Optimus Prime
Bearer of the Matrix of Leadership. Believes freedom is the right of every sentient being and is always first to stand between the defenceless and danger.
Where he comes from
Cybertron. In most modern versions he is an ordinary worker, archivist or miner from Iacon named Orion Pax, chosen by the Matrix of Leadership as the new Prime.
Story
Orion Pax never dreamed of power. He believed Cybertron could be changed through words and honesty, which is exactly why the Matrix chose him. As Optimus Prime he led the Autobots against his former friend Megatron in a war he never wanted.
After his home planet dies, Optimus searches for a new home for his people and finds it on Earth. He falls and returns more than once, yet always stays the same: a leader who is first to take the blow and last to leave the battlefield.
Classifier: traits & abilities
- Faction
- Autobots
- Role
- Supreme leader, Prime
- Alt-modes
- Cab-over semi truck (G1), long-nose semi (films), Cybertronian vehicles
- Weapons
- Ion blaster, energon axe or sword; shield and blades in the films
- Abilities
- Bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, brilliant strategist and close-combat fighter; in G1 a separate trailer that becomes a combat deck
- Strengths
- Charisma, unshakable principles, ability to inspire
- Weaknesses
- Takes on too much responsibility; mercy toward enemies that they exploit
- Personality
- Calm, wise, selfless
- Key relationships
- Megatron (former friend and arch-enemy), Bumblebee, Ratchet, Alpha Trion
- First appearance
- 1984, cartoon and Marvel comics
- Voice (G1 and films)
- Peter Cullen
Filmography
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 1984–1987 | The Transformers (G1), cartoon |
| 1986 | The Transformers: The Movie |
| 2002–2006 | Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, Cybertron) |
| 2007 | Transformers |
| 2007–2009 | Transformers: Animated |
| 2009 | Revenge of the Fallen |
| 2010–2013 | Transformers: Prime |
| 2011 | Dark of the Moon |
| 2014 | Age of Extinction |
| 2017 | The Last Knight |
| 2018 | Bumblebee (prologue) |
| 2018–2021 | Cyberverse |
| 2022 | EarthSpark |
| 2023 | Rise of the Beasts |
| 2024 | Transformers One (as Orion Pax) |
Main screen appearances; not an exhaustive list.
Fan prequel: «Orion's Last Record»
An original story by this site. Not part of the official canon.
On the night before the Matrix spoke to him, Orion Pax stayed in the Iacon archive longer than anyone. He was copying an old mine log in which workers complained about cave-ins — a log the Senate had ordered erased.
"Why keep something nobody will read?" asked the night guard. "Because one day someone will want the truth," Orion replied. "And truth has no right to vanish just because it is inconvenient."
He hid the copy in the archive's deepest cabinet and left at dawn. That same morning a light unseen for millennia blazed over the square, and a voice like a bell called him by a new name. Many years later Optimus Prime would return to that cabinet — and find the log exactly where he had left it.
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