Fortress Maximus

Transforms from city to battle station to robot and back!

AUTOBOT: FORTRESS MAXIMUS

FUNCTION: HEADMASTER LEADER
"Prepare for war, but strive for peace."

Valiant, courageous, a warrior without peer...but peace is his most fervent wish. Fights only out of necessity; believes all violence is ultimately pointless and counterproductive. Transforms to battle station and city modes. Armed with twin laser-guided mortars on legs, heat-seeking dual laser blasters, and fusion-powered photon rifle. Has communications, detection, and repair equipment. Controls two armored vehicles, Gasket and Grommet, which combine to form Cog. Head transforms to semi-autonomous Cerebros, who is binary-bonded to the Nebulan leader, Spike.

• Strength: 10
• Intelligence: 10
• Speed: 10
• Endurance: 9
• Rank: 10
• Courage: 10
• Firepower: 10
• Skill: 9

At two feet tall, Fortress Maximus was the largest Transformer toy ever created. The toy sold for $90 US when it was first released and today sells for at least $400 US, complete and without the box, on eBay. He was huge, he was solid, even the toy seemed indestructable. He was also the only double Headmaster toy; his huge head became Cerebros, whose head detached to become the smaller Spike. Every Transformers fan everywhere wanted one, and only a scarce few managed to convince their parents to splurge the money. The rest settled for Scorponok, smaller but just as cool and at half the price. I tried to recreate him with Lego blocks at one point in time, but the finished product was unable to stand under its own weight.

Fortress Maximus was the final creation in the TV cartoon three-parter "Rebirth", built on the Nebulan homeworld by Spike Witwicky and the Autobot Cerebros in order to combat Scorponok before the Decepticons could destroy Cybertron. He had one speaking line, but it was while he was in city mode, and from all appearances he was controlled by Spike and Cerebros instead.

In the Transformers comics, Fortress Maximus was instead the normal-sized (for an Autobot) leader of the Autobots on Cybertron during the millions of years Optimus Prime and the others remained inactive on Earth. He led a team of Cybertronian Autobots to Nebulos in search of peace, and offered his own head to the Nebulans as a gesture. The Nebulan Galen bio-engineered himself to become Fortress Maximus' head and eventually left Nebulos to investigate an Autobot distress call from Earth, rebuilding Maximus en route with a larger body and a secondary head named Cerebros. Eventually Galen died saving Spike Witwicky and the helmet and Headmaster role was taken up by Spike.

The Japanese "Transformers: Headmasters" show pretended that "Rebirth" never happened, and gave Fort Max and the other Headmasters and Targetmasters a similar origin to the comics.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise Episode Guide

Episode 29: Fortress Maximus
Original U.S. air date: October 27, 2001
Written by: Richard Epcar

Megatron's psycho-probe has succeeded in extracting Dr. Onishi's memories of an excavation underneath Metro City. In the memory, Dr. Onishi encountered an unexplained energy shield that prevented further entry, but Megatron was still able to obtain coordinates of the site. He sends the Decepticons, but Sky-Byte follows on his own.

Meanwhile, T-AI has decoded more of Dr. Onishi's hidden microchip and informs the Autobots it verifies the existence of other o-parts as well as the exact coordinates of an underground site he was excavating before Megatron kidnapped him. Optimus Prime sends the build team to reach the excavation site first. Before going, they tell Optimus of a previous tunnel-digging effort at that site when they began seeing each other as Predacons and decided to take another route. Optimus identifies the cause of the hallucinations to himself as "Cybertronian radiation."

This time, the build team experiences the same hallucinations as well as hearing voices warning them to stay away. As the Decepticons close in on the build team, Optimus sends the Spychangers to stop them, and when they are unsuccessful, team bullet train enters the tunnels. When they meet under the city, Ultra Magnus shows up unexpectedly and defeats Movor and Ro-Tor by blasting a hole in the river above, sending a flash flood through the tunnels. The flood washes everyone into the excavation site, where they see a strange castle-like structure in the center of a large chamber with a bridge leading to it. Scourge is the first to head for it, but Optimus arrives and, with Ultra Magnus, forms Omega Prime to hold him off. Scourge attacks, but his missles are dodged and strike an invisible shield surrounding the structure. Just then, it begins to rise out of the ground, and everyone sees an enormous fortress topped with a high tower bearing the Autobot insignia.

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It's taken a long time, but Megatron finally has the information he was looking for when he captured Dr. Onishi in the first place. It's not yet certain that he knows what he's going to find there, however -- the Decepticons and Sky-Byte certainly don't, nor did Dr. Onishi. Since that microchip also revealed the location of the Autobot shuttle that contained the Autobot sparks that became the Decepticons, it looks like Dr. Onishi has been searching for Transformers for quite a number of years.

The Predacons Slapper, Dark Scream and Gas Skunk are the only Transformers who never actually appear in this episode, except as hallucinations. (Skid-Z and Tow-Line are never more than guest stars in this series.) It's a cheap thrill to see for the first time all four gestalts -- Ruination, Landfill, Rail Racer and Omega Prime -- arrive for battle at the end of this episode and begin combining, one after the other.