Prisoners of War: Swindle
Featured Cartoon Appearances: B.O.T., Revenge of Bruticus
Featured Comic Appearances: #24, #32
Featured Fanfic Appearances: "The Deal of the 24th Century" by Lizard
The words "Combaticon" and "Swindle" don't really appear to go together. Swindle isn't strong, nor does he possess a whole lot of firepower, the kind of things you think of for combat. His slogan, "Make deals, not war," also seems at odds with his being a Combaticon. He doesn't have the firepower of Blast Off; the attitude of Vortex; the, um, Brawl-ness of Brawl, or the military and political mind of Onslaught. Whoops! Maybe I'm wrong there.
First, how about what we know about Swindle. He could probably talk his way into or out of anything. He loves to make the great deal. One thing that he does not seem to do, however, is swindle people. Every instance of canon that I know of has him striking deals with people, but not cheating them. He's just after the best possible deal. That's not to say that he wouldn't mind getting more out of a deal than the other person would. But, hey that's the way the world works sometimes. Oh, and when there are greater things at stake (like his life) he can really have a way with words ("Listen, biological blob. Either tell me where the personality component is, or be the first man IN the moon."). He also has a bit of an espionage agent in him. In "The Ultimate Weapon," he's shown infiltrating Metroplex.
One other aspect of Swindle is the fact that he looks out for number one. His tech spec bio says that he strictly works for his own advancement. There are some parts of canon that support this. In "B.O.T.," he is the only Combaticon to exit a battle with Defensor virtually unscathed. Instead of gathering his comrades and returning to base, he sells them. It takes the threat of getting himself blown up before he'd consider going back for them. However, there is more to this. I don't think Swindle is as disinterested in the ways of the Decepticons as he lets on. To understand this part of him, you have to look a little deeper into Swindle, starting with his checkered past.
Not just his checkered past, but all of the Combaticons. One could kind of feel cheated that the Constructicons can be shown to have three different (yet possibly connected) origins, while the Combaticons origin is simply dangled in front of us in a tantalizing manner. Here's what we're told: they're criminals…*a cricket chirps*…and that's it. We're told nothing on their backstory so I won't speculate here. Whatever it was, I can only imagine it wasn't good. While I'm not sure how prison sentences are carried out on Cybertron, I can't imagine that the total sensory deprivation they possibly experienced is pleasant. Throughout "Starscream's Brigade" and "The Revenge of Bruticus," the five Combaticons, also known as the Renegade Decepticons, were treacherous toward the Decepticons. Of course, at the end of "The Revenge of Bruticus," Megatron took care of that, right? Maybe.
The other Combaticons don't really seem to have much in the way of deceit and such towards the Decepticons as much after their introductory episodes. Sure, Brawl may be belligerent in general and Blast Off aloof, but that's about it. Except for Swindle. He still questions authority and pushes the line. The first instance of this is in "B.O.T.," when he conveniently decides that Brawl's personality component isn't a necessity. Other instances are more obvious. In "Five Faces of Darkness," he openly displays his displeasure with Galvatron's leadership, claiming that the Quintessons led better than he did. Obviously, Galvatron is going to be upset with this. And this isn't the last time Swindle pushes the line or questions him. In "The Ultimate Weapon," he demands payment for the transformation cog he stole. In "The Rebirth," he questions Galvatron about building an engine on Cybertron.
Now this may not seem like much, but this is a Decepticon who is supposed to only care about himself and "money." He should be more like Blast Off in his attitude, not this open questioner of authority. There are two probable reasons for this. The first is that maybe Megatron just didn't do as good of a job reprogramming Swindle as he did the others. His envelope pushing and questioning could be a shadow of the way he and the other Combaticons used to be. Instead though, I think it's just what the tech spec says: he's looking out for himself.
Under Megatron, in the twenty or so years between his introduction and the movie, Swindle probably had some really prosperous times. A lot of Swindle's dealings are probably with armaments, given his function of Munitions Expert, and with Megatron conquering Cybertron and planning to finally defeat the Autobots, Swindle probably had a lot of maneuvering room for himself and probably gathered himself a nice little nest egg. Then Megatron was killed (or whatever you want to believe :) and Galvatron showed up. With Galvatron as leader, Swindle saw the Decepticons decimated by Unicron and mopped-up by the Autobots, and the loss of Decepticon control of Cybertron. Basically he lost everything. While it's arguable that it wasn't necessarily Galvatron's fault, that is where Swindle focused the blame. From that point on, he was, at best, questioning about Galvatron or, at worst, openly hostile. In Swindle's mind, Galvatron, and his leadership, cost him everything he had worked so hard to get and was threatening to destroy any further profitable ventures for him.
Swindle is another one of those characters you wish we had seen more of. He has a unique mindset among the Decepticons and an interesting, unexplored past. He's comes off as a really friendly type when you have something he'd like, but nasty when things don't go his way. While he is mainly concerned with himself, he has to have a deep interest in the political climate and the state of the war. This makes perfect sense. That is, after all, where his profits come from.