Optimus Primal's History
Optimus Primal was the leader of the Maximals during the Beast Wars and the captain of the Axalon. His body was enhanced after he took Optimus Prime's spark into his body to protect the timeline.
After Megatron had managed to shoot Optimus Prime in the head, fatally wounding his body, Optimus Primal made the daring decision to take the Autobot leader's spark into his chassis. The presence of the extra spark caused Primal's body to mutate and grow larger, gaining new jet and ground vehicle modes along with his gorilla form. Megatron sardonically dubbed his new body as "Optimal Optimus". Despite the new power, he was unable to stop the Predacons from trashing the Axalon. Optimus Prime's spark was returned to its rightful home, preserving history, but Primal retained his new form. With Megatron now desperate to end the war at any cost, Primal was forced to move his Maximals into the volcano where the Ark lay.
Depth Charge soon arrived on the planet in search of Rampage and encountered Cheetor. By the time Optimus reached their position, Rampage had thoroughly beaten the new arrival, and Optimus took him back to base for repairs. Depth Charge rebuffed Primal's offer to let him join the Maximals, making it clear he wasn't impressed with the mess Optimus had made of things.Primal came up with a new plan to salvage Sentinel from the wreck of the Axalon by sending Rattrap down in a subaquatic stealth vessel. Depth Charge's interference resulted in the Predacons gaining Sentinel instead. After Primal chewed him out, Depth Charge said he'd consider the offer to join the Maximals.
After Chak and Una were separated from their native tribe, Optimus assigned Cheetor and Blackarachnia, by now part of the Maximal ranks, to return them. Optimus and Silverbolt provided reinforcement when the group ran into a squad of cyber raptors engineered by Megatron, but Tarantulas's new cyber venom disabled the Maximal leader for the duration of the battle. He did prove to have a lovely singing voice when Rattrap contacted him, though. Optimus was injured again during another battle to save a stasis pod, and was forced to return to base. Cheetor, despite Optimus's orders to wait for backup, went in alone, and was apparently destroyed while retrieving a Transmetal driver from Megatron's cloning machine. Anguished, Optimus blamed himself for Cheetor's death.
Cheetor, however, was not dead, and stumbled back to base. After Cheetor was apparently spirited away by a savage feline monster during the night, Primal demanded the truth as to what happened from Depth Charge. Cheetor again returned to base, claiming that he'd destroyed the monster, but Optimus, suspecting the truth, insisted on viewing the remains. Cheetor was finally forced to admit that the monster was himself—the surge from the Transmetal driver had altered his form. Cheetor's new beast form turned out to be feral, and it was only through Optimus's coaxing that he was able to tame it.
Optimus and Rhinox discussed the possibility of removing Blackarachnia's Predacon shell program, causing her to flee when she overheard them talking. When they caught up to her, Primal explained that the decision to remove the shell program would always be hers to make. After Una was kidnapped by Waspinator, Optimus instructed Cheetor to return to base for repair and sent Rattrap and Depth Charge to mount a rescue. Blackarachia attempted to use the Transmetal driver to upgrade herself, but only ended up beginning the degradation of her shell program. While Rhinox worked to separate the Predacon shell program, Optimus and the rest of the Maximals defended the Ark from a Predacon attack, but to no avail—the power was interrupted and Blackarachnia apparently killed. Luckily, she was resurrected as a Transmetal 2 and Primal later pointed out that out that her immediately rushing out to save Silverbolt wasn't a very Maximal thing to do.
Drawn out of the Maximal base by Waspinator, Optimus was hit by a dart fired by Tarantulas, which burrowed inside him and allowed Quickstrike to take control. Primal was forced to watch helplessly as his body was used to subjugate the Maximals and allow Megatron to take the original Megatron's spark in emulation of Primal's feat with Optimus Prime's spark. Blackarachnia was able to free Optimus from Quickstrike's control, and the Maximal leader subsequently fought at length with the newly upgraded Megatron. The rest of the Maximals were released from their imprisonment in time to help him drive the Predacon off.
The tide was finally turned when the Vok combined Airazor and Tigatron into the mighty Tigerhawk, who obliterated the Predacon base. Optimus immediately traveled to the site, concerned that the destruction of the original Megatron's spark would endanger history. While attempting to reason with Tigerhawk, the Vok emissary plunged Optimus into the ground before being captured by Tarantulas. Following Tarantulas's destruction, Tigerhawk accepted Optimus's offer to rejoin the Maximals.
Pursuing Megatron, Optimus discovered what Tarantulas had found—the ancient Decepticon warship, the Nemesis. He and Tigerhawk headed for the ship's location by air, encountering a massive explosion caused by Depth Charge terminating Rampage. Optimus believed that the Nemesis had been dealt with, until the ship itself rose out of the ocean. At Tigerhawk's instruction, Primal left him to face the Nemesis alone, and returned to the Ark to start a new plan to try to get the ship online. The Maximals were unable to do so before the Nemesis arrived and turned a tractor beam on the Ark, so Primal himself flew up to the ship, pulling off his own wing and jamming it in the gears of the ship's pulverizer so that he could get aboard. He began duking it out with Megatron on the bridge of the Nemesis, despite the knowledge he was no match for two Megatrons.
By continuing the hopeless battle, Optimus managed to buy the Maximals the time they needed, and Rhinox took out Megatron by flying a borrowed Autobot shuttle through the bridge of the Nemesis. As the ship began its descent, Optimus reached out to Dinobot, who had regained some measure of his old self, but the warrior insisted on satisfying honor by going down with the ship, and so Optimus left before the ship crashed.
With the captured Predacon leader strapped to the roof of the Autobot shuttle, the Maximals at last headed home. Leaving the planet and memorializing his fallen comrades, Optimus Primal declared that the Beast Wars were over.
