Optimus Prime - Transformers Animated - Animated Series

Animated Series

In the animated series, Optimus Prime was originally in the Autobot Academy and friends with Sentinel Prime and Elita One. When Elita is lost on a planet dominated by giant spider-like aliens, he blames himself for leaving her behind, where she supposedly dies in the explosion of a wrecked Decepticon warship loaded with Energon. Sentinel doesn't forgive him for losing her and Optimus takes full responsibly for Elita's demise. Ultra Magnus, who had high hopes for him, expels him and thus bars him from any position of the Elite Guard. However, Magnus pulls some strings so that Optimus could be captain of a strange Space Bridge repair crew composed of an old grumbler of a war vet named Ratchet, a fledgling Bumblebee, and his fellow cadet, Bulkhead. Optimus is given command of the starship Omega Supreme.

The series begins when Optimus and his crew, after picking up a disillusioned ninja named Prowl, are sent to clear rubble from a space bridge passage. There, the Autobots stumbled upon the Allspark and are immediately attacked by Megatron's battle cruiser, the Nemesis. Through treachery by Megatron's second-in-command, Starscream, Megatron was fragged and the Autobots crashed on Earth in the early 21st century. After being in stasis under Lake Erie for 50 years, the Autobots awaken in Detroit of the near future, where they immediately discovered humans in need and became heroes of the city. During the battle for the possession of the Allspark, Optimus goes offline after defeating Starscream, only to be revived by Sari Sumdac and her Allspark-infused key.

In the episode "Home is Where the Spark is", Optimus captures the Angry Archer, who had committed a robbery. Afterward, he and his group survive an attack from their hideout's old machinery secretly activated by Megatron's head.

In the episode "Thrill of the Hunt", the Decepticon bounty hunter Lockdown captures Optimus, who had a bounty on his head for the supposed death of Megatron. He is freed by Ratchet, who also recovered an EMP generator stolen from him millions of years ago.

In the episode "Along Came a Spider", Optimus discoveres that Elita did survive the ordeal with the giant spiders and was transformed into the technorganic Decepticon Blackarachnia. He offeres to try and help her, but is turned down violently as Blackarachnia has still not forgiven him. However, when she nearly dies trying to use the Allspark key to purge her organic half, Optimus saves her and repeats his offer to help her. She stings him instead, vowing that she will never trust him.

In the two-part episode "Megatron Rising", Optimus loses his composure over the recent numerous Decepticon attacks coupled with the fact that Prowl had secretly placed the Dinobots on an island off the coast of Detroit instead of destroying them. He has Ratchet confiscate the Allspark key from Sari, which he loses when he is ambushed by Blitzwing. Optimus also fails to stop a newly resurrected Megatron from acquiring the Allspark. He defeats Megatron by overloading the Allspark in his chest with Sari's key. In the process, the Allspark shatters into countless pieces, scattering all across Detroit.

In "The Elite Guard", the Autobot Elite Guard, composed of Ultra Magnus, Jazz, and Sentinel Prime, arrive on Earth to reclaim the Allspark. They don't believe Optimus' story about the Decepticons and Sentinel Prime wishes to have him court-martialled. When a fragment of the Allspark causes a production line to go haywire, Optimus finally stands up to Sentinel, retrieving the fragment, and earning praise from Ultra Magnus.

In "Return of The Headmaster", Sentinel's body is hijacked by Henry Masterson and his Headmaster unit. Optimus, amused at his rival's predicament, reluctantly regains Sentinel's body for him, which prompted Sentinel to actually thank him.

In "Mission Accomplished", Optimus is pressured by Sentinel to tell Ultra Magnus that his story about the Decepticons is untrue, but he refuses. Meanwhile, the on-board computer plots a train infused with a shard of the Allspark. When Ultra Magnus and Jazz set off there, Optimus suspects that the Decepticons are luring them into an ambush and rushes to their help, though Sentinel Prime tries to detain him. At first, Ultra Magnus doesn't believe him, but a short time later, Optimus is proven right as Starscream falls from the sky after being blasted by Megatron, much to Sentinel Prime's astonishment and fright. Starscream turns out to be alive, inflicting injury on Ultra Magnus. Optimus takes the affair into his own hands momentarily and, with Sentinel's aid, manages to apprehend the Decepticon. While Sentinel Prime deflects Starscream's shots with his power-shield, Optimus succeeds in taking Starscream by surprise and handcuffing him. When the shackled Starscream is delivered to the Elite Guard spaceship, Ultra Magnus admits Optimus Prime was right and allows him to stay on Earth in order to seek out the other fragments of the Allspark.

In "A Fistful of Energon", Optimus Prime is informed by Ultra Magnus about Starscream's escape from prison. He is quite upset when he has heard that Prowl set out in search for him on his own. He orders Prowl to return, but he disobeyed him. Later, Prowl is bound and abandoned by Lockdown, who wants to get the bounty that Megatron had set on Starscream. But Optimus Prime, together with Bulkhead and Ratchet, succeed in finding and releasing Prowl.

In "Black Friday", Optimus is blackmailled by Blackarachnia into helping Grimlock steal Meltdown's genetic modifier so he could use it to remove her organic half. Meltdown ends up doublecrossing her and Optimus and Grimlock work together to save her.

In "Transwarped", after Sari realizes that she is not human, Optimus attempts to have Professor Isaac Sumdac and Sari reconcile with each other. Later, they encounter Masterson, who is piloting his headmaster unit on Starscream's decapitated body. He defeats Masterson by tricking him to transform into vehicle mode, which was impossible due to with the Headmaster unit on Starscream's body. Later still, during a melee with a rock creature that found its way to Earth when Bumblebee returned from his accidental transwarp, Optimus struggles to stop Sari, who goes out of control after using her key to upgrade herself.

In "Predacons Rising", Bumblebee, Jetfire, Jetstorm, Optimus, and Sentinel chase down the fugitive Wasp, but lose him to Swoop while bickering about what to do with him. They go after Wasp, only to find out that Blackarachnia has captured him and turned him into Waspinator. When Waspinator malfunctions and explodes due to the instability of the transwarp field that mutated him, Blackarachnia contains the blast with her webs, resulting in an explosion that consumes them both. Optimus is saddened by this, unaware that she and Waspinator are still alive on another planet inhabited by animals.

In "Human Error" Parts 1 and 2, Soundwave captures the Autobots with the help of his minions, Laserbeak and Ratbat, in order to brainwash them. Part of Soundwave's elaborate scheme consists of tricking the Autobots into thinking they have turned human. Optimus Prime's human form is a male caucasian in his early 20s wearing a red jacket. Sari forms a group of "Substitute Autobots" which consists of Scrapper, Wreck-Gar, and Snarl, to rescue them. They free the Autobots from Soundwave's control and Optimus grabbes Laserbeak to engage in a guitar vs. keytar battle with Soundwave, who used Ratbat. Optimus smashes Soundwave and Ratbat into pieces using Laserbeak in guitar mode, but Laserbeak grabs Soundwave's surviving components and flees.

In "Decepticon Air", Optimus receives a secret distress call from the Elite Guard ship that is carrying Decepticon prisoners. During the flight, the ship enters an electrical storm, which revives an inactive Swindle and he frees other prisoners to take over the ship. Transwarping to the ship via Swindle's personal transport field, Optimus joins forces with the Elite Guard, rounding up most of the Decepticons in the end.

In "Endgame" 2-parter, Ratchet builds Optimus a jetpack attachment to help in the coming battle against the Decepticons. After some initial difficulty, Optimus is able to get the hang of the device, only to be shot down by Starscream's female clone, Slipstream. Though Ratchet urges Optimus to use the Magnus Hammer, he is reluctant to do so, given his past with Ultra Magnus. In the end, he wields the weapon as the Lugnut-controlled Omega Supreme clones land on Earth. During the fight, Optimus manages to master the Magus Hammer's power in order t overwhelms Megatron to the point of being acknowledged by name. After a devastating battle, the last remaining Omega clones self-destruct due to Starscream's intervention. With Prowl's sacrifice, the Allspark is rebuilt into one as it forms a barrier around the Omega clone, along with Optimus and Megatron. Prowl's spirit pulls Optimus from the bubble just as the clone self-destructs with Megatron still trapped inside. Prime laments Prowl's passing before defeating a heavily damaged Megatron and sparing him the deathblow, saying that Megatron does not deserve the "easy way out". He and his team return to Cybertron with Omega Supreme, the captured Decepticons, and Prowl's body and are greeted as the hero he had wished to be so long ago. The reconstructed Allspark, having a structure similar to the G1 incarnation of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, is hung around his neck.