Optimus Prime

Transforms from tractor trailer to robot with headquarters and back!

AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME

FUNCTION: COMMANDER
"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

OPTIMUS PRIME is the largest, strongest and wisest of all Autobots. Feels his role is the protection of all life, including Earth-life. Fights unceasingly to defeat the Decepticons. Splits into three autonomous modules: 1) Optimus Prime... the brain center known as Commander; 2) Roller, the Autobot scout car... a spy who operates up to 1200 miles away; and 3) Autobot Headquarters... the combat deck equipped with a versatile mechanic/artillery robot. Injury to one module is felt by the other two.

• Strength: 10
• Intelligence: 10
• Speed: 8
• Endurance: 10
• Rank: 10
• Courage: 10
• Firepower: 8
• Skill: 10

Optimus Prime needs almost no introduction. His tech specs describe exactly how he was portrayed in the cartoon: wise, benevolent, brave, and tough. It's probably because of the stigma of portraying violence in kid's cartoons that we never got to see this side of Prime in the show until Transformers: The Movie was released. Then we got to see him doing what he could really do: taking the point in battle, running Decepticons off the road as a truck and then beating Megatron to scrap with his bare hands. You couldn't ask for a better hero to look up to (no pun intended) than this guy. Watching him die half an hour into the movie was without question the most surprising and moving thing a twelve-year-old boy could ever hope to see in an animated anything.

We were all fairly glad when "The Return of Optimus Prime" was aired some years later, but deep in our hearts we knew that it was a cheat. But no one complained, because frankly Rodimus Prime was a lousy leader by comparison.

In 1988, Optimus Prime was re-released as a Powermaster with an updated tech spec:

AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME

FUNCTION: AUTOBOT LEADER
"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

The beloved leader of all Autobots. Dedicated to protecting all life forms--mechanical, human, and otherwise. Willing to sacrifice anything in order to end the Autobot/Decepticon conflict. Wise and compassionate...the inspiration that fuels every Autobot. Binary bonded to the super intelligent Nebulan computer programmer, HiQ. In engine mode, HiQ handles all of Prime's power needs. Trailer transforms into armed fortress, complete with laser rifle, concussion blaster, and 2 twin particle beam cannons. Tractor and trailer combined construct Optimus Prime's new super-powered robot form.

• Strength: 10
• Intelligence: 10
• Speed: 6
• Endurance: 10
• Rank: 10
• Courage: 10
• Firepower: 9
• Skill: 10

Optimus Prime was re-introduced to the cartoon series in "The Return of Optimus Prime" a year or two before this toy was released, indicating that for once, the cartoon stimulated the production of a new toy instead of simply marketing an existing one. The cartoon version wasn't anything like this, though.

Powermaster Prime looked more or less the same as the old Prime, but the trailer had a whole lot more guns mounted on it now. The cab transformed completely differently, and the result was a robot that looked much, much more like the cartoon Prime than the old toy did. The trailer transformed not into a headquarters/repair bay, but a free-standing defense base. Finally, the truck cab could fold up into a cube which fit into a compartment on the trailer, which transformed into a triply-large body for Prime with shoulder-mounted guns and just a whole lot of bulk. The toy was almost as large as Omega Supreme or Scorponok. Prime was runnin' with the big dogs now.

In the Japanese "Transformers: Masterforce" cartoon, Powermaster Optimus Prime was known as the Godmaster Ginrai and, in his combined form, Super Ginrai.

In the movie, of course, he died at the hands of Megatron. After a brutal hand-to-hand battle which resulted in Megatron being knocked senseless to the ground, Optimus walked to recover his massive laser cannon and finish him off. Megatron found a pistol of some sort lying on the ground and pled with Optimus for mercy as he made his last desperate attempt. Hot Rod tried to stop him, and was overpowered and used as a human shield while Megatron unloaded round after round into Optimus's body, with a level of accuracy unknown in the cartoons. Though Optimus succeeded in beating Megatron into a condition sufficiently vulnerable to be cast into deep space by Starscream, he died on the operating table. Perceptor's words still echo eerily in the minds of many of my generation: "I fear the wounds are... fatal."

It should be noted that Optimus's inclusion in the film's blatantly unnecessarily high body count was a last minute addition to the script; it served no real purpose other than to allow Rodimus Prime to assume leadership of the Autobots - and to allow Hasbro to release the new toy line in time for Christmas.

In the comic books, however, Optimus's death occured much earlier in the (admittedly vastly different) story arc (Issue 24), and in a much more contrived manner, typical of writer Bud Budiansky.

Predictably, a new mass-energy-creation device has been created, and the Decepticons arrive to steal it, Autobots in pursuit. Rather than risk destroying the prototype, one of the research facility's staff members suggest that they settle the matter in a video game. Of course they agree, with the Protectobots, Combaticons, Megatron and Optimus wiring themselves into the system. To raise the stakes, Megatron and Optimus both wire themselves full of explosives, with the loser agreeing to die. The Autobots win the competition by acting benevolently toward the "NPC's" in the game, leaving Megatron alone to fight (and lose) against Optimus and Defensor. However, Megatron cheats, using a secret respawn code, and Optimus accidentally allows the death of a city's worth of NPC's. Due to some twisted sense of nobility, Optimus declares himself as having lost, and is destroyed as the Decepticons leave with the Hydrothermocline.