Vos (G1)

Vos is a Decepticon from the 2005 IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Meet the new Vos. You could say he's...
[removes face]
...same as the old Vos.
YEAHHHHH!!

There's been at least one previous Vos in the Decepticon Justice Division, the five-strong group of torturers and fanatics employed by Megatron to hunt down and deal with traitors. The current one is a scientist formerly known as Forestock and a so-called "linguistic purist": he speaks only the Primal Vernacular and has failed to learn more than a few words of the modern Transformer tongue, Neocybex. As such, his contributions to the conversation are usually interpreted by his squad leader Tarn.

Vos transforms into a sniper rifle to be wielded by another member of the D.J.D. or even Megatron himself on occasion. His favored method of torture is removing his face, the inside of which is lined with numerous spikes, drills, and hooks that deploy at the flick of a switch, and forcing his target to wear it. This provides perhaps a rather visceral counterpoint to the old corrupt Senate's favored punishment of empurata, ritual disfigurement.

Shockingly, he may be a neoprimalist: when near death, he started to mutter "Primus spare my spark".

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

First appearance: More than Meets the Eye #3

What would Clench say if he saw this?

The Vos codename was formerly held by Agent 113, an Autobot spy in the D.J.D. ranks and the undercover alias of Dominus Ambus. The Not Knowing He was known to have hooks for hands and feet, and was noteworthy for his size. Some of Gripper's friends were supposedly murdered by him. Words Hang in the Air After his cover was blown, Agent 113 was subjected to the horrific "domestication" procedure, a series of lobotomies and surgical procedures that reduced him to nothing more than a feral animal known as "The Pet". At Close of Day

The name of Vos was subsequently passed onto the "linguistic purist" who went by the name Forestock. Do Not Go Gentle Vos was wielded as a weapon by Megatron at least once during the war, seemingly during some pivotal moment worthy of future recollection. The Chaos of Warm Things

When the Decepticon Black Shadow was caught for getting bribed to destroy a fleet of Warworlds, Vos enjoyed watching the other members slowly torture and kill him. Afterwards, Vos and the other members were then ordered by Tarn to move on to their next target, Fulcrum. Rules of Disengagement

Optimus Prime's worst nightmare.

On arrival at Clemency, they were attacked by Fulcrum's new friends, the Scavengers, and responded in kind. During the course of battle, Vos got a chance to ram his face on Krok, who unfortunately survived the treatment. Once Fulcrum ended up seemingly killing himself, the D.J.D. left the planet, ignoring the surviving Scavengers in favor of hunting down a more high-profile target: Overlord. Who's Afraid of the DJD?

You should wear my face when I'm with you
Chromedome I'll love it
Chromedome I'll love it

Arriving at Overlord's location, the Lost Light (in reality, one of two created by a malfunction of the ship's quantum engines) near the planet Ofsted XVII, the D.J.D. infiltrated the Autobot ship, severing the still-restrained Overlord's head with a chainsaw. slaughterhouse After slaughtering Overlord, the D.J.D. turned their attention to the Autobot crew. In his weapon mode, Vos was used by Tarn to kill Cyclonus with a single head shot. He later held Rewind captive, forcing him to film the grisly proceedings, and then killed Chromedome with his own mnemosurgery needles. The Road Not Taken

The D.J.D. later returned to the crash site to claim the Lost Light's quantum engines. Unfortunately for the D.J.D., the Galactic Council and the Black Block Consortia were already fighting over the same prize and upon their arrival, joined forces to attack the Peaceful Tyranny. Vos, along with Kaon pursued a Council squadron to the planet's surface when enemy reinforcements arrived, forcing the other D.J.D. members to leave them behind. Vos was left severely wounded at an Ofsted campus, so wounded that the Autobots who found him didn't know who he was until Trailcutter translated his dying babble as the Division's motto. First Aid instantly went from wanting to save even a Decepticon to wanting this mass-murdering bastard to die, but Trailcutter, not wanting any death on his conscience, continued to donate energon. Vos rewarded him with violence and gleefully watched as Kaon ripped him to pieces, before they both departed. Births, Deaths, and Interventions Vos later accompanied the rest of the D.J.D. when they went to rendezvous with Deathsaurus at his Warworld. The Permanent Revolution

Vos and the D.J.D. arrived on the Necroworld to seek revenge on Megatron and launched an attack on the stranded Autobots there. How Bright Their Frail Deeds After retreating, as part of standard D.J.D. operating procedure, Vos remained on the Peaceful Tyranny with Tarn, joining a strategy meeting. The Sun in Flight

If he had a Nickel for every shot he took...

When the D.J.D. mustered for their attack on the Necrobot's compound, Vos joined them, crouching behind Tarn. At Close of Day As the battle commenced, Vos converted to sniper rifle mode and was fired by Nickel from afar. Subsequently, Megatron arrived on the battlefield, having renounced his recent oath of pacifism in order to put an end to the Decepticon Justice Division, whom he viewed as a perversion of the cause which he had once championed. Vos and Nickel eventually managed to disable Megatron's new fusion cannon with some precision shooting. Tarn then ordered Vos to rally Tesarus and Helex, and the united forces of the D.J.D. advanced on Megatron. Rage, Rage

When Deathsaurus's forces were routed, Megatron sealed himself inside a force field he had created using the forcefield generator he'd salvaged from Trailcutter's body. The D.J.D. presumed this was a final desperate attempt to save his hide, but as it turned out the field wasn't to keep the D.J.D. out—a fact demonstrated by their near-immediate breach of the field—but to protect the rest of the planet from Megatron's antimatter-fuelled assault. After cursing them for robbing him of his chance at redemption, Megatron subsequently attacked and killed the four surviving members of the Decepticon Justice Division. The vengeful former Decepticon singled out Vos as his first victim, and in response to Tarn's calling out his comrade's code-name he then took the liberty of stripping their code-names from them, and so Vos died as Forestock, torn to shreds by antimatter. Do Not Go Gentle

Games

Transformers Legends

Vos and the rest of the D.J.D. hunted down Black Shadow to the planet Clemency. Finding their target holed up with Decepticon scavengers, the D.J.D. destroyed the lot of them before moving on to their next assignment. Rules of Disengagement

Notes

• Roberts did not intend for Forestock to be Vos's original name, but rather the name Megatron knew him as before he joined the D.J.D.^[1]
• Roberts initially did not envision anything specific for Vos's sniper rifle alternate mode, but after Alex Milne raised the possibility of Vos being Megatron's rifle as seen in More than Meets the Eye #3, Roberts asked Milne to make it so.^[2]
• "Vos" is pronounced (in an English accent) like "loss".^[3]
• The sniper rifle included with Legacy Javelin is partially based on Vos, albeit a third party toy of him.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Vos (ヴォス Vosu)

References