Optimus Prime (G1)

**Optimus Prime** (オプティマス・プライム, *Oputimasu Puraimu*), also known in Japan as **Convoy** (コンボイ, *Konboi*), is both a fictional character and protagonists of the G1 version of *Transformers* of the *DC* series created by Malcolm Nicholson. He is the strongest and most courageous of all Autobots, he is also their awe-inspiring leader. Feels his role is the protection of all life, including Earth-life. Fights unceasingly to defeat the Decepticons. Selfless and endlessly courageous, he is the complete opposite of his mortal enemy Megatron. Originally a mere civilian known as **Orion Pax** (オライオン・パックス, *Oraion Pakkusu*), he was chosen by the Matrix of Leadership to command, the first in a number of heavy burdens he has been forced to bear.

Another is his bringing of the Transformers' conflict to Earth. Every casualty, human or Cybertronian weighs heavily on his spark. He does not show this side to his soldiers and never succumbs to despair. The Autobots need a decisive, charismatic leader and that is what he gives them. It was that leadership which turned the tide of the Great War. On the battlefield, there are few who rival Optimus Prime's prowess. He is easily the strongest of any Autobot his size, and his ion blaster and energon-axe are deadly weapons.

Many have remarked that if he was more ruthless, he would be a better military leader. But if he was more ruthless, he wouldn't be Optimus Prime. He would sacrifice his life to protect his fellow Autobots or those under their care and revived numerous times, which he does so on a regular basis. His compassion for other sentient beings is his only real weakness, and one the Decepticons have taken advantage of time and again... though it's also the source of his strength!

"*Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.*"

—Optimus Prime's most common bio quote.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Peter Cullen (English), Tesshō Genda (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Pekka Lehtosaari (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Klaus-Dieter Klebsch (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Marco Balzarotti (Italian), Wan-gyeong Seong (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Dariusz Odija (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Andrei Yaroslavtsev (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Blas Garcia (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Alfredo Martinez (Spain-Spanish)
*Voice Actor (Orion Pax)*: Laurie Faso (English), Masahito Kawanago (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Spain-Spanish)

### Appearance

#### Robot Mode

Optimus has a gray face with a blue helmet and antennas of the same color, heavily detailed and designed with multiple plates and layers of pieces on top of each other. Optimus has two sphere shaped bases for his antennas, with dark blue coloring around it. He has windows from his vehicle mode on/in his red chest and a dark grey strip on both of his ribs.

Optimus has little similarities to his old form. His upgrade includes his windows in his chest, blue helmet and red color scheme all over his body, with the exception of his legs being gray like his face and hands.

#### Vehicle Mode

His vehicle mode on Cybertron was a Cybertronian Truck, when arriving to Earth he adapts the Earth vehicle mode of a 1984 Freightliner Semi.

* Hair Color: N/A
* Skin Color: Not Known
* Eye Color: Blue
* Age: Not Known (older than 4 million years)
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 11 meters
* Weight: 4300 KG

## Abilities and Powers

### Feats

#### Strength level

* Beat Megatron to near death:
	+ Megatron was able to survive an explosion that knocked Cybertron out of Earth’s orbit. Doing so would require up to 9.5 zettatons of TNT.
	+ Megatron survived this with just a couple cracks in his armor, and Optimus was able to beat him down to the point where he could’ve died had he not been reformatted and turned into Galvatron.
* Lifted giant boulders.
* Truck mode can smash through stone and send other Transformers careening through steel or stone walls.
* Flipped over an ocean liner and later threw it.
* Ion Blaster can make Devastator lose his footing
* Scales to Megatron who knocked down the Washington Monument with just one punch.
	+ Optimus then stopped the monument from collapsing, then (with the help of Grimlock) pushed it back up.
	+ The Washington Monument weighs around 80,000 tons.
* Ion Blaster can one-shot tanks.
* One-shot Monstructor, a Combiner.
* Damaged the near-unbreakable armor of the Phase Sixer, Sixshot. Sixshot’s armor is made out of a material formed from a collapsed star that can withstand galaxy-level explosions.
* Ripped off Megatron's Fusion Cannon and proceeded to beat him down with it.
* Tore Swindle apart.
* Knocked out Soundwave in one hit.
* Weaker Autobots such as Huffer, Sunstreaker, and Ironhide have lifted up woolly mammoths over their heads. Woolly mammoths can weigh about 6 tons
* In Devastation, he can hit the ground so hard, it creates a massive power geyser that boasts a great amount of damage and a wide area-of-effect to boot.
* Can nearly knock Devastator off his feet with a shoulder charge.
* Has lifted a cargo ship.
* Moved a 724,000 ton oil tanker.

#### Speed

* Dodged a shot from a tank
* Dodged attacks from Nightbird, a ninja robot.
* Beat the Fusion Cannon's firing speed with his Ion Blaster.
* Can dodge missile fire. (Missiles can fly at Mach 9.7.)
* Dodged shots from the Fusion Cannon.
* Can effortlessly evade attacks from Windblade.
* Blitzed Galvatron, often portrayed as an upgraded form of Megatron.

#### Durability

* Shrugged off falling from orbit twice.
* Survived a shot from Megatron that casually blows up mountain-tops
* Can tank hits from Devastator.
* Withstood a wormhole collapsing on him.
* No-sold having a speeding truck ram into his leg.
* Survived having one of his arms ripped off, being blasted through his chest and knocked into a deep pit.
* Got stepped on directly by Trypticon and lived.
* Survived being crushed under several tons of rubble.
* Got trapped inside a chamber filled with anti-matter and survived.
* Survived a blast from an amped Megatron
	+ Megatron was infused with the Heart of Cybertron, a trinket used to power the Decepticons’ ship so that it could fly from Cybertron to the Earth 4 million years ago.
* Survived a duel with Megatron, while Megatron had one specific trait from each of his minions, for example:
	+ Rumble’s earthquake power
	+ Skywarp’s illusions
	+ Reflector’s blinding light
	+ Thundercracker’s sonic boom blasts
	+ Starscream’s cluster bombs and Null Ray
* Took hits from Thunderwing, who - by his own admission and Optimus' - has enough power to wipe out the universe.
* Tanked attacks from Nova Prime, possessed by the embodiment of the Dead Universe.
* He, Scorponok and the Dinobots survived the explosion of the Toraxxis Mega-Refinery, a facility that holds and refines around eight billion megaliters of Energon. The resulting explosion can be seen from orbit.
* Survived the surface of the sun.

#### Skill

* Shot a ship in space from ground level
* Prevented Megatron from using the Ferrotaxis supercomputer to cyberform the Earth during the events of Transformers: Devastation.
* Led the Autobots for more than several million years in the fight against the Decepticons through many different planets.
	+ Led the Autobots to victory in several continuities where the War for Cybertron had ended.
* Commanded 1,000 battle via the Omniglobe.
* In Transformers: The Headmasters, he merged with Vector Sigma - the Allspark - to save the Earth at the cost of his own life. (He was resurrected not long after.)
* Has defeated Combiners such as Devastator, Menasor, and Bruticus all by himself.
* Wiped out the Hate Plague before it could infect the whole galaxy.
* Was reforged into Sky Convoy to defeat Super Megatron and the Sky Giant.
* Teamed up with Megatron in the IDW comics to save Cybertron from the corrupted Shockwave, subsequently burying the hatchet between them in that continuity.
* By this point, Shockwave was in possession of literal god-level powers and the ability to rewrite the fabric of reality as he saw fit.
* Through the millions of years he has been alive, he has mastered almost every form of combat and become one of the greatest tacticians in Cybertron’s history.
* Killed Nova Prime during the Dark Cybertron event.
* Has repeatedly beaten several high-ranked Decepticons, including: Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Shockwave, Scorponok, Blitzwing, Motormaster, Barricade, Brawl, Breakdown, Kickback, Bombshell, Shrapnel, Trypticon, Galvatron and more.
* Fought his way past the government’s elite guard into the Cybetronian Senate while he was still Orion Pax and without the aid of the Matrix.
* In the Prime Wars Trilogy, he finally defeated Megatron one-on-one, ending the Great War.
* He can effectively lead skirmishes on different battlegrounds.
* Once managed to somehow to beat Cthulhu. (Yes. that Cthulhu.)
* The Matrix of Leadership can send him visions of possible futures.
* Defeated Unicron.

## Transformation

* **Vehicle Mode**: Optimus’ main transformation in almost every Transformers continuity is a Freightliner Cab-over-engine Class 8 semi-truck, which serves as his main form of disguise when not in active combat. Such a vehicle fits his physique quite well; according to the US Department of Transportation, those within the Class 8 group can carry weights exceeding 33,000 lbs - this includes the vehicle’s own weight and those of its passengers and cargo. While transformed, Optimus can reach speeds up to 175 mph and is still as immensely durable as his normal form. He is more than willing to ram into his foes or swing his trailer as a melee attack and can traverse through large bodies of water thanks to thrusters and other adaptations. Transformations between his truck and robot forms are a matter of mere seconds, allowing Prime to switch his tactics on the fly and adapt to the current situation at hand.
In his robot form, Optimus is technically split up into three modules which he is mentally linked to. The Optimus Module is his actual body and the most important one out of the three; while damage to any of them is felt either way, the survival of the other two is highly dependant on the Optimus Module’s own whereas it can function without them. The Prime Module takes the form of a small remote-controlled vehicle called Roller that he can use to scout out distant locations. Lastly, the Combat Deck hidden inside his vehicle form’s trailer contains emergency supplies, weapons and an antenna that boosts his communications with other Autobots.

### Weaknesses

* **Honorful**: Although he will not hesitate to fight and kill if the situation calls for it, Optimus is honor-bound to hold back his full power and avoid collateral damage to the surrounding environment and loss of innocent life. Many believe that he would be a much more successful military commander if he were more ruthless, but that would go against what makes him Optimus Prime to begin with.
* **Not Invincible**: Despite how powerful Optimus is, he is not as invincible as some Autobots who look up to him say, since enough damage will be enough to kill him if his opponent possesses the means to output such power. This has lead to the many deaths he had undergone throughout the G1 continuity, even if he did eventually get better as time went on.

### Equipment

* **Matrix of Leadership** (マトリックスオブリーダーシップ, *Matorikkusu obu Rīdāshippu*): As his name implies, Optimus holds the rank of Prime, designating him as the leader of the Autobots. This position is derived from - once again - Primus himself as attributed by the original 13 Transformers he had created. To serve as physical proof of their status, each Prime was entrusted with the Matrix of Leadership, a talisman which contains a portion of Primus’ spark. This trinket grants its user the wisdom and experience of the Primes, as well as a built-in counter to any source of evil, regardless of however strong it may be. Optimus keeps the Matrix on his chassis at all times, and while it does allow him to harness its powers in combat, he often holds back in the event he can cause unwanted collateral damage. He was notably separated from it during the events of the Transformers movie, whereupon he passed it on to Hot Rod before dying, but he reclaimed it in short fashion after being resurrected when the newly-dubbed Rodimus Prime was infected by the Hate Plague. In most instances similar to these, the Matrix cannot be taken away by force nor can it be destroyed by any conventional means, as it is usually passed on to another Autobot worthy of being called a Prime in the event the bearer is compromised in some fashion. At its core, the Matrix can increase the strength of its bearer to immense levels, allowing them to take on almost any threat they face single-handedly, up to and including universal-level threats such as the planet-eating Unicron. It also connects them to the Cybertronian afterlife, allowing them to commune with previous Primes or even resurrect fallen Transformers. In an even more absurd take on its abilities, the Matrix also grants the bearer the knowledge of almost any form of technology to ever exist as well as the ability to remotely control them. It has also acted as a healing factor of sorts by repairing grievous amounts of damage sustained by its bearer and has even been responsible for straight up resurrecting Optimus at one point in the Japanese continuity.

### Weapons

* **Ion Blaster**: Optimus’ trusted laser rifle and his main weapon of choice during battle, the Ion Blaster fires bursts of plasma, capable of incapacitating Decepticons or destroying large stone boulders in a few quick shots. This weapon is also immensely versatile, as it can switch between multiple firing configurations; these include fully-automatic fire akin to a sub-machine gun, powerful single shots akin to a revolver and even miniaturized bolts of Energon that explode like grenades. When not in use, the blaster is hidden in his body, ready to be called at any time. Despite this being his primary firearm, Optimus’ combat training has allowed him to wield other ranged weapon types, ranging from shotguns to machine guns, sniper rifles, EMP grenades, rocket launchers and mounted weapon emplacements. On the battlefield, he can store the images of most weapons he comes across in his memory, which he can then switch to and from for any situation he finds himself in. While his various gaming appearances show that his firearms do have limited ammo, this is less of a problem in other G1 media where such an issue is rarely brought up, likely due to his trailer often having a backup supply on hand for emergencies.
* **Energon Axe**: Optimus has extensive training with hand-to-hand combat and all sorts of melee weapon types, ranging from warhammers to swords, gauntlets and maces, and has no qualms using the environment if he absolutely has to for makeshift weapons. However, the one armament that can even be remotely considered to be his signature weapon is his trusted Energon Axe, a blade made of pure Energon which can be reconfigured into other weapon types.

## History

### Past

#### Early years

Optimus Prime began his life as an Autobot named **Orion Pax** during the Golden Age of Cybertron nine million years ago. Together with his girlfriend Ariel and his best friend Dion, Orion was a dock-worker at a storage yard who had the simple job of unloading and storing shipments of energy that came from a power plant up-river. But the times in which Orion lived were strange ones: A new breed of robot had recently appeared on the planet, with strange robot mode flight powers that led Orion and Dion to idolize them. Ariel wasn't so sure, having heard rumors that the flying robots' leader had recently perpetrated an attack on an outer city.

One day, Orion was going about work as usual when an unfamiliar group of five robots arrived on the docks, and Orion, wondering if they were new workers, introduced himself and his friends. At that moment, all attentions turned skyward as a group of the flying robots soared by overhead. Both Ariel and the newcomers urged caution in dealing with the fliers, but Orion waved off their concerns, and returned to work. Before long, Orion was shocked when he was approached by Megatron, leader of the flying robots, who claimed to be looking for a place to store his wares. Overcome, Orion showed Megatron around the warehouses and explained that they were used for storing energy... at which point Megatron ordered his followers, the Decepticons, to attack and steal it all! When Orion took a shot to the shoulder from the Decepticon leader, Ariel rushed to his defense, but was hit by another blast from Megatron. The enraged Orion lunged at Megatron, but was shot down by yet another blast from the Decepticon's cannon.

While Megatron and his troops set about pillaging the warehouses, the five robots Orion had met earlier carried his body away, in hopes of finding someone to repair him. They came upon the Cybertronian machinesmith Alpha Trion, who reluctantly decided to subject Orion to a new reconstruction process he had developed, which would rebuild the Autobots' frail bodies into battle-hardy configurations 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, which Alpha Trion had kept safe since Megatron had killed its previous holder. 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". A mighty battle ensued, which came to an end when the warehouse's fuel stockpiles were blown up by the five enigmatic Autobots, who disappeared. At some point after receiving the Matrix, Optimus learned to live with the pressures that came from the responsibilities of leadership, even coming to respect this personal burden.

Over the following five million years, Optimus Prime led the Autobots in a steady war of attrition that gradually drained Cybertron of almost all of its energy. In order to continue the fight, Prime arranged for an interstellar expedition to search for energy on other planets. Loading his best and brightest aboard a huge spacecraft, 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. No debate was to be had, however, as a Decepticon attack on the platform caused an explosion that seemingly destroyed Elita. Crestfallen, Prime boarded the spacecraft and ordered a take-off.

The Autobots' spacecraft had a troubled flight. After navigating a treacherous asteroid field, the ship was caught in a tractor beam from a Decepticon space cruiser that had been shadowing them, under the command of Megatron himself. Megatron's forces swarmed the Autobot ship, and the two leaders grappled until the G-force of the nearby planet Earth took hold of the craft, and dragged it down. Although Prime tried valiantly to pull the ship up, it collided with a mountain so violently that all the Autobots and Decepticons were knocked offline.

## External links

* Optimus Prime *Wikipedia*
* Optimus Prime *Teletraan 1: The Transformers Wiki*
* Optimus Prime *Transformers Wiki*