For sheer tearjerker: His death in TF:TM, just perfectly paced, classy and well done. When his eyes start to shut down.... oh man, not a dry eye in the house.

For sheer shock value: Primal's death at the end of Beast Wars Season 1. As a kid watching, I was blown away to watch the hero get blown up by the villain.... "MEGATROOOOONNNNN!"

For sheer bad ass awesomeness: When he forces the Matrix down Unicron's throat in Issue #75 of the Marvel comics run. One of his finest hours.

His Armada death also was rather different, seeing him crumble to dust was quite a shock.

 

Armada

 

None of them

 

Again, not a big fan of Optimus Prime, but I feel his deaths in the original Marvel G1 comics were great (yes, even in Afterdeath).

For Optimus Primal, I feel his second death in Beast Machines was his best death. He accomplished his mission and he knew that his time had come, so he sacrificed his own life.

However, just as I'm tired of Optimus Prime, I'm tired of him having to constantly come back to life after dying. If I was writing a show, I would kill off both Megatron and Optimus at the beginning of the series and just move on.

 

Well, when they tried that in 1986.... it didn't work. I doubt they'll repeat that mistake.

 

Personally, I felt the mistake was giving in to pressure to bring Optimus back. Optimus and Megatron are just becoming stale as years go by, and again, this is my personal opinion, they should stop putting them in every single Transformers show that comes in, because we all know what it's gonna happen (if they die, they just come back, and it's just getting repetitive).

 

Dark Awakening.

 

Yes I think this tops the movie personally.

 

G1 movie death.No other death has nearly the same effect on me personally.
If I have to choose a second,definitely the Beast Wars season one ender. My local stations didn't broadcast the second season until months after it's premiere,and I was left wondering far to long.. 

 

"Why throw your life away so Shreklessly?"

"That is a question you should ask yourself, Drekatron!"

 

RotF forest battle was my favorite.

 

My vote goes to "Dark Awakening"
"Optimus prime to Autobot fleet, return to cybertron, That is my final command, Until all are one"

 

I had forgotten about Dark Awakening. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME TODAY?!!!  

But yeah, that is another great death. Plus, the battle between Optimus and Rodimus was excellent and perfectly performed (Dick Gautier's Rodimus really sounds reluctant and hesitant during the battle, yet also managing to get some fun moments).

 

For me it is the end of TFP Predacons Rising.
When optimus returns to the well of allsparks he smiles quietly to himself as if he is happy for it all to be over and to have sacrificed himself for cybertron. Plus it was his last good speech.
Pity RID2 cheapened the whole thing by bringing him back.

 

ROTF. Fan of the battle scene and of OP taking on 3 Decepticons at once

 

Predacons rising.

 

None of them had the emotional impact as the original did ,at least to me

 

Dark Awakening

 

The 1986 death and the one at the end of predacons rising