Megatron (G1)


 * Megatron is a Decepticon in the Generation 1 continuity family.



Megatron is (sometimes) the founder of the Decepticon uprising, and their most well-known and feared leader. As a young, charismatic leader forged in battle and the heritage of war, he began to believe in a grand purpose for his race -- it is the Transformers' glorious destiny to rule. He feels great contempt for other Transformers who, he feels, betray their proud heritage by demanding peace and cooperation with weaker life forms. It is the destiny of the Decepticons to bring order to the universe through conquest, though in the millions of years since coining this purpose it remains to be seen how much of his mission statement is altruistic... and how much of it is mere words built to fuel warriors to further his desire for personal power.

Megatron will attempt almost anything to achieve his goals, but his schemes are rarely in any way subtle. This is perhaps due to his arrogance, but his pride is not so strong as to dissuade him from abandoning a battle he is losing. Some would question his sanity, though these few are mostly now dead by his hands.

Generation 1
(Note: Events from the UK-only comic stories are in italics.)



Four million years ago, rising from his beginnings as a gladiator for the city-state of Tarn, Megatron and the Decepticons developed the ability of transformation, using it to begin the war against the Autobots, who fought back by mimicking the technology. Megatron declared his intent to transform Cybertron into a "cosmic dreadnought" to conquer the universe. ''However, he would only get as far as building massive engines deep beneath the planet's surface. ''

Megatron also vowed to possess the planet's superdatabase, the Underbase, for himself, so he followed a young Optimus Prime on his quest into the Temple of Knowledge, where he destroyed the temple's curator, Boltax. In order to keep the Underbase out of Megatron's hands, Optimus Prime destroyed the temple and launched the Underbase into space.



''After the death of Sentinel Prime, Megatron's troops poised themselves around the Autobot capital city of Iacon, slowly disintegrating its defenses. Emirate Xaaron chose Optimus Prime, a warrior, to take the Council of Autobot Elders' place as leader of the Autobot forces. Optimus Prime and Megatron's armies then met in battle, and Megatron's forces were defeated - with help from an exploding bridge. ''

In time, the war grew so fierce that Cybertron itself was shaken from its orbit, and set adrift in the cosmos. Eventually, over a thousand years after Megatron's war had begun, the planet fell into the path of an asteroid cluster in the Sol system that threatened to destroy it, and so Optimus Prime led a contingent of his troops in the Ark to reduce the asteroids to rubble, saving Cybertron. The plan was a success, but immediately afterwards, Megatron and his troops attacked, forcing Optimus Prime to crash the Ark into prehistoric Earth.

Four million years later, in 1984, the Transformers were reawakened, and Megatron immediately set about trying to locate a source of fuel for the Decepticons. Unable to ingest common Earth gasoline, the Decepticons kidnapped Sparkplug Witwicky and forced him to develop a conversion process. Megatron soon found his Decepticons and his base of operations under seige by the Autobot Gears and a strange superpowered human named Spider-Man. The pair escaped with Sparkplug, but not before he had managed to convert Earth fuel into usable energy.



''After an argument with Megatron, Starscream left their headquarters and set about on a plan to position himself above Megatron in the eyes of his comrades. Ravage, sent by Megatron to spy on Starscream, was discovered overhearing Starscream's treachery, and so Starscream tried to eliminate the elusive jaguar. This enraged Megatron, who punished Starscream by having him duel the Autobot Brawn. Soon, Megatron and the full fury of the Decepticons under his command, sieged the Ark itself, but his attack was stopped short by a malfunctioning Auntie, the Ark's computer system. Captured with Optimus Prime in a stasis field, Auntie's fatal intentions towards them prompted Megatron to activate his rarely-used ability to tap into the power of a black hole. This proved unnecessary after Ravage and Windcharger saved them, so Megatron moved to use his cosmic power on Prime - until Windcharger magnetically launched him out of the Ark and into the stratosphere. ''

While Sparkplug was kidnapped, this had only afforded him the chance to poison their fuel, and the Decepticons were forcibly deactivated at the end of a climactic fight between the two factions. The Autobots were not saved, however, as Shockwave suddenly arrived and defeated the Autobots with a single blast. He brought the Decepticons back online to serve him - including Megatron. Chafing under his command, Megatron battled Shockwave, but was soundly defeated.



This forced Megatron him into an alliance with Ratchet, who located and reactivated the Dinobots, who had defeated Shockwave in the past. However, Ratchet loosed them on Megatron, and was willing to sacrifice himself to knock Megatron off a cliff. While Ratchet survived, Megatron disappeared for some time.

Soon, however, Megatron re-emerged, trapped in pistol mode, his higher brain functions disconnected. Used as a weapon by wannabe gangster, Joey Slick, Megatron eventually restored himself, and was impressed enough with Slick for standing up to him that he allowed him to live. But at this point, Megatron was desperately low on fuel, and attacked a coal mine, attempting to locate some, when he eventually completely ran out, and froze in place. He was soon located by Soundwave, who brought him back online, and they subsequently entered into an alliance with the human Donny Finkleberg, who used the alias of "Robot-Master" to con humankind into thinking the Transformers worked for him.

Shockwave and Megatron entered into a period of shared leadership, but when a two-pronged attack by the Autobots saw Megatron defeated by Omega Supreme, and Shockwave allowing the Autobots to capture the secrets of Devastator, Megatron was able to spin the situation and reclaim his leadership.



''A mysterious Decepticon called Galvatron, along with his henchmen Cyclonus and Scourge, entered the Decepticon camp and claimed he was the future Decepticon leader from the year 2006. Megatron found this preposterous, but though he tried to destroy the alleged imposter, he and Soundwave were buried under rubble by the powerful newcomers. Megatron was retrieved from the rubble by Ironhide, and he and the Autobots forged an uneasy alliance against Galvatron. This was still not enough, as Galvatron (who was revealed to be Megatron himself from the future) easily disposed of all of them, and was only deterred when he was tricked into believing he had travelled back in time to a past that would not become his own future. ''

''Megatron summoned the Predacons to Earth with the intention of having them hunt down Optimus Prime, but Shockwave used the opportunity to try and remove Megatron from the picture. After trailing Prime through a forest and bringing him to his knees, the Predacons turned on Megatron, blindsiding him, stealing his fusion cannon, and absconding. When Megatron came to, he continued hunting Prime, but when the Autobot leader attacked him, he summoned the space bridge in hopes of escaping to Cybertron, only for Prime to be transported with him. On Cybertron, Megatron established contact with local Decepticon commander Lord Straxus, whose body had been destroyed by Blaster, leaving him a head floating in a jar.''

''Straxus soon came to consider the irrational Megatron a liability and sought to dispose of him by transplating his mind into Megatron's body, giving him mobility again while trapping Megatron in his remains. Megatron resisted the transfer, however, and the process went awry, leaving both Straxus and Megatron's minds trapped in Megatron's body together. Outwardly, Megatron seemed to become more and more unstable as the two personalities inside him battled for control; when attacked by Prime and Ultra Magnus, he even proved desperate enough to use his anti-matter manipulation powers, nearly destroying the entire Decepticon complex, until Ratbat activated the space bridge and sent him back to Earth. Straxus's consciousness fled Megatron's body, and Megatron himself was left with no memory of the whole affair.''



In order to attain possession of a new energy-generating device, the hydrothermacline, Megatron battled Optimus Prime in a video game duel, using a cheat code to continue the fight after he had lost. Prime defeated him again, but at the expense of some of the game's characters, and ruled himself the loser because he would not have committed such an act in real life. Prime was destroyed, and Megatron's elation soon turned into paranoia, as he had not killed Prime with his own hands, and believed he could still be alive. Bringing the Predacons back to Earth, Shockwave had them pose as Autobots and attack Megatron in another attempt to remove his threat, but the plan failed when the deranged Megatron defeated even Predaking. Believing (correctly, as it would turn out) that Prime's mind could have been preserved on computer disk, Megatron descended into outright insanity, and boarded the space bridge, vowing to go where Prime could not follow - right before he blew it up with his fusion cannon, apparently killing himself.



''Megatron's absence allowed a contingency plan arranged by Lord Straxus to be put into motion. In the event that his attempt to seize Megatron's body failed, Straxus had had a clone of Megatron created, complete with a copy of his brain patterns, into which his consciousness retreated following the previous debacle. Straxus lay dormant within the clone, which was activated following Megatron's seeming demise, and sent to Earth, to the sewers beneath London. There, the clone - believing itself to be the genuine article - battled the Autobots, Action Force, and the mechanoid Centurion, and wound up submerged in the Thames river.''

''Some time later, it was salvaged by Shockwave, who brainwashed it and unleashed it on Galvatron, a recreated future version of Megatron who had traveled back in time from the year 2006 and posed a threat to Shockwave's leadership. The clone Megatron, however, saw a possible partner in Galvatron, and the two teamed up to battle Autobots and Decepticons from both present and future in the apocalyptic Time Wars. Subsequently, the clone returned to Cybertron, where it defeated the ruling Decepticon Triumvirate, but was then confronted with the real Megatron - the Spacebridge explosion had deposited him in the Dead End region of Cybertron, where he had wandered, with no recollection of who he was, until he had saved a Decepticon from Autobots and regained his memories. The clone Megatron subsequently destroyed itself to prevent Straxus, buried inside its mind, from taking over.''



While Megatron's Micromaster Air Strike Patrol created a diversion which pitted Optimus Prime's forces against Scorponok's, Megatron sent his Micromaster Sports Car Patrol to capture Ratchet from the Ark, bringing him to Cybertron. Threatening Ratchet with the destruction of the Ark and all of his patients aboard, Megatron forced him to recreate Starscream as a Pretender. Ratchet did so, but also restored Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee in the same manner, thwarting his scheme, and also bringing the explosives on board the Ark through a trans-time dimensional portal into Megatron's base. When Megatron then attempted to flee through the portal, Ratchet tackled him as the Decepticon's base exploded around them, apparently killing them both.

Soon after, however, Autobot detective Nightbeat discovered that the explosion had actually blown them through the portal, and he dispatched a probe to pull them back from the gaps between reality. However, when they rematerialised, it was revealed that the explosion had fused the two enemies together, into a hideous, twisted mockery of a being, which ran rampant through the Ark. The half that was Ratchet begged Optimus Prime to kill them, but Prime could not, and had the Micromaster Fixit separate their bodies. Unfortunately, Fixit could not separate their minds, as they were bonded at a molecular level; one could not survive without the other.

Their separated bodies lay in the Ark's medbay until Grimlock pumped them full of Nucleon, though the revitalizing effect took some time to help Ratchet and Megatron come to. Megatron awoke to find Galvatron II, another version of him from the future, wandering the halls of the Ark as it returned to Earth. Galvatron II, driven to insanity, initially tried to kill Megatron to purge the memory of him that haunted his mind. Megatron was in no state to comprehend what was going on around him, and began interpreting Galvatron II's blows as coming from Ratchet.

Though Galvatron II and Megatron eventually came to terms with each other while beating up Shockwave (he and Starscream had stolen the ship), vowing to join forces and take over the galaxy, Ratchet doomed them all by igniting the Ark's engines and spiralling the Autobot spacecraft into the Earth below. Megatron was presumed dead among the remains that constituted the crash site in northern Canada.

Earthforce
''In an offshoot of the Marvel timeline following the restoration of the Autobots aboard the Ark with Nucleon, but before... uh ... (okay, see Earthforce for continuity notes, it's pretty complicated...)



''Somewhere in the Arizona desert, Megatron and the Constructicons built a rocket that would launch into Earth's atmosphere and detonate, converting the atmosphere into energon. He was interrupted by Prowl and Wheeljack, and though Megatron insisted they were too late to stop the rocket, Prowl rode the rocket into the atmosphere, and was able to destroy the satellite the rocket carried before it released its gas canisters. ''

''Now that Grimlock's Earthforce had installed itself to counter Megatron and Shockwave's Decepticons on Earth, the two leaders decided to hold a Bad Guy's Ball to foster unity. This event was sabotaged by the Earthforce, and once again, Megatron and Shockwave's respective groups were at each other's throats. ''

(Note: The following three sections all split off from the end of the Generation 1 comic, but in three different, irreconcileable directions.)

"Another Time And Place" text story


Trapped in nontransforming Action Master bodies, Grimlock and the Dinobots snuck a shuttle to Hydrus Four, where rumor had it a new, less destructive brand of Nucleon had been developed. However, the allegedly defeated Decepticons were waiting for just such a trip, and followed the Dinobots to the planet's surface, where they were ambushed and captured. Grimlock woke up to hear endless chants of "Megatron! Megatron!  Megatron!" as technicians had strung up the late Decepticon leader's body, culled from his supposed doom on Earth, for repairs. Bludgeon would revive him, revive their fallen, and then the war would begin anew.

But Bludgeon wouldn't get the chance. The cavalry arrived, and Optimus Prime's Autobots quickly quelled the Decepticons' would-be resurgance. As Bludgeon was taken apart to pieces by a vicious repair spider, a partially-restored Megatron, a visual monstrocity, lunged half-alive at Grimlock and Optimus Prime. With a double-teamed punch, Megatron's undead corpse was easily defeated. The war was truly over.

Generation 2


Although thought dead for a year or two, Megatron had actually survived the Ark crash (though his mental link with Ratchet was forgotten), and had quietly worked to repair it, concealing it beneath the ground. From there, Megatron tracked a signal, mistakenly believing it was another Transformer, but instead he found the shape-shifting castle of the terrorist organisation, Cobra. He entered into a bargain with its leaderder, Cobra Commander, offering him the technology of the Ark in exchange for the new weapons his organization was developing. Reconstructed into a new tank body with a powerful rail gun, Megatron defeated a squad of Autobots sent to stop him, and then turned on Cobra, capturing the scientist who had developed his gun, Doctor Biggles-Jones and escaping in the Ark.

Both Skydive and Spike Witwicky had snuck on board, and following a clearly one-sided battle with Spike's Headmaster partner, Fortress Maximus, Megatron was seemingly killed again when Fortress Maximus threw himself into the Ark's power core, destroying it once and for all. But Megatron (and a repaired Starscream) rejoined the Decepticons on Earth to challenge the current Decepticon leader, Bludgeon. Bludgeon was deposed, fatally, though Megatron continued many of the Pretender's ongoing projects, such as calling the attentions of Optimus Prime to Earth by indiscriminately rampaging across it. When Prime finally showed up, Megatron's old foe at first attempted to talk and join forces against the new threat of Jhiaxus and his Advanced-Decepticons, but Megatron ignored him, ripped the Creation Matrix from his chest, and left to infuse a new generation of warriors with life. But after securing the galvanizing additive known as Rheanium, his forces were bested by Jhiaxus.



Megatron himself was humbled brutally in battle against Jhiaxus, so he entered into an alliance with the Autobots to "put their house in order." Conversely, they were betrayed by Starscream, who joined forces with Jhiaxus' troops, alerted Jhiaxus to the location of the Autobot/Decepticon camp on Earth, and then again betrayed both sides by using the opportunity to steal the Creation Matrix and Megatron's War World. Starscream, using the powers of the Matrix, fused himself with the War World, which gave Megatron and Optimus Prime great difficulty as they fought their way through its shifting insides. Ultimately, Starscream relinquished the Creation Matrix to Optimus Prime when it was discovered that the artifact was making him nice, allowing Megatron to load a ship with canisters of Rheanium gas and head back to Earth, where the Swarm was beginning its attack. Megatron arrived just in time to coat the remaining Transformers with the gas, which protected them from the Swarm long enough for Optimus Prime to defeat the Swarm with the Matrix. The Swarm departed, changed into a force for good, leaving both Autobot and Decepticon seemingly united for good.

Fun Publications Classics comics
(Note: The Classics comic takes place after the end of the original Marvel Comic, but in a new timeline that does not include the events of the G2 mini.)



Fifteen years had passed since Megatron supposedly died along with Shockwave, Starscream, and Ratchet when the Ark crashed violently into the Yukon. The defeated Decepticon army scattered, and the Autobots were able to return to a peaceful Cybertron.

Inexplicably, Megatron returned (in a new body) and once again stalked the Earth, rallying the remaining Decepticons to him. Eventually, Megatron, roaming free, stumbled across Skyfall and Landquake, who had travelled from their universe in a fantastic energon/forcefield explosion, but his evil intentions for them were interrupted by human-piloted Armored Robot Hunters and subsequently a small team of Autobots led by Optimus Prime.

Generation 1 cartoon

 * Voice Actor: Frank Welker (US), Seizō Katō (Japan)



Following a war between the Decepticons and the other robot race, the Autobots, the Decepticons were defeated by the Autobots' invention of transformation, which allowed them the advantage of stealth. The Autobot victory in the war began the Golden Age of Cybertron, but a viper lurked within this paradise. Eventually, Decepticons too developed transformation, leading to the creation of Megatron by the Constructicons.

Gathering a small number of troops together, Megatron made a small strike on an outer city, killing the current Autobot leader. Megatron used a device called the Robosmasher to permanently reprogram Autobots and Decepticons into servitude of his cause, thus swelling the Decepticon ranks into a proper army. Among the robots forced into servitude were the Constructicons.

However, these events were not made public knowledge, and young robots like the naive Orion Pax still looked up to Megatron and his followers because of their new robot-mode flight powers. However, Pax soon learned the error of his ways when Megatron duped him into allowing him access to Energon warehouses, and Megatron fatally injured him in a scuffle. However, the ancient Autobot, Alpha Trion, reconstructed Pax into a battle hardy configuration - now, he was Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and Megatron's sworn opponent as the civil war erupted again.



Eventually, the war drained Cybertron of most of its energy, necessitating that both factions seek out new worlds and new sources of power. Megatron and his elite forces pursued the Autobots' craft, (referred to as the The Ark in Beast Wars, following the ship's name from the G1 Marvel Comics) in their star cruiser (referred to as the Nemesis in Beast Wars) and attacked and boarded the craft, causing it to crash on a prehistoric planet, entombing all on the ship in emergency stasis as it crashed into a dormant volcano.

Four million years later, a volcanic eruption reactivated the Transformers and the war began again on the energy-rich world they found themselves on; Earth. After their first series of battles, the Autobots believed Megatron and the Decepticons destroyed when their new space cruiser crashed into the Pacific Ocean, but in reality they survived and reconstructed the cruiser to serve as a sub-oceanic staging base and bunker.

Megatron re-established contact with Cybertron, and began construction of an intergalactic transport system called a "space bridge," although the early tests nearly resulted in his destruction when he was sucked into the portal and teleported to Cybertron. The technology was eventually stabilised, however, and used in a grand scheme to transport Cybertron through space into Earth's orbit, where the natural disasters its gravity wreaked created tremendous energy that Megatron and the Decepticons gathered.

The Earth was saved, however, when Megatron's stockpiles of energy were detonated by the Autobots, the explosion forcing Cybertron out of orbit. Again, however, Megatron was able to cheat death, and was forced to team up with Optimus Prime in order to stop the machinations of his treacherous lieutenant, Starscream.

In his next scheme, Megatron absorbed all the separate powers of the other Decepticons into himself, and challenged Optimus Prime to one-on-one combat. With the added abilities of all his minions, Megatron easily defeated Prime in the battle, but when his deception was revealed, he and his followers were defeated in a group attack.

Over the following years, Megatron's schemes to obtain Earth's energies continued. His assorted plans included various attempts to harness the power of Earth's core, thefts of several unstable energy devices from human scientists, the draining of energy from a time-lost prehistoric island, and partnership with a human politician that allowed him to force the Autobots off of Earth, and actually allowed him to conquer Central City among many, many others.

Transformers the Movie (1986)
Eventually, however, Megatron turned his attention away from Earth, and succeeded in completely conquering Cybertron by the Earth year 2005. Learning the Autobots were preparing a strike against the planet, Megatron and the Decepticons intercepted the shuttle sent to Earth to acquire energy to power the raid, and unleashed a mighty assault on Autobot City. In the course of the conflict, word was sent to Optimus Prime, who arrived the following morning after the slaughter and confronted Megatron in another one-on-one struggle. Megatron appeared beaten, but spying a discarded pistol, stalled for time by pleading for mercy as he attempted to reach it. The young Autobot Hot Rod then intervened, tackling Megatron, but amazingly, one of the most powerful Decepticon was too much for him, seizing him and using him as shield as he grabbed the pistol and opened fire on Prime. Funny that. The wounds were fatal and sent Prime to the grave - but not before he delivered his own final blow to Megatron, seriously damaging him and forcing the Decepticons to flee.

On the return trip to Cybertron, it became necessary to jettison excess mass, or the Decepticons would be unable to reach the planet. The wounded Decepticons were voted out, and set adrift in space, including Megatron. But this was not to be the end for the great slag-maker, as the world-devourer, Unicron, found him and recreated him into Galvatron.

Fight! Super Robot Life Transformers manga (Japan-only)
Between the second season and The Movie, Megatron shifted the focus of his energy plundering schemes to the energy-rich Japan. His many schemes, including attacking with the Seekers and Menasor and turning himself into the Super Megatron Gun, were thwarted by the Autobots and their new human ally, Kenji. His one major success, however, was sending Astrotrain and Reflector to steal secrets from Scramble City which he used to build Trypticon.

Scramble City OVA (Japan-only)
Hoping to thwart the construction of Scramble City, Megatron sent his entire army of combiners to the city's secret location (which had been discovered by Ratbat). The Autobots struggled to fight off Megatron's combiner army until Ultra Magnus activated Scramble City and sent in Metroplex, who fought the Decepticons off. Megatron then revealed his trumpcard: Trypticon.

The Transformer manga (Japan-only)
After the events of The Transformers: The Movie and Five Faces of Darkness, Galvatron attempted to destroy the Autobots with a legion of Megatron clones dubbed "The Megatron Military". Each clone was equipped with its own unique fusion cannon and were capable of combining the blasts into an intense attack. As a unified force, the Megatron Military crushed Rodimus Prime, Arcee, Springer, Blurr and Kup. Their victory was assured until Rodimus managed to deduce that the Megatron Military was being controlled by Galvatron. As it turned out, Galvatron was actually disguised as one of the Megatron clones. Once Rodimus defeated Galvatron, all the Megatron clones lost power and were easily vanquished.

Robot Masters (Japan)

 * Voice Actor: Jirō Saitō (Japanese)



In the exclusive Japanese toyline, Transformers: Robot Masters, whose story began in the timeline of the G1 animated series, but branched off at some point in the twenty-year interim between seasons 2 and 3, Megatron was lost in an undisclosed accident, leaving his time-displaced Beast Wars descendant to take his place as Decepticon leader (the toyline applied the qualifying titles of "G1 Megatron" and "Beast Megatron" to the characters to distinguish them). As events progressed, it was revealed that G1 Megatron's consciousness took possession of the body of a "Convoy" (an Autobot leader) known as Reverse Convoy, leader of the planet Vehicon, via an inter-dimensional uplink to a black hole, and then used it to pose as an ally to the Autobots, only to betray them by revealing himself as the aptly-named "Rebirth Megatron."

Battlestars: Return of Convoy'' (Japan-only)


(Note: With his transformation into Galvatron, Megatron departed from the animated continuity, until five years later, in the Japanese-exclusive storyline, Battlestars: The Return of Convoy, which, although not animated itself (told instead through one chapter of manga and several story pages), continues the tale of the cartoon universe.)

In the previous Japanese-exclusive animated series, Headmasters, Galvatron had been apparently destroyed when he was buried on an iceberg. In the Return of Convoy storyline, a new evil force named Dark Nova recovered Galvatron's body, and restored him to life as Super Megatron, pitting him against Star Convoy (the reborn Optimus Prime) and his Autobots. Super Megatron didn't fare too well against his old adversary and was swiftly defeated. Dark Nova then upgraded him into Ultra Megatron who had a similar success rate.

For the final battle, Dark Nova merged with the remains of Ultra Megatron and formed the massive Star Giant. Star Giant was virtually invincible from the outside, so Star Convoy, Grandus and Sky Garry traveled inside his body and began tearing up the joint. As soon as they'd inflicted enough damage, the trio escaped just as Star Giant detonated, leaving only his head some-what intact. Fortunately for Megatron, his body was stored within the head, allowing him to survive the explosion.

Generation 2 manga (Japan-only)


After Battlestars, Megatron recovered from the Star Giant incident and returned to his original body. Appearing to have discarded his evil ways, he joined with Optimus Prime to form the Cybertron Alliance and ushered in the Second Generation of Transformers. However, after human soldiers killed one of his dearest comrades, he adopted a new body and began the war anew.

Megatron coordinated an onslaught of attacks which mortally wounded Optimus Prime (who had adopted a new missile trailer mode to counter Megatron). Megatron then delivered the fatal blow, personally, and believed his enemy dead. Killing Optimus Prime wasn't so easy, as the sparks of the previous Autobot Supreme Commanders within the Matrix of Leadership used the Reconfiguration Matrix to transform Optimus into Battle Convoy. The fight raged on for a while until Prime managed to drive the Decepticon forces to retreat into outer space.

Generation 2: "The Earth is in Danger!"
(Note: this manga special is not in continuity with the Japanese G2 story pages and minicomics.)

In the year 199X, the Decepticons had learned of a powerful new energy source known as forestonite which just happened to be located (surprise surprise) on Earth. Megatron sent his trio of Cyberjets to Earth first to draw out the enemy Autobots. The Cyberjets made quick work of Electro but were soon halted by the appearance of Optimus Prime.

Megatron then entered the fray and fired his Black Hole Burn attack from his fusion cannon, narrowly missing Optimus Prime but vaporizing Hooligan in the process. Prime fought fiercely but Megatron began to take the upper-hand in battle.

However, Prime was encouraged to keep fighting by the cheers of a human boy named Junpei. Megatron, surprised at Prime's resiliance, attempted to finish his foe off with his Tornado Axe attack. Prime countered with his Double Wheel-Torque Mega-Ton, which trumped Megatron's attack and injured the Decepticon badly. Megatron teleported back to his ship and left Earth's atmosphere, vowing to return.

Kid Stuff Talking Story Books continuity

 * Voice actor: Earl Hammond(?)

In When Continents Collide, Megatron calls Soundwave a "blundering tape-filled idiot." This is notable because it is hilarious. Also, Megatron totally sounds like "Mumm-Ra" from Thundercats. This version of Megatron also has an odd obsession with drills, mole machines, and other burrowing devices, as he uses them frequently in his plans for energy gathering and conquest.

Marvel Books Big Looker Storybook continuity


In The Great Car Rally, a bunch of humans set up a race for charity. The victor would received a year's supply of oil and gasoline. Well, the Decepticons desperately wanted that bounty, so rather than just steal it, they decided to sneak into the race. Cliffjumper was one of the Autobots driving in the rally and was unaware that the scary black Cadillac was actually being driven by Megatron! Megatron dogged Cliffjumper for quite a while but ended up losing to the Minibot. Cliffjumper won the race and everybody smiled, even Optimus Prime

Frighteningly.

Dreamwave comics continuity


Young Megatron was a gladiatorial combatant in the depths of Cybertron’s underworld. As victory upon victory mounted, he began to realize that the games were nothing more than an elaborate conspiracy by the Council of Ancients to divert the attentions of the masses from the dangerous truth of Cybertron’s history. When Megatron began to show interest in Cybertron's buried past through exploration and research, the Council of Ancients attempted to have him assassinated - a plan that only resulted in stirring up even more discontent among Cybertronians, allowing Megatron to begin recruiting for the Decepticon movement.

First his "inner circle," then many of the gladiators, and then finally disgruntled civilians answered his call to action. The Decepticons were born.



Megatron's forces began a civil war of Autobot against Decepticon in order to mask his reactivation of the ancient planetary engines buried beneath Cybertron’s surface. As a result, Cybertron would be transformed into a massive warworld that would cut a swathe of destruction through the galaxy. This plan failed. During a conflict with Optimus Prime, Megatron's lieutenant Starscream activated the planet mechaforming process too soon, resulting in the destruction of the machinery.

Roughly 7.4 million years BCE, Megatron and Optimus Prime disappeared in an early test of the then-unstable Space Bridge matter-transport system. Spending an undisclosed time on the planet Quintessa, Megatron returned with an overwhelming army of lifeless seeker clones, quickly subjugating Cybertron. (This story was never finished due to the closure of Dreamwave, though the seekers and presumably Megatron as well were eventually defeated.)

Four million years BCE, Cybertron was threatened by a massive approaching asteroid, so Optimus Prime led a contingent of Autobots aboard the Ark to blow the rock to fragments, which were transported away by an orbital Space Bridge network. When this task was completed, Megatron chose this moment to strike, attacking the Ark with his troops. Crippled, the craft flew through one of the Space Bridge portals, and was transported to prehistoric Earth, where it crashed, entombing the occupants in stasis for four million years.

The Autobots and Decepticons were reactivated in 1984, but specific details of the battles were unrecorded until 1999, when a Autobot/Human military alliance succeeded in capturing and deactivating the Decepticons. However, the Ark II spaceship carrying them back to Cybertron exploded shortly after liftoff, and the Transformers were believed destroyed. In actuality, they had been scattered back to Earth, where they lay in stasis lock across the globe for three years. This slumber was brought to an end when Adam Rook (aka Lazarus), a rogue military scientist who had devised a method of controlling Transformers, salvaged many of the fallen Cybertronians and reprogrammed them as mass killing machines, which he then attempted to sell on the black market. Megatron was first to break free of the human's control, overriding the new programming and capturing Lazarus during an auction. Megatron forced Lazarus to watch as he unleashed a technorganic virus designed to transform all of Earth into a new Cybertron. It also served to lure Optimus Prime and the Autobots, also now reactivated, to his location. Megatron, tired of the war, continuously asked Prime to join him. After his first failed attempt, Megatron unleashed Devastator on San Francisco, ensuing in mass slaughter, in an attempt to show Prime the humans were not worth fighting for. However, the selfless sacrifice of several firemen restored Prime's faith in humanity and allowed him and the Autobots to beat back Megatron.

Several months later. Megatron was subliminally summoned to a remote area in Alaska along with the other Earthbound Transformers. There they battled until Megatron's former second-in-command, Shockwave, arrived and revealed that in their absence the war on Cybertron had ended. He arrested Megatron, Prime, and their troops as war criminals. Megatron, weakened by battle, was quickly defeated by Shockwave and loaded aboard his shuttle for return to Cybertron, only to have Starscream seize the opportunity by jettisoning him into space on the return trip. Megatron used the time floating in space to contemplate his existence and the Decepticon goal. Realizing that he had wasted millennia in his feud with Prime, Megatron resolved to once again conquer Cybertron as a means of enhancing the Transformer race and strengthening it from outside threats. It seemed as through he would not live to accomplish this goal, however, as death closed in on him... only for him to be retrieved by the Junkion Wreck-Gar. Wreck-Gar took Megatron to the planet Junkion and repaired and re-armed him, as well as digging up and reactivating a number of seeker clones that had wound up there after being dumped through space bridge portals. Megatron returned the favor by stabbing him in the back with an energy dagger.

Traveling to the Planet Beest, Megatron defeated the exiled Decepticon warlords, the Predacons, and rebuilt them into the mightiest of all combiners, Predaking, to serve as his ace in the hole in his quest to reclaim leadership of the Decepticons. Moving in stealth on Cybertron, Megatron defeated Shockwave, severing his laser arm and forcing him into servitude. He then returned to Earth to collect the remaining Decepticons under Starscream's command, and to teach Starscream a lesson long in coming.

''While it was alluded that Megatron had a grand goal in mind that also included the subjugation of the Quintessons, the remainder of the story has yet to be told due to the closure of Dreamwave. However it has been stated by representatives of IDW publishing, the current holders of the Transformer comic license, that once Dreamwave has exited bankruptcy court, they intend to finish the story.''

IDW comics continuity


The war between Megatron's Decepticons and Optimus Prime's Autobots was so great that it created an impending energy crisis and threatened the stability of Cybertron itself. When Shockwave left Cybertron, secretly pursuing alternate energy sources, Megatron asked Bludgeon to investigate his files.

Later, a Decepticon scientist, Thunderwing, came to Megatron with a revolutionary, controversial plan to stave off this energy death by encasing themselves in "symbiotic carapaces," or shells created from living tissue. When Megatron dismissed him angrily and cut him down, Thunderwing did not abandon his research and instead experimented on himself. As a result, this made Thunderwing so powerful that Megatron had to join forces with Optimus Prime to stop him. This battle on Thunderhead Pass accelerated the apocalyse destined to befall Cybertron, leaving it an uninhabitable, radioactive husk and forcing both armies to continue their war on other worlds.



Seven hundred years later, in current times, it was discovered that Bludgeon had, as a result of digging through Shockwave's files, resurrected Thunderwing's dangerous project. Megatron ordered Razorclaw, in a ship orbiting Cybertron, to obliterate the planet if absolutely necessary. However, Optimus Prime and the Wreckers were able to thwart both Bludgeon and a reanimated Thunderwing, and so destruction of the planet was averted.

Megatron, meanwhile, was on Earth, investigating Starscream's infiltration team. He discovered that Starscream had stumbled across Ore-13, an incredible energy source which had been mysteriously seeded there, and that the Air Commander was planning to use it to usurp Megatron's command. After seriously damaging the hesitantly rebellious Skywarp and Blitzwing, Megatron faced a super-powered Starscream. Though the Ore-13 made Starscream a formidable adversary, Megatron was still more deadly than he, and Starscream was destroyed; whether he can be restored is still unknown.

Megatron took stock of Starscream's progress on Earth, in light of the discovery of Ore-13, repaired Skywarp and Blitzwing, and made Starscream's former troops aware, in no uncertain terms, that any further insurrections would be met with deadly force. But instead of leaving Earth in the hands of a new commander, Megatron stayed to guide into the second stage of the Decepticons' plans, wishing to try out his new Earth-inspired handgun altmode.

He then uses Ore-13's power for fancy mass-displacement technology and turns into a pistol for use in human hands, proclaiming himself to be the most powerful living weapon in the universe. Or maybe he just wants to be held.

Beast Wars

 * Voice actor: Garry Chalk (US)

The original Megatron made three appearances (four if you count the scene removed from "Nemesis") in the Beast Wars TV series. He first appeared in a flashback in "The Agenda" inscribing a message on the Golden Disk. His second apperence, also from "Agenda", was in the message itself. The third apperence, in "Master Blaster", Megatron was shown offline in the Ark as Megatron (BW) takes his spark. A fourth apperence, which showed Optimus Primal returning the Decepticon leader's spark to his body, was removed because of time constraints but was included as an easter egg in Rhino's Beast Wars Season 3 box set.

Also, in Hasbro/Kenner's original plans, Beast Wars Megatron (Basic and Ultra forms) was supposed to be Generation 1 Megatron in a new body, which is supported by the tech specs.

Generation 1

 * Megatron (Decepticon Leader, 1984, 2001, 2002)
 * Japanese ID number: 16




 * Megatron was released in 1984 as part of the first year of the Transformers line in the United States. It transformed into a Walther P-38 pistol, as seen in the popular 1960s spy television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., with attachments. It was originally released in Takara's Microman toyline as "MC13 Gun Robo - P38 U.N.C.L.E." The Japanese release didn't come with the attachments. While the American release was chrome and red, the Japanese release was flat grey and blue (one of the Microman decos for the standard P-38).


 * The flat grey and blue deco Megatron was also used in the Japanese VS-X giftset with Optimus Prime.


 * It was again released in grey and blue with Starscream in the Good-Bye Megatron set. This time, it came with his fusion cannon.


 * In 2001, Megatron was reissued in Japan, and came with all of the American and Japanese accessories. A black redeco (the other standard P-38 Microman deco) was released the same year as a BotCon Japan exclusive.


 * Megatron was again reissued in 2002 in Takara's Transformer Collection series. This release was identical to the previous reissue, but came with the mace used in the episode "More Than Meets the Eye, Part 2", a sheet of Decepticon stickers, and a Decepticon mouse pad.


 * Galvatron (Decepticon City Commander, 1986)
 * See Galvatron


 * Megatron (Action Master) (1990)


 * Megatron returned as an Action Master in 1990, and as with most Action Master figures, he could not transform. His sculpt was based heavily upon the Megatron's animation model design. He came packaged with the Neutro-Fusion Tank, a large tank vehicle whose hull could transform into a base/gun emplacement, with the turret forming a flight pod.

Generation 2

 * Megatron (1992)


 * Owing to the inability of Hasbro to re-release the original Megatron because that toy was a pistol, Generation 2 Megatron was released in 1992 as a large green M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. His main gimmick was a 'lock and load' cannon that can load most of his projectile ammunition, and then fire them one at a time. This was accompanied by electronic sounds (including engine, laser and cannon sound effects) and a voice chip.


 * In robot mode, Megatron is by the standards of the time, a very large robot, towering over all Generation 2 incarnations of Optimus Prime. He legs were immobile, but he had upper shoulder rotation and elbow joints. His left arm, when raised, activates a laser sound. Pressing down on his head activates his battlecry "Megatron Attack!". His main cannon still functions in this mode.


 * Hero Megatron (1995)
 * Japanese ID number: TRF-2




 * Megatron was released again the following year as "Hero" Megatron: a smaller, but similarly styled tank based off the M1 Abrams. This Megatron was purple and came with a bellows that fired an air-propelled missile.


 * Hero Megatron was designed with articulation in mind, so he was loaded with ball joints and multiple swivel joints, giving him far greater movement compared to his original Generation 2 toy.


 * This toy was released in Europe, sans the "MEGATRON RULES" sticker, as Archforce.


 * Megatron (Go-Bot, 1995)


 * Megatron was released in a third form, "Go-Bot" Megatron. This was a minor repaint of the previously released Blowout mold, substituting silver for transparent gray plastic.


 * In Japan, his hood was tampographed with a stylised T, with the Transformers logo set within.


 * Unreleased
 * In addition to these, Megatron had a few unreleased toys in the G2 line. The first was the Megatron ATB (with Starscream), a recolor of the Dreadwing mold. The Beast Wars II BB and Starscream used the same deco, but had diffrent stickers. A second toy was a recolor of the Hero mold in a grey deco with black camoflauge stripes. The third toy was the flip changer used in 1997 as Machine Wars Megatron and Megaplex (MW).

Machine Wars

 * Megatron (1997)


 * This toy was redecoed from an unreleased Generation 2 flipchanger Megatron.
 * Oddly, all on-package art and pictures show Megatron as a grey jet with Megaplex as the blue jet, the opposite of the actual toys. Like most other toys in the line, the boxart was recycled from an earlier figure, in this case from the Predator Falcon.

Smallest Transforming Transformers

 * Megatron (2004)
 * Japanese ID number: GTF 07




 * Smallest Transforming Transformers Megatron was released in 2004, coming with only his fusion cannon. Its other attachments were planed to be released, but were scrapped as the line was eventually cancelled. He is a simplified version of his original toy, yet retains most of his articulation.


 * A VS-X homage set was also released the same year, packed with a Smallest Transforming Transformers Optimus Prime figure.

Robot Masters

 * Reverse Convoy (Rebirth Megatron) (Deluxe, 2004)
 * Japanese ID number: RM-24
 * A retool of the Generation 2 Hero Megatron, Reverse Convoy features an all-new cannon, a new Convoy head (where Megatron's head used to be), and a new Megatron head that flips out from behind the cannon. The cannon fires a missile when the barrel is pulled back. The back of the cannon also detaches and can form a hand-held weapon.


 * The original version of this mold was redecoed into Robots in Disguise Bludgeon.

Titanium

 * Megatron (6" Cybertron Heroes, 2006)


 * The Titanium Megatron toy was inspired by Dreamwave's first G.I. Joe crossover set in World War II. Since that Megatron's gun form was nonviable as a toy, a "tweaked-out" German Maus tank alternate mode was designed. The backstory of the Megatron from the crossover, including references to Cobra, was retained on the package, make it the first US figure ever produced as part of a G.I. Joe / TransFormers crossover.


 * War Within Megatron (6" Cybertron Heroes, 2007)


 * A new Megatron Titanium based on his War Within design was shown at Botcon 2006, and will be released in spring of 2007. Like the original comic book design, his robot mode will have a removeable arm cannon and shield, but unlike the original comic book design, his robot mode will transform into his tank mode at a different angle.

Classics

 * Megatron (Voyager, 2006)


 * This Megatron is a "fusion blaster" based loosely on the original Megatron toy and inspired by the Nerf N-Strike Maverick blaster. Its scope/arm cannon houses a working crosshairs and its trigger includes clicking action.  In order to pass modern safety regulations (both the government's and Hasbro's), its blaster mode includes lots of purple and green, plus bright orange on both the tip of the "barrel" and the scope.


 * Although some official Hasbro photographs, including those appearing on the toy's packaging, show the gun mode's trigger and other small parts as being orange, those parts were gray in later stock photography and the final release.


 * In these above mentioned early promotional photographs, Megatron also had noticeably different "eyebrow" paint applications that matched those of the original Megatron toy. These were two small black triangles on a gray plastic forehead.  The final release has the placement of the black reversed, with two small gray triangles and a black forehead, sometimes referred to as Megatron's "unibrow" by fans.


 * Optimus Prime vs Megatron: The Ultimate Battle (Deluxe versus set, 2006)


 * The Megatron included in this two-pack is a tank inspired by the first Megatron toy from Generation 2. Instead of a right hand, its arm ends in a blade with "spinning dervish action." He comes packaged with Optimus Prime and a "The Ultimate Battle" DVD.


 * Many (all?) units of this figure come with Megatron's splayed feet assembled backwards, a fact which is not immediately apparent as the "heel" half of his feet are actually larger than the "toe" half (this is the opposite of most splay-footed transformers), and the situation is not helped by the promotional (exhibit A to your right) and box-art photography displaying an identically misassembled figure. However, examination of the instructions and any attempt to transform Megatron into tank mode immediately demonstrate the mistake, which is easily corrected by unscrewing the halves of his lower legs and reversing the foot pieces.

Masterpiece

 * Megatron (2007)
 * Japanese ID number: MP-5


 * Scaled to the same height as Masterpiece Optimus Prime, Masterpiece Megatron is ambitiously designed to make a figure closely resembling Megatron's fairly non-toy-accurate original animation model actually able to transform into a realistic (if oversized) Walther P-38 altmode. This results in an incredibly complex and fiddly transformation.




 * Similar to Masterpiece Starscream, Megatron contains virtually zero die-cast, the only metal components being his feet and some structural rods (and not even as many as you'd expect). Combined with the fact that most of his parts are very thin in order to accommodate the intricacy of the transformation, this results in a comparatively light toy for its size and a deceptively fragile one.


 * Accessories include Megatron's purple energy flail from More Than Meets the Eye, Part 2, the lightsaber (referred to by Takara as an "energy dagger" for obvious legal reasons) used in his due against Prime in Transformers: The Movie, as well as the discarded laser pistol with which he subsequently kills him. Also included is a tiny translucent Kremzeek figure. His fusion cannon also contains a powerful red LED which casts a short-range spotlight when a button is depressed.




 * Masterpiece Megatron is also somewhat infamous for the difficulty of its importation to the United States due to updated "realistic" toy gun laws, despite the fact that its gun mode is drastically too large to be a real pistol. As a result there appear to be no plans for a Hasbro release of the figure and most U.S. fans have must import versions which have been modified to comply with customs laws. Although it was initially believed that this would involve permanently painting both the sight and gunbarrel tips blaze orange or gluing on a large plug, final versions have been comparatively discreet. Manufactured by the individual importers, some retailers have elected to attach a rounded red plug into the barrel with "adhesive" (permanent?), while others have used a flat-tipped yellow plug that was apparently only temporarily secured with double-sided tape.

Trivia





 * Early in the Transformers series preproduction, Megatron's look was based not on the toy, but on concept art for an unproduced prototype version. This early version, sporting a different, black head, a very different scope/fusion cannon, and the gun's barrel on his back, managed to make its way into not only early commercial animation and licensed material, but into the art of the early Marvel Comics.  Though the model was altered before the animated series was produced, elements from the first model were perpetuated such as the back-mounted barrel in both the comic and the cartoon.  The Marvel Comics continued to color Megatron's helmet black (well, blue) until the end of its run.


 * Bob Budiansky suggested the name "Megatron," but Hasbro initially rejected it, claiming that "mega" conjured images of nuclear bombs. Budiansky reminded them that the name was supposed to sound evil, because he's the leader of the badguys.  Hasbro responded, "Oh, right," and then approved the name.


 * It seems no-one could get Megatron's box art right in Japan. His standard release used edited boxart from the standard Microchange P-38 toy's black deco, recolored to Megatron's US toy color scheme with shiny 'chrome' and red on his legs and arms instead of the Japanese toy's flat grey and blue. The VS-X art replaced the red with blue, but kept the 'chrome'. The art on the 'Goodbye Megatron' set used edited US boxart (which in turn was the Microchange P-38 UNCLE art with an added sigil) that replaced the red with blue, yet this toy used red plastic.


 * In a possible fit of madness, a triple changer was proposed that would switch between Skywarp (possibly mistaken for Starscream), Megatron, and Skywarp's jet mode.


 * According to Don Figueroa, the mysterious clip on the back of 6" Titanium War Within Megatron was meant to carry the sword Megatron was depicted as using in the War Within. As in the comics, it would presumably have resembled the sword packaged with various versions of G1 Megatron.  It may have been omitted due to cost concerns.