Ultra Magnus
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Image:UltraMagnus TakaraModel.jpg Ultra Magnus is the name of several fictional and visually cognate characters from the various Transformers Universes.
Contents |
Generation One
A commander could want no finer a soldier than Ultra Magnus. Despite his incredible fighting skills, courage and unmatched talent for improvisation on the battlefield, Ultra Magnus is most comfortable when carrying out orders, and is naturally uncomfortable if the mantle of leadership should ever find itself placed upon him. In Ultra Magnus's mind, he is a follower, not a commander, and his reluctance to change that will see to it that he expends all options before accepting the idea that he is required to lead. And when that time comes about, there is no question that he is resolute, fair and courageous, ever-ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good of his companions and mission, and unyielding in preparation for protection of those under his command. Although not interested in overall command, Ultra Magnus was the City Commander for Metroplex/Autobot City in Transformers The Movie, and his toy also featured him in the role of City Commander (a title also held by his original opposite number, the Decepticon leader Galvatron), which indicates that he at least is willing to accept a leadership role in a smaller capacity rather than as supreme commander, a role filled by both Optimus Prime and later Rodimus Prime.
Ultra Magnus is armed with missile launchers capable of hitting a target 30 miles away, and transforms into a car carrier able to transport his fellow Autobot troops. Ultra Magnus's toy consists of a smaller robot, identical to Optimus Prime but with a mostly white colouration, which acts as the cab of the car carrier and combines with the trailer to form the familiar Ultra Magnus as depicted in the cartoon and comics. The white "inner robot" would not appear in official fiction until the publication of the Dreamwave comics. Like many previous Tranformers toys, the Ultra Magnus toy was a carry-over from the Japanese Diaclone line, where was released in silver, red and black colors as "Powered Convoy," a powered-up version of "Battle Convoy," the toy which had become Optimus Prime, hence the identical cabs. Additionally, the Diaclone toy's instructions included several more alternate modes the toy could be configured into, which were omitted from Ultra Magnus's instructions. It is worth noting that Powered Convoy's original colors may have at one point been intended to be kept for the Ultra Magnus character - an early promotional film advertising Transformers: The Movie features Ultra Magnus animated in these hues. In line with this, when the original Ultra Magnus toy was re-issued in Japan in 2000, a limited-edition version in the Diaclone colors was also released, referred to as a "Movie Edition." A third version also saw release, cast entirely in translucent yellow, intended to represent the moment that Magnus is caught in the light of the Matrix.
Animated Series
Image:Magnus.jpgIt is speculated that Ultra Magnus may have formerly been Dion, the best friend of worker robot Orion Pax, who was himself rebuilt into Optimus Prime by the ancient Autobot, Alpha Trion. Their apparent longstanding relationship, plus the similarity of Prime to Magnus's inner robot, would seem to support this idea, but it was never officially touched upon. (It is worth noting that the Autobot Ironhide is also believed by some to have once been Dion.)
Whatever the case, Ultra Magnus made his first continuity appearance in the Earth year 2005 as commander of Autobot City on Earth. Leading the defence of the city when it came under Decepticon attack, Magnus suddenly found himself commanding the entire Autobot army when Optimus Prime died in battle and passed the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to him despite his protestations. Subsequently, in a confrontation with the Decepticons on the planet of Junk, Magnus was blown apart and lost the Matrix to Galvatron, but was reassembled and reactivated by the Junkions. When Hot Rod recovered the Matrix from Galvatron and became Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus stepped down as leader to give the role to the "Chosen One," but continued to act as his friend and advisor, keeping him on the straight and narrow and always reassuring him, attempting to urge him out of the shadow of Optimus Prime.
Image:Ultramagnus2.jpgMagnus had his share of personal adventures in 2006, such as when he was captured by a Quintesson scientist for study, along with Wreck-Gar, Marissa Faireborn and the Decepticon, Cyclonus; he and Cyclonus developed a mutual, grudging respect for each other as warriors during the ensuing events, as they worked together to escape a negative universe on the other side of a black hole. Magnus would later fall afoul of an unrepentant Cyclonus when he went to the aid of Wheelie and Daniel Witwicky when they stumbled into trouble while attempting to discover Magnus's birthday. In addition to these and other battles with Cyclonus, Magnus also found himself facing Galvatron on several occasions - the deranged Decepticon would even occasionally focus his rage more upon Magnus than Rodimus Prime; such a notion is not inappropriate, since Magnus was the being he was originally dispatched to destroy, and who thwarted him in varying ways, certainly enough to permamently earn Galvatron' ire of a deranged individual.
Magnus was among the small group of Transformers who travelled to the sorcerous other-dimensional realm of Menonia, and also among those who found their minds transferred into human-mimicking "synthoid" bodies by crimelord Victor Drath. When the galaxy became infected by the Hate Plague, Ultra Magnus was one of the first victims, and his calm, restrained soldier attitude was stripped away, leaving behind a raving, battle-hungry maniac who had particular interest in destroying Rodimus Prime. After the plague was cured by the resurrected Optimus Prime, Magnus led the defence of Cybertron during the battle for the power of the Plasma Energy Chamber in 2007.
In Transformers: The Movie, Ultra Magnus was voiced by Robert Stack. For the subsequent episodes of the animated series, Jack Angel took up the role.
Transformers: Headmasters
Image:Ultramagnusdeath.jpgAlthough the American animated series ended with the three-parter "The Rebirth" storyline, it was decided in Japan to continue production of new episodes; to that end, "The Rebirth" was discarded, and in its place, a new 35-episode series, Transformers: Headmasters was created.
Earlier Japanese-exclusive media such as Scramble City and TV Magazine's manga stories had previously detailed Ultra Magnus's earlier arrival on Earth and his role in the creation of Metroplex. In Headmasters, Magnus was a supporting character for the early part of the series, once again in charge of Autobot City on Earth, taking a proactive role in the defence of the planet against the Decepticons when they re-emerged in 2011. During the opening skirmish of the renewed conflict, Magnus crossed swords with the large and powerful Decepticon ninja, Sixshot, who went on to lead the villains' earth-based forces, leading to a smouldering enmity between the two. Their rivalry eventually came to a conclusive end when Sixshot and Magnus engaged in a one-on-one duel - unfortunately, Magnus was no match for the multiple powers of Sixshot's numerous transformations, and was felled by his seventh, secret mode. With his dying gasp, Magnus told the Autobots to protect the Earth. At Metroplex's request, the Autobots buried Magnus on Earth.
Strangely, when Ultra Magnus died, his body did not turn white/grey, like all other Transformers who had died in the past (including those in the Headmasters series). One could again bring up the concept of his inner robot form, suggesting that it could have turned grey, while the outer body around it did not.
Marvel Comics
Ultra Magnus did not appear in Marvel Comics' American Transformers comic book series outside of a comic book adpatation of a third season episode of the animated Transformers series. However, its sister title in the UK did feature in the character extensively in its own original stories (particularly is issues in and around the 100 mark); the American stories made no use of the new cast introduced in Transformers: The Movie, and UK writer Simon Furman pounced on the opportunity to use them in his own ways. Whereas all the other movie characters who appeared in the stories - such as Galvatron, Hot Rod and Kup - appeared via the use of time-travel, it was Ultra Magnus's present-day self who played a key role in many of the important UK storylines. As per the original intent of his character and toy, Magnus was presented as the arch-foe of Galvatron.
Ultra Magnus was first introduced - and, debatably, first constructed - in the Earth year 1986, as the underground Autobot resistance on Cybertron prepared to execute their daring "Operation: Volcano" plan, which would involve luring the Decepticons' crack troops to one location where Magnus and the Autobot commando squad, the Wreckers, would finish them off. However, when the Matrix Flame - a flame denoting the activity of the robot containing the Creation Matrix - suddenly extinguished, Magnus was dispatched to Earth to discover what had happened to Optimus Prime.
With time nipping at his heels, the launch of Operation: Volcano going ahead whether he returned or not, Magnus allied himself with the Earth Autobots and worked to discover what had caused Optimus Prime, Prowl and Ratchet to vanish from the middle of the Autobot base, while the other Autobots battled the threat posed by Galvatron, a Decepticon who had travelled back in time from the future. The appearance of three more Autobots from the future - Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr - gave Magnus his answer: the mass-displacement effect yielded by Galvatron's time travel had shunted Prime and the others into the limbo between dimensions. Ultra Magnus then engaged Galvatron in battle as Kup and the others set up a scheme to force Galvatron back into the future, and even though Magnus was severely beaten by the more-powerful Decepticon, the plan succeeded and the future Decepticon returned to his own time. Magnus, however, was too late to return for Operation: Volcano, but the plan was nullified when the intended Decepticon victims were called away by Megatron - but a parting shot took the life of the Wreckers' leader, Impactor.
In 1987, when Optimus Prime was transported to Cybertron, Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers nearly killed him due to deliberate Decepticon misinformation that claimed he was a masquerading Decepticon agent which was disproved by Emirate Xaaron. Prime and Magnus then fought side-by-side on Cybertron, Magnus even taking on Megatron himself; the conflict was ended when the Wreckers made the Decepticons' spacebridge materialise inside the complex itself, transporting Megatron, Prime and Magnus back to Earth. As Magnus adjusted to his temporary new home, he stumbled across Galvatron, who had returned to the present with a new scheme to harness the power of the Earth's core. Continuing their deeply bitter feud, Galvatron battled Ultra Magnus with help from the future Autobots, but in the end, the two leaders were entombed in volcanic lava.
Galvatron was eventually able to effect his own release, and the Sparkler Mini-Bots (also known as the Sparkabots) extricated Ultra Magnus, who, by this stage, having suffered repeated defeats at Galvatron's hands, had developed a paralysing fear of confronting the Decepticon. Galvatron, to his own amusement, set about pulverizing the Sparklers, with the intention of further tormenting the temporarily quiescent Ultra Magnus. With his comrades' lives at impending risk, Magnus overcame his mental demons to defeat Galvatron. Thankfully for him, the present-day Ultra Magnus would not have to face the future Decepticon Commander again, but more terrifying threats were in store when he and the Sparklers returned to Cybertron and discovered that the city of Kalis had been overridden by hordes of zombie Transformers, reactivated by the renegade Autobot mad scientist, Flame, who planned to fire Cybertron's subterranean planetary engines to complete Megatron's ancient plan to turn the world into a huge battleship. Impactor was among the reanimated dead, and sacrificed himself a second time to stop the plan.
Soon after, Magnus found himself involved in a grotesque illegal gladiatorial game, and although he successfully defeated his monstrous opponent and delivered a stirring speech to the crowd decrying their spectation of such a sport, his words failed to get through.
Dreamwave Comics
Image:UltraMagnusDWcomic.jpgDreamwave Productions' 21st century re-imagining of the G1 universe took the opportunity to indulge two contentious aspects of Ultra Magnus previously resigned to fan speculation: here, he was indeed proven to have formerly been Dion, and his white inner robot appeared without his blue/red outer body, due to his relationship to Optimus Prime - his "brother".
Image:UltraMagnus.jpg Following the disappearance of Optimus Prime and Megatron's troops four million years ago, Ultra Magnus and Fortress Maximus took fluctuating joint leadership of the Autobots, until Maximus abandoned the war. 100,000 years later, the Transformers, their war, and the entire planet of Cybertron itself ground to a halt when the world's energy supplies completely ran out, sending Cybertron into a period of reconstructive hibernation, during which the entire population was sent into stasis.
Three thousand years ago, Shockwave was the first Transformer to be reactivated, and set about restoring the planet and its populace, quietly working towards his own sinister ends. Successfully unifying the Autobot and Decepticon factions, he appointed Ultra Magnus as his second-in-command, who led the attack on the Ark when they travelled to Earth and arrested Optimus Prime and Megatron as war criminals. When Optimus Prime then led a rebel attack on Iacon, Shockwave turned on Magnus, apparently deactivating him. Ultra Magnus survived, however, and his inner robot emerged from his damaged larger form, teaming with Prime to stop Shockwave's plan to use the Matrix to access Vector Sigma.
Ultra Magnus came away from the encounter with less damage than Prime, and soon had his systems repaired. Dreamwave's bankruptcy and subsequent closure, however, meant that any further stories of Ultra Magnus went untold.
Generation Two
Although the character of Ultra Magnus did not appear in the Transformers: Generation 2 comics, there was a digital watch released sculpted in Magnus's likeness.
Transformers: Robots in Disguise
Image:Rid magnus.jpg The first new character to bear the name of Ultra Magnus since the G1 original was known as God Magnus in the Japanese 2000 line, Transformers: Car Robots.God Magnus owed his name and alternate mode to Ultra Magnus, so when the series was translated for release in the West in 2001 as Transformers: Robots in Disguise, the name change was obvious, and Ultra Magnus returned to TV screens for the first time since the G1 series. It should be noted that the toy's ability to split apart and combine with Optimus Prime/Fire Convoy was taken from the Transformer character Godbomber (named Apex Bomber in the US), hence the Japanese name "God Magnus".
Ultra Magnus transforms into a car carrier capable of transporting other Autobots such as the Autobot Brothers. In addition to his remarakable strength and fighting ability, he is armed with the "Blue Bolts" - a variable-configuration weapon of immense destructive power. His back-mounted jetpack allows for periods of short flight.
As a nod to their origins in G1, Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime (Fire Convoy in Japan) were created at the same time by Alpha Trion, but when Prime was chosen to carry the Matrix, Magnus felt passed over, and was left carrying a grudge against his brother. That grudge eventually exploded into violence when he arrived on Earth with the intention of taking what he believed was rightfully his - by force, if necessary. Severely injuring Prime, who refused to fight back, Magnus tracked him to a desert island, where he pretended to offer him the hand of friendship, only to attempt to absorb the Matrix for himself, forcing the brothers into the combined form of Omega Prime (God Fire Convoy). Through this link, Magnus was also able to channel the power of the Matrix, which he used to supercharge the Autobot Brothers into newly-coloured forms. Although Magnus remained a free agent, refusing to take orders from his brother, his animosity dwindled and he frequently helped the Autobots by combining with Prime to battle the Predacons and Decepticons. As Omega Prime, they faced Galvatron together at the Earth's core and successfully defeated him once and for all.
Note that in Car Robots, there is not one singular Matrix, but multiple ones, each held by a high-ranking Autobot. Magnus already possesses a Matrix, and simply seeks to steal the power of Prime's to increase his own (the overspill resulting in the supercharging of the Autobot Brothers).
Ultra Magnus' character is similar to that of Depth Charge from Beast Wars: a free agent of the same faction as the current Optimus who arrives on Earth with his own agenda. Like Depth Charge, Magnus is also one of the most heavily armed protagonists of his series, and also is often annoyed by younger members of the team. Also like Depth Charge, Magnus eventually accepts Optimus as his commander and becomes a vital member of the team.
Dreamwave Comics
The character of also made one appearance in Dreamwave Productions' Summer Special in a story which pitted him against Scourge, as a both denied and debated their Autobot heritage and relation to Optimus Prime. No further RiD stories were published by Dreamwave before their closure, as Beast Wars claimed victory over RiD in a poll to choose the next mini-series.
Transformers: Armada
The Transformers: Armada toyline was the first to re-use Magnus's name after Robots in Disguise, although not in the west - in Japan, where the character known as Overload in English was named Ultra Magnus. It was not an ill-fitting name, as the first, unpainted pictures of the toy had caused speculation that it was intended to be a new version of Magnus, bearing as it does his stylistic shoulder design.
Transformers: Energon
In the sequel toyline, Transformers: Energon, the Overload toy was repainted into Ultra Magnus's blue, white and red colours and released in the west under the name "Ultra Magnus" in a limited production run.
Transformers: Universe
There were several character/toys named Ultra Magnus in the Transformers: Universe line.
- The full sized Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus repainted slightly. According to the fictton this was the future form of Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus. A Costco exclusive, packaged in robot mode. This character appeared in The Transformers: Universe comic book series.
Image:Universespychangerultramganus.jpg
- The Spychanger Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus slightly repainted. Packaged with Universe Ironhide. This character appeared in the 2003 Botcon voice actor play and was from a parallel Cybertron along with his brother Optimus Prime, Prowl and Ironhide - all Spychangers. This character was an original character from a world parallel to Robots in Disguise.
Image:Ultramagnus-universe3.jpg
- A deluxe sized repaint of Armada Optimus Prime in white, with Mini-Con Over-Run, packaged with Universe Treadshot and his Mini-Con Nightbeat. This Ultra Magnus has not appeared in any Universe storyline, but the box made mention of an old rivalry with Treadshot. There was an error in the assembly of this version of Ultra Magnus where the lower parts of his arms were swapped with each other, meaning he couldn't bend his arms up at the elbows fully, but many fans have taken to fixing this error themselves.
Transformers: Cybertron
Another repaint of the Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus toys were released for the Transformers: Cybertron line. Although not appearing the television series, they did appear in Cybertron comic strip exclusive to the Official Transformers Collectors' Club, where, appearing to be the actual Robots in Disguise characters, they came to this dimension to aid Vector Prime and Sentinel Maximus against Unicron's heralds, Ramjet and Nemesis Prime, probably after their participation in the Transformers: Universe storyline.
In the comic story found in issue 8 of the Transformers Collectors Club magazine Cybertron/Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime told the story of the last battle he was in, set in the Transformers: Universe storyline. Alongside 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal they attacked the last of Unicron's forces when Unicron suddenly disappeared, and they barely escaped. Among the Autobot forces were Universe Fireflight, King Atlas, Universe Night Slash Cheetor, Universe Longhorn, Universe Prowl, Universe Repugnus, Rhinox, Universe Side Burn, Sideswipe, Universe Silverbolt, Sunstreaker, Tap-Out, Trailbreaker, Cybertron/Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus and Universe Whirl. Among the Decepticons were Universe Blackaracknia, Nemesis Strika, Universe Obsidian, Universe Razorclaw, Reptilion and Universe Skywarp.
Known throughout the Autobot ranks for his boundless courage, Ultra Magnus is a powerful warrior and able leader in his own right. He is nagged by a constant self-doubt brought on by the fact that he was passed over in favor of his brother when it came time to pass on the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. Though his jelaousy of Optimus Prime once drove him nearly to treasonous violence, he has since grown older and wiser. His competitive nature drives him constantly to prove himself against the Decepticons, but his natural intelligence makes him a careful planner. Not given to philosphy like his brother, Ultra Magnus is a straightforward thinker. He dislikes wasted effort, and often his commands amount to little more than one or two words.
Ultra Magnus in other toylines
Dreamwave Productions' pioneering use of the original Magnus's white inner robot caused a small explosion of uses of the form, as several Optimus Prime products were repaints white and re-released as Ultra Magnus, including the deluxe Armada Prime toy in Transformers: Universe and Pallisades' Optimus Prime statue. The effect was also felt in Japan, where the "Smallest Transformers" Prime figure received a white coat, and most notably, the 20th Anniversay/Masterpiece Optimus Prime was redecoed and released as Ultra Magnus. 2006's upcoming reissue of the 1995 Laser Optimus Prime toy will also see an Ultra Magnus-style repaint, available exclusively through online retailer, e-Hobby.