Dark Zarak wrote:You're looking at it backwards.
It's not "only Primes can carry the Matrix". It's "only those who carry the Matrix are Primes."
Were any of them Prime before that? Orion Pax? Hot Rod? No, they became Prime.
Here's my 2 cents in all this, the matrix knows what it wants to do and blah blah blah.
Still in a room full of bots and people he put it inside himself with no problem, it even howered for a second while his chest was opening(?).
Know, they all saw it happen, so why didn't they start calling him Prime?
My only thought to that would be that it wasn't till some time later that the term Prime would be used in honor for comanders and the comics are milking it as a way it always was.