Liege Maximo

Here I go again on my throne.

Evil is infinite, a natural counterforce to good in the universe that cannot be truly defeated. So when the first Prime was created, so was, necessarily, the ultimate evil. Having no known name, he is known only by his rank. He is the Liege Maximo, and from him Megatron and the Decepticons were descended.

The Liege Maximo's throne sits at the Hub, a network of planetoids created by the Cybertronian Empire that exists in the outer fringes of known space.

Fiction

Generation 2 Marvel Comics

With the Liege Centuro Jhiaxus destroyed, Jhiaxus's fleet wiped out by The Swarm, and the Autobots and Decepticons united in peace under one banner, Rook reported to the Liege Maximo on the day's devastating events. The Liege Maximo, an ancient and monumental titan, accepted the destruction of Jhiaxus's forces as merely a minor disruption. Sneering at the Transformers' alliance as a fragile thing, the Liege Maximo promised a day of reckoning. A Rage in Heaven!

3H comics

The Covenant witnessed a vision of the ancient past, in which the Liege Maximo tore the Matrix of Leadership from the defeated Primon. When and why this happened remain unanswered questions. Covenant

Alignment

"Alignment" was written by Simon Furman without permission of Hasbro and is included here as pseudocanon to provide insight into authorial intent.

Liege Maximo was one of the Thirteen original Transformers created by Primus. Unlike his fellows, he had chosen not to subdivide repeatedly, doing so only selectively. This created a small taint in the Transformer race which spread through subsequent generations, ultimately flowering with the rise of the Decepticons. Because of this sparse sub-division, the Liege Maximo's connection to the divine origins of the Transformer race was comparatively undiluted, and he sought to embrace it. To this end, he instructed Jhiaxus and the Cybertronian Empire to subject various planets to eco-structuring. These planets were steadily woven together to form the Hub, a massive, resonating structure that would allow him to ascend to the realm of the gods. Two Transformer groups, one led by Grimlock and one by Ultra Magnus and Megatron, disrupted this process by forcing the Liege to leave his corporeal body, then destroying both it and his portal. Left with nowhere to go, the Liege Maximo's essence dissipated, and he was destroyed. Alignment

TransTech

The peaceful universe of Axiom Nexus was able to achieve unimaginable feats in technology and scientific discovery, but these were secretly possible by the amoral experiments of Shockwave and his master Jhiaxus under a secret government partnership with the Liege Maximo. An archivist named Optimus and the military professional Megatron exposed Sentinel Prime's ties with the Liege Maximo. After a dramatic, violent battle with the Liege Maximo, much of the government was caught in this controversy, and as a result, few were left standing when the legal proceedings ended. Optimus became the new Prime, and Cybertron entered a new Golden Age, but it was not a complete fresh start, as Megatron convinced the High Senate to allow Shockwave to continue performing experiments under his guidance, and Starscream miraculously emerged unscathed from the incident despite his heavy involvement.

Exodus

Like the other members of the thirteen original Transformers, Liege Maximo was considered a myth. Megatron proclaimed Transformers were free to do as they pleased, without pondering what the long-gone Liege Maximo or his treacherous brother would think. The Hub once became a part of the space bridge network during the Golden Age. Exodus

Prime cartoon

Plot details for One Shall Rise, Part 1 follow. Spoilers have expired, you may remove this tag

File:OneShallRise1-LiegeMaximo.jpg

Okay, so this one was a guess.

According to legend, at the beginning of time, Unicron and Primus battled each other for eons, with neither side remaining victorious for long. Till, that is, Primus created the Thirteen. These Thirteen defeated Unicron and cast him into space. One Shall Rise, Part 1

Notes

• "Liege Maximo" is likely this character's title or rank, while his proper name remains unknown. Jhiaxus has a similar title, Liege Centuro.
• Liege Maximo's name was frequently misspelled as "Leige Maximo" in the Generation 2 comics. Sometimes, both versions were even used on the same page, and once, even in the same sentence.
• Simon Furman cryptically hinted in comments on his blog that the Liege Maximo would make a return in 2008 in IDW's comics. It didn't happen.
• A faithful design for Liege Maximo was shown by Hasbro at BotCon 2010, and like all the original Primes, the look was guided by Eric Siebenaler.