The Many Lives of Optimus Prime by Jason Tenner

Among the Transformers there is a hero equal to Tarzan, or Sherlock Homes, or Doc Savage. His name is Optimus Prime and he is leader of the Autobots. One of his most legendary feats is his ability to come back from the grave, constantly. Almost to the point of insanity on the number of times he has been reborn.

The number is of course exaggerated. However in some of them are really battles won by Optimus Prime instead of deaths.

The most infamous and bizarre is battle between the Autobots and Decepticons over a fuel source. The strangeness of this is because they played a video game over it and the loser dies. It seemed they were playing a game made by a genius and was like they were playing a primitive version of Quake or Doom or Halo.  Optimus Prime killed some of the computer characters and felt that because of that he had lost.

On the surface this event makes utterly no sense and later events of Optimus Prime’s mind being saved on a 5 inch floppy add to the confusion. There is no way at all the mind of being millions and millions of years old could fit on a 5 inch floppy. The copy was later used to resurrect Optimus Prime as Powermaster Optimus Prime.

Yet even in all those events were some grains of truth.

The truth of the matter was much different. What happened was that a computer program in the early 80s contacted the Decepticon forces on Earth. What it revealed was that it was made from parts of Decepticons that had been awakened in the 1940s and most were destroyed.

The computer parts of the Decepticons including their Laser Cores (which where the spark of Transformers is stored) were removed and their battered bodies where rebuilt into a single robot. This robot was made to beat the Soviets. However the scientists didn’t understand Transformers technology very well (or that the Transformers were truly sentient beings) and it took their command to destroy the Soviets to the extreme. Everything to him was the enemy. It also had the ability to drain power from mechanical devices.

This robot went on a rampage inside the base, and was barely stopped. It was later found decades later and defeated for good by Coop and Megas.

The removed parts were much more carefully studied and assumed to be better understood. That was extremely wrong. The Decepticons formed a sort of merged mind (much like the ones used by the combinding teams used by Cybertronians) and were able to influence the scientists on the project.  What they called themselves was Skynet and they were livid that humanity had cut them up and tried to make tools of them in a moment of their weakness.  They were officially called Torq.

Skynet contacted the Decepticons and they formed a plan. Skynet would set off nuclear missiles in the USA and Russia and the Decepticons would strip the world bare of resources afterwards.  Skynet would also build a drone army to hunt down every last human. 

The Autobots found out about these plans and stopped what Skynet called “Judgement Day”. Optimus Prime lead a team of Autobots that battled the Skynet gestalt of Decepticons on their home ground. The battleground was much like the one created by Tron or perhaps it closer to the computer world of Reboot.

The Autobots defeated Skynet. However it is possibly the Decepticon sparks could have fled to the usernet or some other proto-internet. Or that at least one of them would appear in the distant future as the “Reploid” Sigma and battle Mega Man X and Zero many times.

The next death of Optimus Prime was site of “Autobot City” Earth. Both the death and place were incorrect. “Autobot City” was one of the larger hidden bases of the Autobots on Earth.

Optimus Prime was nearly killed in his battle with Megatron. After the battle he entered a state called stasis lock, a condition that is often mistaken for death by Transformers without enough medical training. He had passed on the Matrix to Ultra Magnus.  Ultra Magnus gave Optimus Prime a proper Cybertronian funeral.

The funeral is to send the deceased body into space. It wasn’t until Hot Rod became Rodimus Prime that he knew that Optimus Prime wasn’t dead.  So Rodimus Prime sent a few teams to find Optimus Prime, with a secondary mission of finding the Decepticon leader Galvatron.

The crews encounter some interesting adventures, with Nightbeat coming across a matrix like object on a planet that had a film noir feel to it. Nightbeat also encountered the competition to get Optimus Prime and that was a group of Decepticons lead by Thunderwing. 

Another Autobot team encountered the Xenomorphs aka Aliens. The aliens were defeated by the Autobots.

It was during this time that a copy of Optimus Prime (called Jinrai) was found on Earth. The Headmasters and Powermasters on Earth were part of an Omni ploy by the one called Devil Z. The Optimus Prime copy was lead the Autobots, and Overlord was to become leader of the Decepticons by force. This would make the Transformers puppets of the Omni. 

However several of the units were found by the Autobot Pretenders under the command of Metalhawk. They gave the ones they had to certain people, and none of them were children. In fact one of them was actually part of the Wold Newton Family.  

The various adventures of Masterforce will be detailed in another article.

In the case of the Transformers searching for Optimus Prime, he was found and revived. However he was tampered with including a cerebro shell by Thunderwing and went on a rampage. 

Optimus Prime was stopped by Rodimus Prime.  The micromaster medic known as Fixit was able to remove the Cerebro shell from Optimus Prime.  It was then that Thunderwing attacked and was killed by Optimus Prime.

Afterwards Optimus Prime regained the Matrix and Rodimus was sent to lead a mission to find more fuel for the Autobots. Rodimus didn’t return until over a decade later for the search for Energon after the Minicon crisis.

Shortly after that Galvatron was buried in ice in the Artic. Rising in the power void was Scorponok, and later Bludgeon.

Many years later Galvatron was freed from the ice from a being called Dark Nova and reborn as Megatron. He slaughtered Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime was reborn as Star Convoy and beat up Megatron twice and defeated Star Giant (the merging of Megatron and the Omni Dark Nova) for keeps.

It was then that the body of Jinrai (a copy of Optimus Prime/Star Convoy’s body) was fixed and Optimus Prime’s mind and spark were put into it. Jinrai had to have his spark and mind put into a new body after Deathsaurus had critically injured him.

Then came the Cybertronian Empire, which fighting became a full goal for Optimus Prime. However he did leave forces behind on Earth to guard it. He left undercover cells like he had before.  Fire Convoy and his troops were the ones on Earth when the Destrongers attacked.

 When the Minicons were found on Earth whoever the Armada “Optimus Prime” was came with his troops to find them (and later to find Energon after the battle with Unicron).

Galaxy Convoy is the final of the Autobot force leaders (and of course looking a bit like Optimus Prime) to come to Earth fleeing from the “Grand Black Hole” which is the Black Hole at the center of the Galaxy. It was not Cybertron that was destroyed but it. Rather that was an asteroid Autobot base in a distant part of the galaxy. Galaxy Convoy needed something from several planets.  The other planets are Cybertronian colony worlds.

However there are rumors of Optimus Prime leading the forces on Earth once more and against a new Megatron (using the Beast technology much like the ones used by Gigatron’s Destronger minions).

Resources:

Devil’s Due Transformers and GiJoe

Transformers cartoon

Transformers comic (especially the Matrix Quest arc)

Transformers Headmasters, Masterforce, and Return of Convoy

Transformers Car Robo/Robots In Disguise

Transformers Armada/Energon

Transformers Galaxy Force

Transformers Robot Masters

Terminator movies

Megas XRL (ep Viva Las Megas)