User:Daytonjhammon/Sandbox

Evil is infinite, a natural counterforce to good in the universe that can never be truly defeated. None strikes greater fear into the sparks of Transformers than the horned demon, destroyer of worlds—wait, no, that's his uncle. Still, of the Thirteen primordial deities, there is one whose planet-shaking evil was so unforgivable that—no, wait, that's his brother.

Look, the Liege Maximo is still pretty evil, okay? Either he's the Prime of pure evil—the inevitable counterpart of the goodness embodied in the first Prime, the root of all evil, his name reverberating through the ages—ooor he's the Prime of lies. He's definitely at least one of those.

And what evil plans he has! Manipulating others with his silver tongue, gathering artifacts and allies, biding his time, waiting for the planets to come into alignment. Boy are the Transformers in for it. Darts will be involved! You know—the Liegian Darts? The Liege Maximo's famous darts. Trust him, it's going to be epic.

Conceptual history

Original Dreamwave Productions concept art for the Fallen

Created by writer Simon Furman as the antithesis to "the first named Prime", the Liege Maximo was introduced as the bigger bad behind Jhiaxus in the final page of Generation 2 comics. Revealing himself as the progenitor of the Decepticons, he was set to enact his plans, only for real world economics to end the G2 era with a cliffhanger. This would mark an unfortunate pattern of failed attempts and minimialized appearances to re-introduce this ancient villain.

Simon Furman would

caused when speculators abandoned an overheated comic market after realising five holo-foil copies of Robot-Master Extreme Force #1 wasn't actually going to be worth much. Furman says it was launched at the "wrong time", and would later reveal Jhiaxus' very name was an in-joke about how successful he thought G2 might be ("gee, axe us").

• In Furman's afterword, we learned colorist Sarra Mossoff apparently wasn't supposed to colour all the fiddly little idents in the word

and artist Pat Lee with contributions from Andrew Wildman and Don Figueroa, the Fallen debuted in the 2003 Dreamwave Productions comic mini-series War Within: The Dark Ages as a Herald of Unicron. A mysterious, fiery being from the Transformers' ancient past, he returned to Cybertron to enact the Unbinding, a ritual that would alert Unicron to Primus's location. Wielding mystical, entropic abilities, he was defeated by his creator, trapping him within the Seal of Primus. Only a month after this series concluded, Transformers: The Ultimate Guide—also written by Furman—was released, and filled in more details of the Fallen's backstory, established him to be one of the mysterious "Thirteen Original Transformers" created Primus to battle Unicron. According to the Guide, the Fallen betrayed his siblings by joining forces with Unicron, and the battle ended with the Fallen being sucked into a black hole until his escape, as seen in The Dark Ages. A 2007 bio written for the Fallen's Titanium Series toy would reveal he was the overseer of entropy.

As various parties slowly developed the concept of the Thirteen, 2009 would be a significant year for the character, becoming the titular main antagonist of the Live-action film series' second film, Revenge of the Fallen. The film would establish the character's connection to Megatron, and use his Decepticon-insignia-looking face to cement him as the true originator of the Decepticons: "The First Decepticon". Despite his death in the film, online Q&A sessions with Hasbro representatives established that the Fallen and his siblings were "multiversal singularities": special entities who existed across all realities, moving between them; this provided a loophole for the Fallen to survive the events of the film.

The novels of the Aligned continuity family significantly fleshed out the character's backstory, relationships, and weaponry. The 2010 novel Exodus established his original name of Megatronus, further strengthening the character's connection to Megatron and the Decepticon cause. Its sequel, 2011's Exiles, re-introduced the Requiem Blaster as the personal artifact of Megatronus, unlike the Mini-Con weapon of Armada. The novel would reveal that the weapon's existence became a great point of contention among the Primes, and would be the weapon that killed Solus Prime, who was introduced as his love interest. Two years later, The Covenant of Primus provided an alternate, less-villainous interpretation of the Fallen's backstory, exploring his tense relationship with Prima, the "Warrior of Light", and how the manipulations of the silver-tongued Liege Maximo led to an accidental death of Solus Prime in the War of the Primes. This less-villainous, more tragic interpretation of the character would be largely ignored when he made his proper television debut in the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon, which highlighted his role as the "First Decepticon".

The Fallen was introduced to IDW Publishing's long-running continuity, being mentioned in Robots in Disguise #34, and making visual appearances in Till All Are One #9, Optimus Prime #10, and Optimus Prime #18, albeit in flashback sequences. In this universe, Megatronus and the rest of the Thirteen were warlords of Thirteen Tribes rather than demigods.

Concurrently with IDW's continuity, the concept of multiversal singularities was nullified in the 2015 Collectors' Club comic storyline Another Light. The final episode of the Titans Return cartoon introduced an amalgamated version of the Fallen—featuring his fiery abilities of the Dreamwave incarnation and the Egyptian-crown-like head and color scheme of Revenge of the Fallen. The proceeding Power of the Primes cartoon would adapt his backstory from The Covenant of Primus, featuring the Requiem Blaster and Solus Prime prominently in flashbacks and the present-day story.

For a few years, the Fallen was absent from Transformers media, save the rare cameo appearance in the 2019 IDW continuity or mention in Cyberverse, until 2024 brought him back to relevance with the Transformers One film. The film established Megatronus Prime as the strongest and most powerful of the Primes, whose facial design was virtually identical to the Decepticon insignia, including its purple color. Unlike previous incarnations, this Megatronus remained heroic right up to his death, having never betrayed or murdered his fellow Primes. Later that year, the Age of the Primes toyline would be revealed, introducing "Megatronus the Fallen" as a Leader Class toy inspired primarily by his appearance in War Within: The Dark Ages.

Notes

I guess we know to which Energon bloodline Inferno belongs.

• "Liege Maximo" was likely meant to be this character's title or rank, while his proper name remained unknown, but subsequent uses of the character have treated Liege Maximo as the character's name (or, in some cases, "Liege" as his name and "Maximo" as a title in the vein of "Prime"). Jhiaxus has a similar title, Liege Centuro.
• Liege Maximo, was, at one point, established as a multiversal singularity who existed as one being throughout all of time and space, but that is no longer the case.
• In November 2007, Simon Furman cryptically hinted that the Liege Maximo would make a return in 2008 in IDW's comics. It didn't happen under his pen, however, and Liege Maximo wouldn't make his IDW debut until over 9 years later, in Till All Are One #8.
• Liege Maximo's "Aligned" design, by Eric Siebenaler, seems to have been heavily inspired by the Marvel Comics version of Loki; fitting enough for a manipulator and liar. Contrary to what you might expect, this was not done as a response to the massive spike in popularity that Loki would get as portrayed by Tom Hiddleston in 2011's Thor; his artwork was first shown at BotCon 2010, prior to the film's Loki's design even being revealed—and, indeed, Aligned Liege Maximo seems to be based much more heavily on the classic "ugly old man" Loki than Hiddleston's youthful hunk.
• The dead Prime seen in the Transformers: Prime episode "Alpha/Omega" is identified as Liege Maximo in The Covenant of Primus. The concurrently published Art of Prime claims that it is Sentinel Prime, but that doesn't make sense, since Sentinel is not a true Prime and, as such, his limb would not convey the power to use the Forge on Megatron. The dead Prime's arm in Prime is red-colored, which neither Sentinel nor Maximo are; it may be due to influence from the live-action Sentinel.
• The death of Liege Maximo in the Covenant of Primus is also at odds with other stories from Aligned continuity. The Exiles novel reports that Alchemist Prime left Cybertron to hunt down and capture Liege Maximo, while the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon and related materials show Liege Maximo as active in the Realm of the Primes. This is one of the larger examples of Aligned continuity's "It only works if you squint" rule towards the overall timeline.
• Behind-the-scenes concept art from Cyberverse mislabels Liege Maximo's plinth in the Realm of the Primes as "Siege Maximo". Translating the words on the plinth, however, gives the correct name.
• In 2023, Aaron Archer revealed on a personal stream several concept sketches of the Thirteen he had made sometime during the 2000s, when Hasbro was still developing the full roster for what would eventually become the Aligned continuity family. At this stage in development, the Liege Maximo's design was heavily inspired by the original G2 comic design instead of being based on Loki. In a bizarre deep cut, this early concept design was used as the basis for the character's appearance in the Age of the Primes key art and other promotional images.
• EarthSpark Liege Maximo was designed by Nick Roche. One of the concept designs for his head was a much more G2-inspired look, seen in the gallery below.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Liege Maximo (リージマキシモ Rīji Makishimo)
• Mandarin: Maximo Dàdì (马克西莫大帝 Mǎkèxīmò Dàdì, "Maximo the Great")

Gallery

• 
  A concept sketch created by Aaron Archer in the 2000s
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  2005 IDW comic continuity
• 
  2019 IDW continuity
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  One film
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  EarthSpark cartoon
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  EarthSpark concept art