Megatron (Tyran)


 * Megatron is a Decepticon from the Movie continuity family. He is often referred to as Lord Megatron. Known to humans as both "The Ice Man" and "The Mega-Man" and more formally as N.B.E. - 01

The former Lord High Protector (so much for that) and co-ruler of Cybertron, Megatron is vicious and extremely powerful, single-minded in his goals, straight forward and brutally direct in his attempts to seize those goals. He is all "blunt force" in contrast to Starscream's penchant for deceit and trickery. On the downside, Megatron tends to become so obsessed with the object of his desires that he can ignore "secondary" matters, glaring flaws in his plans (otherwise, he likely wouldn't have melted into ice-cold arctic water after being white hot from falling through Earth's atmosphere, and spent ten-thousand years as a popsicle), and even crippling injuries in pursuit of the coveted item. Trying to talk Megatron out of blindly going for his goals is useless. He will risk his world, his troops, and even his own spark to achieve his goals. These things do not matter to Megatron. Even the destruction of the Autobots is a secondary concern. In Megatron's cerebral processor, all that matters is the All Spark.

While some merely dislike or disregard organics (since they have a tendency to get in their way), Megatron feels a violent hatred towards them and seems to view them as only slightly above a virus, with him as the cure. This may be due to having spent decades as their prisoner, but his hatred is still very extreme. If there was no All Spark, it is not that big a stretch to think he'd have come here anyway, just to cleanse one more planet of its infection.

"You still fight for the weak! That is why you lose!"

- Megatron to Optimus Prime, Transformers

IDW Transformers movie comics
Millions of years ago, Lord High Protector Megatron was the supreme commander of the Cybertronian defense forces and firm leader of all of Cybertron, protecting their world against all hostile threats. When Commander Starscream returned from his patrol in the Eshems nebula, Optimus Prime was reporting on the science sector's continuing excavation of the site near the temple at Simfur and the unusual pulse waves that the All Spark had been emitting ever since work began. At the excavation site, while Optimus and the scientists were concerned with disturbing the ancient artifacts, all Megatron cared about was whether these relics might provide the same revitalising energy as the All Spark. He was nettled when Optimus asserted the science division's dominion over all scientific and archaeological discoveries and reminded his junior that it is the defence force that protects this world and demanded to be informed of all possible threats from the excavation's findings. When Optimus dared remind Megatron of the military's treatment of such discoveries as hostile, Megatron told Optimus that when he tries to be the leader of Cybertron, he can make those decisions, not now. When a mysterious relic was discovered, Megatron ordered it removed at once, a demand that Optimus disagreed with. Just as the pair were about to launch into another argument, Cybertron was under attack. Megatron had the relic moved to his quarters under the guise of protecting it from the invading aliens. Arriving to find Bumblebee and Cliffjumper seeking cover within the temple of Simfur, Megatron chastised their alleged lack of courage before he was hit by an alien tank vehicle. After destroying it, he told Starscream to keep Optimus' team out of the military's way and staggered back to his quarters in the capital of Trypticon. Drawn towards the relic, he ignored his injuries and scraped away at the layers of debris encrusting it before losing consciousness.

Prime Directive prequel comic


Megatron once ruled Cybertron side-by-side with Optimus Prime. For generations, the two ruled in peace. Megatron was firm, but Prime was fair, creating a nice, even balance. Sadly, he got a jonesing for the All Spark and the war started. Megatron formed an army of separatists, the Decepticons, while Prime formed his own army, the Autobots. Megatron's forces, while less noble, were more ferocious warriors. Prime eventually made the decision to launch the All Spark into deep space. When Bumblebee stalled Megatron long enough for it to be launched into space, he tore off Bumblebee's arm and crushed his voice box, then took off into space after the All Spark.

Transformers Movie Prequel (Target)


During an assault on the Autobots personally led by Megatron and his hound, Blackout, Megatron crushed an opponent's spark before casually tossing his corpse over his shoulder. Megatron declared that the All Spark would be his, to which Blackout assured his leader that he would make sure of it. Megatron was pleased by his minion's loyalty, but dispatched him to assist Starscream's unit in preventing Optimus Prime's reinforcements from entering Tyger Pax. He then left to meet his destiny, but it slipped from his grasp.

Note: Megatron's response to Blackout's pledge is mistakenly given to the latter Decepticon.

Transformers: Beginnings

 * Voice actor: Frank Welker

UK Transformers Comic
The All Spark had not been blindly launched into space, however - its trajectory was leading it directly towards the Alkaris Anomaly, a wormhole that could potentially transport the cube to any one of an infinite number of locations in the universe. Megatron was fully capable of catching up to the cube before it would enter the wormhole, but as he passed Cybertron's moon, he found himself ensnared by an Autobot tractor beam of remarkable strength that pulled him down to the moon's surface. Enraged by the ignominy of it all, Megatron turned his weapons on the Autobots responsible, but quickly calmed down enough to realize that this was only playing into their hands, and instead ordered Brawl to take his place in the battle. Megatron swooped back into space, hot on the All Spark's heels, but was unable to stop the cube from falling through the anomaly. Determined to have the All Spark's power, Megatron chose to enter the wormhole himself, only to be spat out in some far-off star system, with no trace of the All Spark.



In another reality, he defeated Optimus at Mission City, killed Sam Witwicky and took control of the All Spark. He was fully linked to it and drew on its power - "It is me and I am it!" - giving him greater might and the ability to heal any wound. After conquering an unknown chunk of Earth (including the entire United States of America) with Dropkick as his second-in-command, he used the All Spark's power to start turning Earth from an organic world into a new Cybertron. Optimus Prime lay frozen in the old Sector Seven base, Autobot resistance was scattered, and NATO's threat to nuke occupied America was hardly much of one. The only thing bothering Megatron was those rebels breaking into Hoover Dam...

Megatron personally arrived to face Bumblebee and hunted for him, trying to bait him into appearing. Realising the Autobot must have come with a human ally, he deliberately threatened to go after the human and thus got an emotional Bumblebee to make a defiant attack... at which point he backhanded Bumblebee into the wall and prepared to eviscerate him. He gave the Autobot a chance at a swift death if he begged for mercy, and was quite impressed when Bumblebee merely asked "that all you got?", but was less impressed when Autobot reinforcements arrived. He effortlessly smashed them aside and was about to kill Skyblast when a new challenger arrived: the revived Optimus!

Optimus Prime got the snot beaten out of him, every attack he landed on Megatron being repaired by All Spark power. However, he distracted Megatron long enough for Bumblebee to hit him with the other thing they'd broken into the Dam for: Sector Seven's greatest weapon, a nanovirus that targeted All Spark operation frequencies. Infected, the tyrant was consumed from within by his own power and collapsed dead.

Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday
When Megatron came online, it was obvious that some time had passed. Not only was he encased in a primitive transport, but there were lifeforms fighting over him. Before Megatron could properly exterminate them, another crude transport crashed into his, causing a massive (but not spark-threatening) explosion. Megatron would have been pleased to know that the fire only added to his terrifying visage in the eyes of the maggots. Regaining his composure, Megatron noticed an insect standing near him. As Megatron reached out to grab it, another insect, this one terminally damaged, began firing crude projectiles which his body armor easily deflected. Waiting until after the creature had expended its ammunition, Megatron grabbed it in his hand, only to discover that it had packed itself with explosives, which threw Megatron to the ground when they detonated. Then, the aforementioned first insect began spraying liquid nitrogen on Megatron, causing him to go back into stasis. Unable to escape, Megatron screamed a dark vengeance upon his captors.

Transformers (2007 movie)

 * Voice actor: Hugo Weaving (English), Koutarou Nakamura (Japan), José Santacruz (Brazil), Hans-Jürgen Wolf (German)

Megatron eventually succeeded in tracking the All Spark to Earth, where he rather embarrassingly crash-landed in the Arctic Circle and was frozen solid for thousands of years. In 1897, some 100 Earth-years before the arrival of the other Transformers, he was discovered by an explorer named Archibald Amundsen Witwicky. Captain Witwicky accidentally activated Megatron's navigation system and caused the coordinates of the All Spark to be etched onto the explorer's glasses. Megatron remained imprisoned in the Arctic, until the 1930s, when he was dug out by the United States government and moved to a secret Sector Seven stronghold inside Hoover Dam. In the years that followed, many modern devices (by Earth standards) were reverse-engineered from his frozen body.

In the present day, having searched the galaxy for the All Spark and being drawn to Earth, the remaining Decepticons learned of Witwicky's glasses. Through the Internet, they determined the location of both Megatron and the All Spark inside Hoover Dam. Frenzy infiltrated the dam and shut down the power systems, while Starscream attacked the external powerlines, resulting in Megatron's thawing out. Once again online, the leader of the Decepticons informed the worthless insects of his true name, shouting "I am Megatron!" (to clear up all that N.B.E.-01/Ice Man nonsense), randomly killed a few of them while destroying his former prison, then transformed and flew off after the All Spark again. He met up with Starscream on the outside, and, never one for pleasantries, demanded to know where the Cube was. Upon learning that the humans had moved the All Spark, Megatron berated Starscream for yet another failure.



After Starscream and Devastator's opening attacks in Mission City, Megatron arrived, and again declared his name (he really wants people to know who he is). The Autobots were so panicked by the sight of their long lost nemesis that Ratchet called for a temporary retreat. Megatron blasted Jazz away when the diminutive Autobot attempted to attack, then threw him into the air before crushing him on top of a tower with his clawed talons. Jazz vainly fought on, asking if Megatron wanted a "piece", but doing little damage to Megatron. The Decepticon leader killed the Autobot by tearing him in half, callously declaring that he wanted "two".

As the human boy ran off with the All Spark, Megatron ordered the Decepticons to attack. Devastator attacked the armed insects, while Starscream and Blackout fought Ironhide and Ratchet for the All Spark. At that moment, Optimus Prime appeared and challenged Megatron. Millennia in the ice had done nothing to lessen the animosity Megatron felt for his brother, however. Barely managing to growl out Prime's name, he transformed and flew at Prime at full speed. The Autobot leader leapt and grabbed a hold of Megatron, who slammed him into a building before flying right through a skyscraper. Both leaders landed in the middle of an intersection, but Megatron was the first to recover and leaped upon his brother, snarling that the humans were undeserving of life. Optimus Prime replied that they had the right to choose for themselves before he threw his brother off. Megatron declared that if Prime wished to defend them, he should "join them in extinction", forming his fusion cannon. Before he could fire, the Autobot leader drew his ion blaster and fired, hitting Megatron. The Decepticon leader shrugged off this attack, spun around from the momentum and fired his cannon, throwing Optimus Prime into the side of a building.

Megatron pursued the young human who had removed the All Spark from Hoover Dam, destroying everything that stood in his way. The boy ran to a dilapidated building that was the designated coordinates for a human military evacuation team, and Megatron smashed his way through, yelling that he could smell the human maggot. Starscream destroyed the helicopter intended to take the All Spark, and Megatron burst through the floor, inquiring if it was courage or fear that compelled him. Finally cornering him on a ledge, Megatron offered that if the human gave him the All Spark, the boy might live as his pet. The Decepticon leader relished the human's defiant refusal and destroyed the ledge the human was standing upon, sending the boy tumbling to the ground.

Unfortunately, the human was caught by Optimus Prime, who then tried to escape down the side of the building before Megatron tackled him and sent all three slamming into the pavement. As a nearby human bystander attempted to run, the Decepticon expressed his disgust at the insect's proximity and flicked it away. Protecting the young boy, Prime declared that their war would end here and it was now just between the two brothers. Though lusting for the All Spark, Megatron decided to indulge his brother's obvious death wish, declaring that only he was in this fight. Despite Optimus Prime's best efforts, Megatron was relentless, matching the Autobot leader with blow after devastating blow until he collapsed. Adding insult to injury, Megatron informed Prime that his defense of the "weak" was the real reason he lost.

The Decepticon leader turned his attention back to the human boy, but was suddenly attacked by the human fighter jets and Captain Lennox's ground soldiers firing sabot rounds. Optimus took this chance, striking Megatron and knocking him down. His armor a damaged, shattered mess, Megatron ignored the punishment and focused on the human boy, growling that he would kill the boy and that the All Spark was his. As Optimus Prime ordered the boy to place the All Spark into his chest, the human instead pushed it into the now-exposed spark in Megatron's chest, overloading him with energy and extinguishing the Decepticon's life force. As Optimus Prime stood over Megatron's lifeless shell, watching the light flicker out of his brother's optics, he remarked somberly, yet remorsefully, that Megatron had left him no choice, and removed a shard of the All Spark from his brother's spark cavity.

Megatron's body was dumped into the Laurentian Abyss at its deepest point, along with the remains of the other Decepticons, where the near-freezing temperatures will -- hopefully-- keep them dormant indefinitely.

IDW Transformers movie comics
In the aftermath of the battle in Mission City, Sector Seven hauled away Megatron's corpse along with the other Decepticon bodies. The clandestine human organisation brought the bodies to a secret facility in the Nevada desert, with the intention of getting every bit of information they can out of the dead Decepticons before they were forced to dump them into the sea. When he arrived to oversee the burial of those who fell in Mission City, Optimus Prime noticed the surviving All Spark sliver glowed when near Megatron's body, and gave it to Professor Vine for safekeeping.

Transformers The Game

 * Voice actor: Frank Welker

Autobot campaign
After arriving at Hoover Dam, Bumblebee saw Megatron and the All Spark being held in the same room, which was guarded by lasers. After bringing down the lasers, Bumblebee managed to shrink the All Spark, while under fire by Megatron. Following the Autobots to Mission City, Megatron ignominiously "flicked" Bumblebee away, then tried to grab the All Spark from Sam. Optimus Prime arrived and the two fought in the Mission City park. After Prime believed that he had destroyed Megatron, Sam handed the All Spark to Prime, but Megatron jumped into the air with his flail, making one last attempt at nailing Prime. Prime caught the flail in its path and yanked Megatron towards him, shoving the All Spark into his chest. Pretty ruthless there, Prime, pretty ruthless.

Decepticon campaign
After learning Megatron's location, Blackout and Starscream sabotaged the dam's power, allowing Megatron to thaw out and awaken. After Megatron emerged, Starscream and Blackout bowed before their Lord, who declared that they had much to do. After the Decepticons dispatched the Autobots, Megatron, hoping to draw Prime out, went on a rampage in Mission City, declaring that the city would burn beneath his feet (this means toastie toes, but he's willing to make that sacrifice). Megatron and Prime played a game of cat and mouse, with Megatron tracking Prime and Sam, until Megatron finally destroyed Prime, then merged the All Spark with his spark, becoming even more powerful in the process (...wait, what?). After decimating Earth, Megatron took the Lincoln Memorial as his throne, then ordered Starscream, Brawl, and Barricade to finish the planet, before going on to conquer the galaxy.

Transformers: Autobots
Having landed on Earth some thousands of years ago, Megatron is thought to be frozen somewhere in the Arctic. As the Autobots look for clues as to his location, they eventually arrive in the frozen desert long enough to realize the humans have found him, as well as the AllSpark (sic). Once they hack into the communications array at the base, they find documentation leading to the Hoover Dam, where the Autobots and Decepticons race. Some wishing to free him, most hoping to destroy him, the Transformers fight over the base until the Decepticon leader is finally freed. Once out of cryo-storage, Megatron proceeds to steal the AllSpark from the Autobots and begin a destructive rampage through Tranquility, until he is finally defeated by Optimus Prime and Create-A-Bot.

Transformers: Decepticons
With Megatron frozen in the Hoover Dam, the Decepticons fight to free their leader. However, as is quickly made apparent, Starscream and his young protege, a Create-A-Bot, seek to eliminate their leader. This quickly changes, as Create-A-Bot is convinced by Barricade to free their commander, as Starscream is a back-stabbing bureaucrat while Megatron is a truly zealous leader. Even though both would kill you in an instant, Megatron would at least do it to your face so you could see it coming.

Once free, Megatron quickly takes the time to wipe out Jazz, who has been left at the bridge to help get rid of Megatron. After a fairly short battle, Megatron smashes Jazz into the dirt, leaving him to die. Back in Tranquility, he chases after Starscream, only to be blocked by Optimus Prime. Once the sibling rivalry is finished, Prime is left in pieces in the streets of Tranquility.

Arriving in the Casino Strip, Megatron finds Create-A-Bot damaged and Starscream flying away. Giving chase, he attacks his traitorous second-in-command, nearly destroying him despite his awesome All Spark driven powers. Starscream uses his last breath to insult Megatron before being killed by the tyrant. Returning to Create-A-Bot's side, Megatron takes a moment to call him a weakling and a failure, completely forgetting about the fact that Create-A-Bot saved him, led him to Starscream, destroyed the Autobots, and served him more loyally than most of his other followers. Taking a moment to let this sink in, Megatron went on to tell him that the weak are made to serve the strong, then ripped the young Decepticon apart and ate his Spark. Megatron then took off into the sky with intentions unknown.

Trivia

 * According to The Movie Guide, Megatron is one of the few Transformers capable of space travel without reverting to a Protoform. This explains how he was capable of chasing the All Spark immediately after its launch.


 * According to The Quest For the ALLSPARK paperback's opening paragraph, "...Most revered were Optimus and Megatron. They were twin brothers of the Prime dynasty." This implies that Megatron may have also had the surname "Prime" at one time. Hmm, Megatron Prime.


 * Early script drafts and a children's picture book featured Megatron consuming the sparks of his fallen foes, but this didn't make it into the final film due to time constraints. The novelisation of the movie, on the other hand, sees him chow down on Jazz in the final battle; similarly, although not outright stated in dialogue, his animalistic pouncing on the fallen bodies of various characters (including Optimus Prime, Starscream, Jazz and the Decepticon Create-A-Bot) in the Movie Nintendo DS games, following by what appears to be rooting around in their innards, seems to suggest he's doing the same there.


 * Similarly, in the Autobots version of the same DS game, it is noted that Megatron "took the spark" of his and Optimus' father. Presumably, this is a reference to both his cannibalistic practises as well as the fact that both he and Prime are in fact brothers, at least in the Cybertronian sense.


 * Despite his undeniable hatred of humans, Megatron is the only Decepticon in the movie who doesn't speak Cybertronian for the majority of his dialogue. In fact, he speaks fluent English upon reviving, despite the fact that Modern English came into existence around the Sixteenth century, when he was presumably still frozen in the ice. This could suggest that he still was somehow conscious when he was studied by Sector Seven (which he also overtly states upon awakening in the IDW comic adaptation). This would explain why his first action after thawing was declaring his name - imagine being frozen for generations being referred to as "N.B.E. 1", or even worse: "Mega-man" and "Ice-man".


 * The Megatron computer generated model consisted of 2411 individual pieces, 433,949 polygons, 8924 rig nodes, and 1437 texture maps. The pieces combined gave a volume of 10,325 cubic feet.


 * In almost every scene where Megatron's alt mode is in use, he spins while in flight; Guess thousands of years as a juice pop can do a number on your stabilizers.


 * Megatron from Transformers Animated has apparently stolen this Megatron's head, at least for the first episode.


 * Optimus and Starscream each get a toy that transforms into a gun, and he doesn't - seriously, WHAT THE HELL?!


 * He is the second Megatron who has a (sort of) flail since the second episode of Transformers so many years ago.


 * There are some problems with Simmon's statement about various techologies being reverse-engineered from Megatron. Cars came about in one shape or form at about the turn of the century, and spaceflight technology was pioneered by German and Soviet scientists. (This is possibly what they want you to think.)


 * His navigation system is on his finger, seriously what the hell?


 * Two of the nicknames Megatron is referred to, Mega-man and Ice-man, are references to the Mega Man videogame series (more precisely the original, its ports and remake).