Primus

That's MISTER God to you.

Primus is Unicron's sibling, and the creator god of the Transformers. His body is the planet Cybertron. Each Transformers' spark is a small piece of Primus' essence.

In the beginning

"No, Rumble is blue!"

Before the dawn of time, Order and Chaos existed within an extradimensional entity known as the One. He created twin astral beings to reign over the cosmos: Primus and Unicron. Their nature differed, as Primus' lifeforce (aka the Allspark) was a multiversal singularity; existing across all Transformers realities at once (See Animated and IDW continuity sections below for possiple exceptions to this), whereas Unicron existed in only one dimension at a time but could travel relatively freely between them. Primus was the Lord of Light and Order, and Unicron, the Lord of Darkness and Chaos. Unicron sought to devour everything that exists and become one with The Void at the end of all things.

In combat, Primus was no match for Unicron. But Primus did manage to trap both his and Unicron's essences inside metallic planetoids. Over time, they learned to shape these prisons. Primus became the mechanical planet of Cybertron. Knowing that his ancient enemy still lived, Primus created the 13 original Transformers from the material of the newly created planet. To the very first of these 13, named Prima, Primus bestowed the Matrix, containing his essence. These Transformers would, in time, grow strong in number, knowledge, and power, and be able to defeat Unicron.

War of the balance

The first conflict between Primus and Unicron occurred shortly after the creation of the first 13 Transformers. One of the original 13, who would ever afterwards be known as The Fallen, betrayed Primus and became an acolyte of Unicron. Many of the first 13 were destroyed in this great battle before Unicron and Primus were sucked into a black hole and sealed away in a extra-dimensional limbo.

The two brothers shared a mental link. So long as Primus hid himself in slumber, so did Unicron also sleep. Their war ended, for a time, in stalemate.

KHHHHHAAAAANNNNN!

Eventually, in one version of Generation 1 continuity Grimlock, Jazz, and Bumblebee found themselves transported to the center of Cybertron. In a battle with Bludgeon's Pretenders, a laser blast ricocheted off Grimlock and struck the essence of the sleeping Primus, causing a multiverse-shaking Primal Scream that woke Unicron and alerted him to Primus' location.

The battle between Primus and Unicron began anew. Though Unicron would sometimes be defeated, this is always temporary, and there is a whole multiverse of realities to consume. When Unicron is destroyed in one reality, he will respawn in another, ready to eat again. Primus will always be waiting, hoping to incapacitate Unicron and preserve existence.

It has been suggested that both of them are, in fact, necessary for the multiverse to exist in stability.

The evolution of the Primus/Unicron myth

The Primus/Unicron backstory has evolved and been rewritten a good number of times since it first originated in the Marvel Comics. The version above is the current iteration, which has slowly solidified across a wide swath of media beginning around the time of Armada) Before the Primus/Unicron mythos reached its present form it went through several distinct versions in the Marvel G1 Comics and elsewhere.

Unicron's story

The first time we ever heard the Primus/Unicron backstory it in the UK comic continuity, from Unicron himself. After his destruction during the events of The Transformers: The Movie, his head floated through space and crashed on the planet Junk. There, he enslaved the inhabitants to recreate his old body from their world. When the bount-um... freelance peacekeeping agent Death's Head challenged him on the astral plane, Unicron shared the story of his origin thusly:

At the dawn of the universe, when Unicron was a primal force of evil, the only one who could stand against him and his Dark Armies was Primus, Lord of the Light Gods. (Note the plural.) Primus and his fellow Light Gods stood against Unicron and his Dark Armies. Events then played out roughly as described above. (The role of the other Light Gods and Unicron's armies would diminish with each retelling of the story, until the current version where they are alone and have a unique origin. Only one of the other Light Gods was ever named: the Chronarchitect.)

The Keeper's story

The second time the story was told was in the US book by the Keeper, an ancient mechanoid who guarded Primus's head at the center of Cybertron. This telling mentions that their battle was towards the end of the era of Gods and that Primus and Unicron were the last of their respective pantheons. But Primus had to defeat Unicron before he could take his place with the other gods in the "Omniversal Matrix".

Primus' story

The third time the story was told was by Primus when he gathered all his children together to prepare for Unicron's coming. Here we learn for the first time that Unicron predated the current universe. Unicron had destroyed the previous universe and then slept peacefully, alone with the void. But he had not been thorough enough and some bits of the "old realms" survived. They reacted and caused The Big Bang. The sentient core of this new universe recognized the threat of Unicron and so created Primus to be his counterpart and guardian of the new creation.

DK's story

File:WarWithinPrimus.jpg

Our God is an AWESOME God. In a totally 80's meaning of "awesome."

The first modern retelling of their origin in the DK Transformers: The Ultimate Guide (which tended to focus on the then current Dreamwave continuity) added a new twist with "The One" a self-contained being of balanced Order and Chaos. He was curious and so created Unicron to explore the new-born Universe for him. Then he sub-divided Unicron and created Primus out of him. As Primus achieved consciousness he realized Unicron had become corrupted and was now a force for Chaos. Primus thus took on the role of champion of Order and creation to balance things and protect existence from Unicron.

Marvel Comics continuity

File:Emirate prmus.jpg

Form blazing god!

Unicron is first seen in the comic adaptation of The Transformers: The Movie. The Marvel US comic basically left the adaptation alone as something that might or might not happen but was in the distant future (at the time) and so basically out of continuity. The Marvel UK version of the comic however seized on the Movie era and its characters as something it could focus on without worry of contradicting events in the US stories it reprinted.

Target 2006 was the first of these UK exclusive stories. It is not until the later "Legacy of Unicron" storyline however that we first hear of and see Primus.

(Of particular note is that the story clearly intends for Primus to have died after his battle with Unicron in the US book. Unfortunately the current retcon disallows that, as Primus must live in all realities or the multiverse collapses. One must assume that Prime was wrong about Primus' status and the god was only "mostly dead", perhaps gone offline as in the Cybertron cartoon until the Last Autobot somehow revived him. Though that is only speculation, there is some evidence in the continuity itself to support Primus not having died after all. The Matrix is the life-force of Primus and it is shown to still be existing and functioning fine in the G2 Marvel Comics series that follows his supposed death.)

Animated continuity

Primus did not exist in the Generation 1 cartoon. There, Cybertron's oldest revealed status was as a factory world of the Quintessons who invented the Transformers, and Unicron was a product of the strange sad little alien Primacron.

This causes some trouble with the later retcon that Primus is a "multiversal singularity" and part of all Transformers universes, though Wreckers #3 did attempt to retcon the Primus mythology into the Quintesson-creation backstory of the original cartoon.

Beast Era

Beast Wars/Beast Machines

Primus' name was often invoked in prayer or in righteous anger by the Beast Warriors.

The Covenant of Primus, a prophetical set of data tracks, were on board both the Ark and the Nemesis when they crashed 4 million years ago on prehistoric Earth. Megatron himself took his name from these tracks (as did, presumably, the original Megatron), and the scriptures foretold the events which completed the Beast Wars.

After the Beast Wars, Megatron intended to incorporate Primus' essence, the Allspark, into his own being and become godlike by stealing every Spark of every Transformer on Cybertron. Ultimately, this was merely one step of the Oracle's plan to reformat Cybertron into a technorganic paradise. After Megatron and Optimus Primal were plunged into the planet's core, the planet was reborn and the abducted Sparks were returned to new technorganic bodies.

Tales of the Beast Wars comics

Back at the dawn of the Universe, before he put into effect his grand plan, Primus did a test run to make sure it would work. He transformed a small moon into a planet and there created twelve transforming, robotic beings based on the Zodiac of future Earth. (He was a forward thinking God and had the Chronarchitect on his side.) The Covenant of Primus as they were called, were given the duty of watching over their younger cousins the Transformers, ensuring that Primus' plan followed its intended path, and preparing for the Omega Point, a prophesied final battle with Unicron in which they were to take part.

Universe

Alpha, Rita's escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!

When Unicron began gathering Transformers from the multiverse, forcing them to fight, and harvesting the Sparks of the losers, this presented a huge threat to Primus and the Allspark. Transformers' Sparks are pieces of Primus' essence, so each devoured soul weakened him.

Primus and Alpha Trion called back from the Allspark the now-legendary Maximal ship commander and Cybertron's savior, Optimus Primal, to rescue the possessed, battling captives from the Pit of Unicron -- and to lead a team of multiversal warriors to put a stop to his soul-stealing scheme before it could cause the Allspark to collapse.

Primus allowed Optimus Primal to choose any Transformer who ever existed -- living or dead -- for his army. This required considerable amounts of Primus' power, so Primal was told to choose sparingly. Primal chose his departed former troops Rhinox and Depth Charge.

Unicron Trilogy

Energon

Voice actor: Ron Halder (US), Tesshō Genda (Japan)

Primus mistakes Kicker for a Japanese schoolgirl.

The creation God of the Transformers made his character debut in the Unicron Trilogy during the Energon series. Although Primus was very vague and kept mysterious in the Energon series, his purpose would be further explored in the Cybertron series.

Primus is the living core of Cybertron and the creator of all Transformers, as well as the originator of the precious and ancient fuel, Energon. After the first era, stories of Unicron, Primus, and Omega Supreme were regarded as myth and legend, until after the Unicron Battles of 2010. With Cybertron left in a disastrous state, it would require large amounts of Energon to repair it fully. Involved in this task was the Earth Federated Government, operating secretly with the Cybertronians. A child of one of the Earth scientists, Kicker Jones, would be the one to awaken the ancient God, Primus, within Cybertron's core, while fleeing Optimus Prime in fear.

Primus' first act was to empower this child with the gift of finding energon throughout the universe. Primus would also create the sparks of combination which would allow his Autobots to double in strength by having one Autobot link to another, diverting his energy supply into his partner's weapons and processing systems through a system of Powerlinking top to bottom, much like Optimus and Jetfire's combination from Transformers Armada.

Primus would go on to advise Optimus Prime on his actions in order to prepare for the future, including the Terrorcon invasion, the return of Megatron, and the next battle with Unicron. Although vague at times, Primus often offered enough information in order for his children to avoid destruction in battle. Primus was often very weak due to the damage done to the planet's surface, and spent most of his time in a mode of stasis to preserve his energy and keep Cybertron's energy grid online.

Primus would continue to advise his creations until Unicron, being controlled by Megatron, would once again menace Cybertron and the other planets in the Planet Q system. Most of the Autobot army were critically wounded, prompting the sleeping Primus to awaken and fuse their armor. Unicron was eventually defeated, but Megatron survived. After Megatron used the hidden super energon pool to upgrade himself into Galvatron, all seemed nearly lost until Galvatron was once again possessed by Unicron. In the final battle, Primus awoke to carry the super energon through space and collide it with Unicron's spark, creating a newborn sun, ending the Energon story. Unfortunately, this would not last, as the sun would soon collapse, leading to the black hole that threatens the universe in the Transformers Cybertron series.

It is unknown if the act of creating the sun in the Energon series completely exhausted Primus, as the fiction connecting the stories remains vague. The club comic seems to portray the idea that Primus continued to exist, but was offlined by Nemesis Prime's attack. Although this is a plausible idea, the structure of Primus and Cybertron, having an Alpha Trion and Vector Sigma is based on Generation One, and was not present in the previous Energon animated series.

(Note: Early Super-Link pre-production notes go into the specifics of Primus's creation. Although it is not particularly in-line with the Western multiversal origin of the character involving the One, they present Primus as an entity consisting purely of energon. Energon, the notes state, is the product of the "genetic material" of the sun interacting with planetary bodies - this, then, appears to be a very literal interpretation of Primus's role as a "light god," presenting him as an actual product of the light of the sun.)

Cybertron

Voice actor: ? (US), Tesshō Genda (Japan)

File:Map-Primus.jpg

If Unicron is Galactus, does that mean that Primus is Ego, The Living Planet?

Primus' plot to bury Unicron's essence in the center of a newborn star failed. The star collapsed into a black hole which threatened not only Cybertron and the universe, but the multiverse as well. Only four Cyber Planet Keys, hidden on planets throughout the galaxy, combined with the Omega Lock, could awaken Primus and allow him to destroy the black hole.

After Megatron is seemingly defeated, the Autobots bring the Omega Lock along with the Cyber Planet Keys from Velocitron the Jungle Planet and Earth to the restoration chamber. Upon inserting the three keys into the Omega Lock, the room shakes and the Omega Lock is pushed from its receptical into the ceiling, causing a chain reaction that makes it look as though the planet itself is falling apart. As the Autobots evacuated, they began to realize what was occurring - Cybertron was transforming.

File:Primus Cybertrony.jpg

Prickly.

As the massive continental plates of Cybertron split and shifted, exposing an arsenal of weapons, as well as recognisably humanoid robotic appendages, Vector Prime intoned an almost-religious verse: "He who fought Unicron at the dawn of Time. He who created the Matrix of Leadership. He who brought life to Cybertron, Velocitron and all the other Transformer worlds in the cosmos. Yes, there can be no other. This, is Primus." Cybertron

Primus communicates directly through the Mini-Con Jolt, telling the Autobots that the black hole is no ordinary singularity. Primus gives the assembled an image of two forces, one good, one evil, that have been in existance for all time, but the evil force has vanished. Primus says that the destruction of Unicron left the balance of good and evil severely unbalanced, whch distorted space and time, and formed the black hole. Vector Prime explains to the kids that Unicron and Primus are balancing forces, and one cannot exist without the other, which Coby illustrates to Bud with a coin.

Primus says that only he can close the black hole, but his spark must be fully restored first, by obtaining all four Cyber Planet Keys and puttng them in the Omega Lock.... but the Autobots only have three Keys so far.

Mother...

After Primus reveals the location of the fourth Planet Key, an Allspark-fueled Starscream attacks Primus, intent on retrieving the Omega Lock. Primus manages to defend himself and easily defeat Starscream. Balance

Fun Publications Cybertron comic

During the events of Transformers: Cybertron, the black hole created by Unicron's passing posed unique problems. Primus and Unicron -- representing Order and Chaos, respectively -- together forged a delicate balance in the multiverse. With one or the other missing, the balance would be upset, spiraling all that exists into an unknown doom.

In addition, the black hole was positioned very close to Cybertron itself, making Primus, despite Unicron's apparent demise, the most vulnerable he had ever been. Cybertron was the linchpin, the astral center of the entire multiverse, itself another singularity. Unicron's heralds Ramjet and Nemesis Prime arrived on Cybertron to unleash the Dead Matrix on Primus' essence. For the first time ever, Unicron, who is normally limited to threatening Primus one reality at a time, would be able to weaken Primus across all timelines -- and the black hole's proximity would end their cosmic feud forever.

IDW Continuity

Simon Furman has also stated that he may specifically exclude Primus and Unicron from the IDW comic universe as well, which might be seen as retconning out the previous retcon and rendering Primus as being once again a feature of only "some" Transformer continuities.

Toys

Generation 1

• Primus (2004)

The first Primus figure was a "Lucky Draw" toy in Japan, a recolored metallic Rodimus Prime that was given away as a contest prize from a collector book.

Cybertron

• Cybertron Primus (Supreme, 2006)

Japanese ID number: C-00

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.

Cybertron Primus is the first toy representation of Transformers' Creator as their home planet of Cybertron. In planet mode, he is considerably more detailed than Unicron from the Armada line, with visible cities, including Iacon based upon its appearance in the DK Books Transformers Ultimate Guide, and Kaon as seen in The War Within. On the 'bottom' of the planet mode there are four hard rubber legs, molded to be shaped like towers, allowing Primus to be displayed in planet mode, yet not require a flat base as Unicron did.

Primus's transformation is unusual, in many ways similar to a Powermaster, in that he requires the owner to insert his accompanying Omega Lock accessory into several special ports around the planet, then manipulate them to unlock his parts and transform him. When the Omega Lock is initially inserted and pushed, a transforming sound is heard. When it is inserted into his chest and pushed up to reveal his head, his eyes glow red and a laser-type sound effect is heard.

In robot mode, Primus resembles both the Beast Wars Neo Unicron prototype as well as Don Figueroa's Primus concept. He is bristling with weaponry, including two shoulder-mounted cannons that can fire missiles, two forearm blasters that raise and extend when a Cyber Planet Key is inserted, and several banks of gattling cannons, lasers and missile launchers in his shins and legs revealed by the Omega Lock.

Primus also has a third mode, an intergalacticic world-ship. It is basically done by half-way transforming the figure, leaving the head down and the legs backward. Though many fans don't particually care for this mode, it is included in the instructions.

Primus comes with two accessories, the aformentioned battery-operated Omega Lock that lights up red when inserted into any of the four Omega Lock ports, and a special silver Cybertron-Planet Cyber Planet Key. Any four Cyber Planet Keys can be inserted into the four key slots at the base of the Omega Lock, though doing this does not activate any feature.

There are 9 Mini-Con hard points on the Primus figure, including two on the claws on his legs. In respect of the Transformers storyline, this is highly unusual, since Unicron created the Mini-Cons (or the Gigantions, depending on how Cybertron is interpretted). Either way, they did not exist when he did, and the only real reason he could have them is the engineers attempting to revive a dead gimmick.

In North America, limited early-run versions of Cybertron Primus came packaged with a "battle damaged" Unicron head based upon his Armada appearance. It is still available on the Hasbro website as of March 29, 2007.

A later version, exclusive to Wal-Mart as a Black Friday 2006 special, included four Mini-Cons; Strongarm, Knockdown, Nightscream, and Offshoot.

From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.