*cracks knuckles*The term "Prime" has had a very storied history in the past 40 years of the Transformers brand. Its meaning has changed and evolved many times over, so here's a full overview of what its deal has been since the very beginning.
WARNING: There
will be spoilers for a LOT of media from the past 40 years, both vintage and recent media.
The 1980s/early 1990sIn the beginning, "Prime" had no meaning. It wasn't a title or anything special. It was simply Optimus Prime's "surname". Early stories from the Marvel comics (some in the US and most in the UK) had Optimus named "Optimus Prime" before he became Autobot leader, even before he became a soldier with any kind of miltary rank.
The G1 cartoon, meanwhile, showed the backstory origin of Optimus in the Season 2 episode "War Dawn", in which it was revealed that Optimus had once been a young dock worker named "Orion Pax", who, after being injured by Megatron, was brought to and repaired by the Autobot sage Alpha Trion, rebuilt into a more powerful new form that Alpha Trion named "Optimus Prime". Like in the early Marvel comics, the "Prime" part of his name had no meaning. But fans quickly got to thinking otherwise when the next big development happened.
In 1986, The Transformers: The Movie was released, and introduced the Matrix of Leadership as a sacred, mystical talisman carried by those given full leadership command of the Autobot faction. A prophecy surrounding it was also introduced, one that foretold a certain special Autobot being chosen by the Matrix itself. This prophecy came true when Hot Rod took the Matrix from Galvatron and it turned him into the next Autobot leader, Rodimus Prime. It was here that the term "Prime" first took on some semblance of a deeper meaning.
But first, I need to back up a bit. While this movie introduced the Matrix into the world of the cartoon, the Marvel comics had already introduced its own version of the Matrix beforehand, that being the Creation Matrix. Issue #5 of the Marvel comics, "The New Order", revealed that "once every ten millennia a new Autobot leader is chosen and encoded with the Matrix," with Optimus being the most recent inheritor. But, unlike the physical talisman seen in the cartoon and its movie, the Creation Matrix of the comics was a non-physical program. It also functioned differently from the cartoon's Matrix, in that it had the ability to create new Transformer life, whereas the cartoon's Matrix was first just Unicron's kryptonite, and then shown in the Season 3 episode "Five Face of Darkness, Part 4" to be a repository of knowledge and wisdom acquired from each Matrix bearer.
That same episode also introduced a dynastic lineage of Matrix bearers who had all preceded Optimus. These former bearers were given no names in the episode, referred to only by descriptions in the episode's script. In chronological order, they were simply called "Ancient Robot", "Powerful Robot", "Brooding Robot", "Pre-Transformer", "New Narrator", and "U-Haul Robot".
Backing up again to the Creation Matrix of the comics, it should be pointed out that, for the longest time, it was believed that The Transformers: The Movie had taken inspiration from the Marvel comics when it introduced the Matrix of Leadership, since the comics had had the Creaton Matrix first. However, when the original first-draft script for the movie was finally unearthed just a few years ago, it was discovered that the movie had actually come up with its Matrix completely independently of the comics' Matrix. The script was dated to August 15, 1984, while "The New Order" was released on February 26, 1985. So the movie and the comics came up with their own completely separate concepts that both just happened to be called "the Matrix" in the biggest mother of all coincidences.
That said, once the movie came out, it had a big influence on the Marvel UK comics. Writer Simon Furman wasn't a fan of the cartoon, but he loved the movie and thought it was amazing. He incorporated many aspects from the movie's story into the UK comics, and later carried them over to the US comics when he eventually took over writing duties from the US comics' writer Bob Budiansky. Particularly, he took the Matrix of Leadership talisman from the movie and the Creation Matrix program from the comics and retconned the two into being one and the same thing. He also introduced a new origin story for the Transformers, inventing the character of Primus as the Transformers' benevolent creator god and the opposite of Unicron, who was reimagined by the comics as a Satan-esque evil god. The energy of the Matrix was declared to be Primus's own essence, explaining how and why it was able to destroy Unicron.
Compared to the cartoon's earlier origin story of the Cybertronians having been created by the alien Quintessons, and Unicron having been created by the alien monkey scientist Primacron, fans gravitated more toward the comics' Primus origin, prefering its more cosmic scale involving the millennia-spanning destinies and legacies of ancient space gods carried out by the Transformers in the present. During this time, the comics also introduced their own list of other Matrix bearers that had preceded Optimus Prime. Taking a page from the fact that Optimus Prime's successor was named Rodimus "Prime", the comics' list of Matrix bearers gave them the following names: Prima, Prime Nova, and Sentinel Prime.
This pretty much cemented the idea in fans' minds that "Prime" was, now and forevermore, the title held by Autobot leaders who had been chosen to bear the Matrix. Whether they were chosen by the Matrix itself or chosen by their predecessor was not clear, but bearing the Matrix and being Autobot leader seemed to be the main criteria. Whether or not all Matrix bearers had had a different name prior to their bearing it, however, remained uncertain. Some felt that "Hot Rod" becoming "Rodimus Prime" was strictly the case for him being that he was the one and only Chosen One, while others took it as a sign that other Matrix bearers could and should have pre-Prime names.
This sentiment led to the idea of "Orion Pax" becoming "Optimus Prime" in "War Dawn" being the result of him having been given the Matrix by Alpha Trion when he rebuilt Orion in that episode, when the episode itself never implied such before the movie came out. Nonetheless, the flashback of former Matrix bearers seen in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4" further supported this notion with Alpha Trion being explicitly shown to have been given the Matrix for safekeeping by the bearer who immediately preceded Optimus. Still, whether Alpha Trion gave Optimus the Matrix when he first rebuilt him or at some point later on, the debate goes on unresolved to this day.
The 1980s/early 1990s (Japan)Over in Japan, meanwhile, things were a little different. When the Transformers brand was released to the Japanese market, only the toys and the cartoon were released there. The Marvel comics had no official Japanese translation, and wouldn't receive one until 2018. Consequently, there was only one major continuity in Japan rather than two, that being the cartoon. So the lasting influence of the Marvel comics described in the above section wasn't really a thing in Japan during this time.
When the cartoon was dubbed into Japanese, several of the names and terms were changed. The Autobots were called "Cybertrons", the Decepticons were called "Destrons", Planet Cybertron was called "Seibertron", and so on. In regards to Optimus Prime, he was renamed "Convoy", in honor of the fact that he led a convoy of cars and trucks (the name "Optimus Prime" was apparently too difficult for Japanese kids to say and remember, with how many more syllables it had when spoken in Japanese--eight syllables--compared to how many syllables in has in English--four syllables).
When the third season of the cartoon was dubbed in Japanese, Rodimus Prime was renamed "Rodimus Convoy", in order to make it clear to Japanese kids that he was the new Convoy. At first glance, this makes it seem like "Convoy" is simply the Japanese equivalent of "Prime". However, later series would make it clearer that "Convoy" is more like the equivalent of "Optimus " instead, in that it's a name rather than a title or rank.
In contrast to how Autobot leadership was denoted by the rank of "Prime", in Japan the highest members of Cybertron leadership were instead denoted by the more military sounding rank of "Supreme Commander" (総司令官 Sōshireikan). Convoy held this rank, Rodimus Convoy held this rank, and all their successive leaders did, those being Fortress Maximus, Ginrai, Star Saber, and Dai Atlas. All of them held this rank and authority, but none of them beared the Matrix like Convoy and Rodimus Convoy had, because it was the Supreme Commander rank that determined leadership instead of the Convoy name.
After Dai Atlas's tenure, the original Convoy was resurrected in a new more powerful form named Star Convoy, and he remained in command with each new body upgrade prefixed-name he received afterward. The first of these was a black-colored Powermaster form called Super Convoy. Then he became an Action Master and went back to just going by "Convoy". Then he received a new "Missile Trailer" body during the Japanese Generation 2 toyline (which was the Hero Optimus Prime toy in Hasbro's markets), but still went by just "Convoy". But then he got upgraded into the sword-wielding "Battle Convoy" (which was the Japanese release of the G2 "Laser Optimus Prime" from Hasbro's markets). Other forms for Convoy have since been added retroactively by 21st-Century Japanese G1 fiction, but they mostly continued to just call him "Convoy".
The mid-to-late 1990s/2000During the Beast Era, the "Prime" title seemed to take a backseat for a while. The new main factions of Beast Wars were the Maximals and the Predacons, the "descendants" of the Autobots and Decepticons. The Maximals were led not by a single authority figure, but instead by a High Council of Maximal Elders.
While there was an Optimus, he was named "Optimus Primal" instead, and was merely a lowly exploration ship captain rather than any military commander. The in-universe reason for his name was eventually given that he was simply named in honor of Optimus Prime, while from an out-of-universe perspective, his earliest toys had on-package toy bios and a pack-in comic that characterized him as being the same Optimus Prime of old in a new form, with the Maximals and Predacons being on present-day Earth and described as Autobots and Decepticons who simply upgraded themselves with "Bio-Genetic Engineering". This original premise was dropped, however, once the Beast Wars cartoon began and reinterpreted the Maximals and Predacons as distant descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons.
With there being no Prime to speak of during this time, that also meant no Matrix of Leadership either. Instead, the Beast Wars and Beast Machines cartoons referred to a "Matrix" that was instead the spiritual dimension of the Transformer afterlife. However, this didn't stop Simon Furman from adding to the existing lore during this time. When Furman was brought back to write Beast Wars comics and prose stories for the annual Transformers convention BotCon, he wrote an epic multi-year story called "Reaching the Omega Point", in which he revisited some of the concepts he had created before in the Marvel comics. Namely, he introduced a new layer to the Primus origin for the Transformers, a group of twelve original Transformers called the Covenant, who were Primus's test run to see if he could successfully create life before he created the rest of the Transformer race.
Also of note, Furman revised the list of Matrix bearers he had introduced back in the Marvel comics (Prima, Prime Nova, Sentinel Prime, and Optimus Prime). Added to the end of the list was the obvious eventuality that was Rodimus Prime, but added to the beginning of the list was the unexpected addition of Primon, a new creation who had little-to-no information given about him. The one thing that was said about him in this fiction was that he had lost the Matrix when it was ripped out of his corpse by the Liege Maximo. When once asked about Primon and how he fit into the Marvel comics' list of Matrix bearers, Furman simply gave the nonanswer of "Umm... pass. The Matrix forgot?"
Speaking of the Liege Maximo, he was previously introduced on the last page of the final issue of the Marvel Generation 2 comics, a plot thread left dangling by the comics' abrupt conclusion. The Liege Maximo was implied to be an ancient Transformer who was among the first creations of Primus, and the progenitor of the Decepticons. But this wouldn't be made clearer until 2001-2002 when Simon Furman published an unofficial novella called "Alignment" that served as the long-belated epilogue to the G2 comics.
When Beast Wars was followed by Beast Machines, the Maximal Elders were reiterated as having been the ruling authority of Maximal government, referred to as the "Council of Elders" in the show's second episode, "Master of the House".
Behind the scenes, the story editors of Beast Wars (Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio) and Beast Machines (Bob Skir) were asked numerous questions online in regards to the status of G1 Optimus Prime and the whereabouts of his Matrix during the future setting of both cartoons. DiTillio gave answers indicating that he operated under the impression that Optimus Prime was still alive and out there somewhere, but Beast Machines featured both a statue and a "holographic tribute" of Prime that kinda resembled memorials, implying he was long dead. But to be blunt, neither Forward, DiTillio, nor Skir were really that interested in exploring the fate of the once great Autobot leader since his fate was never going to factor into the story of either series.
The mid-to-late 1990s/2000 (Japan)In Japan, things got a little confusing in the Beast Era from a western perspective. Like with before, the Maximals were called "Cybertrons", the Predacons were called "Destrons", Cybertron was "Seibertron", and Optimus Primal was renamed "Convoy". Whereas the English version of the Beast Wars cartoon created a distinction between the Maximals/Predacons and the ancestral Autobots/Decepticons, the Japanese dub treated the BW Cybertrons/Destrons as being the very same factions as the G1 Cybertrons/Destrons. This seems to have been derived from the early Beast Wars toy material described above. BW Convoy and BW Megatron even had toy bios that treated them as the very people as G1 Convoy and G1 Megatron, referring to them as Supreme Commander and Emperor of Destruction, respectively. A special Japanese-only two-pack of their bat and alligator toys even gave them bios that stated they used to be a tractor trailer and a Walther P-38.
When the first season of the Beast Wars cartoon was dubbed into Japanese, it was more or less faithful to the English version when it came to the important parts (a LOT of jokes and adlibs were added into the scripts on top of the normal dialogue translations), but a few small changes were made. BW Convoy and Megatron were said to be the Supreme Commander of the Cybertrons and the Emperor of Destruction of the Destrons, all references to the Autobots and Decepticons from the English version were rewritten to make no distinction between the G1 and BW Cybertrons/Destrons, the one mention of the Maximal Elders was omitted, and all references to the "Great War" were changed to be about less specific, more nebulous conflicts of the past.
With all these changes, BW Convoy was originally perceived as being the same character as G1 Convoy. Supplementary material ran with this, with a profile printed in a Japanese manga describing him as having been fighting the Destron army for "thousands of years, and other magazine articles featuring artwork of him possessing his own Matrix, called an Energon Matrix.
In addition to the Beast Wars cartoon, Japan also received two original spinoff series called Beast Wars II ("Beast Wars Second") and Beast Wars Neo. In the former, the Cybertrons were led by a new Supreme Commander named Lio Convoy. In a catalog included with the Spring 1997 Beast Wars toys, a little story description for Beast Wars II depicted Lio Convoy as being BW's Convoy's hand-picked successor. But when the cartoon started up, it was revealed that before he was "Lio Convoy" he was just "Convoy". The accompanying manga series for Beast Wars II introduced a military council on Planet Seibertron made up of several individuals who all resembled G1 Convoy in some way, with BW Convoy shown to be a sitting member (in stark contrast to Optimus Primal being a mere ship captain in the English version). The manga explained that the name "Convoy" was given by this council to those meritorious enough to have earned the Supreme Commander rank, presenting them with their own Energon Matrix. The cartoon further established that these individuals chosen to bear an Energon Matrix were a special kind of Transformer who belonged to the "Commander Class" (司令官クラス Shireikan Class).
Beast Wars II also received its own theatrical movie, in which BW Convoy guest-starred and teamed up with Lio Convoy. This movie showed them combining their respective Energon Matrices to power themselves up Super Saiyan style into new forms called "Burning Convoy" and "Flash Lio Convoy". BW Convoy was also treated as a "legendary Supreme Commander", seemingly reiterating the notion of him being treated like the same person as G1 Convoy. The Beast Wars II cartoon also introduced Lio Convoy's son Lio Junior, whose unique circumstances surrounding his birth led to him receiving a copy of Lio Convoy's Energon Matrix. When the two combined their Matrices, they could merge into a legendary green-colored form.
When Beast Wars Neo rolled around, it seemingly took inspiration from the military council seen in the Beast Wars II manga by introducing the Great Convoys, a group of several robed Convoys who oversaw military governance on Seibertron under the authority of Vector Sigma. The main leader of this series was the rule-bending Big Convoy, who was assigned by the Great Convoys under Vector Sigma's orders to train a team of untested rookies. Like BW Convoy and Lio Convoy, Big Convoy was yet another Supreme Commander who carried his own Energon Matrix, through which Vector Sigma could speak to him and his team to convey words of wisdom. With all these disparate Matrix-bearing Supreme Commander Convoys running around, the specialness of each sure seemed to be diluted quite a bit during this time.
When the second and third seasons of the American Beast Wars cartoon were finally dubbed into Japanese, the discovery of the Ark and its occupants in these episodes forced the Japanese to stop treating BW Convoy and BW Megatron as the same people as their G1 namesakes, as it was now explicitly clear that they were both different people. Still, there were a few more of the same changes from the English version as had been made for the first season, such as the continued removal of all references to the Maximal Elders, and the removal of all references to the Predacon Alliance. But, the Tripredacus Council
was acknowledged, since they were actually seen onscreen. And the High Council was surprisingly also acknowledged, likely because they now realized that BW Convoy wasn't the true leader of the Cybertrons/Maximals as had been previously perceived.
Beast Machines was not dubbed into Japanese until 2004; instead, Japan created Transformers: Car Robots (which would later be dubbed into English in 2001 as Transformers: Robots in Disguise). Unbeknowst to most English-speakers at the time, Car Robots was part of the same longrunning Japanese Transformers continuity that had been going on since the beginning, and contained references to both Japanese G1 and the Japanese Beast Era.
The Supreme Commander of this series was Fire Convoy, and had been chosen by Vector Sigma (the same one from Beast Wars Neo) to have his own Energon Matrix. However, he had a fraternal twin brother, God Magnus, who resented Fire Convoy for being chosen over him, and attacked his brother in an attempt to steal his Matrix from him. But after God Magnus forced a fusion between the two into the mighty God Fire Convoy, God Magnus gradually developed a subtle change of heart that culminated in the revelation that he actually did possess his own Energon Matrix all along, which had remained dormant inside his body until a sense of righteousness had awakened within his heart (though, he'd never admit to it).
This created an even more mystical sense for the Energon Matrix that hadn't been seen up until now, as it had only been depicted as an object of great power, but not yet as one attuned to the full spectrum of emotions of its bearer, implying that a Matrix can actually go dark and inert if the heart of its bearer is selfish and impure. It also showed that one doesn't necessarily have to be a named Convoy to bear an Energon Matrix, as God Magnus was still Fire Convoy's brother and said to be a member of the "Convoy Class" (a renaming of the "Commander Class" previously mentioned in Beast Wars II) despite not having "Convoy" in his name.
The early-to-late 2000sFollowing the Beast Era, Hasbro and Takara decided to reboot the Transformers brand from the ground up as the all-new Transformers: Armada. But to give time for Armada to be developed, the Car Robots anime and toyline were imported over by Hasbro as Robots in Disguise, reinterpreted as a completely new continuity separate from everything that had come before it. Fire Convoy was reimagined as a new version of Optimus Prime himself, while original new-villain-character Gigatron was changed into being a new Megatron.
Likewise, God Magnus was given the familiar name of Ultra Magnus, but his original personality full of bitterness and resentment toward his brother was left intact. Their combined form of God Fire Convoy (originally just Fire Convoy wearing God Magnus as armor) was renamed "Omega Prime" and reenvisioned as a unique entity formed from the combination of the two brothers, complete with his own unique mind and voice different from those of both Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, essentially creating a brand new Prime.
Another change that would have a larger impact on the rest of the brand was in regard to the Matrix. Previously, I said that Vector Sigma chose Fire Convoy to carry an Energon Matrix. That was largely kept the same in the English version, but with two alterations. First, instead of it being an Energon Matrix, it was treated as being
the "Matrix", as in the Matrix of Leadership (but was never actually referred to by that full name in the English version). The other change was Optimus being chosen by Vector Sigma. Instead of being chosen by Vector Sigma's own accord, it was now the Matrix itself who chose Optimus. Vector Sigma was now acting under the Matrix's will.
This was not the first time the Matrix was indicated to have a will of its own. The Transformers: The Movie had previously shown that Hot Rod was destined to bear the Matrix and become Rodimus Prime, because he was the one true bearer that the Matrix had deemed worthy. The "Chosen One", so to speak. Well, a lot of fans back in the 80s didn't like Rodimus being the extra special chosen one over Optimus, so the English version of Robots in Disguise making its version of the Matrix choose Optimus could be perceived as a sort of "course correction" born out of that original anti-Rodimus sentiment.
By 2002, Dreamwave Productions had acquired the license to publish new Transformers comics, and introduced a new mini-series called The War Within, which was set on Cybertron back bfore the war first shifted to Earth. In this series, a young Optimus Prime (originally named "Optronix" in this continuity) was shown being given the Matrix of Leadership in a ceremony conducted by the Council of Ancients. It was explicitly stated that the Matrix had chosen him, in contrast to how, in The Transformers: The Movie, he had specifically stated he was
not worthy of the Matrix. This decision to make Optimus chosen feels like more of that same negative reaction to Rodimus being the chosen one instead of Optimus.
Although, it seems that Dreamwave intended that every Matrix bearer was a worthy bearer chosen by the Matrix itself, instead of just Rodimus being the only one. And it was Dreamwave that reiterated the previous Marvel concept of each Matrix bearer being a Prime. The 2004 guidebook Transformers: The Ultimate Guide fleshed out more of the Dreamwave G1 continuity by reintroducing Prima and saying that all Primes succeeded him in a dynasty of Matrix-bearers. Said dynasty was listed in Dreamwave's "More Than Meets the Eye" profile book as Alpha Prime, Guardian Prime, Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime, and Rodimus Prime. In a nutshell, this all fully cemented the idea that being a Prime meant being both Leader of the Autobots and Bearer of the Matrix simultaneously.
This was a neat and clean arrangement that Hasbro seemed to really stick to for a while, beginning most notably with Transformers: Armada, in which Optimus Prime was both the Autobots' sole leader and the current owner of the Matrix. In Armada's sequel series Transformers: Energon, Optimus was still the Autobot leader, but no longer carried the Matrix, having discarded it at the end of Armada after feeling no longer worthy of it. His chest, however, still had a Matrix-based design beneath the window pecs. And when a new version of Rodimus was introduced in Energon, he was only referred to as just "Rodimus", not "Rodimus Prime", seemingly to keep there from being more one Prime at a time.
In Japan, meanwhile, Optimus Prime was again called "Convoy" in the Japanese version of Armada, but then called "Grand Convoy" in the Japanese version of Energon. Rodimus, however, actually was called "Rodimus Convoy" in Japan, meaning the Energon series was allowed to have two Convoys coexisting in its Japanese version. But between the two, Grand Convoy was still the only one to bear the Supreme Commander rank, while Rodimus Convoy was just an ordinary "Commander". This actually bled back over in the English version with Rodimus often being referred to as "Commander Rodimus" in the English version of the cartoon.
When the next major cartoon series, Transformers: Cybertron, rolled around, there were a LOT of big differences between its English and Japanese versions. In specific regards to the Primes and Convoys, the two language versions went in very different directions. In the English version, there was Optimus Prime, Autobot leader and bearer of the Matrix (having apparently reclaimed it off-screen at some point after having given it up at the end of Armada). In Japan, he was named Galaxy Convoy, but was instead a separate individual from the previous Convoy/Grand Convoy. Though, he was still the Cybertrons' Supreme Commander and the bearer of the Matrix.
Even more differently, the Japanese version of TF: Cybertron had not one, not two, not three, but
four additional Convoys who coexisted alongside Galaxy Convoy. These four were leaders of other Transformers who lived on other planets. Nitro Convoy was the leader of the racing-themed Speed Planet, Flame Convoy was the leader of the beast-filled Jungle Planet, Live Convoy was leader of Transformers living in hiding on Earth, and Megalo Convoy was the leader of the construction-based Giant Planet.
To keep the significance and uniqueness of the Prime title intact, Hasbro opted not to refer to these four other Convoys by any kind of Prime-ish name, instead giving all four of them more ordinary names: Nitro Convoy was renamed "Override", Flame Convoy became "Scourge", Live Convoy was now "Evac", and Megalo Convoy was "Metroplex", all while the Matrix-bearing Galaxy Convoy remained as "Optimus Prime".
There were, however, three exceptions permitted. The first was when it came to evil Primes. The concept of "evil Optimus lookalikes" begin with the BotCon 1996 exclusive Beast Wars figure, Onyx Primal, who was a black Predacon recolor of the original bat Optimus Primal toy. While being the first, he wasn't really characterized as any kind of rival or clone of Optimus Primal. It was the second evil black lookalike who started the trend of being an evil clone, that being Copy Convoy, a black duplicate of Beast Wars II's Lio Convoy. He was a one-episode guest character and never appeared again, but he planted the seeds for what came next.
Car Robots introduced Black Convoy, a black recolor of the G2 Laser Optimus Prime toy who served as the arch-nemesis of Fire Convoy. When Car Robots was imported to the west as Robots in Disguise, Black Convoy was renamed "Scourge". Then, in Armada, another black clone of Optimus was introduced with the name "Nemesis Prime" (in Japan, this character was named "Scourge" in homage to the English RiD name of Car Robots Black Convoy). Eventually, the Japanese "Black Convoy" and the English "Nemesis Prime" names were brought together to refer to the same character archetype on both sides of the Pacific.
The second exception came in the 2007-2009 animated series, Transformers Animated, in which the Prime rank was changed to not refer to the single highest authority of Matrix-bearing Autobot leadership, but instead to multiple individuals of the same upper-middle rank in the Autobot hierarchy. The Supreme Commander of the Autobots in this series instead held the rank of Magnus, with Ultra Magnus being the current leader. Among the many Primes in this series were Optimus Prime, Sentinel Prime, Rodimus Prime, Longarm Prime, and more. All of whom coexisted with one another.
The third exception was a new character created for Transformers: Cybertron named Vector Prime. But I'll get into him later.
Also during this era, Dreamwave went bankrupt and lost the Transformers comic license. It was picked up by IDW Publishing, whose new comic continuity introduced its own lineage of Matrix-bearing Primes, which ultimately consisted of Nova Prime, Nominus Prime, Sentinel Prime, Zeta Prime, and Optimus Prime. However, this continuity actually set out be a more subversive one when it came to the more mystical aspects of Transformers lore. Namely, the Primes who had all preceded Optimus would turn out to have been rather corrupt individuals, with Optimus also exhibiting some personal flaws that made him a less-than-perfect leader in certain regards. In the end, the comics actually made Optimus question if being a "Prime" ever even truly meant anything at all, or if it was all just made up meaningless pretention.
The late 2000s/2010sFollowing the success of the first live action movie in 2007, things began to change. Optimus Prime was presented as leader of the Autobots, but did not possess the Matrix of Leadership, largely because of the real-world reason of The Matrix film trilogy still being popular and prevalent at the time, meaning the 2007 movie couldn't use word "Matrix" for any kind of important plot device. But this restriction seemed to have passed by the time of the 2009 sequel film, Revenge of the Fallen, in which the Matrix of Leadership was reintroduced as the key to power a giant machine capable of harvesting energy from stars. In the third film, 2011's Dark of the Moon, this same Matrix was shown to finally be in Optimus's personal possession just like the traditional Matrix of old.
Dark of the Moon also introduced Optimus's immediate predecessor, Sentinel Prime, who turned out to be a corrupt individual and the movie's main villain, with Optimus basically calling him a traitor to his Prime title. Their Primehood was also explored further in tie-in comics published by IDW, which revealed that both Sentinel and Optimus had been the last of a Dynasty of Primes that dated back to the very first ones of ancient times, the Seven Primes (who were first introduced in Revenge of the Fallen).
It was during this time that Hasbro finally decided to take a good hard look at all the disparate mythos of the Transformers brand and tried to unify things to create a more definitive backstory lore. Enter what became known as the Aligned continuity, in which being a Prime was fleshed out more than ever before: For a long time, a certain piece of Transformers lore had been stirring in the background, but only just came to the forefront of TF fiction by this time, that being the Thirteen Original Transformers.
Recall back in the '90s section I mentioned a group known as the Covenant, who were twelve Transformers created by Primus before he created all other Transformers, as a test run. The author of this concept, Simon Furman, would later reuse this concept for when he came up with the Thirteen Original Transformers as Primus's first creations. The concept of the Thirteen first appeared in the 2004 guidebook, Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, in which they were described in the context of the Dreamwave G1 comics continuity. The guidebook alluded to the existence of this group in a vague, cryptic manner to give them an air of mystery, but did confirm three of its members.
The first of which was Prima, the original Matrix-bearer from the Marvel G1 comics, whom the book also confirmed had been the very first Transformer that Primus had ever created. The second confirmed member was the Liege Maximo, the progenitor of the Decepticons from the final issue of the Marvel G2 comics. The third confirmed member was known only as "The Fallen", a betrayer of Primus and the other Thirteen who had first appeared in Dreamwave's second War Within comic series, The Dark Ages.
Of these three, The Fallen would hit the big screen when he was chosen to be the main antagonist of the 2009 feature film Revenge of the Fallen, in which the Thirteen were reinterpreted as only Seven instead. While The Fallen remained a traitor to his brethen, he was changed from siding with Unicron in his original comics appearances to instead simply wanting power for himself, as neither Unicron nor Primus had yet been added to the movies at the time.
In the time between the Thirteen's introduction in The Ultimate Guide and the premiere of Revenge of the Fallen, another member of the Thirteen had been introduced. 2005's Transformers: Cybertron series debuted the character of Vector Prime, who was the Guardian of Space and Time. In the Japanese version, since the concept of the Thirteen had not yet reached Japan, Vector Prime was said to belong to a group of Primus's earliest creations known simply as the "Ancients". But in official tie-in comics written for TF: Cybertron and published by the then-current owners of BotCon and the Transformers Collectors Club--Fun Publications--Vector Prime was explicitly described as one of the Thirteen Original Transformers. Said comics even declared that all of the Thirteen were Primes, regardless of twelve of them not carrying a Matrix, seemingly in an attempt to explain why Vector Prime had "Prime" in his name despite not being a Matrix-bearer.
Not long after TF: Cybertron introduced Vector Prime, Japan released a relatively obscure four-part text story called Beast Wars Reborn, in which Vector Prime guest-starred and confronted one of his fellow Ancients who had gone rogue, named Logos Prime. At the time, the English-speaking fans aware of Logos Prime's existence had assumed he was yet another member of the Thirteen, as it was also assumed that the Ancients were just the Thirteen under a different name. However, when asked directly about this several years later, Japanese author Hirofumi Ichikawa (who had created the character) explained that he had never intended to add Logos to the Thirteen's roster, meaning the Ancients were not the same group as the Thirteen (just as the Covenant weren't either).
Also around this time, Fun Publications built up to the debut of another member of the Thirteen in a comic story published from 2005 to 2009. This was Nexus Prime, the first Combiner. However, as soon as he was introduced, any plans Fun Pub had for the character had to be immediately dropped, as Hasbro themselves confiscated and took possession of the character, as part of their plans for the Aligned continuity.
When Revenge of the Fallen hit theaters in 2009, it was originally going to use the Thirteen Primes as part of the backstory for its depiction of The Fallen, but the final script changed things to make them be the Seven Primes instead. Hasbro went on to largely ignore this when they launched the Aligned continuity a year later in 2010, and cemented the Thirteen Primes as the official number. They also went and added to the roster in order complete all thirteen members.
The first major addition was none other than Alpha Trion, the Autobot sage from the G1 cartoon who had original rebuilt Orion Pax into Optimus Prime. This revelation was met with startled reaction by some fans because of a few things from pre-Aligned fiction that made it clear that Alpha Trion was never originally supposed to be one of the Thirteen. Back in Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, it was stated that all of the Thirteen (minus The Fallen) had all died in an ancient battle with Unicron, before Primus created the first generation of the post-Thirteen Transformers. This first generation after the Thirteen is what the Dreamwave version of Alpha Trion was intimated to be part of; he was even still alive and well during the present-day era of the Dreamwave comics.
Speaking of those comics, recall that one of the earliest Matrix bearers in that continuity's list was named Alpha Prime. It was never stated outright, but it's very probable that this was hinting at Alpha Trion having once been this very Prime, as his G1 cartoon counterpart had been a keeper (but not a bearer) of the Matrix before it was passed to Optimus Prime, yet it was a popular headcanon in the early days that Alpha Trion had beared the Matrix temporarily like Ultra Magnus did in the 1986 movie. And his official Dreamwave profile described Alpha Trion as a mentor to several Primes; who better to mentor the Prime lineage than the first Prime who had beared the Matrix of Leadership before all of the other Primes?
Yet, this hint was not clued into by most, as the name "Alpha Prime" would instead be used in a different context in a 2011 retcon that gave names to unnamed Matrix bearers from the G1 cartoon, with the first ("Ancient Robot") being named "Primon, the Alpha Prime". The rest were then named "Prima" (formerly "Powerful Robot"), "Prime Nova" ("Brooding Robot"), "Guardian Prime" ("Pre-Transformer"), "Zeta Prime" ("New Narrator"), and "Sentinel Prime" ("U-Haul Robot").
And while on the subject of ignoring/overlooking original intentions, the Thirteen weren't even supposed to be Primes, either. Transformers: Ultimate Guide only called them the "thirteen original Transformers", not the "Thirteen Primes", as the Primes in Dreamwave G1 continuity were specifically the single Autobot leaders chosen to bear the Matrix, beginning with Prima (whom the Prime title was seemingly named after), then Alpha Prime, Guardian Prime, Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime, and Rodimus Prime. The idea of
all of the Thirteen being Primes came about when Vector Prime was added to the group, seemingly to explain why he had "Prime" in his name despite not having a Matrix.
Anyway, the other reason people were startled by Alpha Trion's inclusion was because of a more ethereal concept for the Thirteen that had been formally introduced by Hasbro copywriter Forest Lee right before the Aligned continuity started up. Through Q&A venues, Lee had stated that Primus, Unicron, and the Thirteen were all "mutliversal singularities", meaning that there was only ever one version of each that existed across all parallel universes simultaneously. By contrast, Alpha Trion had several different counterparts in multiple realities, including an inherently evil, sadistic, and murderous version in the mirror universe of Shattered Glass (something that Lee stated singularities do not have due to their singular nature).
However, as Primus, Unicron, and the Thirteen saw more and more use in more mainstream media, the singularity concept became more and more unsustainable. So, Fun Publications decided to do away with it entirely in a comic story published in 2015, in which the singularities were all brought together and had their cosmic nature altered, which even resulted in the creation of Shattered Glass incarnations of Unicron and Primus (the latter of which was even destroyed in a titanic battle of gods). So, with the nullification of the singularity concept, it ultimately became a moot point in regards to Alpha Trion.
With all that out of the way, other members of the Thirteen were gradually introduced over the course of the Aligned continuity's run, particularly in novels. One by one, we were introduced to the likes of Solus Prime, Alchemist Prime, Amalgamous Prime, Micronus Prime, Onyx Prime, and Quintus Prime. Combined with the other members being Prima, Alpha Trion, Liege Maximo, The Fallen (now given the pre-Fallen name of "Megatronus"), Vector Prime, and Nexus Prime, that brought the total count of known members to 12 out of 13. As for the final Thirteenth Prime, his identity remained a mystery until the release of the lore book Transformers: The Covenant of Primus, which made the very radical (not in the good way) claim that the Thirteenth Prime was none other than Optimus Prime himself!
In this book, the Thirteenth Prime's name was omitted from the text in order to reveal that, when a young Orion Pax was first brought online in the eons following the long-gone Age of the Thirteen, Orion was the Thirteenth reincarnated, and when Orion Pax became Optimus Prime and inherited the Matrix of Leadership from Primus himself, he received all of his original memories from his time as the Thirteenth Prime.
This decision to make Optimus the Thirteenth Prime was met with widely mixed-to-negative reception, as many felt that it robbed Optimus of his humble origins as an ordinary guy who rose to greatness by his own merits and conduct, now having him instead be born into greatness from the get-go (It also reeked of a sort of petty "payback" by those who still resented Rodimus for being the Matrix's Chosen One instead of Optimus back in the 1986 movie). It also made things difficult to reconcile with how Optimus had been depicted in other Aligned media of the time, such as the Transformers: Prime cartoon, in which Optimus had been written as though the Thirteen Primes were all his ancient predecessors and ancestors, not his siblings. At the very least, the Aligned media had presented Optimus as being the one true bearer of the Matrix, with his immediate predecessor Sentinel Zeta Prime having been a Prime in name only, who had never carried the Matrix.
There was also the notion that the Thirteenth Prime being Optimus created a greatly missed opportunity regarding another character from the Marvel comics who was simply known as the "Last Autobot". The Last Autobot was strongly intimated to have been the very last of the original Transformers created by Primus in the Marvel G1 continuity (his design also served as the basis for fellow-early-Primus-creation Vector Prime), so in the context of Primus creating thirteen original Transformers, the Last Autobot would have fit the bill perfectly as the thirteenth of those thirteen. So much so that, in the final years of Fun Publications holding the Transformers convention license, they created a separate roster of the Thirteen that included the Last Autobot, giving him the new name of "Autonomous Maximus".
Other members of this alternate list of Thirteen were pre-Aligned characters Prima, The Fallen, the Liege Maximo, Vector Prime, and Nexus Prime, Aligned-originals Alchemist Prime, Solus Prime, Onyx Prime, and Micronus Prime, IDW-original figures of legend Solomus and Epistemus, and the Japanese-original Logos Prime, whom the English-speaking fandom still believed to have been meant to be one of the Thirteen at the time. Additionally, in order to keep things a little ambiguous, even more members were said to replace some of these members in other universes, like Adaptus and Mortilus, two more legendary figures from IDW like Solomus and Epistemus.
This alternate list also implied that Alchemist Prime was the true identity of the mysterious owner of Maccadam's Old Oil House, a drinking pub originally from the Marvel UK comics that has since become a recurring fixture in many other Transformers media. The 2018 post-Aligned series Transformers: Cyberverse even leaned into this notion and carried it out to fruition, revealing its version of Maccadam to be Alchemist Prime himself. Funnily enough, the idea of Maccadam being one of the Thirteen actually goes back to Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, which originally proposed the idea but as a rumor from Maccadam's drunken patrons.
The IDW comics also incorporated the Thirteen Primes (specifically the Aligned roster) into its own mythology, but in such a way that they weren't the first creations of Primus or even demigod-like, but were instead merely the leaders of thirteen ancient Cybertronian tribes. A fourteenth tribe was even led by a fourteenth Prime name Septimus Prime, as part of IDW's continued effort to subvert expectations and tradition. IDW even tried to work around the idea of Optimus being the Thirteenth Prime by introducing the concept of "The Arisen", a figure of legend who was said to be the reincarnation of the Thirteenth Prime, but whose true identity remained unconfirmed. IDW's version of Optimus was believed by some characters to be The Arisen, but he himself had his doubts about it, and the truth was deliberately left ambiguous.
The end of 2017 saw the release of the Transformers: Power of the Primes toyline, in which the Thirteen were featured front and center, each receiving toys of their own called Prime Masters. These were tiny mini-figures that represented the sparks of the Thirteen manifested in robot form, and were encased within "Decoy Armor" that was meant to contain their power. The Decoy Armors were also based directly on the designs of the outer shells of the Pretenders from the 1988/1989 G1 toyline.
To work around the Thirteenth Prime's situation, Power of the Primes created a Prime Master of the Thirteenth that was of more a generic design, with the toyline's lore saying that whoever possessed the Matrix of Leadership was considered the Thirteenth at that point, meaning the Thirteenth in this case was more of a position or state of being rather than a particular individual with a specific identity.
Power of the Primes also had a fan poll conducted to let fans choose who would be the next Prime to inherit the Matrix, in which nine options were available to choose from: Hound, Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Optimus Primal, Thunderwing, "Unknown Evil" (a silhouetted Deathsaurus from 1989's Transformers: Victory series), Megatron, Shockwave, and Star Saber. Of these options, Optimus Primal was the winner, and received a new Leader class toy based on his Optimal Optimus toy from Beast Wars. The accompanying Power of the Primes cartoon produced by Machinima featured Primal earning the Matrix and becoming Optimal Optimus.
That same Machinima cartoon, in its previous season known as Titans Return, also alluded to the Thirteen Primes and found its own workaround for the Thirteenth, by simply saying Sentinel Prime was the Thirteenth instead of Optimus. This practice of replacing Optimus with other Primes as the Thirteenth would be repeated in other later media.
It should also be pointed out that the fifth live action movie, Transformers: The Last Knight, featured an alien character named Quintessa, who bore a great resemblance to the design of Quintus Prime, and referred to herself (yes, "herself", she's female while Quintus is male) as the "Prime of Life". However, nearer to the end of the movie, the Guardian Knights (ancient knight-based Transformers who had once teamed up with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table) confronted Optimus about Quintessa's veracity, referring to her as "the Great Deceiver", calling into question about who and what she really is if not actually a Prime. To this day, this has never been revisited.
The late 2000s/2010s (Japan)When the live-action movies hit Japan, TakaraTomy made a greater effort to create a sense of brand consistency between the Japanese market and the rest of the world. Namely, all of the Hasbro names and terms were kept in the Japanese dubs of the movies, as well as in the Japanese dubs of Animated, Prime, Prime's 2015 sequel series Robots in Disguise (not to be confused with the 2001 series of the same name; though, this new show was actually renamed as "Transformers: Adventure" in Japan), and Cyberverse. The Autobots and Decepticons were no longer "Cybertrons" and "Destrons", and Optimus Prime was no longer "Convoy". At last, the Prime title was a thing in Japanese just as it had been in English.
However, things had actually been building up to this point for a while, with a few pieces of minor Japanese media using the term "Prime" for their own purposes in contrast to the existing "Convoy" term. The first of these was the Japanese guidebook Beast Wars Universe, which had been written and published back in 2000 to give Japanese fans a better idea of what the more hard sci-fi original English version of Beast Wars had been like, in contrast to how silly its gag-filled Japanese dub had been. In the glossary section of this book was a term from the English version that had been taken out of its original context and misinterpreted as something more than it originally was: "Prime Leader".
In the Beast Wars episode "Dark Designs", Optimus Primal had complemented Rhinox, saying to him, "If you ever wanted to, you'd make one prime leader." The Japanese authors of Beast Wars Universe heard this line and mistook "Prime Leader" for a formal position of authority, believing it referred to the likes of Optimus Prime and Rodimus Prime, failing to realize that Optimus Primal had merely been using his catchphrase of "prime" as a synonym for "great".
From here, the term "Prime Leader" crept into other Japense media, such as the Car Robots toy bio for God Fire Convoy, in which it was said that Prime Leaders are Cybertrons belonging to the Commander Class (a return of the term from Beast Wars II that got renamed to "Convoy Class" in the Car Robots anime) who carry a Matrix. Fast forward to the Japanese version of Transformers: Prime, whose toyline featured a new toy of Lio Convoy from Beast Wars II, renamed "Leo Prime" as part of the brand consistency of Hasbro terms (Hasbro had previously used the name "Leo Prime" for a 2009 toy of Lio Convoy). The Japanese toy bio for this Leo Prime toy identified him as the same person as the Lio Convoy from Beast Wars II, having actually changed his name, in-universe, to "Leo Prime" after the events of Beast Wars Neo.
During the time of Transformers: Prime's run in Japan, a special promotional campaign was held called the
Cybertron Satellite, in which a large Cybertronian-styled satellite-shaped display piece was put on display in select stores across Japan's many districts, cities, towns, and neighborhoods. Wherever a satellite display was placed, that area was given its own mascot called a "
Town Commander". Each Town Commander was based on a preexisting character design and had "Prime" in their name. A total of 22 Town Commanders were created, plus a "Circuit Commander" named Safety Prime who represented Super GT motorsport racing instead of a physical location.
Also during this time, the Power Core Combiners toyline was released in Japan as a continuation of the Transformers: United line, dubbed United EX. Each of these toys had their Combiner forms referred to as a "Prime Mode", and each of them were said to possess an Energon Matrix (the same kind as originally seen in Japanese Beast Wars media, with the United EX fiction saying that the Power Core Combiners were given the first Energon Matrices). A few years later, the Japanese version of the Combiner Wars toyline, Unite Warriors, featured a combiner form of G1 Convoy named "Convoy Grand Prime", as well as a "Scourge Grand Prime" (for an evil Optimus clone named Grand Scourge), further making it seem like "Prime" referred to Matrix-bearing combiners in this context.
In the latter half of the 2010s, a whole new world of Japanese fiction surrounding the Convoy name and Prime rank was introduced in the form of the "Precursor World", a world from before the dawn of time that preceded the Big Bang that birthed the Japanese Generation 1 universe. In this primordial reality existed the Primus Vanguard, a group seven color-coordinated orders of warriors who all served under Primus himself (much like the Thirteen, the Covenant, and the Ancients). The seven orders were each led by either a Convoy or a Prime, with the five Convoys being ranked as Commanders, the two Primes ranked as Marshals, and all seven each having their own Matrix.
These seven leaders were Blue Big Convoy, Red Sentinel Prime, White Gallant Convoy, Yellow Splendid Convoy, Green Tender Convoy, Black Go Prime, and Purple Wicked Convoy. With marshal being higher a rank than commander in the real world, it seems this group was insinuating that the two Primes were actually higher-ranked than the five Convoys. Primus himself also had his own personal unit of gold-themed warriors known as the "Golden Age", who sat above the seven leaders of the Primus Vanguard. Of particular note, White Gallant Convoy also had his own Combiner form called "White Convoy Grand Prime Mode". Much like the Convoy Grand Prime of Unite Warriors, this further seemed like "Prime" was being used as something greater than "Convoy".
The 2020sAnd now we come to the present, wherein Optimus Prime remains as the present-day Prime who stands as leader of the Autobots and bearer of the Matrix of Leadership, in the current Transformers: EarthSpark cartoon, the Transformers comics now published by Skybound Entertainment, and the new movie Transformers: One. In the latter, Sentinel Prime preceded him once more, but was also revealed to have been a false Prime who took the title for himself after betraying the thirteen Primes and having them all murdered in an ambush. But when he tried to seize the Matrix of Leadership for himself, it rejected him and vanished, for he was unworthy. Optimus Prime received the Matrix directly from Primus himself, making Optimus the first true Prime since the original thirteen.
The Thirteen Primes have also become a staple of the brand, earning more and more mainstream appearances, such as Micronus Prime and Megatronus having featured back in the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon, the aforementioned Alchemist Prime reveal for Maccadam in the Cyberverse cartoon, or Quintus Prime currently featuring in the EarthSpark cartoon with his status as the creator of the Quintessons playing a major role in the series. As for whether or not Optimus is depicted as the reincarnation of the Thirteenth Prime in modern fiction, that is now completely up to the writer, as certain media still occasionally swaps him out with other Primes, such as Nova Prime in the mobile game Transformers: Earth Wars, or Zeta Prime in the afore-described Transformers: One.
And coming next year, in 2025, the Transformers: Age of the Primes toyline will finally feature full-blown Deluxe/Voyager/Leader/Titan class toys of the Thirteen. The designs for each one are drawn from different sources of inspiration from all across the brand's history, while the role of the Thirteenth Prime will again be played by Optimus but this time as his Japanese-original form of Star Convoy (now named "Star Optimus Prime" for his Hasbro toy release).
Over in Japan, meanwhile, the "Prime Leader" lore got expanded with the 2023 release of the Masterpiece toy Dark Amber Leo Prime, a black redeco of Masterpiece Lio Convoy. DALP's toy bio described a post-Beast Wars Neo setting in which the Great Convoys of that series were succeeded by a new group called the Prime Leaders, with Lio Convoy (who had become a Great Convoy, "Great Lio Convoy", following the end of Beast Wars Neo) changing his name to Leo Prime upon his promotion from Great Convoy to Prime Leader. Like with United EX, Unite Warriors, and the Precursor World fiction, this seems like more evidence of Takara treating "Prime" as an even higher position than "Convoy". At the time of this writing, however, nothing more has come of this since then.
FIN
Guiding Hand members as Primes, bah!
