Optimus Prime (G1)/Synopsis

==Cartoon==
Any stories written after the original franchise, but designed to fit into the cartoon in some way are in italics. 
===Backstory===
As seen in War Dawn, Optimus Prime was originally Orion Pax, a young dock worker during the Golden Age, nine million years ago. He had a girlfriend named Ariel, and a best friend in Dion. He admired the Decepticons for their abilities to fly. One day, a new group of robots, the Aerialbots, arrived on the docks, and Orion introduced himself and his friends. A group of Decepticons arrived, and Orion was shocked when he was approached by Megatron, who claimed to be looking for a place to store his wares. Orion showed Megatron around the warehouses and explained that they were used for storing energy, at which point Megatron ordered his followers to attack and steal it all. When Orion took a shot to the shoulder, Ariel rushed to his defense, but was hit by another blast from Megatron. The enraged Orion lunged at Megatron, but was shot down by him.
While Megatron and his troops set about pillaging the warehouses, the Aerialbots carried his body away in hopes of finding someone to repair him. They came upon Alpha Trion, who decided to subject Orion to a new reconstruction process he had developed, which would strengthen their bodies so that they could battle the Decepticons on even footing. Thus it was that Orion Pax became Optimus Prime, the new leader of the Autobots, and was given the Matrix of Leadership. While Alpha Trion set to work on rebuilding Ariel into "Elita-One" using Prime's schematics as a basis, Prime confronted Megatron, introducing himself as the Decepticon's "worst nightmare".
===Battle Lines===
This info comes from the Wings Universe, which occurs in a version of the cartoon.
Orion had been rebuilt as part of Alpha Trion's proposed "Prime Initiative", as a replacement to the Elite Guard, but after most of the Guard were destroyed by the treacherous Combaticons, the Autobot High Council was prepared to give Optimus Prime command of the new Autobot military. This transfer of power was carried out at the Citadel, with Prime standing with his best warriors. Prime promised to match the Decepticons' ferocity in order to preserve their way of life. He told his team that their primary mission would be to find and stop Megatron, though Ironhide thought they should be going after Deathsaurus and the Combaticons. Optimus reminded him that orders were orders, but broke off his speech when he noticed that Side Burn was missing. 
Around a week later, after Side Burn had been located, Optimus gladly accepted an apology from Magnum, who had mistrusted him. Dion ran up with the news that the Decepticons were massing at the walls of Iacon. Though Magnum tried to give the order to assemble the Elite Guard, Optimus received news from Ironhide that it was already too late. They watched as Devastator broke through the city wall. After Dion aided in the dismantling of Devastator, Optimus Prime boasted to Megatron that the Autobots were aided by two capable leaders, and so the Decepticons were doomed to defeat. Megatron responded, perhaps unsurprisingly, by putting a big hole in Magnum. Megatron attempted to do the same to Optimus, but Dion dived between the blast and its target. This horrified Optimus, and he overwhelmed the Decepticons with firepower. As they retreated, Optimus crouched over Dion's crumpled body. As the Autobots' tended to their wounded, Alpha Trion warned over Magnum and Dion's bodies that he could only save one of them, and one of the two was successfully rebuilt as Ultra Magnus.
===Season 1===
After five million years of war, Cybertron began to run out of energy due to the war of attrition. Optimus Prime gathered his best troops to join him on the Ark, a ship that could find other planets, where more energy could be located. As seen in flashback in The Search for Alpha Trion, Prime was the last to board, but was stopped by a cry from Elita One, who came running up to the launch platform. Prime told her that he would return for her as soon as he could, but Elita was intent on joining Prime on the mission. However, a Decepticon attack on the platform caused an explosion that seemingly destroyed Elita. The crestfallen Prime boarded the spacecraft and ordered a take-off. In the three-parter More then Meets the Eye, after navigating an asteroid field. the Ark was attacked by the Decepticons, and despite Prime's attempts to save the ship, all were knocked into a 4 million year long stasis.
In 1984, the Decepticons were revived by a volcanic eruption, but a tremor caused by a petty shot from Starscream led to Optimus Prime being awakened, and he revived his troops. Prime led the Autobots in pursuing the Decepticons, who were attacking an oil rig. Prime and Megatron faced off, but Prime was promptly set upon by Laserbeak, allowing Megatron to break off the fight and collapse the oil rig. Prime quickly rescued a pair of rig workers, Sparkplug Witwicky and his son Spike, and after introducing himself and the Autobots, the two grateful humans volunteered to help the Autobots learn more about Earth.
When the Decepticons targeted Sherman Dam, Prime led the Autobots in an attempt to stop them, battling Megatron atop the dam with his energon-axe. Distracted by a cry from Spike, Prime was knocked off the dam by Megatron, and the Decepticons escaped to carry out their next raid on the ruby crystal mines of Burma. When the Autobots arrived at the mines, Sparkplug and Bumblebee were sent in to plant an explosive charge that would entomb the Decepticons. When the pair did not return, Prime drove up to the mineshaft and deployed Roller to investigate. No sooner had Roller entered the mine, however, than the charge went off, and Prime was caught in the blast and hurled off the cliff. Prime and Roller both survived the explosion, as did the Decepticons, who freed themselves from the mine.
After the Autobots' attempt to use a holographic rocket base to dupe the Decepticons failed, Megatron prepared to return to Cybertron. Prime called for volunteers for the mission to stop the Decepticons' escape, and all the Autobots stepped forward, including Spike and Sparkplug. With all his soldiers behind him, Prime led the Autobots into battle once more, and once again faced off with Megatron, using the additional firepower of his Combat Deck against his enemy. When the combat shifted to hand-to-hand, however, Prime was blindsided by Ravage, affording Megatron the opportunity to call off the fight and instruct the Decepticons to board the cruiser. As the craft took off, emotion got the better of Prime, and he ordered Sideswipe to hand over his rocket pack. With the pack's additional boost, Prime followed the cruiser into space, but a blast from its artillery hatch sent him plummeting back to Earth. His anger fading to despair, Prime declared that the Decepticons had won. However, Mirage, who had stowed aboard, sabotaged it from within, causing it to crash back into the ocean. Believing the Decepticons destroyed, Prime ordered the Autobots back to the ship, so that they could continue rebuilding it and return to Cybertron.
Months later, in Transport to Oblivion, before rebuilding was complete, Prime and Ironhide stood looking out at the ocean, and Prime confessed he was not entirely convinced that the Decepticons were gone for good. Sure enough, Teletraan I reported an emergency at a solar power plant, and Optimus discovered to his horror that Megatron still lived. Prime led a team of Autobots to drive the villains off, and while they were successful, the Decepticons escaped with a large quantity of energy to send to Cybertron with their new intergalactic "space bridge" transport system. Spike was captured and nearly sent across the bridge with the energy, but at the last moment, Prime blasted him free of the transport pod and then hurled Megatron into the bridge in his place. Megatron would return, and Optimus Prime and the Autobots fought the Decepticons on numerous occasions.
===Season 2===
After noticing strange lights where the Decepticons were situated in A Prime Problem, Optimus Prime and the Autobots faced a squadron of Decepticons led by Starscream, and Prime was knocked off a cliff by Laserbeak, who took holographic pictures of him for Megatron to use. As part of a plot to lead the Autobots to their doom in a crevasse of korlonium crystals, the source of the lights, Megatron used the pictures to create a perfect clone of Optimus Prime, which he could remote control from a distance.
The clone managed to fool the Autobots, until the real Prime returned, the Autobots staged several contests in hopes of identifying the true Prime through his skills. Unfortunately, a sharp-shooting test and a race yielded no results, and the Autobots were forced to table the debate and go into battle against the Decepticons with both Primes. To fully complete the illusion, Megatron proceeded to create a clone of Starscream, which his Prime clone then destroyed, convincing the Autobots that it was the genuine article. Megatron promptly blew his ruse by dismissing Spike's safety as unimportant, and all of the Autobots immediately turned on the clone and blew it to smithereens.
In The Search for Alpha Trion, Prime was shocked when Megatron contacted him to inform him that Elita One was still alive, and had been captured by his Decepticons on Cybertron. Prime immediately departed for Cybertron to rescue her, but walked straight into the trap that had been laid for him, and was trussed up by the Decepticons and dangled above a vat of acid. Just as Prime was dropped, Elita used her secret power to stop time, freezing Prime in mid-air and pulling him to safety. Unfortunately, the use of her power drained almost all of her life-force, leaving her on the brink of death, so Prime loaded her aboard his trailer and set out in search of Alpha Trion, in the hope that the ancient Autobot could heal her. In the process, Prime rediscovered his own forgotten connection to his creator, when Alpha Trion shocked him with intimate knowledge of his and Elita's systems by telling him that only his own power supply could properly interface with Elita's. Prime gave Elita the power transfusion necessary to save her life, and the two lovers then joined the other Autobots in fighting off the Decepticons. Prime regretted that they had to part ways again, but Elita knew that she had to continue the fight against the Decepticons on Cybertron.
As seen in Generation 2: Redux, in 1993, Optimus Prime and the Autobots worked with their allies in Earth Defense Command to create a stronger link between their two peoples. A Cyberfactory was created on Earth to manufacture new Transformers with all the rights and status of citizens of Earth. At some point, as seen in flashback in The Return of Optimus Prime, Prime battled Megatron in a laboratory on Earth, causing an explosion that scarred scientist Gregory Swofford.
===Transformers Devastation===
Transformers Devastation takes place in a version of the cartoon, albeit with some minor differences.
Optimus Prime led the Autobots to stop Megatron's attempt to cyberform Earth. After discovering that Megatron's new weapon was the Proudstar, Optimus initially tried to preserve the Cybertronian history contained on its Ferrotaxis supercomputer. Inside the Proudstar, he received a prophecy of his death from Teletraan Alpha, but he was content to know his friends would survive. After the Plasma Core was damaged and proved to be too great a threat, Optimus reluctantly decided to destroy it and the Ferrotaxis. When Megatron shot shot the Ferrotaxis into space in a effort to stop the Autobots, Prime rode an Insecticon swarm into Earth's orbit for a final showdown with Megatron, ultimately forced to destroy the Ferrotaxis in order to preserve humanity's right to forge their own future. With Megatron's defeat, Optimus called upon the Autobots to stop merely living upon Earth and adopt the planet as their new home. Later, he and Wheeljack discussed plans for the new project.
===Madman's The Transformers===
This was written years later, but was designed to fit into the cartoon.
In 2001, Optimus Prime led the Autobot evacuation from the Decepticons' successful conquest of Cybertron, standing as the unflinching rearguard for his fleeing Autobots. Before he left, he secretly met with Ultra Magnus at the site of the future Autobot City to discuss hiding the Matrix of Leadership, against the possibility of Prime's capture or death. Unfortunately, Soundwave had secretly recorded this clandestine meeting and moved to capture the powerful Autobot relic. To everyone's surprise, the young Hot Rod defeated Soundwave and secured the Matrix. When the Autobots arrived back on Earth, Optimus Prime learned of Hot Rod's deeds, and as he was handed the Matrix, a mysterious energy from the artifact passed through both Autobots. Prime only cryptically noted that Hot Rod's destiny was greater than the young 'bot himself knew.
===The Movie===
In  2005, Optimus Prime was stationed on Moonbase One, and dispatched troops to Earth to acquire energy for an strike to take back Cybertron. The Decepticons got wind of the plan and attacked the shuttle. They schemed to use the shuttle to stage a surprise attack on Autobot City; however, a distress call summoned Optimus Prime and support troops to Earth. Declaring that Megatron would have to be stopped, Prime fought his way through the Decepticons before confronting Megatron in a duel. Despite a gash being torn in his side, Prime gained the upper hand in the battle and was poised to deliver a killing blast when Hot Rod leapt into the middle of the fight, having spotted that Megatron was reaching for a gun. Megatron overpowered the youth and used him as a shield, preventing Prime from taking his shot, and opened fire with the gun, blasting Prime in his wound. Prime fell, and Megatron stood over him, about to deliver the final blow, but at the last moment, Prime hurled Megatron off the platform on which they battling. With Megatron bested, the Decepticons fled, as the other Autobots flocked to the side of the wounded Prime.
Despite the efforts of Perceptor, Optimus Prime's wounds were fatal. Prime passed the Matrix of Leadership, and with it Autobot leadership, to Ultra Magnus. Muttering "'Til all are one", Optimus died, his lifeforce becoming one with the Matrix. When Hot Rod opened the Matrix within Unicron, Prime's voice was heard once more, dubbing Hot Rod "Rodimus Prime". 
===Season 3===
As seen in Five Faces of Darkness, Optimus Prime was among the deceased Autobot leaders within the Matrix, who told Rodimus of the Quintesson's origins.
As seen in Dark Awakening, Optimus Prime's body was entombed in a deep-space mausoleum with the many other fallen Autobots, but the Quintessons reanimated his body as part of an attempt to destroy the Autobots. Pursued by the Decepticons through space, a team of Autobots led by Rodimus Prime took refuge in the mausoleum, where they were encountered by the seemingly-reborn Optimus. Optimus dispatched the pursuing Decepticons, and Rodimus, never truly comfortable with leadership, relinquished the Matrix to him. At that point, the reprogrammed Optimus turned on the Autobots, stranding them on the mausoleum and blowing it up. The zombie Prime returned to the main Autobot force and reassumed command, to lure the fleet into a trap. Hot Rod and his Autobots survived the mausoleum explosion, and Hot Rod battled Prime. In the course of the fight, the Matrix overpowered the Quintessons influence, and Optimus returned the talisman to Hot Rod, ordering the rest of the Autobots clear while he piloted his flagship into the Quintessons' trap, setting off the booby-trap detonator, triggering the explosion of a nearby sun, seemingly destroying him.
Before the ship's destruction, Optimus's body was retrieved by two human scientists, Jessica Morgan and Gregory Swofford, who blamed Prime for the explosion that scarred him years ago. Months later, after a Decepticon attempt to steal a heat resistant alloy left Jessica paralysed, her vengeful father, Mark, joined him in reconstructing Prime's body to be used as a delivery system for spores that had been released from the exploding sun, which induced hatred and madness. When they could not reanimate Prime, they used his body as a lure instead, bringing the Autobots to be their lab, to be infected directly. Rodimus Prime managed to escape with Optimus Prime's body, and ordered Sky Lynx to find a Quintesson to restore Prime to life. Sky Lynx succeeded in recovering a Quintesson who finally brought Optimus Prime back to life. 
The resurrected Prime led a team of Autobots to the Decepticons' base on Chaar to recover the heat-resistant alloy they had stolen, so that Prime could coat his body in it and make himself impervious to the Hate Plague. Working with Galvatron, who Optimus recognised as Megatron reborn, they managed to retrieve the alloy, and Optimus escaped as his team was infected. Thus protected, Optimus confronted the infected Rodimus and defeated him in battle, reacquiring the Matrix so that he could consult the ancient Autobots for a way to defeat the Hate Plague. Discovering that the only way to cure the disease was with wisdom, Prime unleashed the concentrated wisdom of the Matrix itself to wipe out the plague. After curing the civilization, Dr. Swofford and Dr. Morgan apologized to Prime. Galvatron made a temporary truce with Optimus, and Optimus assured Hot Rod that, despite the Matrix having been emptied of wisdom, they were all wiser now, and would fill it with the wisdom they would gain in the future.
===Season 4: The Rebirth===
In 2007, Optimus Prime began to suffer visions following the release of the Matrix's energy, which foretold a great transformation for Cybertron. Prime realised that the events he had foreseen had begun with the Decepticons' theft of the key to the Plasma Energy Chamber. There, after finding Punch, and the vault, which had something stolen from it, Optimus ordered everyone to Cybertron. Prime was forced to consult the spirit of Alpha Trion within Vector Sigma, who informed him that the mega-computer had set these events in motion in order to restore Cybertron's Golden Age. When the Plasma Energy Chamber was opened and threatened to drive Earth's Sun supernova, Spike 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. The Autobots finally won and Optimus Prime told Cerebros to live on Nebulos in peace as its world's guardian after destroying the Hive's machines once and for all.
The Headmasters takes place in the Japanese version of the G1 cartoon, which ignores the events of The Rebirth, and forms it's own, complex timeline.
===The Headmasters===
Five years after Optimus's resurrection, in 2011, the Autobots had entered into an even closer relationship with Earth and began the colonization of other worlds, the first of which was the planet Athenia, where Optimus Prime was stationed. It soon became apparent, however, that when Optimus had released the energy of the Matrix to cure the Hate Plague, the consequences were more far-reaching than he had anticipated - without the energy of the Matrix to act as a balancing factor, Vector Sigma had become destabilized, and the Decepticons suddenly returned to exploit this, assaulting Cybertron in order to seize control of the mega-computer.
Optimus took a squad of troops to aid in the battle on the planet, and when the arrival of the Autobot Headmasters tipped the battle in their favor, Optimus broke off from the main attack and headed down into the depths of the planet, planning on stabilizing Vector Sigma at any cost.
Guided through the dangers of the planet's catacombs by the spirit of Alpha Trion while the other Autobots searched for the Matrix on Earth, Optimus eventually arrived at the computer, only to find his way barred by Cyclonus and Scourge. Hot Rod then arrived with the Matrix, with which Alpha Trion merged, re-energising it and transforming Hot Rod back into Rodimus Prime; for the first time, the two Primes fought side-by-side and defeated Galvatron. Before Rodimus could implement the Matrix to stabilise Vector Sigma, however, Optimus Prime sacrificed himself to perform the task, merging with the computer and restoring its balance to save the planet.
==Marvel's the Transformers==
===Backstory===
Optimus Prime was once a sportsman, who displayed his skills at the IntraFormers Sharpshooting Competition. As a serious-minded individual, he also spoke out against Needlenose's faddish "Chic Chips" line of hardware accessories.
As depicted in State Games, Gladiatorial Games were commissioned between the city-states to increase good will, and Optimus Prime was Iacon's chosen champion, and shared a sporting rivalry with Megatron of Tarn. During a match in Tarn, Optimus intervened to stop Megatron killing his opponent, Sunstreaker, but was reprimated by the Overlord, blind to Megatron's bloodust. After sabotage plunged Tarn and Vos into an inter-city war, Optimus Prime, the other athlete's and the frail Overlord were trapped on the frontlines. Optimus and Megatron accompanied the Overlord's bodyguards and tried to return him to Iacon, but the fighting was so intense, Prime had to leave to get help, and Megatron and Ravage, one of the bodyguards, abandoned the Overlord to die. 
After Tarn and Vos were levelled, Prime planned to become a medical officer, but enrolled in the Autobot army as soon as the Decepticons declared war. He was immediately put in charge of the Elite Flying Corps. At some point during the civil war, the mortally wounded Sentinel Prime passed the Matrix to Optimus. 
Lieutenant Commander Optimus Prime of the Autobot Fourth Computerized Division quickly made a name for himself as a combat leader. As seen in flashback in The Flames of Boltax, he decided the neutral Boltax could help the Autobots win the war and, ignoring the risk to the neutrals and concerns this could escalate the war, went with the Triggerbots to recruit him. This violated a neutrality agreement, allowing Megatron the opportunity to claim Boltax's Underbase databank. After Optimus analysed the Underbase, he realised it was too dangerous for any one being, and to prevent Megatron from gaining it Optimus jettisoned it into space. Seeing the circuit sect having been butchered, Prime blamed his arrogance and glory seeking, and was left ashamed, even though his victory made his career.
As seen in And There Shall Come a Leader, Optimus Prime rose to become one of the Autobots' greatest military leaders and the arch rival of Megatron, with Emirate Xaaron convincing the Autobot council to leave all decision making to him.
===Transformers 84===
to be added
With Cybertron jolted out of its orbit by the war raging across its surface, Optimus Prime chose to take a crew into space aboard the Ark to clear a path through a meteor storm. He was aware this left them vulnerable to Decepticon attack and was proved right when Megatron launched a full scale attack. Knowing they would be overrun, Optimus Prime deliberately caused the Ark to crashland on Earth, believing the planet to be lifeless.
===Early battles on Earth===
Four million years later, both Autobots and Decepticons were revived by the Ark's computer. Discovering Earth was now technologically developed, Optimus Prime initially believed these machines to be the planet's lifeforms and was shocked when it became clear that humans were the dominant species and Earth machines had no life. He looked to make a deal with humans for fuel and seemed to find some success when Bumblebee made contact with Sparkplug and Buster Witwicky. However, Sparkplug was captured by the Decepticons not long after.
Optimus Prime travelled to England to investigate Transformer sightings there and chose to destroy a buried Autobot spaceship to end the Decepticons' interest in the area. He organised the rescue of Sparkplug but not before he had provided the Decepticons with fuel. With reserves low, Optimus decided to donate all their remaining fuel to himself and four others. Heavily outnumbered, they were on the verge of defeat when the Decepticons all collapsed as a result of Sparkplug poisoning their fuel. However, just as Optimus was celebrating their victory, he and the other Autobots present were felled by a blast from the newly arrived Shockwave.
===Captured by Shockwave===
With the exception of Ratchet, all of Optimus Prime's troops were left inactive. Optimus himself had his head removed and held prisoner by Shockwave, who sought to exploit the power of the Creation Matrix to create new Decepticons. Optimus halted his efforts by transferring most of the Matrix energy to Buster. Although Ratchet managed to bring most of the Autobots back online and retrieve Optimus' body, Optimus' head would remain with the Decepticons for some weeks. The Autobots were tricked into retrieving a false head which caused Optimus' body to attack them. Buster arranged for the real head to be delivered by Jetfire, and Optimus first easily took out the Decepticons present and then defeated Shockwave himself, hurling him into a swamp.
The experience, and the fact his body had been used to harm his own troops, left Optimus Prime in a despondent mood, to the point that he was able to provide only limited opposition to Prowl's suggestion of using the Creation Matrix to create an army of Warrior Autobots. When Bumblebee was captured by the Decepticons, under Soundwave's temporary command, Optimus Prime successfully launched a one-man rescue mission, regaining his confidence.
With many of his troops offline as a result of the battle with the clone and their high-risk recovery of the malfunctioning Dinobots, Optimus Prime's troops were bolstered by Jetfire, a quintet of Autobots created using personality recordings from Cybertron, Omega Supreme and finally the Aerialbots.
===Return to Cybertron===
Optimus Prime spent some considerable time in limbo when Galvatron journeyed back from the future and was disappointed to learn the Autobots were so lost without his leadership that they turned to Megatron for help. With the help of Wheeljack, he decided to fake his death using a clone body to see how the Autobots would cope without him. He nearly died for real when he was attacked by Megatron and the Predacons, only for the Predacons to abandon Megatron mid-battle. Optimus Prime ended up pursuing his old enemy across the space bridge to Cybertron.
Optimus Prime's first act was to rescue Outback from a Decepticon, but when he found the Cybertronian Autobots, he learned Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers had been convinced by Megatron and Lord Straxus that he was an imposter. As they prepared to execute him, Outback came to his rescue but was injured by a Guardian robot. Optimus Prime's concern for him convinced his old friend Emirate Xaaron of his true identity.
Although his presence inspired the Cybertron resistance, Optimus Prime knew he was needed back on Earth, but first wanted to take care of Megatron. He and Ultra Magnus infiltrated the Decepticon base and confronted Megatron, who attempted to take them with him by unleashing an anti-matter burst. He was stopped by Ratbat, who transported all three of them to Earth via the space bridge. Optimus Prime appeared back among his troops, who were in the middle of mourning his death after finding the cloned body.
===Death===
Optimus Prime took the new Protectobots to a virtual reality factory to stop Megatron and the Combaticons from stealing the new hydrothermocline. The facility's owner, Ethan Zachary, convinced the two groups to duel in virtual reality, with the winner getting the hydrothermocline and the leader of the losers being destroyed. The Combaticons were quickly felled and Megatron fell to his virtual death fighting Defensor only to use a cheat code to re-enter the game and shoot Optimus Prime in the back. Optimus triumphed still, but only by sacrificing some of the simulation's natives, something he would never do in real life. Remorseful, he instructed Ethan to blow his body apart. His remains were taken by the Autobots and, when they found no signs of life, blasted into space.
===Existing in VR===
Only Ethan Zachary was aware of the fact that he had preserved Optimus Prime's personality on a computer disk. He used Optimus as a character in computer games and, over the years, Optimus came to believe his experiences with the Autobots had been just another game. The disc was eventually retrieved by his old friend Goldbug, who convinced him to direct the new Autobot Pretenders on their first mission and even battle Decepticon faction leader Scorponok in virtual reality, but was unable to convince Optimus of his true nature.
===Resurrected as a Powermaster===
Goldbug eventually took Optimus Prime's disc to Nebulos and convinced the scientist HiQ to construct a new body for him. Impressed with the Autobots' nobility, HiQ chose to undergo the Powermaster process and be binary-bonded to Optimus Prime, since Nebulos' fuel had been poisoned to prevent the Transformers returning. Three of his assistants bonded with some of the other Autobots present and Optimus Prime and the new Powermasters defeated the Decepticon Powermasters Dreadwind and Darkwing.
Realising they didn't belong on Nebulos, Optimus Prime and his compatriots headed back to Earth. En route, they rescued Sky Lynx and a group of human children from a slave carnival. Optimus Prime quickly took charge of the Earth Autobots, now made up of several different factions, and making the various other leadership candidates Grimlock, Fortress Maximus and Blaster his lieutenants.
===Time Wars===
Optimus Prime was made aware that Galvatron was back in the present day and assembled a taskforce to deal with him once and for all. His plans were quickly curtailed by the arrival of Rodimus Prime and other Autobots from the future, which shunted Optimus Prime and some of his troops into limbo again. Optimus Prime was able to speak to his troops through the Matrix and convince them to accept Rodimus Prime's leadership: The situation was now even more urgent, since Galvatron's presence in the past was causing a time rift that was threatening to destroy both time periods. However, after seeing how outmatched the alliance was, Optimus Prime managed to leave limbo to confront Galvatron himself, battling him until the insane Decepticon was swallowed by the time rift. The rift was finally sealed by Shockwave, after the similarly time-displaced Cyclonus and Scourge were also sacrificed to it, and Rodimus Prime and the others returned to their own time, promising to end time travel incursions.
===Underbase Saga===
Among the Autobots' priorities was recovering Buster Witwicky, who was being held prisoner by Ratbat. Answering a distress call from him, Optimus Prime and the Autobots encountered not only Ratbat's Decepticons but Scorponok's as well. However, all the groups had been manipulated by Starscream, who gained the power of the Underbase, now travelling through Earth's solar system. The attempt to defend Earth from him saw a large proportion of the Autobots and Decepticons deactivated before Optimus Prime managed to trick Starscream into absorbing the full force of the Underbase, destroying him.
===Old enemies return===
Optimus Prime took the Autobots to investigate an assault on an air base by the Air Strike Patrol, only to run into Scorponok and his troops. Realising they had been lured away from the Ark, Optimus Prime sent most of his team back there to deal with bombs planted on board. The whole scheme had been orchestrated by Megatron, now operating on Cybertron and planning to regain control of the Decepticons on Earth. To this end, he reactivated Starscream as a Pretender and sent him to attack both Optimus Prime and Scorponok. However, Starscream's original personality was intact if buried, and a shot from Hot Rod caused it to reassert itself. Starscream quickly surrendered to Scorponok. Megatron was defeated but at great cost, as Optimus Prime's friend Ratchet was apparently killed.
Some months later, Optimus Prime had Nightbeat research the incident and uncovered evidence that Ratchet might have been blown through a dimensional portal prior to the destruction of Megatron's base and become trapped in Unspace. An attempt to retrieve him however revealed that the explosion had fused Ratchet and Megatron into one creature, who rampaged through the Ark. Although Kup advocated killing the creature, Optimus refused to do so and had Fixit separate them, even though there was no way to save Ratchet without also saving Megatron. Both were sealed into stasis pods.
===Alliance against Unicron===
Having learned that Unicron was en route to attack Cybertron, Optimus Prime first attempted to find the Creation Matrix, lost with his old body, but was thwarted by the Decepticon commander Thunderwing. He instead decided to form an alliance with Scorponok, surrendering his command to him as a gesture of trust. He had difficulty getting Scorponok to take the matter seriously, and just as they were making headway, the base was attacked by a rogue Decepticon group led by Shockwave. Optimus Prime placed stopping the subsequent Decepticon civil war from spilling over into human settlements as the highest priority, and he and Nightbeat managed to break up the fight between Scorponok and Shockwave with the help of the superhero team the Neo Knights.
Then, all the Transformers were transported to Cybertron by Primus to defend it from Unicron, with Optimus Prime given command of the army. The battle resulted in many casualties, including Scorponok, despite the arrival of Grimlock with reinforcements. The tide was finally turned by the arrival of the corrupted Matrix, still animating Thunderwing. Optimus Prime seized the Matrix, purified it and plunged it into Unicron, destroying him. Optimus Prime himself was left badly damaged and died after appointing Grimlock his successor.
===Action Master===
Optimus' mind actually survived in HiQ and led the Neo Knights in locating the Last Autobot buried at the heart of Cybertron, which both Autobots and Decepticons had abandoned thinking it was destroying itself. The Last Autobot granted Optimus Prime a new body and he travelled to Klo to confront the new Decepticon leader, Bludgeon, who had wiped out most of the Autobots. However, with the survivors rallying behind Optimus Prime, and the Last Autobot reviving the fallen, the Decepticons were put to flight and Optimus led the Autobots back to Cybertron.
===Original future (UK)===
The events seen in the UK comics are initially seen as the definitive future of the series, until time travel rewrites the timeline to become a potential future.
In 1995, Optimus Prime appeased human feminists by creating Arcee. Although this did little to please the target group, she proved her worth by fighting off an attack by Shockwave. In 2004, Optimus Prime was present for the unveiling of Autobot City. Another attack by Shockwave was defeated by Hot Rod's illogical behaviour in attacking him instead of protecting the human dignitaries.
As in the movie, Optimus Prime fell battling Megatron at Autobot City. In this timeline, it was his final death.
===Another Time and Place===
Believing the Decepticons gone for good, Optimus Prime settled on Cybertron, despondent that the Action Master process had deprived him and many others of their ability to transform. He was finally roused into action when Prowl realised that Grimlock and the Dinobots had inadvertently led the Decepticons to Hydrus 4, the location of the nucleon which had revived several deactivated Autobots. Optimus Prime and Grimlock worked together to prevent Bludgeon using the nucleon to revive Megatron.
===Generation 2===
to be added
===Classics===
to be added
===Regeneration One===
to be added
Category:Synopsis