hover tank. He retains the Gamer Edition gimmick of a removable right forearm, allowing him to equip the cannon or other Gamer Edition weapons. The detached forearm can be mounted onto two tabs on the figure's rear waist.

Unfortunately, Flame also retains the tabs on the backs of his knees that restrict his knee articulation to about 45 degrees. The tabs can be cut off for proper knee articulation or alternatively, his calves can be opened up to get around the tab for almost 90 degrees of bend without modifying the figure.

Flame is packaged with Emirate Xaaron, with the package art showing the cover of "Meltdown (part 1)". The 2-pack was exclusive to Hasbro Pulse. It was revealed on Sixo's Twitter on June 13, with preorders going up later that day.

Notes

• In the grand tradition of Kre-O cameo characters, Flame utilises existing Kreon parts, in this case Overbite's helmet and two clip-on tank treads.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Flame (フレーム Furēmu)

References