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As the title says, which should he be.

Realistically he is a repaint of a Maximal toy so that explains the maximal insignia on his chest yet in the balancing act storyline his bio says that he was cloned from the remains on an optimus prime, and that unicron tortured and broke him.

The pictures of this torture show a much more standard looking prime with a truck windscreen chest who would appear to be an autobot, yet later on it clearly shows the Maxmial emblem on his chest indicating that Nemesis Prime was cloned from a maximal not an autobot.

Do you think this can just be chalked up to an error on the creators part, if so you'd think they would not create a bio with such an obvious avoidable error no?

I know its very anal but given all the myriad continuities we TF fans have to deal with additional avoidable errors give me a headache.

Well, in "Beast Wars: The Gathering" from IDW the Maximals that haven't yet been to Earth all have Cybertronian alt.modes that look similar to this particular Optimus Prime (on the first page of Part 2). So, this Prime could have a truck-like mode and still be a Maximal, not an Autobot.

What I find confusing (in terms of fiction, not the toys) is that Nemesis Prime has a woolly mammoth alt.mode. I had always assumed that the Optimus Prime he was cloned from was Big Convoy, and that Lee & Khanna had used a more familiar Western moniker of "Optimus Prime" instead of the literal translation of the Japanese that is "Big Convoy". I took it to mean that Unicron tortured Optimus Prime (a.k.a. Big Convoy) and built Nemesis Prime from the remnants of Optimus.

However, having re-read it a bit closer now, it says:

Balancing Act wrote:Unicron cloned him from the remains of an Optimus Prime from the distant past of a dimension destroyed ages ago, and tortured him for thousands fo years.

This implies that Unicron took the remnants of Optimus Prime, creating Optimus Prime #2, then tortured Optimus Prime #2 for thousands of years until Optimus Prime #2 became Nemesis Prime. Now, given that the Optimus Prime in the picture has no woolly mammoth kibble (and doesn't even have the same torso design as Nemesis Prime), that means that somewhere down the line Nemesis Prime must have been reformatted into a woolly mammoth. Why? Woolly mammoths aren't exactly a universal or practical disguise.

So, either the Prime in the picture is the original Prime (with no mammoth alt.mode) and Unicron's clone somehow came out with a woolly mammoth alt.mode, meaning that Unicron's 'clone' wasn't an exact copy, or that the Prime in the picture is the clone and somewhere down the line it was reformatted with a woolly mammoth alt.mode.

Leonardo wrote:Well, in "Beast Wars: The Gathering" from IDW the Maximals that haven't yet been to Earth all have Cybertronian alt.modes that look similar to this particular Optimus Prime (on the first page of Part 2). So, this Prime could have a truck-like mode and still be a Maximal, not an Autobot.

What I find confusing (in terms of fiction, not the toys) is that Nemesis Prime has a woolly mammoth alt.mode. I had always assumed that the Optimus Prime he was cloned from was Big Convoy, and that Lee & Khanna had used a more familiar Western moniker of "Optimus Prime" instead of the literal translation of the Japanese that is "Big Convoy". I took it to mean that Unicron tortured Optimus Prime (a.k.a. Big Convoy) and built Nemesis Prime from the remnants of Optimus.

However, having re-read it a bit closer now, it says:

Balancing Act wrote:Unicron cloned him from the remains of an Optimus Prime from the distant past of a dimension destroyed ages ago, and tortured him for thousands fo years.

This implies that Unicron took the remnants of Optimus Prime, creating Optimus Prime #2, then tortured Optimus Prime #2 for thousands of years until Optimus Prime #2 became Nemesis Prime. Now, given that the Optimus Prime in the picture has no woolly mammoth kibble (and doesn't even have the same torso design as Nemesis Prime), that means that somewhere down the line Nemesis Prime must have been reformatted into a woolly mammoth. Why? Woolly mammoths aren't exactly a universal or practical disguise.

So, either the Prime in the picture is the original Prime (with no mammoth alt.mode) and Unicron's clone somehow came out with a woolly mammoth alt.mode, meaning that Unicron's 'clone' wasn't an exact copy, or that the Prime in the picture is the clone and somewhere down the line it was reformatted with a woolly mammoth alt.mode.

Tne mammoth mode might be some sort of "fear" weapon. Would´t you crap your pants if you saw a giant black mammotht charging at you?

Well put Leonardo.

I was a little surprised when I read that Unicron had cloned an Optimus Prime, and then tortured the clone as well. I thought it would have been far easier to just clone the original Prime.

I dont get how a clone would have a matrix either.

AS for the alt mode, I kind of ignored the logical thinking line you took, and just assumed that Unicron tortured the clone so much that he needed to be reformatted, or that perhaps only the clone's spark was tortured, and then placed into a new body.
The new body being that of Nemisis Prime, which as Magnus said, may have been a power/intimidation move on Unicron's part. Over gunned Mammoth beats Truck any day.