The Combaticons are fairly cohesive as a team, which is surprising considering their widely disparate personalities. Onslaught, the Combaticon leader, is a strategist who prefers tactical planning to brute force, while Brawl is a irritable thug through and through who loves pure, chaotic combat. Blast Off is an aloof aristocrat, while Vortex is a common man with a maniacal streak a mile wide. Finally, Swindle is easy-going and agreeable on the surface, but he is a devious schemer in reality who would sell out any or all of his allies for his own personal gain.
The Combaticons were originally Decepticons who rebelled against Megatron millions of years in the past. As punishment, Megatron removed their cybernetic personalities and imprisoned them in the Decepticon detention blocks after destroying their original bodies.
Millions of years later, in the year 1985, the rebellious Decepticon Starscream retrieved the Combaticons' cybernetic personalities and placed them in the remains of human military vehicles from the Battle of Guadalcanal, intending use them as his own army to overthrow Megatron. The military vehicles, reformed into the Combaticons, attacked Megatron under Starscream's command and nearly succeeded in overthrowing him, if not for the arrival of the Stunticons, who managed to stop the Combaticons' attack. The Combaticons, along with Starscream, were exiled to an asteroid in deep space. As rebellious as their creator, the Combaticons wasted no time in betraying Starscream and trying to capture Cybertron for themselves. Starscream, a master of treachery himself, had anticipated this possible development, however, and had built in a failsafe within the Combaticons. He activated this, stopping the Combaticons' rampage, and returned the Combaticons, and himself, to Megatron's command. The Combaticons would continue to serve Megatron, and subsequently Galvatron, up to and through the incidents of 2007 and to the present day.
The Combaticons transform into military vehicles: Brawl a tank, Swindle a military jeep, Blast Off a space shuttle, Vortex a helicopter, and Onslaught a missile trailer. The five Combaticons can also merge to form the giant Bruticus. Bruticus is incredibly strong and quite obedient, as his mental functions respond well to orders but are not good at thinking independently. Bruticus is armed with a sonic stun gun and double-barrelled cannons mounted on his back.
