Tailwind is a minor antagonist in Generation One of the Transformers franchise. He was based on a figure from the 1988 toyline.
Marvel Comics[]
Tailwind first appeared in the UK-exclusive story "Aspects of Evil", where he and the rest of the Air Strike Patrol were working for Megatron in an alternate 1991. During a Decepticon Civil War, they pursued Scorponok to a human settlement and came close to killing him, but were foiled when Scorponok tricked Hot Rod, Quickmix and Landfill into fighting the quartet for him.
Tailwind's present day origins were revealed in "A Small War", where he and the rest of the Air Strike Patrol were among the first Decepticon Micromasters created by Thunderwing after he reverse-engineered the captive Battle Patrol. When Roadhandler led a group of Autobot Micromasters to rescue their colleagues, Tailwind and his teammates challenged them but were tricked by Roadhandler throwing a deactivated bomb in front of them and overpowered.
Tailwind made his first Marvel US appearance in Issue #55 where he and the other Air Strike Patrol members were summoned to Earth by Scorponok to try and counter the good publicity the Autobot Micromasters were gaining. To this end, Storm Cloud challenged Roadhandler to a wrestling match. In order to force him to throw the bout, Tailwind and the others tried to kidnap the young humans the Autobots had befriended but were stopped by the Autobots, who took the humans to safety and allowed Roadhandler to emerge triumphant.
In the following arc, it was revealed that Tailwind and the others were actually working for Megatron, who had built a power base on Cybertron and was planning to take charge of the Earth Decepticons again and defeat the Autobots. To this end, the Air Strike Patrol raided the MacDill Air Force Base, ostensibly to steal a new experimental plane. However, their main aim was to draw the Autobots there and then send out a distress call to Scorponok. Tailwind repeatedly taunted Optimus Prime with hints about their true purpose, until the Earth Decepticions arrived and the Air Strike Patrol quietly withdrew from the confrontation.
Following Megatron's defeat, Tailwind and the others continued to operate independently on Earth. In "The Greatest Gift of All", Tailwind, Storm Cloud and Nightflight came to the aid of their leader Whisper when he was ambushed by the Rescue Patrol. They made their last appearance in US Issue #68, where they raided a fuel depot only to be challenged by the human mutant Hector Dialonzo, with Tailwind the first to be deactivated during the battle.
