TRANSFORMERS: Revisiting The Characters Of Generation 1 - FORTRESS MAXIMUS

 TRANSFORMERS:  Revisiting the Characters of Generation 1

"Prepare for war, but strive for peace." - Fortress Maximus, 1987.

AUTOBOT

Name - FORTRESS MAXIMUS

Function - Headmaster Leader

Series Debut - 1987 / Wave 4

Sub-Group - Headmaster

BACKGROUND...

    Fortress Maximus is a brave and valiant Autobot Commander!  His reputation is one of strength and honor - much like Optimus Prime!  Though he is a powerful warrior, his primary goal is peace.  He fights because he has to, but ultimately he sees war as useless.

    Fortress Maximus can transform into a city and battle station.  He has an impressive arsenal of weaponry to fend off from attacking Decepticons.  In addition, he also has repair bays for damaged Autobots as well as communications and security equipment.  He has 2 armored vehicles, Gasket and Grommet, to patrol his perimeter.  These 2 can combine to form Cog.

    Because of his immense size, the head of Fortress Maximus transforms into a semi-autonomous robot named Cerebros who is about the same size as a standard Headmaster Autobot.  Cerebros is binary-bonded to Spike - a human ally to the Autobots since they first arrived on Earth.  So Spike turns into the head of Cerebros, who then transforms into the head of Fortress Maximus!

Import PVC figure of Cerebros!

    Fortress Maximus' backstory differs depending on your choice of media.  In the comics, he was an Autobot leader on Cybertron who finally had enough of the Transformers War.  He and his team of Autobots fled to the distant planet - Nebulos.  As the planet was already at peace, the idea was that they could live among the Nebulan people without war.  

    As they do though... the Decepticons followed the Autobots and the war began anew.  Eventually, the Nebulan people would split and take sides in the Transformers War.  This would lead to the creation of Headmasters and Targetmasters.  At this point - Fort Max was binary-bonded to a Nebulan named Galen and Cerebros did not yet exist.

Heroes of Cybertron Fort Max PVC!

    In the cartoons, a team of Autobots crash-landed on Nebulos.  The planet was ruled by an evil group of evil Nebulans called the Hive.  There was a group of heroic resistance fighters that challenged the Hive.  Eventually the "good" Nebulans teamed up with the Autobots, and the Hive with the Decepticons - which led to the creation of the Head and Targetmasters.  

    At this point, Fortress Maximus did not exist, but Cerebros did.  A pacifist, Cerebros, basically refused to fight.  At the end of the Headmaster arc, however, he agrees to combine with the newly built Fortress maximus to end the war once and for all!

    So in one story, Fort Max was the main character and Cerebros had no real personality.  In the other, Cerebros was more of a main player and Fort Max had no real personality.  I prefer the Headmasters comic story, myself!

MY THOUGHTS...

    Wow, back in the day, this was the biggest Transformer EVER!  I think I only saw him at retail once, at Hills Department store.  I had already resigned myself to the idea that I would never own it.  You could not deny how awesome it was to see that massive box though!  The commercial even showed how small Abominus was compared to the giant Autobot.

    Again, I wasn't a big fan of the Headmaster idea.  I liked it and all, I just thought the storylines should remain separate.  I didn't feel they meshed together very well.  That said, I really liked Fort Max in the Headmaster comic.  I thought he seemed like a cool character, very on-par with wisdom, strength, and honor - much like our beloved Optimus Prime.  Yet, they portrayed Max as being only slightly larger than the other Autobot Headmasters, and this was NOT the case with the toys - the figure was enormous!  So toy-wise, I didn't see how you could inject that personality into such a massive character or how effective he could be as a leader at that size.

    When 4 of my boys went through what I call their "Transformers Revolution", they were all after the Titans Return line.  They had been watching my DVDs and seeing the same characters or similar ones on the shelves.  This was fun for me because the Titans Return figures were pretty awesome.  Well, the boys wanted Fortress Maximus...  so 3 of them pooled birthday money together and actually got the updated Fort Max figure.  I can't compare the two as I don't have much knowledge of the original - but THIS figure - is crazy cool!!!

    Standing in for the original G1 Fortress Maximus is the Titans Return figure, and a Heroes of Cybertron figure, and an import PVC of Cerebros!

    (Information on the character's lore was taken from the Sunbow Transformers cartoon series, including the Movie and the figure's original Tech-Spec.)

Titans Return Cerebros!