Domitius Major

Domitius Major is a Maximal and Autobot from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Warp factor four, Mr. Centurion—engage!

Domitius Major is a Maximal on a mission from God Onyx Prime. A keen and capable commander, Domitius and his crew were boldly going where no beast-former had gone before until extenuating circumstances saw their vessel stranded on a frigid alien planet.

All memories of his past life gone, Domitius became Optimus Prime, adopting his namesake's trademark heroism and determination. Though clad in the trappings of someone else's life, "Optimus" remained a heroic force for good on Earth until his final passing.

He also punched out Cthulhu.

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

• First Appearance: Revolutionaries #4

Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse!

Twenty thousand years ago, Dominitus Major and a crew of Maximal explorers captained a deep space expedition aboard the Axalon at the behest of his leader Onyx Prime to find the Enigma of Combination. Centurion profile Believing it would offer protection against an unidentified threat, Onyx entrusted Domitius with the supernatural Talisman. Ghost in the Machine The Axalon travelled through space for centuries until depleting energon stocks aboard their vessel prompted Domitius to set course for the nearest planet with energon—Earth. As they entered the planet's orbit, however, the ship first received a transmission of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee—alerting them to Shockwave's own ship, who shot down the colonists.

The Axalon crashed on a glacier in the land that would one day be Brasnya; though physically unharmed, the Talisman their vessel carried had scrambled the minds of their crew, leaving them with no trace of their memories. Centurion's confusion over his lost identity inspired Shockwave—who had originally come to Earth to investigate the progress of his Regenesis project—to use the amnesiac Transformers in a twisted experiment of his own devising. By overwriting their memories with data from the Cybertronian Great War, the amoral scientist was able to convince the stranded explorers that they were Autobots and Decepticons, and Domitius Major was conditioned into believing that he was Optimus Prime. The two factions battled one another for a century in a series of simulated war games while Shockwave observed their tactics. Eventually, however, the Maximals ran low on energy and entered stasis lock underground. Strange Visitors

In the 19th century, nearby human activity prompted a handful of Maximals to awaken, though "Optimus Prime" was not one of them. Several of the ersatz Autobots mulled over the possibility of reactivating their commander during the brief conflict between the "Autobots" and "Decepticons", though they ultimately decided against it. Hearts of Steel #1 Hearts of Steel #2

GIVE ME YOUR F...er, tentacles.

Several years later, however, the forces of the Elder Gods manifested themselves, threatening both humans and Transformers. With the help of Tobias Muldoon and Nikola Tesla, the Maximal Autobots were able to reactivate their commander, who had been buried beneath the Mare Rurek Glacier. "Optimus" battled the Elder God in Nova Scotia, and eventually drove it and its followers back to the depths of the ocean. In the aftermath, he pledged to defend Earth if the abomination ever resurfaced. Infestation 2: The Transformers #2

Domitius, still believing himself to be Optimus Prime, survived until World War I, when he and "Bumblebee" were caught in a European battlefield. Faced with a real war, their artificial memories of the Cybertronian war swiftly unraveled and Domitius perished that day. His death was enough to shake "Bumblebee" from his conditioning.

He's got the (bad) touch.

By the end of World War II, Centurion returned to the crash site of the Axalon, where he discovered that the IRON Troopers that the Talisman created had banded together to puppeteer Domitius's dead body like a suit. Centurion—by this time, the last surviving member of the Axalon crew—battled his old commander for the last time and eventually managed to tear his body apart. Strange Visitors In the decades that followed, Kreiger recovered Domitius' body as part of his quest to unlock the secrets of the Talisman and relocated it to a secure facility beneath the crater left by the Axalon. The Iron Klaw Strange Visitors

By studying Atomic Man's reverse-engineered cybernetics, Kreiger eventually discovered a way to command the IRON Troopers to once more animate Domitius's dead body. Alongside the Maximal Shockwave, the "I.R.O.N. Cybertronians" were deployed to stop Action Man after he and his compatriots broke into the base. Action Man briefly tangled with them before he managed to flood a tunnel and wash them away. They recovered just in time to briefly battle Matt Trakker in the Thunderhawk before Atomic Man committed suicide, severing the link between himself and the IRON Troopers to permanently take them offline. Power and Glory

Following his fusion with Mike Power, Centurion would mourn both Domitius and Smarts as friends that he had betrayed and lost. Unification Day: Dusk

Notes

• Domitius's original beast mode goes unseen on-panel, but according to artist Guido Guidi his beast body was designed to transform into some sort of sauropod dinosaur.
• Domitius's Maximal body is based on Big Convoy's design, with the split dinosaur neck taking the place of the mammoth tusks.