It occurs to me that, in some ways, one would be hard-pressed to find a more fanatic, obsessed devotee of the Generation One Transformers cartoon than me. It is the very core of my Transformers fandom. I’m indifferent to the comic, I like the toys well enough...but I love the cartoon. In fact, in some quite scary ways, the word “love” is even too weak of a word to describe my level of devotion to the cartoon and its characters. I’m obsessed with it. I’m passionate about it. I adore it. Given a choice, I will watch nothing else for days on end. (Well, OK, I have to slip in a few nature documentaries here and there and an occasional episode of Deep Space Nine. But other than that...) Yes, I am that obsessed. And I have been for quite a while now, twenty years and counting.

And I often wonder why. And there are many reasons that I’ve come up with over the years, everything from a fanatic devotion to certain characters (*cough*Starscream, Prowl*cough*) to just seeing Transformers fandom as a logical extension of a life-long love of robots in fiction. But there’s one thing that I’ve always found ironic about me and the G1 cartoon. And that would be that, with one glaring exception, I’m not at all happy with any of the leaders of either faction.

One, Megatron, I loathe with a passion almost as abiding as the passion I feel in general for the cartoon, for reasons that are at once simple and complex and completely personal...and not at all relevant here. Another leader, Galvatron, I also dislike for varying reasons, though that dislike is more and more often, of late, mitigated by amusement with him. And then... Ah, then there are the Autobot leaders...

This is not meant to be an in-depth study of Optimus Prime’s and Rodimus Prime’s psyches. Nor will it become one. I will simply say here that, when watching the G1 cartoon, one wish reverberates in my noggin when it comes to the Autobot leader, whichever one happens to be on the screen at the moment. And that wish would be that I could somehow slice both Primes into little pieces and then paste together the best and/or most likeable qualities of each, creating what I, personally, would consider the “perfect” Autobot leader. Paste Optimus Prime’s self-confidence and accumulated wisdom with Rodimus Prime’s joie de vivre and off-beat sense of humor. Temper Optimus’ overblown and sometimes crippling compassion and concern for humanity (See “Megatron’s Master Plan”) with a bit of Rodimus’ steely, take-no-prisoners, do-what-has-to-be-done resolve. (See “Fight or Flee.”) Tarnish Optimus’ sterling, blindingly shiny Standard Hero™ virtues with just a wee bit of Rodimus’ insecurity, his worries, his fears, his flaws...his real-ness. That sort of thing.

This is, in fact, what I do in fanfic. When I write for Optimus Prime in a fanfic, the character that I see and hear in my head — and therefore that flows out of my pen — is definitely not the Optimus Prime that you see on the television screen, but this strange, monstrous amalgam of Optimus and Rodimus. For better or worse, I write the Autobot leader, whichever one it is, more how I’d like him to be, not so much how he actually is in the cartoon. I had to do it, you see, because what I would see as an interesting, noble, confident, non-distant, but still far less than perfect Top-of-the-Food-Chain Good Guy largely didn’t exist in the Transformers cartoon universe.

...Until Beast Wars came along, that is...

It took me quite a while to get into “Beast Wars,” even longer really to warm up to it. I watched it sporadically for a while, catching random episodes here and there, until I decided to make a concerted effort to catch up with and understand it. Some things, I discovered, I hated about the series. More things, I discovered, I at least liked, if not loved, about it. And what struck me was that, irony of ironies, I loved the leaders. Both of them. Neither are entirely like their respective namesakes, something that I suspect was quite intentional. But of the two, I have to admit...and this comes as something of a surprise to me, given that I usually tend to favor the bad guys...I like Optimus Primal better.

That realization snuck up on me, like a cat stalking a mouse. Never did I watch any single episode of Beast Wars and think, “Wow! Op Primal is awesome!” Rather, it was a gradual process. Slow-forming layers of admiration were laid down, smoothing over the inevitable bumps that happened when I didn’t like him in a certain episode, and just gradually, unnoticeably, silently accumulated, like a slow snowfall. The process began with the pilot episode of Beast Wars and continued on until, by the time of “Nemesis,” the final episode, I suddenly and rather unexpectedly found myself thinking, “God, I love that guy!” Sometimes, Optimus Primal will even give my much-loved Rampage and my (ahem) much-admired Depth Charge a run for their money. ‘Tis true!

So now my task is to figure out how in the world this happened, to enumerate the things that I grew to love about Optimus Primal, the things that make me believe him to be my long-sought fusion of Optimus Prime and Rodimus Prime. So here goes:

One of the main things that has always annoyed me about Optimus Prime is that, from what we see in the cartoon, he is almost like an island. He goes about his business, commanding the Autobots — and doing so quite competently...er, usually — but he never seems to “connect” with any of them on any sort of deep level. Based solely on what is in the cartoon — meaning no looking at "Transformers Universe" profiles and/or toy tech specs — I usually get no sense whatsoever of what Optimus really thinks about those under his command, nor can I tell you how he relates to them. He’ll praise them. He’ll occasionally scold them. He’ll sometimes refer to Ironhide as his “old buddy,” though, maddeningly, he does that at the same time that he’s offerring up a platitude. (“There’s a thin line between being a hero and being a memory.”) But in short, I usually have difficulty determining where everyone stands with Optimus Prime. There are occasional exceptions, but I generally have difficulty seeing any kind of relationship between Optimus Prime and those under his command. And since one of my favorite things to do when contemplating the Transformers universe is to speculate about the interrelationships between the characters, this especially annoys me, especially with a character that received as much airtime as Optimus Prime received.

Which is why I’m overjoyed that with Optimus Primal — as with Rodimus Prime — the exact opposite is true. I can tell exactly and precisely how Primal feels about every last person under his command. Granted, he has a much smaller “crew” than Optimus Prime had...but I get the impression that, even if Primal had a crew of millions, I’d still be able to tell where each person stands with Optimus Primal and that Primal genuinely cares for every last one. Because Optimus Primal, like Rodimus Prime, is anything but an island. Like Rodimus Prime, Primal depends on those under his command. He seeks their advice. He even follows that advice when he thinks it’s good advice. And he lets them do their jobs. I like that. I like that he’s comfortable enough with himself and his position that he can show those under his command that he cares about them, enough so that, in most cases, he has a clearly defined relationship to every one of the Maximals, including Dinobot.

And, in addition to that, I tend to like the relationships that are set up between Optimus Primal and his Crew o’ Wackos, which doesn’t hurt.

There’s Rattrap, for example. Rattrap occasionally annoys Optimus Primal and Primal’s annoyance is abundantly easy to see. But on the flip side, it’s also apparent to me that Primal trusts Rattrap — after all, he did leave Rattrap in command in “Chain of Command” — and depends on him when things need a good blowing up, and that, more than that, he actually likes Rattrap in a sort of back-handedly affectionate way. Rattrap, in turn, has to know that. So he’ll grumble about old “Optimus Pinhead”...but in the end he always does whatever Optimus Primal asks of him, doesn’t he? Why? Well, Rattrap is certainly not a person who’s in love with authority. He won’t do something simply because he’s told to do it. But it seems he will do anything that’s asked of him if he really likes the person who’s doing the asking. He'll complain about it, but he'll do it, in the end. So what does that tell you about how he really regards Primal, all grumbling aside? This is why it’s a good thing to let your troops know where they stand.

Then there’s Cheetor. One of my favorite things about Beast Wars is the almost “father/son” relationship that’s quite evident between Optimus Primal and Cheetor. Maybe you have to be a parent to appreciate it...or maybe not. But it’s clear to me that the relationship exists, even from just one brief scene (Though it’s certainly not the only one.), and I like it. I like it a lot. That one little scene is the segment of the episode “Victory” right after the Axalon re-crashes. Everyone’s depressed...and there’s Cheetor going to Optimus Primal for physical comfort, like a little boy whose favorite pet has just died. Melts my heart, it does. Sappy? Yes. But it's also a real, genuine, honest-to-Primus relationship, something that the Autobots under Optimus Prime sorely lacked.

Then there’s Rhinox. Rhinox is not a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. But Rhinox is also a guy who, when he feels he has to, will easily step in and take over. Forcefully. Dinobot certainly learned that in “Aftermath.” (“I’m in a bad mood. Understand?”) So it’s telling to me that Rhinox, if Optimus Primal is around, feels no need whatsoever to take over. Ever. Because he certainly could, you know. Even Optimus Primal himself notes that Rhinox would make a “prime” leader. But of all the Maximals, these are two guys who, I think, see eye to eye, who understand each other, who genuinely like each other, and who, above all, know each other. Even when Rhinox has had a bit of an involuntary attitude adjustment in “Dark Designs,” Primal trusts him enough to know that things will, in the end, be all right. I might not like it that Primal left Rhinox to fend for himself in that episode (It’s one of those very rare moments that I’m less-than-thrilled with Primal as a character), but I’ve come to believe that Primal had his reasons...and his reason would be that he knows Rhinox and, because of that, he knows that all will be well in the end. That’s a solid kind of relationship there.

And then, of course, there’s Dinobot. Primal hasn’t known Dinobot all that long, and Dinobot enters into Primal’s life all unexpectedly. Yet, though they can certainly be contentious, often disagreeing on things at a very fundamental level, you just know that each respects the other on a deeply personal level. Dinobot learns to respect Primal’s fighting skills early on...but he obviously adds personal respect to that list very quickly. Dinobot can get exasperated with Primal’s more pacifistic tendencies sometimes, sure...but in general, I do believe that Primal is the commander under which Dinobot certainly feels more comfortable. Likewise, Primal early on learns to appreciate Dinobot’s “warrior skills.” He has to like Dinobot just because, with him around, Primal’s got a person always willing to kick keister and do it competently. But, again, there’s an obvious personal respect there as well, and it’s there as early as the episode “Victory,” if not sooner. In that episode, Primal gives up his chance to go home in order to save Dinobot, a person who by all rights should be Primal’s enemy. That, to me, clearly speaks volumes about the relationship between those two. As does the endearingly choked-up tone of Optimus Primal’s voice when Dinobot died.

In any event, the fact that Primal’s a competent leader yet he can, at the same time, be quite closely connected in a “familial” sort of way to those under his command is quite attractive to me. It’s a quality that Optimus Prime certainly lacked. Prime, for whatever reason, was aloof, and he maintained, to use a Star Trek parallel, a Jean-Luc Picard-like distance from those he commanded. To further the parallel, Optimus Primal obviously prefers the “Will Riker” style of leadership: You know who’s in charge, but that does not preclude him from feeling attached to those below him in the command hierarchy and letting them know it. Rodimus Prime was much the same way, and it’s one of the things I love the most about him. And about Primal.

But one of the things I least like about Rodimus Prime is his lack of self-confidence and certainly his pining for Optimus Prime...though I should say that Rodimus’ insecurity is a trait that I also, in some ways, like. But from strictly the standpoint of what it is that makes a person a good leader, obviously self-confidence is essential, if only from a morale point of view. Those under a leader’s command must have the impression that the leader knows exactly what he’s doing, even if he has not a clue. This is something at which Optimus Prime excelled — as well he should since he did have at least nine million years of command experience, minus the four million he spent napping — but something at which Rodimus Prime had to work. And he didn’t always quite succeed, often publicly showing signs of stress and indecision and self-pity when he shouldn’t have. From an “interesting character” viewpoint, I like that. But from the standpoint of good leadership, it’s a mark against Rodimus Prime. It’s definitely a weakness of his, and though I love him to death, I fully realize it.

But it’s not a weakness of Optimus Primal’s! Obviously, he hasn’t been in command for millions of years like his namesake was, given that the Beast Wars universe is apparently separated from the G1 universe by a mere three hundred years or so. Yet Primal already has that aura of complete control, of absolute certainty in what he’s doing, that Optimus Prime had perfected. As in “Dark Designs,” as I mentioned. As in “Other Voices,” as he climbs into that fateful stasis pod to tackle a planet-killing machine. As in “Power Surge,” when he leaps off of an exploding mountain on a wing and a prayer. As in “Other Visits,” when the odds are stacked firmly against him and Rattrap yet he confidently takes on a Predacon-controlled alien leviathan. Overall, indecision and a lack of self-confidence are certainly not faults with which Optimus Primal has to grapple. He has that stuff nailed down, just like Optimus Prime did.

As such, he has in spades the quality that I most admire about Optimus Prime while deftly avoiding what, to me, is his most annoying trait. Likewise, Primal lacks what to me is Rodimus Prime’s least appealing trait as a leader...while showing in spades what are, to me, Rodimus Prime’s most shining virtues. I’ve already noted what I think is Optimus Primal’s best similarity to Rodimus Prime: his obvious empathy with those he commands and the close relationships that he forms with them.

But the other quality that Optimus Primal and Rodimus Prime share are their senses of humor. Now, I would imagine that Rodimus Prime’s brand of humor is something that you either appreciate or hate. It’s wry. It’s often sarcastic, sometimes bitingly so. Sometimes it’s even misplaced. And occasionally it has a tendency to be of the “gallows” type. Spike asks what he and Daniel are supposed to do when a shuttle runs out of air. Rodimus’ answer? “Suffocate or smother.” Outback reports the location of the planet Charr and Rodimus retorts that it looks more like a smudge on his screen. Spike and Carly freak out over the disappearance of Daniel. Rodimus tells them not to panic until they know what’s happened. And then he adds, almost as an afterthought, “Then we’ll panic.” He rather coldly blows up an idyllic planet without remorse and declares to the evacuated residents of said planet that Cybertron’s a better place to live anyway because it isn’t so “perfect.” Anyway, love it or hate it, that’s Rodimus’ kind of humor. I happen to be one who loves it because, when all is said and done, it’s the kind of sense of humor that I have. Optimus Prime’s sense of humor is...Well, at least he does have one, I’ll grant...occasionally... It’s just that it’s far too “occasional” for my tastes. I like a person who can look at a terrible situation and, in order to deal with it, finds the humor in it. That’s what I do, usually, and that’s also what Rodimus does. And we both tend to be occasionally misunderstood because of it.

So, too, perhaps, is Optimus Primal, for he has a similar and not-at-all-occasional sense of wry, ironic, gallows humor. Rattrap tells him he’s crazy for leaping off a mountain. Primal reports with a shrug that, “Sometimes crazy works.” Blackarachnia tells him he’s crazy for taking on a planet-killer with a mere modified stasis pod, and he fires off the same response. He laments that Dinobot and Rattrap are often at each other’s throats and that they’ll either learn to work together or they’ll kill each other. And then he adds as an afterthought that he doesn’t much care which, at the moment. The Axalon re-crashes, Dinobot and Rattrap argue, and Optimus comments “*Ahem* They’re taking it well.” In the middle of a battle he takes time to comment about die-cast construction. And, when all else fails, he’ll burst into song. Yes, this is why I love Optimus Primal. He is often a goofball. I like that in a leader. Really! I do! And, if anything, I like Primal’s sense of humor even better than I like Rodimus’, if only because it doesn’t come off as quite so occasionally harsh.

So, when all is said and done, Optimus Primal is, to me, “the best of both Primes.” And he’s none of the worst of both Primes, which is just as important. He is the character that I’ve always envisioned and heard in my head when writing for the Autobot leader, even before Beast Wars was a spark in Hasbro’s wallet. Sometimes it’s eerie; it’s almost as if the Beast Wars cartoon’s writers had reached into my noggin and extracted from it my idea of the perfect good guy leader. Now, maybe he’s no one else’s idea of a perfect leader. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve held a minority opinion, that’s for sure. And I’ve seen people scathingly say that the best hero of the Transformers continuities transforms into a truck, not a monkey. Well, you know what? I think that the reverse is true. I am proud to count myself as an unabashed Optimus Primal fan. That other guy with a similar name? To me, he’s just a prelude to much better things.

In fact, to me, it’s almost as if there’s a continuity of sorts amongst the good guy leaders. Optimus Prime started things off, giving us the standard cartoon hero who had, admittedly, some very admirable qualities. Rodimus Prime came along and added a dash of “reality” to the Autobot leadership, a sense of believability, and a very noticeable raft of weaknesses unheard of in the standard cartoon hero of the time, all balanced by a few very admirable or, at the very least, amusing characteristics. But it wasn’t until Optimus Primal finally came along that the Good Guy leader became, to me, a character who was at once a good leader with few weaknesses and an interesting character.

I guess it’s true what they say; the best often does get saved for last...