As far as the Thirteen surviving their battle with Unicron. The Fallen being trapped works for him,
And that seems to have fallen (hehe) by the wayside a bit, as there have been fewer and fewer instances of The Fallen being sealed away in the many retellings of the backstory.
It started as such in the Dreamwave telling per War Within: The Dark Ages and The Ultimate Guide.
But then, for ROTF, since there was no ancient battle with Unicron in that version, it was changed from "the Thirteen fight Unicron" to "the Seven Primes fight The Fallen" (this is where the Aligned lore got its "War of the Primes" from). Earlier draft revisions for the movie's script had The Fallen get sealed away inside a sarcophagus that he would be released from upon Optimus Prime's death (and which the ROTF prequel comics were based on), but the final movie had The Fallen not be sealed in anything and just had him sitting around chilling inside the Nemesis simply waiting for Megatron to kill Optimus before doing anything.
Then Aligned came along with its novels and Covenant book that spoke of the "War of the Primes" wherein the Thirteen fought each other after
all of them survived their battle with Unicron (basically having its cake and eating it too, combining both the Dreamwave and ROTF backstories into one), which ended with Megatronus being declared "the Fallen" and going into exile on a journey out into space.
...But then the Robots in Disguise 2015 cartoon was like "Nah, screw that misunderstood tragic backstory, he's an evil dude!" and depicted him as being imprisoned within another dimension... Somehow? He also blamed both Earth and Cybertron for his past defeat? (Huh?) And was able to cause the Alchemor to crash-land on Earth in order to manipulate Steeljaw into freeing him? Despite still being trapped in said other dimension? (What?) And was also the "first Decepticon" despite never directly influencing Megatron (the
founder of the Decepticons) in this version? None of this makes any sense!
Er, anyway, IDW1 had Megatronus killed in battle with Prima and "Onyx Prime", so no sealing or exile there. While Machinima's Prime Wars Trilogy went with the exile route. And those of us who saw TF One all saw what happened in that version, too.
So yeah, it's become far less common for him to be sealed away.
I like Maccadam just being some mysterious bartender.
I do too but that ship sailed. He's Alchemist Prime now and will be forever.
As far as Alchemist. Yeah, you’re right, he is who he is now.
Though, the road to how he got to where he is was kind of a funny one.
The first inkling of Maccadam possibly being one of the Thirteen came from The Ultimate Guide in 2004, in which it said "It's rumored that the mysterious and rarely seen manager is one of the original 13 TRANSFORMERS, and that the bar itself exists out of normal space and time—mind you, Maccadams does serve exceptionally pure oil." So, it was ambiguous.
That same year, however, the Transformers Legends anthology book featured a story that really seemed to run with the notion of the pub existing outside of space-time. Titled "Prime Spark", the Optimuses of TFTM, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Armada all wound up transported to the pub upon each of their deaths (TFTM, Beast Wars's season 1 finale, Beast Machines's season 2 premier, and the Armada episode "Crisis"), presenting it as a sort of multiversal purgatory that these Optimuses briefly visited before they each returned to life (in "The Return of Optimus Prime", "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)", "Fallout" and "Miracle"). Now, the bartender in the story was never identified, and he was notably only said to be a bartender rather than the proprietor like The Ultimate Guide said, but the clues were still there.
Then, when the full roster of the Aligned Thirteen was revealed, fans noticed the absence of some key contenders that were speculated to be members of the Thirteen. Namely, the Last Autobot, Logos Prime, and Maccadam (plus the
inclusion of Alpha Trion who was already known to have
not been intended to be part of the Thirteen). So, when the Ask Vector Prime Facebook got the chance to, it created its own second roster of "Multiversal Thirteen", featuring those who would have most likely been on the team before the Aligned roster was finalized and revealed (albeit, including a few of Aligned roster's original additions). Logos Prime and the Last Autobot (given the name of "Autonomous Maximus") were included, Alpha Trion (and "Thirteen") was omitted, while Maccadam was... well...
One of the Aligned-originals included in the "Multiversal Thirteen" was Alchemist Prime. And in IDW1's comics, he was depicted as a bit of a drinker, something that hadn't been the case in the Aligned fiction itself (in fact, Maccadam himself even appeared in the novel "Retribution" as the pub's piano player, with
zero indication that he had any relation to the Thirteen at all). As a sort of fun joke about IDW1 Alchemist's fondness for beverages, it was Chris McFeely who proposed to AVP author Jim Sorenson the half-joking possibility of the "Multiversal Thirteen" version of Alchemist Prime becoming Maccadam in his later life. Of course, the AVP Facebook was deliberately coy about this, hearkening back to The Ultimate Guide's original statement about Maccadam's status as a 13er being mere rumor by his drunken patrons. Still, the seed was planted, and a later prose story written in the comments section of one the lasts AVP posts (the absolutely
massive "
Echoes and Fragments") planted more seeds by subtly hinting at a brotherly connection between Maccadam and Vector Prime.
When the Cyberverse cartoon came along, it was then that the connection between Maccadam and Alchemist was made explicit. At BotCon 2023, I asked Maccadam's voice actor Dick Terhune directly about whether it was always planned to have Maccadam be Alchemist Prime or if it was a later development made as the series went on, and he said that he had researched the character on TFWiki and read the "he is rumored to be Alchemist Prime" bit, and had a feeling that that was where the character was going to go all along. He was like, "You can't say that about the character and just not include it!" So, it was always in the cards from the moment they decided to add Maccadam to the show.
Who knew that Cyberverse of all things would have made such a big mark in Transformers history? The show really was run by true geeks who had a passion for Transformers and its lore.
