In the 2009 live-action Transformers film “Revenge of the Fallen”, Robert Epps’s character, played by Tyrese Gibson, says an interesting line when he sees Optimus Prime transforming: “Gotta wonder. If god made us in his image, who made him?
It was a question that left me thinking at the time, but the sequels went completely off the rails, leaving millions of viewers wondering if there is a god for the Transformers.
And the truth is that one of the topics that come to mind when you get into the universe of these characters beyond the movies: Who made the Transformers? Do they have their own religion?
But recently, in the “Rise of the Beasts” film there was a brief mention of Primus, so…
Who is Primus In The Transformers Universe?
In the Transformers franchise, Primus is a God who created the Transformers. His existence dates back to the beginning of the universe. He is an entity considered to be one of the most powerful forces that inhabit different realities and dimensions of the multiverse, making it the last line of defense against any evil.
After a long time acting as a force for good in the universe, Primus used his divine powers to become the planet Cybertron, giving rise to the home of the Transformers, who are actually extensions of Primus himself.
While he is an extremely interesting character as you can see, his origin story is even more striking.
The Origin Of Primus Explained
To understand the origin of Primus, we have to go back to the beginning of the franchise in the 1980s when Transformers comics were published by Marvel in the United States.
Meanwhile, the UK was reprinting the comics, but they wrote their own stories, introducing totally original characters to lore that did not come from the toy line, such as the Decepticon Lord Straxus, the bounty hunter Death’s Head, and the elite commando The Wrecker.
But their most important creation was undoubtedly Primus, in an installment written by Simon Farman in which he presents the beginning of existence as such, giving birth to the villain named Unicron, the God of Chaos who as soon as he was born wanted to consume the universe again.
In response, the sentient core of the universe created Primus, the God of Order and Light who engaged in a great battle against Unicron, wiping out systems and suns in the process.
Seeing that the universe he wished to protect was suffering at the hands of his great archenemy, Primus decided to take the battle to the astral plane, where he was also unable to defeat Unicron.
As a last resort, Primus tricked the chaotic entity into trapping its astral forms in two metallic asteroids. However, Unicron, boosted by the enormous power of hatred, managed to turn into a planet, and thus, learned the art of transforming into a robot.
Primus did the same, transforming his asteroid to a planet he called Cybertron, and instead of adopting a body like his rival, Primus created the Transformers, a race of sentient robots with the ability to transform.
Their main purpose was to serve as the means to defeat Unicron once and for all, so Primus gave them an artifact with part of his essence, the Matrix of Leadership, capable of both creating life and destroying Unicron.
This story is key to the origin of the Transformers as a race, surpassing even the events of the original animated series that came a few years earlier, where it was explained that the alien Quintessons created them in the first place.
Influence Of The Primus The Creator
Since Simon Furman presented that new perspective in the late 80s, Primus became the God of Generation One, and most of the other canon also take him as the origin of their universes.
The Unicron Trilogy
Some of the most striking alternate histories are found in the Unicron Trilogy, a set of three series revolving around the immense battle against the God of Chaos. In this mythos, it is explained that Primus and Unicron were created by a being called “The One”, and were released into the universe to explore it.
Transformers: Energon
In the Transformers: Energon anime, Primus makes his first audiovisual appearance portrayed as a luminous being without a body.
Transformers: Cybertron
Finally, in Transformers: Cybertron, he appeared in his robotic form to close a black hole created by the destruction of of the villain Unicron. The anime in this trilogy may not have been well received by fans, but they delved quite deeply into the Transformers mythology.
Aligned Continuity
In this continuity, more precisely in the 2010 Transformer: Prime series, the epic battle between the divine beings is retold, but with the difference in this version that Primus created the original 13 Primes to help him defeat Unicron.
After defeating him, Primus merged with the core of Cybertron, while Unicron merged with that of Earth, something that was adapted in the live-action film “Transformers: The Last Knight”, although they focused much more on Unicron.
IDW Comics
Originally these comics took the story of Primus as a myth, in which he separated into 4 beings creating the group of “The Guiding Hand”, composed of physical representations of life, knowledge, death, wisdom, and transformation.
Although after an internal betrayal, these beings were transformed into artifacts such as the Matrix or Vector Sigma.
In my opinion, these were the most interesting adaptations of Primus, but whatever form he takes, whether as a being of light or a planet, he will always be known as the God of the Transformers and he illuminates our darkest hours.
