Optimus Prime

Before the war, in Iacon, Orion Pax is a miner without the cog that lets a Cybertronian transform, like everyone in his caste. Curious to a fault, he sneaks into the city archive to study the Primes and keeps landing in trouble with his best friend, D-16. A message from the Prime Alpha Trion leads him to the surface with D-16, B-127 and Elita-1. There he learns that Sentinel Prime murdered the Primes, stole the Matrix of Leadership and lied to the whole planet.

With the Primes' cogs, the group learns to transform. Orion rallies the High Guard and the miners, storms Sentinel's headquarters and exposes the betrayal. In the fight, D-16 accidentally shoots him, and Orion falls. Primus and the spirits of the Primes find him worthy and grant him the Matrix: he returns as Optimus Prime. He defeats D-16, now calling himself Megatron, drives the rebels out of Iacon and names his followers the Autobots.

In the live-action timeline, Cybertron is lost to the Decepticons. In 1987, Optimus sends scout B-127 to Earth to set up a base and arrives later, finding him already known as Bumblebee. By 1994 he's hiding out with a small team, focused only on getting home.

When the Transwarp Key surfaces in Brooklyn, Optimus sees it as the way back to Cybertron. He grudgingly accepts Noah Diaz's help and teams up with Optimus Primal's Maximals in Peru. Once he realizes the key would open the way for Unicron, he gives up on going home: he destroys the key and closes the portal, ready to die with it. Noah and Primal pull him out of the vortex. With no way back, Optimus decides the Autobots will stay and protect the planet.

In Transformers, Optimus leads the Autobots who come to Earth for the AllSpark, protects Sam Witwicky and takes on the Decepticons in Mission City. With the cube destroyed and Megatron dead, he sends out a signal calling the remaining Autobots across the universe.

Two years later, he leads the Autobots within NEST, the joint task force with the military. When Megatron returns and the Decepticons hunt Sam, Optimus defends him against Megatron and Starscream and dies in the fight. In Egypt, Sam uses the Matrix of Leadership to bring him back. Still weak, Optimus receives the parts of Jetfire, who sacrifices himself, and gains extra power and flight. He destroys the Star Harvester, kills the Fallen and leaves Megatron badly wounded.

In Dark of the Moon, Optimus recovers Sentinel Prime, the Autobots' former leader, from the Moon and revives him with the Matrix. Sentinel betrays him, kills Ironhide and clears the way for the invasion of Chicago. After the battle, Optimus refuses Megatron's truce, kills his rival and executes Sentinel.

Five years later, humans are hunting every Transformer. Badly damaged, Optimus hides in Texas, where inventor Cade Yeager finds and repairs him. Chased by Cemetery Wind and the bounty hunter Lockdown, he gathers the few surviving Autobots and ends up captured. Once free, he wins over the Dinobots in combat, kills Attinger and Lockdown in Hong Kong and heads into space with the Seed and a message for the Creators: he's coming for them.

In the 1984 show, Optimus leads the Autobots who wake up on Earth after 4 million years offline and battle Megatron's Decepticons. In season two, the show reveals that before the war he was Orion Pax.

In 2005, the Decepticons attack Autobot City. Optimus and Megatron fight a duel that leaves both mortally wounded, and he hands the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus before he dies. Later, two humans recover his body to use as bait and spread the Hate Plague. Revived, Optimus recovers the Matrix and unleashes its energy to wipe out the plague across the universe. Rodimus goes back to being Hot Rod, and Optimus takes command again with his trademark order: “transform and roll out.”

In Transformers: Prime, Optimus leads a small team hiding out in Nevada. To put Unicron back into stasis he uses the Matrix and loses his memory: he believes he's Orion Pax and falls under Megatron's sway, until Jack brings back the knowledge from Cybertron that restores him. Later he destroys the Omega Lock to save Earth, even though it dooms Cybertron.

With Cybertron restored, Unicron returns in Megatron's body. Optimus goes after the AllSpark with Wheeljack and stores it inside the Matrix. When he learns he can no longer separate the two, he knows what he has to do: he plunges into the planet's core. Millions of sparks are reborn, and his goes with them.

The toy came from Takara's Japanese Diaclone line, where it was the truck Battle Convoy, complete with a human pilot. Dennis O'Neil came up with the name Optimus Prime for Marvel's comics. Peter Cullen based the voice on his older brother Larry, a Marine captain and Vietnam veteran.