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| - The Autobot Matrix of Leadership (sometimes the Creation Matrix or, rarely, the Autobot Matrix of Power or the Matrix of Light) is an artifact of great power, traditionally carried by the leader of the Autobots, currently possessed by Optimus Prime. Much about it, including its exact composition, remains a mystery. It generally appears as a hollow, spherical metal shell with two handles on either side and with a core sphere of blueish crystal at its center. The Matrix is the one thing, the only thing which Unicron feared.
- The Matrix and the concepts associated with it have continuously evolved over twenty-plus years, due to different Transformers fiction creating new ideas centered on it, which have in turn influenced its representation in other fiction, and so on, and so forth, and back-and-forth. The current nature of the Matrix as it is understood is beholden to quite a few different sources, and its development is described here to minimize confusion. For the specifics on the different interpretations of the Matrix in various continuities, see the "Fiction" section below.
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| abstract
| - The Autobot Matrix of Leadership (sometimes the Creation Matrix or, rarely, the Autobot Matrix of Power or the Matrix of Light) is an artifact of great power, traditionally carried by the leader of the Autobots, currently possessed by Optimus Prime. Much about it, including its exact composition, remains a mystery. It generally appears as a hollow, spherical metal shell with two handles on either side and with a core sphere of blueish crystal at its center. The Matrix is the one thing, the only thing which Unicron feared.
- The Matrix and the concepts associated with it have continuously evolved over twenty-plus years, due to different Transformers fiction creating new ideas centered on it, which have in turn influenced its representation in other fiction, and so on, and so forth, and back-and-forth. The current nature of the Matrix as it is understood is beholden to quite a few different sources, and its development is described here to minimize confusion. For the specifics on the different interpretations of the Matrix in various continuities, see the "Fiction" section below. It is not clear precisely where the "Matrix" idea originated—if, for example, it was a part of the franchise's original treatment or not—but the concept first appeared in the Marvel Comics Generation One continuity, where it was introduced as the Creation Matrix, a computer program housed within Optimus Prime that could bring new Transformers to life. According to legend retold by Shockwave, this Creation Matrix program is encoded into a new Autobot leader once every ten millennia. The animated series made an attempt at introducing the Matrix concept into its continuity in the episode "Cosmic Rust", but the line, which dated the creation of the Matrix to 4.5 million years ago (which would ultimately conflict greatly with what would be learned of the Matrix in the future), was deleted during production. Subsequently, the animated incarnation of the Matrix, known as the "Matrix of Leadership," made its debut in The Transformers: The Movie, where it was presented as a physical object housed in the chest of Optimus Prime, and passed to Ultra Magnus and ultimately Rodimus Prime. Nothing of the Matrix's nature was actually divulged in the film, where it was treated as simply a magic talisman of prophecy that was the antithesis of Unicron. It was the mini-series "Five Faces of Darkness" which revealed the key feature of the animated Matrix—it contained the Ancient Autobots, the life-forces of all previous Autobot leaders who had held it, collectively known as the "Wisdom of the Ages," which could be consulted for aid in moments of need. Having already cannibalized many of the movie's best elements for use in his comic book stories, writer Simon Furman contradicted Bob Budiansky's US comic book stories by presenting the Matrix as it had appeared in the film, as a physical object, in his own UK story lines. Eventually, when Furman began writing the US series as well, the two concepts were reconciled and it was explained that Prime's head had merely contained residual Matrix energy, while the true Matrix had resided in his chest. The "life-forces of previous holders" concept was also adapted into the comics, with the Matrix possessing a genetic memory of those that had held it. Most notably, in both UK and US books, Furman crafted a story to explain the origins of the Matrix, why Unicron was vulnerable to it, and how it could create new life, ultimately revealing it to be the essence of the Transformers' creator-god, Primus. It was the Beast Machines animated series which made the next big addition to the growing mythology of the Matrix when it introduced the Allspark, the extra-dimensional source of all Transformers sparks living or dead, which was also known as "the Matrix." Although it did not explicitly make any callbacks to the Matrix as seen in The Transformers cartoons or comics, the implication was obvious—rather than contain anything, the physical Matrix object from those continuities was a gateway to the Allspark. Where the animated "Matrix of the Leadership" and the comic book "Creation Matrix" had previously seemed incompatible, this revelation united them conceptually—the life-forces of the dead from the cartoon and the ability to bring new life from the comics could now both be tied to the features of the Allspark dimension.
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