Sentinel Prime

Sentinel Prime (Japanese: センチネルプライム), sometimes referred to as Sentinel Major or Sentinel Zeta Prime, is a character from the Transformers franchise. First appearing anonymously in a 1986 episode of the original animated series, the character was ultimately given the name Sentinel Prime in 1990 in the Transformers comic series #150 published by Marvel Comics, under the pen of Simon Furman. Being Optimus Prime's predecessor and a former leader of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime was gradually reinterpreted from the 2000s across the franchise's different continuities. While the earliest incarnations generally depicts Sentinel Prime as a heroic leader whose death paves the way for Optimus Prime's ascension as Autobot commander, works published from the 2000s onward increasingly portray him as an authoritarian and morally ambiguous figure. This evolution culminated in 2011 with the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third installment in Michael Bay's live-action film series, in which Sentinel Prime was, for the first time, portrayed as the primary antagonist after betraying the Autobots in an attempt to restore Cybertron at the expense of Earth and humanity.