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Hey, guys, recently one of my friends told me that he got a G1 Fortress Maximus. He was willing to give the huge G1 robot away to a true G1 Transformers collector. Well, guess what, I was the lucky one.

I know Fort Max belongs to Headmasters, which belongs to G1 TF series. However, I am not all that familiar with the storylines and characters of Headmasters. Therefore, I have been wondering what kinda role exactly Fortress Maximus plays in the show. What kinda relationship is it between Fort Max and Optimus Prime? Does Fort Max show up under the leadership of Hod Rod (or Rodimus Prime)? In addition, I'm not sure that Fort Max is actually bigger or smaller than Metroplex, another huge base robot. If smaller, then how come the toy Fort Max is much bigger than the toy Metroplex?

If you can not only answer me the questions above, but also tell me more about this particular character, I have to say you da man in advance.

Thanks a lot, folks.

Fort Max was first seen in "The Rebirth" episodes aka G1 season 4.
And is a lot taller than Metroplex. In fact, I believe Max is the tallest of all. Even towers over Unicron. While Metroplex is only about the same size as Omega Supreme.
I don't really know much more about the character of the toy.
I will leave that subject to someone else.

Fortress Maximus, in the show, was about as random in size as any other tf. he was also of a shifting relative size. however, i believe he is portrayed as smaller than metro in the stories.
i can give you a complete comic rundown
Fortress Maximus was leader of the Autobots on cybertron after the departure of O.P. he eventually gathered a group of peace-seeking autobots and departed to the peaceful planet nebulos. at this point, FM was the size of a normal robot. he was an architect until the war. his weapon base mode was a hovercraft thing. you'll notice the toy has wheels in this mode. okay. so they go to nebulos, but guess who follows. yep, scorponok and the 'cons. war breaks out, the nebulans get all PO'ed. fort max and some other bot's give their heads to teh nebulans as a sign of good intent. nebulans bioengineer themselves as headmasters to fight the cons. cons team up with some corrupt nebbies and do the same. they eventually beat the con's off nebulos and leave. fort max, terribly injured, is reconstructed on the way to earth into huge, city sized FM with the itermediate robot cerebros. they get to earth, some unimportant stuff happens, FM's binary nebbie dies. spike witwicky eventually takes the binary helmet and plays hero boy for a while. meanwhile, other stuff happens and spike puts FM in storage and leaves the helm. comicbooks later, galvatron lands on earth and starts beating stuff up in canada (the last autobot). FM calls to spike, who eventually puts on the helm again and becomes one with the only autobot left alive on earth. interesting battle with galvatron. end G1. G2 i don't remember so sharply, but that's when max dies.
he is really quite a deep character, i could not portray that in my summary, as i had to cover a couple years worth of comics. if you'd like to know more about the toy or story, let me know.

Way to go, Time Traveller. Very nice summary, very nice.

So, you are saying that Fort Max is the leader of a group of Autobots on Cybertron, and in the mean time, Optimus Prime leads Ironhide, Jazz, and some other Autobots to fight evil Decepticons including Megatron, Starscream, and etc. on earth. Later, Fort Max departs Cybertron to another planet with some Autobots.

I remember one of those old-school comic books shows that Fort Max is with Spike, Hot Rod, Blurr, Kup, Crosshair, and some other Autobots, fighting Shockwave, Ratbat, and some other Decepticons. (It's Targetmasters series, I remember, cuz most of the Autobots have weapons transformed from small-sized robots.)Obviously, at that point, Hot Rod isn't the leader yet, instead, he's still a lad.

Therefore, can I say that Hot Rod used to follow Fort Max's leadership and later on goes to the earth to be a warrior under Optimus Prime's leadership. Finally Hot Rod opens the matrix successfully and becomes Rodimus Prime to lead all Autobots to win the peace.

Man, I already got my wires crossed cuz there are storylines based on comics and on cartoon, and there could be some contradictions.

actually, your wires are crossed. in the comic, hot rod never gets the matrix. TFtM never happens in the comic, even though they have a three part comic miniseries of it.
toward the end of the 80 issues, unicron comes to devour cybertron, and primus, and the A's and D's have to band together to defeat him. as much ass as the movie kicked, i like the comic storyline a lot better.

So can I say that there are only four Autobots who used to be the commander of Autobots, and they are Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod (or Rodimus Prime), and Fortress Maximus?

sorry i haven't replied to this in a while. it depends on what series you are looking at here. cus in the comic, hot rod was never a leader, and rod prime doesn't exist. there are more or less than four leaders of G1 autobots, depending on which storyline(s) you're considering.

Thanks a lot, Time Traveller.
How about Chromedome then? He does share the leadership with Fortress Maximus, right?

er, chromedome? do you mean cerebros? no, he's a smaller robot designed simply as an intermediate between the later, bigger version of max and his humanoid partner. chromedome's a separate char, he is just a troop.

Well, actually once I checked out some bio of Chromedome online the other day and learned the information that Chromedome shares the leadership with Fort Max sometimes. I am quite confused about that part.

i'll look up on it.

Chromedome doesnt. he is just a technician and engineer. fort max despises war and was going to leave cybertron and magnus said no. so the big max shut himself down when he came online again cybertron was still at war. that is when he left and went to nebulos. If you want a profile of fortress maximus i will post it in the next few days. keep an optic sensor out!!!

and how does spike fit into all of this?

well, Galen is still FM's head when they come to earth. something or other happens, and Galen dies or retires from the position, i don't recall. They put FM into storage, and Galen's binary bonded suit gets pitched. Spike finds the helmet and has to don it when Galvatron winds up on earth and starts busting up random stuff in Canada. FM and Spike battle Galvie, and spike retains the helm until the G2 comics.

Edit: read my comic summary some ways above (the huge para) it's a little more accurate, i'd just read a bunch of the comics when that was written.

The deceps led by scorponok go to mount st hilary lookin' fot the 'bots. fort max and galen follow them. there is a big fight and galen gives spike the helmet before he dies and thus spike takes over fort max.

wait, wait, wait a moment... i thought spike was the head of cerebros, who is the head of fortress maximus?

cerebros. but since cerebros is really only an intermediary, spike is truly max's binary bonded partner.

and it sounds so simple...

Go to the Profiles I have the Profile done for you spike

appreciate it...