In the original show, Optimus Prime used to be a powerhouse, a dominating force on the battlefield. but ONLY in the show.

in the marvel G1 comic (US), it was very rare for prime to do anything aside from pout. he rarely participated in any battles. did he fight AT ALL before he killed himself over a video game? after gaining his powermaster form he took out the decepticon powermasters, pouted, interrupted scorponok and shockwave's battle, took out unicron, and then finally kicked decepticon ass in the final issue.

in G2, he got off to a great start. kicking lots of decepticon ass, even when jhiaxus was tearing him apart, he still kept going. then Megatron crushed him. then jhiaxus did, again. then the swarm did. then he got a fancy new body and didnt do anything.

then comes Dreamwave. volume 1, he's doing good. even takes out devastator. volume 2, hey, yeah, more ass kicking as the series wraps up. oh. now he's getting his ass soundly kicked by shockwave. yay. in the ongoing, he's out of commission for every single issue.

war within, he beats up some decepti-fodder, and beats up megatron himself. then he's gone for volume 2 and what we saw of volume 3.

IDW, the first battle we see him in, he gets trashed by megatron.

now in the avengers crossover issue 3 preview, prime is down again, smoldering.

am I the only one noticing that prime gets his ass kicked more often than he's kicking ass? that he's pacing around complaining and pitying himself more often than he's actually taking any kind of action?

DW's G1 vol. 2 showed us that prime could be a hero again. I know we all loved reading hot rod's description of him as he took charge and led the attack against the omega sentinels.

I'm tired of seeing prime treated so badly. hell, I'd even accuse the various comic writers of wasting him. I want prime to be someone the decepticons fear. someone who can step onto a battle field and turn the tide like he did in the animated movie. I want him to be a hero again.

does anyone think this will ever happen? how likely is it that as soon as prime's better in the IDW comic, that he's going to either talk for the entire run of devastation, or get his ass kicked again? will the prime spotlight be page after page of him getting beat down?

 

The only time he actually turned the tide, he died. Would you like that in all the series?

 

only reason he died there is because he didnt want to shoot hot rod. if hot rod didnt get in the way, I believe prime would have easily finished megatron.

 

I like it. It shows that he's not invincible and has his flaws. Of course, I haven't read all of the series, so it probably does gets repetitive for you.

 

it does show that he's not invincible and has flaws, which is fine in moderation. but the comics make him out to be the most physically frail of all the autobots. no one got his ass kicked more, even if they were in more battles than him (apparently grimlock is invincible, for example)

 

Point taken. I'd like to see Prime kick some more ass.

 

In my mind's eye, I will always see Optimus Prime as he was in the cartoon. The leader of the Autobots. When he showed up, Decepticons got real scared. Prime will always be to me the leader who makes his team. The Autobot cause may be just and good, but Optimus Prime is the personification of those ideals. He's the hero that every Autobot needs to know is there so they have something to shoot for.

 

I remember another thread like this before. And I don't know but I think Hasbro or whatever company or writers or whichever just didn't want Optimus Prime to be "perfect" again and again. So this is the result.

 

I think its too chic for the hero to suck ass more than kick ass. This is giant robots, the heroes should be laying down the whoopin more often. Especially when you have a friggin divine talisman in your robot chest.

 

If you wanna see prime kick ass all the time watch Cybertron!

 

You forgot that early on, he spent most of his time without a body as a wall decoration for Shockwave.

 

talking about the comics here, but the shows have issues too. in the past four shows, prime is incapable of doing ANYTHING without combining with something or someone else, aside from armada's final episode.

I didnt forget it, I left it out because it was just too damn pathetic.  

 

Prime took down Thunderwing in Stormbringer.
The IDW Prime ONLY lost to Megatron because Megatron was high on Ore-13 and had a trick up his sleeve that Prime wasn't expecting, they traded a lot of blows in Escalation 5, and it was Megatron who was coming out of it second best if you ask me.

 

Could be why I've tended to prefer the cartoons to the comics. On average in the G1 cartoon, Optimus and Megatron were pretty evenly matched, with Optimus probably coming out on top in a straight one-on-one fight with nothing to give one side an advantage over the other. Normally neither Op nor Megs was what I would consider unusually powerful or invincible either. One common recurring theme in comics (and especially recent anime series) which often bugged me is the idea that pretty much nothing can defeat Megatron but Optimus (or maybe Megatron himself - or plot convenience   ) I can respect that Megatron is supposed to be the mightiest of Decepticons, but I'm tired of having him pound an entire batallion of Autobots, three combiners, and Primus himself without breaking a sweat. I'm of the opinion that one really strong guy (who isn't an action movie star) is beaten by five to ten weaker guys with guns more often than not.   The cartoon went with that idea (usually), as both Megatron and Optimus were hurt or driven away when enough of the opposing faction ganged up on him.

 

Furman loves Grimlock. 'Nuff said about that.

Combining Primes are okay but G1 cartoon "I can kick your ass and I don't need to combine to do it" Prime is the Prime that will always be my Optimus Prime.

 

Yeah, it was only in G1 where Optimus was doing lots of butt-kicking and body-slamming. Everything else since then has him suffer too much from the underdog syndrome, even in the live action movie.

I would really like him to be a real force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, not godly powerful, but strong enough to take on Megatron mano-a-mano and still have a good chance of coming out on top. Isn't that what Prime is supposed to be all about?

In the meantime, I have my toys to recreate battle scenes the way I want it to be.  

 

I think they did a good job of showing Prime as a badass in the movie.

Megatron got the better of him, but Prime was trying to protect Sam for most of the fight.
Yeah -even as a kid I had a problem with Prime sacrificing himself because he caused some 8-bit sprites to be killed in a video game. I understand what they were trying to do with the nobility angle, but there was also the angle of "Prime just abandoned his job as guardian and is letting Megatron run loose because some pixels got shot in a Commodore 64 game."

 

I dislike how the comics always make him mope around having 'flaws', I want my Prime to be justice, goodness and power all baked into that sexy truck sculpt with half a page of characterisation sticky taped to the outside as an after thought.

 

I have to agree. OP has to be "more action, less talk" like in G1. He did managed to stop Thunderwing in Stormbringer, after 2 issues of thinking and pitying himself over the mistakes he did. Movie Prime comes very close to G1 Prime. He knows what has to be done and does it without second thoughts and a half of the movie thinking about it.

 

I'm not a big fan of emo Prime, but seeing a side of him that does make mistakes and does "care" enough to consider the ramifications of his actions is interesting.