Before the movie? Not at all. In fact, Optimus Prime's insides have been shown in one or two episodes, with the Matrix nowhere to be found.
The Matrix was created for the movie. Obviously people like it since it's been in every continuity since.
Not before the film, no. They did attempt to include a reference to it before the film, in "Cosmic Rust", but the line was deleted during production.
from wwiki The Matrix of Leadership first appeared in the animated Transformers series in The Transformers: The Movie, when a dying Optimus Prime passed it to Ultra Magnus. Prime was the seventh holder of the Matrix - after the death of the sixth holder, Alpha Trion briefly kept the Matrix safe before bestowing it upon Optimus. Before passing away, Prime spoke of a prophecy - one day, "The Chosen One" would rise from the ranks of the Autobots, and use the power of the Matrix to light the Transformers' darkest hour. That darkest hour soon came upon Cybertron in the form of the world-eater, Unicron, who knew that the Matrix's power was the one thing that could destroy him. Recreating Decepticon leader Megatron as Galvatron, he dispatched him to destroy Ultra Magnus and the Matrix, but when Galvatron obtained the talisman, he tried and failed to use its power against Unicron. Ultimately, the Chosen One who could open the Matrix proved to be the youthful Hot Rod, who reclaimed the Matrix and was reformatted by its power into Rodimus Prime, before opening it within Unicron and releasing its power, which tore Unicron apart from within. As the animated series progressed, more was divulged about the nature of the Matrix that had not been explained in the movie. When injured in battle, Rodimus' consciousness briefly entered the Matrix itself, and he discovered that it was more than a mere source of energy - it, in fact, contained the amassed wisdom of deceased Autobot leaders throughout history (this was previously hinted at in The Transformers: The Movie when Hot Rod heard the voice of Optimus Prime as the Matrix turned him into Rodimus Prime, and even before that during Optimus's death scene when Optimus told those present not to grieve because "Soon I will be one with the Matrix."). Venturing into the Matrix a second time, Rodimus was shown the history of Cybertron by the ancient Autobots whose consciousnesses existed within the Matrix, revealing to him the Quintessons' role in the creation of the Transformers. When he was resurrected, Optimus Prime later did the same thing when faced with the Hate Plague, and came to a drastic conclusion - to cure the madness of the plague, he expelled all of the wisdom from within the Matrix, saving the universe, but emptying the Matrix and leaving only a shell. The Matrix's story subsequently branched off in two directions following this, as America and Japan took the story in their own unique directions. In the US finale, "The Rebirth", Optimus Prime used the shell of the Matrix as a substitute key to access Vector Sigma. Conversely, in Japan - where the Matrix is treated simply as a reservoir of pure energy - the shell was left hidden on Earth to slowly recharge its depleted energy. However, the emptying of the Matrix had disestablished Vector Sigma, leading the Autobots to search for its location before Optimus Prime sacrificed himself to restore the computer's balance. The ghost of Alpha Trion re-energized the Matrix, but Optimus Prime merged with Vector Sigma to stabilize it, and Rodimus Prime was again left in charge of the Autobots. No origin was ever offered for the Matrix of Leadership in the animated continuity, but it was vaguely hinted that it was in some way connected to the origins of Unicron, perhaps to explain why it was his antithesis. Unicron was created by the insane genius, Primacron, but turned on him. After Unicron's attack against his master, Primacron's assistant was shown to flee, and from his damaged robotic body, an object that appeared to be the Matrix emerged. If this truly was intended to be the Matrix, how the Transformers obtained it was never revealed.
I remember seeing in the Episode " The Ultimate Doom " part 1, when the Autobots were led in some type of trap and the Decepticons invaded Autobot HQ, Prime's chest glowed when finding out that the Autobots HQ was being invaded, but that glowing stuff was it the Matrix?
That was more likely meant to be a alarm system built within him...somehow. They're robots, they can do stuff like that.
Read Ryoku's post again, because that's what I was addressing. The Matrix couldn't have been created for the movie if it was created for the comic first.
