Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime, Optimus or Prime for short, is a fictional commander of the heroic Autobots and the main protagonist from the Transformers universes. Called "Convoy" in Japan due to his leading a convoy of vehicles, he has become the most recognizable Transformer of the series.
He is the commander of the Autobots, a faction of heroic robots from the planet Cybertron who wage their battles to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons, for control of their homeworld, and by extension, peace in the universe. The immensely kind and compassionate Prime puts all his talent to use to improve the world around him, and has dedicated himself to the protection of all life, particularly the inhabitants of Earth; he will battle his foes with unyielding resolve to uphold this belief. In power and intelligence, Optimus Prime has no equal, known as one of the greatest heroes on both Cybertron and Earth.

The original Optimus Prime transforms into a cab over semi truck. The truck's cab transforms into the robot mode of Prime himself, with vast strength and armed with a laser rifle. Contained within his chest is the mystic talisman known as the Autobot Matrix of Leadership (or Creation Matrix), carried by all Autobot leaders and passed down through the ages. The truck's trailer disconnects and transforms into the Combat Deck, a mobile battle-station/command headquarters with an "Auto-Launcher" robot armed with assorted artillery and beam weapons. It can also serve as a radio antenna for battlefield communications between the Autobots. The Combat Deck can launch Prime's third component, Roller, a mobile scout buggy that can easily slip behind enemy lines; when Roller is present somewhere, it is as if Prime is there himself. Injury to one component is felt by each of the others, and while Prime could survive the destruction of either, despite the slight degree of autonomy they possess, the Combat Deck and Roller would not be able to survive without him.

Additional powers included (somewhat inconsistently) in the animated series and comics are short-range optic blasts, holographic map projections, and deployable hydro-foils designed by Wheeljack which allowed Prime and the other Autobots to traverse bodies of water with ease. One of Prime's more memorable abilities from the animated series was the ability to retract his right hand and replace it with a glowing energon axe; although used only once, the axe proved popular enough to be rendered in toy form several times in recent years, and made further appearances in both the Dreamwave Productions and the Devil's Due Publishing comic series.

Across the assorted continuities of the original Transformers universe, there have been various interpretations of Optimus Prime. One of Prime's most notable characteristics in any form was his adamant commitment to leadership by example, and avoidance of any hypocrisy in his command, but beyond this, the animated series leaned towards Optimus Prime as a straightforward, wise and essentially upbeat battlefield general. The Marvel Comics series, on the other hand, in addition to these more obvious characteristics, suggested a Prime secretly plagued by self-doubt and, more importantly, a conflicted sense of pacifism that often made him an extremely reluctant warrior, and it was occasionally implied that the conflict with the Decepticons lasted as long as it did primarily due to his unwillingness to take a more aggressive stance.

A tragic constant of the character is his predilection for self-sacrifice - across several continuities, Prime (and later, his modern namesakes) is almost sure to meet his end and later return to life (sometimes more than once). This trend was even the victim of a bit of gentle spoofing in the Beast Wars animated series, when the Megatron of that universe noted that Optimuses "do love to sacrifice" themselves.


Optimus Prime began his life as a robot named Orion Pax, a mostly defenseless 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 with new flight capabilities in robot mode that made Orion idolize them. Unfortunately for Orion, when Megatron, the leader of the new group robots, approached him with inquiries about using one of the dock warehouses, Orion was swayed by Megatron, and he and Ariel were severely 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 the Decepticons erupted, and would remain in that position for the next four million years. Ariel was rebuilt into Elita One, the commander of the Autobot resistance on Cybertron.

As leader of the Autobots, Prime headed up the Autobots' mission to search out new worlds with new sources of energy to revitalize the depleted Cybertron. Optimus vowed to Elita that he would return from his mission for her, but just before the launch of the Ark Optimus was mistakenly led to believe Elita was killed. Shortly after its launch, the Autobots' craft was attacked by the Decepticons' space cruiser, the Nemesis, and boarded by Megatron and the Decepticons. In the ensuing struggle, the G-forces of a nearby planet pulled both craft down, and the Autobots' ship crashed into a volcano, thrusting all the occupants into emergency stasis. Four million years later, in the Earth year A.D. 1984, a volcanic eruption jarred the ship's computer, Teletraan I back to life, and it reactivated the Decepticons, programming them with new Earth-based disguise modes. As a parting gesture, Starscream fired upon the Autobot ship, creating a landslide. The vibrations from that landslide knocked Prime into the path of the computer's restoration beam, restoring him to life, and beginning the war anew on Earth.

Prime was perpetually at the forefront of the action throughout the early years of the war on Earth, usually confronting Megatron, and, in some rare instances, being forced to team up with him for the greater good (or the lesser evil) - such as against the Insecticon controlled Decepticons or the Combaticons. He has suffered his fair share of battlefield scrapes, almost meeting his end when his vital cosmotron component was critically damaged by the Decepticon jets and Laserbeak, having his body be disassembled and turned into Decepticon trophies (such as turning much of his body into a pet "alligaticon" and one of his arms into a defense laser), and suffering a severe - though unfair - defeat when Megatron challenged him to one-on-one combat while imbued with the different abilities of all the Decepticons. The loser would leave Earth. However, Teletraan I discovered the deception in time and the Autobots were able to drive the Decepticons off.

Generally, Prime acted in a commanding role as part of larger battles and events, but played prominent and solo roles in a few, also. In 1985, Megatron created a virtually perfect duplicate of him, leaving the Autobots unable to differentiate between the two until the clone disregarded the safety of their human companion, Spike Witwicky, exposing the deception.

One of Prime's most prominent appearances came in the episode "Prime Target", where the big game hunter Lord Chumley captured a secret Soviet jet, leading to panic of a possible war. Chumley then set his sights on the ultimate trophy, the head of Optimus Prime. In order to lure Optimus Chumley captured the Autobots Tracks, Bumblebee, Jazz, Beachcomber, Blaster and Inferno. Windcharger and Huffer were able to avoid being trapped. When Cosmos learned of the location where Chumley was keeping the captured Autobots, Optimus Prime accepted Chumley's challenge to meet him alone. Although interrupted by the Decepticons Astrotrain and Blitzwing's attempt to ally the Decepticons with Chumley, Optimus defeated the big game hunter and freed the Autobots. Chumley and the stolen jet were given over to the Soviets by the Autobots as punishment for his actions.

The same year also saw Elita One captured by the Decepticons on Cybertron and used to lure Prime there alone; although knowing it was a trap, he ventured in solo and was defeated by the Decepticons and nearly destroyed, until Elita's stasis-field abilities froze time long enough for them to escape. Prime was forced to seek out Alpha Trion to save the wounded Elita's life, and in the process, rediscovered his forgotten connection to his creator. In the episode "Starscream's Brigade'" the Autobots were honored when a memorial statue of Optimus Prime was unveiled. Cliffjumper and Jazz attended the ceremony, but it was interrupted by Starscream and the Combaticons. Swindle shot up the statue.

In the episode "Masquerade", towards the end of the year, Prime was among the team of five Autobots who disguised themselves as the Stunticons, with Prime’s alternate mode making him the perfect choice to masquerade as Motormaster. Penetrating the Decepticons’ camp, the Autobots ran into trouble when the real Stunticons arrived, trying to prove their identities by forming Menasor. With a combination of Windcharger’s magnetic powers and Mirage’s illusion-creating ability, the Autobots were able to appear as Menasor too, but the deception was soon revealed, though they were still able to thwart the Decepticons’ plans.
Optimus Prime and Jazz in The Transformers: The Movie
Optimus Prime and Jazz in The Transformers: The Movie

Over the course of the next twenty years, the Decepticons succeeded in seizing control of all of Cybertron, forcing the Autobots to operate from their new city on Earth, and from two bases on Cybertron's moons. In the Earth year A.D. 2005, Prime was stationed on Moonbase One, and dispatched troops to Earth to acquire energy for an upcoming strike on Cybertron. The Decepticons, however, got wind of the plan and used the shuttle run to attack Autobot City; a distress call summoned Prime and support troops to Earth, and in the fearsome ensuing fight with Megatron, Optimus Prime sustained fatal injuries, but not before turning the tide of battle and forcing the Decepticons to flee. Despite the efforts of Perceptor, Optimus Prime died. The Matrix, and with it leadership of the Autobots, fell into the hands of Ultra Magnus, Galvatron, and subsequently to Rodimus Prime. His last words were "Until the day...'till all are one."

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 ordered the other Autobots to clear out while he piloted his flagship into the Quintessons' detonator, triggering the explosion of a nearby sun.

Prime was believed to have been destroyed in the explosion. According to The Return of Optimus Prime, Prime's body was recovered from the craft by two human scientists, Jessica Morgan and Gregory Swofford, just minutes before the explosion. However, as their ship departed, it was coated with solar spores released by the explosion of the sun. Jessica's father, Mark Morgan, loathed the Transformers (both Autobot and Decepticon), and his hatred only grew when an attempt by the Decepticons to steal a heat-resistant alloy he had developed resulted in Jessica being paralyzed. Swofford and Morgan reconstructed Optimus Prime's body in an attempt to use it as a delivery system for the spores, which induced enmity and madness in every sentient being they came into contact with, 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 unleashed its concentrated wisdom to destroy the Hate Plague.

In 2006, Prime began to suffer from 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, and Prime learned 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 Nebulans who had become involved in the conflict as a result of these events were able to drain off the excess solar energy and revitalize Cybertron.

The seldom-seen fifth season of the show featured previous episodes' stories retold by a stop-motion Powermaster Optimus Prime to the live-action youngster Tommy Kennedy. No real back story was ever established for Prime becoming a Powermaster, but the new sequences were said to take place after the four previous seasons, indicating that in the original Sunbow continuity at least, Prime became a Powermaster at some point.

Although the animated series ended in the U.S. after The Rebirth, Optimus Prime continued to appear in animated sequences in the Transformers toy commercials, progressing from Powermaster to Action Master, and even appearing as a CGI Combat Hero Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime
Affiliation	Autobot
Japanese name	Convoy
Sub-Group	Convoys Powermaster Action Master Go-Bots Autorollers
Rank	10
Function	Autobot Commander
Partner	Roller Hi-Q Apex Bomber Marissa Faireborn
Motto	"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." (Generation 1) "No sacrifice is too great in the service of freedom." (Classics)
Alternate Modes	Freightliner Cab-over-engine Class 8 tractor (Later forms have usually been variants of the original). Marvel and Dreamwave comics have depicted him in a variety of Cybertronian truck forms. In Devil's Due comics he has had several forms including that of a Cobra Sentry Missile System tank and a 1920's truck. Lamborghini Diablo as a Go-Bot. Dump truck as an Autoroller.
Series	Transformers: Generation 1 Transformers: Generation 2 Machine Wars Transtech Robot Masters Transformers: Titanium Transformers: Alternators Transformers: Classics
English voice actor	Peter Cullen, Roger C. Carmel in the installment Masquerade only, Gary Chalk
Japanese voice actor	Tesshō Genda