Optimus Prime: Encyclopedia II - Optimus Prime - G1 Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime - G1 Optimus Prime

There is no nobler being than Optimus Prime. Were he human, he would be a doctor, a mechanic, a scientist and a warrior - but on Cybertron, there is no difference in these professions, and Optimus uses all his skills to heal, repair, improve the world around him, and if he must, to fight. His care and compassion is without equal, and he will battle unceasingly to protect the weak and defend what he believes in. As a 1980s style Cab-Over semi-trailer, Optimus Prime was made up of three components - the cab transformed into Prime himself, possessing the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, while the trailer became his Command Deck, a mobile battlestation/command headquarters, containing Roller, a mobile scout buggy. Injury to one component was felt by each of the others. The Combat Deck and Roller appear to possess some degree of autonomy, but while Prime could survive their destruction, they would not be able to survive without him.

There have been several interpretations of this character; some writers depict Optimus Prime quite straightforwardly as a wise but essentially upbeat and gung-ho battlefield general who leads by example. However, other portrayals have suggested that in addition to these more obvious characteristics, Prime is a leader secretly plauged by self-doubt and, more importantly, a conflicted sense of pacifism. The cartoon continuity shows Optimus questioning his decisions on several occasions, but the most comprehensive depictions of this more troubled Prime originate in the Transformers comics. See also the similarly differing interpretations of the G1 Megatron in the main Megatron article.

Optimus Prime - Animated series

Optimus Prime began his life as a robot named Orion Pax, a simple dock worker during the Golden Age of Cybertron nine million years ago, with a girlfriend named Ariel, and a best friend named Dion. At the time, a new breed of robot had recently appeared on the planet - ones with new robot-mode flight powers that made Orion idolise them. Unfortunately for Orion, when Megatron, the leader of these robots, approached him with inquiries about using one the dock warehouses, Orion fell for the deception and he and Ariel were fatally wounded when Megatron and his forces then attacked in order to claim the energy stored there. Searching for someone to help them, the time-displaced Aerialbots took Orion and Ariel to the ancient Autobot, Alpha Trion, who used them as the first subjects for the new reconstruction process he had developed - rebuilding the frail Autobot frames into battle-hardy configurations. With this reconstruction, Orion Pax became Optimus Prime, the first of the Autobot warriors, who took the mantle of leadership as the civil war against Megatron and Decepticons erupted, while Ariel was rebuilt into Elita One, the commander of the Autobot resistance on Cybertron.

Alpha Trion is known to have kept the Matrix of Leadership safe since the death of the previous Autobot leader, but it is unclear if he gave it to Optimus Prime at this point in time. It is probable, however, as he carries the "Prime" title as soon as Alpha Trion introduces him. Note, however, that Optimus Prime's body was not transformed by the Matrix in the same manner that Rodimus Prime's was - Rodimus's transformation occurred because he was the "Chosen One" of Autobot legend.

As leader of the Autobots, Prime headed up the Ark's mission to search out new worlds with new sources of energy to revitalise the depleted Cybertron. However, shortly after its launch, the Ark was attacked by the Decepticon space cruiser, the Nemesis, and boarded by Megatron and the Decepticons. In the ensuing struggle, the g-forces of a nearby planet pulled the craft down, and it impacted in the side of a dormant volcano, thrusting all the occupants of the ship into emergency stasis. Four million years later, in the Earth year 1984, a volcanic eruption jarred the ship's computer, Teletraan I back to life, and it reactivated the Transformers, programming them with new Earth-based disguise modes.

In Transformers: The Movie, set in the Earth year 2005, Prime sustained terminal injuries in battle with Megatron, and the Matrix and leadership of the Autobots fell to Ultra Magnus, and later to Rodimus Prime. Prime's body was entombed in a massive deep-space mausoleum with the many other fallen Autobots, but his corpse was desecrated by the Quintessons in 2006, when they reanimated it as part of an attempt to destroy the Autobots by using Prime to lure their space fleet into a trap. However, the Matrix was able to purify Prime of the Quintesson influence, and he got the other Autobots clear while he piloted his flagship into the Quintessons' detonator, triggering the explosion of a nearby sun.

Prime was believed to be destroyed by this, but in reality, before the flagship impacted with the detonator, his body was recovered from by two human scientists, Jessica Morgan and Gregory Swofford. However, as their ship departed, it was coated in solar spores released by the explosion of the sun. Jessica's father, Mark Morgan, loathed the Autobots, and his hatred only grew when an attempt by the Decepticons to steal a heat-resistant alloy he had developed resulted in Jessica being paralysed. Swofford and Morgan reconstructed Optimus Prime's body in an attempt to use it as a delivery system for the spores, which induced hatred and madness, in order to destroy the Transformers. However, when they could not reanimate him, they used his body as a lure instead, bringing the Autobots to their lab, where they were infected. As this "Hate Plague" proceeded to spread across the galaxy, Sky Lynx retrieved a Quintesson, who fully restored Optimus Prime to life. Coating himself in Morgan's heat-resistant alloy, Prime reclaimed the Matrix from Rodimus and unleased its concentrated wisdom to destroy the Hate Plague.

In the show's fourth season, consisting entirely of a three-part miniseries titled "The Rebirth", Prime began to suffer visions following the release of the Matrix's energy, which foretold a great transformation for Cybertron. Events began with the Decepticons' theft of the key to the Plasma Energy Chamber, which forced Prime to consult Alpha Trion within Vector Sigma, learning that the mega-computer had orchestrated events in order to restore Cybertron's Golden Age. When the Plasma Energy Chamber was opened and threatened to drive Earth's Sun supernova, Spike Witwicky and the other organic Nebulans who had become involved in the conflict as a result of these events were able to drain off the excess solar energy and revitalise Cybertron.

Optimus Prime was voiced by Peter Cullen in America, and by Tesshō Genda in Japan. In Brazil, Prime was voiced by Afonso Celso de Vasconcellos (1st and 2nd seasons) and also by the late Darcy Pedrosa (2nd and 3rd seasons and The Movie).

This Japanese-exclusive animated series served as a continuation of the American animated series, except it disregarded the events of "The Rebirth" and picked up a year after the events of Prime's return to life. Here, the releasing of the Matrix's energy begins to destabilise Vector Sigma, forcing Prime to merge with the computer to regulate it, sacrificing his life only a few short episodes after returning, to save Cybertron.

The second of the Japanese-exclusive Transformers series, Super God Masterforce did not actually feature Optimus Prime himself, but it did feature one of his bodies. This series sees human truck driver Ginrai merge with and control a Transtector (a lifeless Transformer body) which bears a striking resemblance to Optimus Prime - because it was designed as part of a plan to bring him back to life, only to be stolen and hidden on Earth by the series antagonist, Devil Z. Ginrai can merge with his trailer, becoming Super Ginrai, and can then merge again with his additional transforming drone trailer, God Bomber, becoming God Ginrai.

This toy was released in America as Powermaster Optimus Prime, with appropriately different accompanying fiction in the pages of Marvel Comics (see below). God Bomber, however, was not released outside of Japan until Powermaster Prime was reissued in 2003, and God Bomber - renamed Apex Bomber - came included.

Although this particular piece of Japanese-exclusive fiction was not actually an animated series, it remains part of the animated series continuity. Here, Optimus Prime is finally brought back to life through the use of Zone Energy, as the mighty Star Convoy. As another truck/trailer combination, Star Convoy transforms into a Micromaster base, and can combine with fellow Autobots Grandus and Sky Garry.

Optimus Prime - Marvel Comics

Amidst the chaos of civil war, Optimus Prime emerged as leader of the Autobots on Cybertron. He led a group of his most powerful Autobot warriors on the Autobot starship The Ark on a successful mission to destroy an asteroid swarm that threatened to destroy the planet. In the aftermath of this mission, however, the Ark was attacked by Decepticons, and Prime set the Ark on a suicide course, crashing it into the prehistoric planet Earth. Reactivated four million years later, Prime led the Autobots in their battles to prevent the Decepticons from plundering Earth's resources.

Following their opening war for fuel with the Decepticons, the Autobots were all deactivated by Shockwave, who decapitated Prime and leeched the energy of the Creation Matrix from his mind to give life to his creations, the Constructicons (unaware that the Matrix was not merely a program in Prime's mind, but a physical object in his chest). Before Shockwave could give life to his next Decepticon, Jetfire, Prime transferred the Matrix energy into the mind of Buster Witwicky, who used the energy to turn Jetfire on Shockwave, allowing Prime to reclaim his body and retake leadership of the Autobots.

Some time later however, Prime engaged Megatron in a video game duel for possession of a super fuel. Prime was victorious, but Megatron implemented a cheat code, allowing him to re-enter the game. Prime was able to defeat him yet again, but in doing so, he also destroyed several of the game sprites, and refused to accept his victory, as he had performed an action that compromised his beliefs about the preservation of life, which he would never have done, had the duel been real. In accordance with the rules of the game, Prime's body exploded and he died. Autobot surgeon Ratchet's subsequent efforts to restore him were unsuccessful, and his body was launched into space.

However, Prime's personality had been copied onto a floppy disk by the technician running the game, Ethan Zachary, who employed him in various video game scenarios he developed. Prime's damaged mind led him to belive that he himself was a video game character, and in an attempt to bring him back to life, Goldbug, Joyride, Slapdash and Getaway took the disk to the planet Nebulos, where a new body was constructed for Prime. They built a new body for Optimus Prime, and even upgraded it with the ability to combine with the trailer to form a larger robot. In an effort to keep Transformers off their planet, however, the Nebulans had poisoned their fuel, and the sensation of dying convinced Prime that he was truly alive, and not a game character. To save his life, the Nebulan scientist Hi-Q bonded with him, creating Powermaster Optimus Prime.

Subsequently, with the threat of Unicron looming, Prime began a quest to locate his old body, and the physical Matrix object within it. When the Matrix was successfully reacquired, Prime sacrificed his life one more time to destroy Unicron by plunging the Matrix into his maw. However, the Powermaster process had been working to fully bond Prime and Hi-Q, and with Prime now destroyed, the process completed itself in Hi-Q's body, and the two minds and souls became one. Hi-Q's biomechanical body was stripped down and reconstructed by the Last Autobot, creating a brand new Optimus Prime (visually based on his Action Master toy).

When the Transformers line was revived in the early '90s as Generation 2, Marvel released an accompanying comic book series which follow on from the original. Set an undisclosed period of time after his rebirth, Prime appeared in a form matching his original body - fitting, as the G2 toyline's first Prime figure was the original Prime toy, with added missile launchers and a recoloured trailer. Prime was plagued by visions of the Swarm - a destructive by-product of Transformer reproduction - entering into an alliance with Megatron against it and the forces of the second-generation Cybertronians led by Jhiaxus. Prime's body was destroyed yet again when he confronted the Swarm, but upon releasing the energy of the Matrix into it, purifying it, Prime was reborn by the repentant creature, recreated in a new body based on his Generation 2 "Hero Optimus Prime" figure. At the end of the battle, Prime’s dream of reuniting the two races of Transformers into a single force for good seemed to be a possibility when the Autobots and Decepticons fought side by side against a common foe.

Although these were the only two versions of Prime to appear in the Generation 2 comics, the G2 toyline featured additional Optimus Prime toys which did not appear in the comic book series. These included "Laser Optimus Prime", part of the "Laser Rod" subgroup who transformed into a tanker truck, and featured a light-up sword (later repainted for the Robots in Disguise line as Scourge), and "Go-Bot Optimus Prime", part of another sub-group of smaller, simpler figures, who was a repaint of an earlier figure named Firecracker, who turned into a red Lamborgini. Additionally, there was an unreleased "General Optimus Prime" figure, a repaint of Dirtbag from the auto-transforming "Autorollers" subgroup, who turned into a dump truck. Go-Bot Prime's tech spec offered an explanation for Prime's numerous bodies, crediting an "internal reconfiguration matrix" as the reason behind his multiple forms.

Optimus Prime - Dreamwave Comics

In the 21st century reimaging of the Generation One continuity by Dreamwave Productions, Optimus Prime started life as Optronix (Orion to his friends), a data archivist. After taking note of a battle in which the Autobot leader Sentinel Prime had been defeated by Megatron, he was summoned to the council of elders and informed that the Matrix had chosen him to be the next leader of the Autobots. He received the Matrix of Leadership shortly thereafter, and almost arranged for the Autobot evacuation of Cybertron, intending to leave the Decepticons to their own devices, until a battle with Megatron beneath the planet's surface, accompanied by visions from the Matrix, stirred him on to fight for the safety of his homeworld.

Some time into his role as leader, Prime disappeared in a spacebridge experiment along with Megatron, but returned some time later, having spent a period of time on Quintessa. Events during this period have gone unrecorded as a result of Dreamwave's closure.

Following the awakening of the Transformers on Earth, the Autobots allied with humankind and eventually defeated the Decepticons at the turn of the century. They planned to return to Cybertron aboard the newly constructed "Ark II," but the ship was destroyed as part of a military conspiracy to take control of the Transformers. However, a terrorist organisation run by the enigmatic Lazarus was able to seize control of several of the Transformers that fell back to Earth, while the US military located Prime's body. Before his departure, Prime had entrusted a small portion of the Matrix to Spike Witwicky, who was forced by the product chief, General Hallo, to use it to reactivate Prime. Functional again, Prime used the Matrix to reactivate more of his fallen comrades, and then faced off against Megatron in San Francisco.

Following this, Prime began to experience subconscious urgings, leading both the Autobots and the Decepticons to the Arctic circle, where Shockwave arrived to greet them - and arrest them as war criminals. Shockwave had succeeded in ending the war on Cybertron, but Prime soon fell in with a rebel Autobot group that had discovered Shockwave had a greater agenda. Rallying Autobots across Cybertron to the cause, Prime faced Shockwave in battle but was defeated and had the Matrix ripped from him and used to activate Vector Sigma. Before Shockwave could make full use of the mega-computer's data, however, Ultra Magnus (in this continuity, Prime's brother) arrived and bested him. The injuries Prime took in this conflicted necessitated a prolonged restoration period in stasis... but Dreamwave's closure meant that Prime never appeared in their pages again.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "G1 Optimus Prime", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki