Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime is the greatest leader of the Autobots in many of the Transformers universes.

U.S. Animated

Optimus Prime began his existence as Orion Pax, a worker Autobot who admired the Decepticons for their ability to fly. However, his world was shattered when, nine million years ago, Megatron attacked the energy depot where Pax worked, badly wounding him, his girlfriend Ariel and his best friend Dion. Saved by a mysterious group of Autobots (the time-displaced Aerialbots), Pax was taken to Alpha Trion, who rebuilt him as the first of a line of warrior Autobots- Optimus Prime. He quickly proved himself one of Megatron's most persistent and implacable foes, and eventually inherited the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, becoming supreme military commander of the Autobots.

Four million years ago, Prime organized a group of his best warriors (leaving Elita-One in command) and took them on the Ark to destroy an asteroid field that threatened Cybertron. However, when their task was complete, they were ambushed by Megatron's forces aboard the Nemesis. The Ark was boarded, and the Transformers battled, causing the ship to crash into Mount St. Hilary on Earth. Badly damaged, all the Transformers aboard succumbed to stasis lock.

The years that passed were largely uneventful for Optimus Prime and the others, save when Prime was nearly assassinated by the future Predacon Megatron. He was saved by the Maximals led by Optimus Primal, who temporarily took Prime's spark into his own body while Prime's was repaired. (It is unknown if Prime has any recollection of this incident- he was only conscious for a brief moment after being restored.)

In 1984, a seismic tremor reactivated the Ark, which repaired the Transformers aboard and reconfigured them to have Earth vehicle modes. Thus, the Autobot-Decepticon war erupted on Earth. Optimus Prime led the Autobots to protect the human population from the Decepticons, who sought to drain Earth's resources. Prime forged good relations with the humans, resulting (among other things) in the construction of Autobot City.

Unfortunately, while the situation improved on Earth, it worsened on Cybertron. Shockwave's forces had steadily gained ground in the four million years since Prime disappeared, despite the resistance efforts of Elita-One and others. Although Prime did come to help battle the Decepticons on his homeworld, most of his efforts were centered on Earth. By 2005, the Autobots had been driven to Cybertron's twin moons.

In 2005 proper, Prime sent a group of Autobots on a supply run to Autobot City. However, they were slain en route and their ship taken by Megatron. As Megatron's forces besieged Autobot City, a distress signal was sent- and Optimus Prime answered. Taking the Dinobots, Prime attacked the Decepticons, and battled Megatron in single combat. He had nearly defeated the Decepticon leader for good, until Hot Rod's well-intentioned interference allowed Megatron to strike mortal blows against Prime. Prime was able to inflict one final blow, winning the battle, before he fell. As he lay dying, he passed the Matrix- and leadership- to Ultra Magnus.

However, Prime's story was not finished. After the battle with Unicron, his body and those of other fallen Autobots were placed in a massive funeral barge and sent adrift. It was there that the Quintessons found him. Using their technology, they placed special implants in Prime's body to reanimated him and reactivated portions of his memory, programming him to reassume Autobot leadership and lead his forces into a Quintesson trap. The resurrected Optimus was found by Rodimus Prime, who happily surrendered the Matrix and command. However, Prime attacked Hot Rod and company, leaving them for dead on a self-destructing funeral barge, and followed his Quintesson programming. Fortunately, the Matrix's presence helped reawaken the true Prime. He finally returned the Matrix to Hot Rod, told the Autobot forces to turn from their attack, and launched his flagship on a suicide run into the Quintesson trap. Prime seemingly died a hero once more.

Optimus Prime's ship and body somehow survived, to be found by the crew of the experimental Earth ship Solaris. They rescued his now-inanimate form before his ship exploded. However, Dr. Mark Morgan and Gregory Swafford, two humans who came to hate Transformers, kept Prime hidden, only attempting to rebuild him to use as a tool of revenge. Although they planned to infect their rebuilt Prime with hate-inducing spores and send him to destroy the other Transformers, resurrecting him was beyond their technology. Instead, they used his body as a lure to infect Autobots with the spores. Rodimus Prime was able to retrieve Prime's body, but Wreck-Gar was unable to repair Prime. In desperation, Rodimus sent Sky Lynx to find a Quintesson, hoping they would be able to fix the Autobot leader.

As the Hate Plague created by the spores spread across the galaxy, Sky Lynx found a Quintesson and returned to Earth. Now, Optimus Prime was the only hope for saving the universe. The Quintesson was successful in truly repairing Prime, who led a small force of repaired Autobots to retrieve a spore-resistant metal stolen by Galvatron. Having done that, Prime was coated with it, and battled an infected Rodimus Prime to regain the Matrix. Releasing the power of the Matrix, Prime cured the Hate Plague with a galaxy-wide infusion of wisdom. Unfortunately, the Matrix was emptied in the process.

Optimus Prime became Autobot leader again, only to face mysterious visions from Alpha Trion and Vector Sigma which promised a miracle for Cybertron. Prime found his answer in the Headmasters and Targetmasters, whose Nebulon partners saved Cybertron from destruction and re-energized it, creating a new golden age. Presumably, Prime led the Autobots until the end of the Great War. By the time of the Maximals and Predacons, he was a legendary figure, but his fate otherwise is unknown.

Marvel U.S.

Optimus Prime was from the city-state of Iacon. As a young commander, he led an operation to stop Megatron from seizing the knowledge of Boltax, in the process gaining a great degree of wisdom and power (as well as sending the Underbase into space). Later, he acquired the ability to transform into a formidable combat deck, and rose to leadership of the Autobots. The Creation Matrix was passed down from his predecessor, Sentinel Prime, which increased his power and merged into his very being.

Four million years ago, Prime organized a group of his best warriors and took them on the Ark to destroy an asteroid field that threatened Cybertron. However, when their task was complete, they were ambushed by Megatron's forces. The Ark was boarded, and the Transformers battled, causing the ship to crash into Mount St. Hilary on Earth. Badly damaged, all the Transformers aboard went into stasis.

In 1984, a seismic tremor reactivated the Ark, which repaired the Transformers aboard and reconfigured them to have Earth vehicle modes. Thus, the Autobot-Decepticon war erupted on Earth. Prime led the Autobots in efforts to stop Megatron from acquiring resources for the Decepticon war effort, until he was defeated by Shockwave. His head separated from his body, Shockwave used residual Matrix energy from his mind (Prime having transferred most of the energy to Buster Witwicky) to animate the Constructicons before returning his body- with a false, Autobot-attacking head- to his comrades. Thanks to Buster and the mindless Jetfire, Prime's true head remerged with his body.

Optimus continued to lead the Autobots, until he was destroyed as a consequence of a video game played between him and Megatron. His body was launched into space, with the Creation Matrix still inside, but his mind was saved on floppy disk by Ethan Zachary. Some time later, Goldbug and the Headmasters returned to retrieve the disk, only to discover that Prime thought he was a video game character. He was rebuilt on Nebulos as a Powermaster, finally realizing he was real, and was saved from dying (due to Nebulos' tainted fuel) by a merger with Hi-Q.

Prime returned to Earth, and soon retook Autobot leadership from Grimlock and Fortress Maximus. He led through the Underbase crisis and the return of Megatron, until he learned of the coming of Unicron. To save his race, he organized the Matrix Quest (ultimately ruined by Thunderwing) and even surrendered to the Decepticons in an attempt to unite their factions. When Unicron actually attacked, Prime sacrificed himself in using the Creation Matrix to destroy Unicron.

His essence survived, however, within Hi-Q, who developed a merger of his and Prime's personalities after exposure to nucleon. He was remade as Optimus Prime again thanks to the Last Autobot, and helped defeat new Decepticon leader Bludgeon on Klo. (However, the nucleon made him unable to transform, until a purification process restored him to normal.)

Optimus Prime took the Autobots back to a restored Cybertron, and organized them into teams to battle Bludgeon's Decepticons. Later, they began to confront a new race of Decepticons turning formerly organic-inhabited worlds into new Cybertrons. Prime battled Lord Jhiaxus amidst visions of impending doom, which turned out to be from the Swarm, a soulless devouring mass spawned from Jhiaxus' Decepticons' form of reproduction. Finally, a resurrected Megatron sided with Prime against Jhiaxus and the Swarm, defeating them together and seemingly ushering in a new era of cooperation.

Universe

In the Omega Point series, however, it was made clear that the alliance would disintegrate, and Prime would battle Megatron again.

Marvel U.K.

Prime died in battle with Megatron in Autobot City in 2006.

Dreamwave

Originally an archivist named Optronix, who was selected by the Matrix itself 8.2 million years ago to succeed Sentinel Prime as leader of the Autobots. Optimus shocked his troops by ordering that the Autobots abandon Cybertron to the Decepticons and seek a new life on a new world. Eventually, however, a confrontation with Megatron within the depths of Cybertron, where they both saw visions of the future, convinced Prime that his idea was flawed. He led the battle against Megatron for nearly a million years, until they both disappeared in a space bridge accident.

Prime eventually returned to free the Autobots from imprisonment by Megatron and the Quintessons. He continued to lead the fight against the Decepticons, until a day four million years ago. Prime organized a group of his best warriors and took them on the Ark to destroy an asteroid that threatened Cybertron. However, when their task was complete, they were ambushed by Megatron's forces. The Ark was boarded, and the Transformers battled, causing the ship to crash into a volcano on Earth. Badly damaged, all the Transformers aboard went into stasis.

(While in stasis, Optimus Prime was nearly killed by the time-travelling Predacon Megatron, but his spark was saved by Optimus Primal. Prime was restored and returned to stasis by Rhinox.)

In 1984, a seismic tremor reactivated the Ark, which repaired the Transformers aboard and reconfigured them to have Earth vehicle modes. Thus, the Autobot-Decepticon war erupted on Earth. Prime led the Autobots in efforts to stop Megatron from acquiring resources for the Decepticon war effort, until 1999, when a joint Autobot-human attack defeated Megatron and his forces. The Autobots planned to head home on the Ark II with a group of human envoys, and Prime promised to protect "Sparkplug" Witwicky for his human friend Spike. He even left a fragment of the Matrix with Spike. However, the ship was destroyed by sabotage as it took off.

Prime's remains were eventually found by the U.S. government, who rebuilt him to battle the Transformers under the control of the terrorist Lazarus. However, it took Spike's Matrix fragment to revive him. Prime and the Autobots were able to defeat Megatron's attempt to wipe out life on Earth with a technovirus, but remained on Earth. Six months later, Prime defeated Megatron again at the Arctic Circle, only to be captured by Shockwave's unified Transformers. Shockwave planned to use the Matrix, and nearly killed Prime to that end, but he was saved by his brother Ultra Magnus.

When last seen, Prime was still recovering from his wounds.

Comments

Apparently Prime had been imprisoned by the Quintessons on Quintessa after disappearing in the space bridge accident, but The Dark Ages: The Age of Wrath was cancelled before the storyline was finished.

See also

• Optimus Prime (Robots in Disguise)
• Optimus Prime (Armada)
• Optimus Prime (Machine Wars)
• Convoy
• Convoy Council
• Ginrai