Recently at TFCon, a we got to see a bunch of pages from the Binder of Revelation, the document intended to be the baseline that Transformers: Prime built off of. In practice, the Transformers: Prime team didn't like being held down by it, and for the most part just did their own thing. Today I'm gonna be going over Ultra Magnus's bio, and how it put forward a very different version of the character than what we got in season 3.
Unfortunately, as with most of the bios, we don't have a picture of the full thing since it seems only one person in the audience decided to film the panel. That weird pale shape behind him is Springer, Ultra Magnus's bio was on screen for such a short amount of time that there actually isn't even a frame where it's just him, the closest we have is a slight in-between of his and Springer's bios.
Ultra Magnus is the consummate soldier. He is a brave, noble, and tireless fighter. However, despite his peerless leadership, Magnus much prefers taking orders to giving them, though his fellow Wreckers would follow Magnus to the ends of the Universe. If Magnus would realize this, his self confidence might improve. Bitter against Optimus Prime for having left Cybertron, When reunited with Optimus Prime the two often butt heads over how things should get done.
This bio almost entirely takes from the G1 iteration of the character. His "perfect soldier, but doesn't want to lead" schtick is carried over, as is him leading the Wreckers like he did in the Marvel comic. However, him butting heads with Optimus may be taking the slightest inspiration from Robots in Disguise 2001's iteration of Ultra Magnus. (A separate character named God Magnus in Japan)
I honestly feel like this is way more interesting than the stuck up prick that we got in Transformers: Prime. I've never held back in regards to how much I do not like TFP Ultra Magnus, and while that is largely from who he is as a person naturally bugging me rather than actually taking issue with his writing, I do feel like this is a far better baseline than whatever the Prime team were working off of for season 3.
TFP Ultra Magnus is a hardass who got put in charge of a Black Ops team and tried to make them operate by the book. Not only did this piss literally everyone off, but it also just made them less effective at what they do. (since, y'know, the whole thing about black ops is that they're meant to be off the book entirely) This, as anyone would expect, led to the team splitting up in the end.
By the time he arrives on Earth, he clearly hasn't learned a god damn thing, because he immediately takes back control of what Wreckers were on the planet, and does the same shit as last time, almost leading to the same fucking result of Wheeljack leaving entirely. (I genuinely was about to quit the show when it looked like he was gonna leave again.) It's purely by chance that Arcee talked him out of it.
Every arc Ultra Magnus has is half-baked. He "makes amends" with Wheeljack enough for them to work together, but they clearly just tolerate eachother at best. He "comes to understand that Team Prime is a family" but never actually finds a place in said family. and he also loses his hand, making this what, the third or fourth poorly handled disability arc in this show? Just give me a break, man.
Transformers: Prime got majorly shuffled around between the second and third seasons, which is why the third is the way it is, but originally the plan was for it to largely take place on Cybertron, and the version of Ultra Magnus from this bio could have worked really well in that. A version of Ultra Magnus who didn't want to be a leader, but was basically forced to step up after Optimus left Cybertron, and who instead of seemingly only existing to butt heads with Wheeljack was actually respected by the Wreckers as a leader sounds fantastic, and the tension between him and Optimus eluded to in the bio sounds way more interesting and natural than his whole thing with Wheeljack.
However, I do actually like the Autobots having an unlovable asshat that nobody likes in their ranks, so... While the bio sounds cool, I'm also fine with what we got in the actual show. I like that I hate Ultra Magnus because that means I'm feeling something and that's way better than me feeling nothing like with Smokescreen.
Something the Binder of Revelation puts a heavy amount of focus on that never actually made it into any Transformers media is polarity, which is essentially Cybertronian astrology. Every bot has both a primary and a supplementary polarity towards one of the 12 (excluding the 13th) Primes. Every character bio is somewhere from a quarter to half dedicated to their polarities. Reading as follows, here's Ultra Magnus's section:
Ultra Magnus is a straight shooting warrior. His ambition isn't vast, but he does dream of winning the Autobot cause, making him slightly Megatronan but shading more Alchemian.
While we don't actually have a picture of the sidebar to say for sure, that seems to suggest that of the two, his primary polarity is Alchemian, and Ultra Magnus, both the version in the bio and in Prime, does seem like he fits the mark of an Alchemian. Though, I wouldn't describe TFP Magnus as "unpretentious" in his insistence on being referred to as "sir."
There aren't many examples in the Binder of Revelation of heroic Megatronans. As one might expect with how from a writing perspective the causation of polarity is reversed, with characters having polarities assigned to them based on their personality rather than their personality coming from their polarity as it is supposed to work from an in universe perspective, the vast majority of Megatronans (and Liegians) are Decepticons, with only four Autobots having the polarity, Ultra Magnus being one of them by virtue of his supplementary polarity. However, I honestly disagree with the assessment of him being a Megatronan. "Dreaming big, to the point of absurdity" kinda seems like the opposite of what Ultra Magnus is built up to be, both in the bio and in Prime. The only part I think really lines up is "they can also be self-doubting" which is emphasized in the bio, but I don't know how to feel about Ultra Magnus seemingly getting just the flaw from his supplementary polarity.
If I were deciding Ultra Magnus's supplementary polarity, for TFP Magnus I would certainly make him an Alphanian. "Demanding exactitude", "Expecting the best of people to his detriment" and "meticulous but puritanical and hypercritical" are exactly the words I would use to describe him. Honestly, there's an argument that it should be his primary polarity, those elements of his character really overshadow his more Alchemian aspects that somewhat got left behind in the binder.
This bio was a lot of fun to break down. The majority of the Prime cast is very different from how they're portrayed in the binder, with characters like Cliffjumper and Arcee being lifted from G1, and Bulkhead from Animated. With Ultra Magnus, despite me spending this entire post talking about the differences between TFP and the Binder, his Prime incarnation is actually not too far from the binder as to be unrecognizable, which really let me go in depth on both versions.
If any of y'all have requests for the next bios to break down, all the ones that have been shown to the public are in a google drive I made, so you guys can just hop in there and take your pick.
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
