The live action Transformers movies have had a rocky history, to say the least. The Michael Bay-directed films were initially well-received, but earned more and more detractors over time. However, Travis Knight’s Bumblebee in 2018 proved to be a popular change of pace, earning it a sequel in the form of next year’s Rise of the Beasts.
That said, even the more well-liked Transformers films have only managed to scratch the surface of the series’ lore. In the cartoons, and especially in the comics, the Transformers series has carved out a rich and expansive backstory for the heroes and villains of Cybertron — which fans won’t learn much about just by watching the movies. Here are just a few fun facts about Transformers history that have never made it to the big screen.
Optimus Wasn’t Always a Prime
Every Transformers film to date has featured Optimus Prime, heroic leader of the Autobots, in some capacity. Despite this, though, none of them have been particularly concerned with Optimus’ backstory. But ever since the original 1984 cartoon, it’s been an established part of the series’ canon that Optimus hasn’t always been a Prime. The Season 2 episode “War Dawn” provides a look at Cybertron’s Golden Age, before the Autobot-Decepticon war began.
In this episode, it’s revealed that Optimus was originally a humble dockworker named Orion Pax, who was damaged during an attack by Megatron. Orion was saved by the Cybertronian elder Alpha Trion — who would be revealed in later iterations to be one of the original Thirteen Primes — and rebuilt with a powerful new body. Taking the name Optimus Prime, he defeated Megatron in what would become the first of many battles.
The cartoon was the first Transformers story to use the Orion Pax identity for Optimus’ backstory, but it was hardly the last. The comic books from IDW Publishing reinvented Orion as a police officer, whose faith in the establishment is shattered when he realizes how corrupt the Cybertronian government has become. The 2010 Transformers: Prime cartoon also deals with Optimus’ origins, this time making Orion Pax a data clerk turned political activist. Other iterations, like the Animated and Cyberverse cartoons, simply use “Optimus” as the character’s original name, while others still depict him as having always been named Optimus Prime.
The Decepticons Used To Be Good
The Transformers movies have never been big on moral ambiguity. So far, they’ve universally depicted the villainous Decepticons as a faction of power-hungry conquerors and one-dimensional henchmen. On the one hand, this portrayal is accurate to the original Decepticons, who were literally Saturday morning cartoon villains. However, more recent interpretations have offered a more sympathetic take on the Decepticon cause. Eric Holmes and Alex Milne’s Megatron Origin, a 2007 comic miniseries from IDW, offers a fresh retelling of the Decepticon leader’s backstory. In these comics, Megatron was originally an ordinary miner who became a gladiator after being laid off by the Cybertronian Senate. Fueled by rage towards the corrupt government, Megatron rallied a group of gladiators, criminals, and other dissidents, forming a revolutionary movement dedicated to overthrowing the Senate.
Taking the name “Decepticons,” after their slogan “You are being deceived,” Megatron’s faction began as an earnest attempt to bring freedom and equality to a world suffering under the control of its greedy elite. However, Megatron’s hunger for vengeance and his cynical worldview led him astray from his initial idealism and down the path of selfish ambition. Believing that he could only bring peace to his fellow Cybertronians by standing above them, Megatron became just as tyrannical as the Senate he overthrew. Guided by the machinations of opportunists like Starscream and Shockwave, the Decepticons went from benevolent freedom fighters to brutal warlords.
This expanded origin story may have been a far cry from the generic villainy of the classic Decepticons, but it’s been adopted by virtually every new continuity since Megatron Origin was published. Both the Prime and Cyberverse cartoons feature similar backstories for Megatron and the Depticons, as do the War for Cybertron video game and the Netflix series of the same name. In a time when more nuanced villains have become the norm for popular movies, it’s somewhat surprising that the Transformers films have yet to follow the lead of other modern iterations.
Not All Autobots Are Heroes
Just as the Decepticons haven’t always been evil, the Autobots aren’t inherently good. The Michael Bay films have toyed with the idea of villainous Primes, with both the Fallen and Sentinel Prime serving as major antagonists. But in terms of the ordinary Autobots serving under Optimus Prime, they’ve never been anything but heroic. The same cannot be said for other Transformers media, however. Autobot antagonists, while uncommon, have been part of the franchise since the 1980s Marvel comics, which featured a rogue Autobot scientist named Flame.
Flame reappeared in the IDW comicMore Than Meets The Eye written by James Roberts, which featured several other villainous Autobots. From the genocidal zealots Star Saber and Chief Justice Tyrest to the serial killers Sunder and Froid to the sadistic and self-serving medic Pharma, Roberts introduced plenty of Autobots who were just as vile as the worst Decepticons. Even one of the series’ biggest villains, the backstabbing manipulator Getaway, is an Autobot with ambitions of becoming a Prime. None of the cartoons have featured any Autobots who slide into outright villainy, but Transformers Animated is notable for featuring the corrupt egomaniac Sentinel Prime as a major character.
Transformers Aren’t The Only Aliens
In the movies, the Autobots and Decepticons are the only alien life forms who make any appearance. But in the cartoons and comics, they’re far from the only extraterrestrials out there. The original 1984 cartoon features all manner of colorful aliens as minor characters, with many episodes focused on deep-space adventures.
However, the most important non-Cybertronian aliens in the series — and in the franchise as a whole — are the Quintessons, the five-faced interstellar arms dealers who created the Cybertronians as laborers and living weapons. In Season 3 of the cartoon’s third season, the Quintessons are even featured as a third faction in the Autobot-Decepticon war.
Cybertron Itself is a Transformer
While the original cartoon featured the Quintessons as the creators of the Cybertronians, the Marvel comics penned by Simon Furman offered a much more mythic origin. According to the comics, the Transformers were born from Cybertron itself, which is actually a living entity named Primus. Primus is the father of all Transformers, with the Thirteen Primes typically being portrayed as his firstborn children.
Despite the cartoon’s popularity, the comics’ creation myth was much more popular among later writers, with the Beast Wars and Prime cartoons both referencing Primus by name. The Transformers: Cybertron anime even features Primus transforming into robot mode for the first time in the franchise, using his almighty power to destroy a black hole created by Unicron. The IDW comics (particularly those by James Roberts) are notable for taking Primus’ status as a godlike figure for Cybertron and using it as an opportunity to explore the nature of Cybertronian religion, and how modern teachings often differ from the long-forgotten truth of Primus’ history.