Megatron (G1)


 * Megatron is a Decepticon from the Generation 1 continuity family. He is also known as Lord Megatron and sometimes nicknamed the Slag Maker.



Megatron is 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&mdash;it is the Transformers' glorious destiny to rule an empire which will span the universe. The opposite of his mortal enemy Optimus Prime, 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...or his Fusion cannon, depending on his mood. Sometimes he uses his energon mace to strike them down. It does not matter how they die. Death by the hands of Megatron is an honor.

Sometimes, Megatron is later reborn as Galvatron.

"You destroy everything you touch, Megatron!"

- Optimus Prime

"That's because everything I touch is food for my hunger. My hunger for power!"

- Megatron


 * Chinese Name: Wei Jentian (Might that shakes the heavens)

Generation 1


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 siege by the Autobot Gears and a strange super-powered 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 impostor, 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 traveled 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 transplanting 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 antimatter 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 rematerialized, 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 spiraling 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 an Enclave 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. ''

"Another Time And Place" text story



 * "Another Time and Place" was retconned out of continuity a few years later by the Generation 2 comic books.

Trapped in non-transforming 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 resurgence. As Bludgeon was taken apart to pieces by a vicious repair spider, a partially-restored Megatron, a visual monstrosity, 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 organization, Cobra. He entered into a bargain with its leader, 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 Rheanimum, 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 Warworld. 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 Rheanimum 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


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. Megatron rebuilt many of these Decepticons using altered specifications created by Shockwave, shortly before Megatron presumably had Shockwave decommissioned in an unspecified way. 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 (or RUNTs) and subsequently a small team of Autobots led by Optimus Prime.

Megatron managed to escape with Landquake and return with him to the Decepticons' base of operations, where he had Landquake restrained, interrogated, and inspected. Megatron was intrigued by Landquake's claims of being from another dimension. He was further intrigued by a radiation wavelength signature detected in South America that exactly matched Landquake's readouts, and so Megatron led his Decepticons to the source of the signature. There, he encountered not only a fleet of jet-piloting RUNTs, but also the Autobots again. This time, with the might of his Decepticons behind him, he eagerly engaged in battle.

English animated continuity

 * Voice Actor: Frank Welker (English); Seizō Katō (Japanese); José Santacruz (Portuguese); Gernot Duda(G1), Manfred Erdmann, Thomas Rauscher (G2 Redub) (German)



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.

Megatron quickly gathered a small group of like-minded warriors together beneath him, and began his mission to restore the Decepticons to glory and overthrow the Autobots. In these early, shadowy days, Megatron is known to have attacked at least one of Iacon's outer cities,  and was responsible for the death of the Autobot leader at the time. Using a device called the Robo-Smasher to permanently reprogram Autobots and Decepticons into servitude of his cause, Megatron swelled the Decepticons ranks into a true army. Among the robots forced into servitude were the Constructicons.

For whatever reason, the agressive actions of Megatron and the Decepticons 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 approached him about the possibility of using one of his warehouses to store, only to turn on him once he had gained access to the energon stored within the facilitiy. Megatron fatally injured Pax in a scuffle, but thanks to the actions of the time-displaced Aerialbots, the young Autobot was rebuilt by Alpha Trion into a new configuration that could truly stand up to Megatron's power. Now, Orion Pax was Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots and Megatron's sworn opponent as the civil war erupted again.



Under Megatron's leadership, the Decepticons conquered a large portion of Cybertron, but 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 Autobot's craft in their space cruiser 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 jarred the ship's computer, Teletraan I, which in turn brought Skywarp back on-line. Skywarp proceeded to drag Megatron into the computer's reconfiguration beam, and the Decepticon leader was restored, with the Autobots soon to follow. Realizing that the Transformers were far from Cybertron, Megatron immediately arranged for construction of a new space cruiser, which would be fuelled with by energy pillaged from Earth's many natural resources. Early in his campaign against Earth, Megatron engaged Optimus Prime in a famous battle atop Sherman Dam, where he defeated the Autobot leader and absconded with the plant's energy. After several further energy raids, the space cruiser was refuelled and the Decepticons blasted off from Earth, but an attempted coup by Megatron's treacherous lieutenant Starscream abord the ship allowed Autobot stowaway Mirage the opportunity to sabotage the vessel and send it crashing back to Earth.

The Autobots believed the Decepticons to be destroyed, but in reality, they had survived the crash and repurposed the hulk of their spaceship as a sub-oceanic staging base and bunker. Megatron re-established contact with the guardian of Cybertron, Shockwave, 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 stabilized, 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, the stockpile of energy aboard a transport craft being piloted by Megatron was detonated by the Autobots, the explosion forcing Cybertron out of orbit. Although caught in the explosion and left adrift in space, Megatron was again able to cheat death, and soon found himself forced to team up with Optimus Prime in order to stop Starscream's attempt to destroy Earth.

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, growing ever more convoluted, imaginative and outlandish. His assorted plans included various attempts to harness the power of Earth's core,    the manipulation of the Autobots minds and bodies to his own evil ends,     stealing or taking control of various new weapons, devices and energy sources from both humans and the Autobots,       trying to conquer key human cities,    the draining of energy from a time-lost prehistoric island,   supercharging himself with the Heart of Cybertron,   partnership with a human politician that actually allowed him to force the Autobots off Earth and temporarily conquer Central City,   the creation of many new creatures, weapons and Transformers,      and many, many others. Also, at one undefined point, he was known to have battled Optimus Prime in a laboratory, causing an explosion that disfigured Gregory Swofford.



Eventually, at some point over the following twenty years, Megatron turned his attention away from Earth, and succeeded in completely conquering Cybertron by the Earth year 2005. The Autobots, however, were able to maintain control of two of Cybertron's moons, while the majority of their forces were relocated to the new Autobot City on Earth. Learning the Autobots were planning a decisive strike against the Decepticons, 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 the powerful Decepticon proved too much for him, seizing him and using him as shield as he grabbed the pistol and opened fire on Prime. 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 aboard Astrotran, 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, with Starscream personally jettisoning Megatron. Before long, however, Megatron's drifting body was found by the planet-eating Unicron, who offered to rebuild his body if he would destroy the Autobot Matrix of Leadership for him. Although Megatron initially refused, unwilling to be anyone's servant, Unicron tortured him into accepting the bargain, and Megatron was recreated as Galvatron.

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers manga
In the late 1980s, Megatron turned his attention away from North America, and chose to focus on stealing the energy of Japan. In addition to ordering many attacks, he transformed himself into the gigantic "Super Megatron Gun" (a non-shrunken version of his pistol mode, operated by Starscream riding atop Blitzwing!)  and ordered the construction of the Decepticon city, Trypticon, to counter the Autobots' Scramble City.

Scramble City OVA
To hide the continuing construction of Scramble City from prying Decepticon optics, the Autobots moved the project to a concealed cavern, but when the Decepticons detected magnetic fluctuations emanating from the caves, Megatron dispatched Soundwave's cassettes to investigate, and Ratbat discovered the facility. Hoping to destroy the fortress before it was completed, Megatron sent his entire army of combiners to attack the Autobots. The plan met with failure, as the Autobots and their combiners were able to hold off the Decepticons long enough for Scramble City to be completed and transformed into its robot mode of Metroplex. Metroplex dispatched the Decepticons, but Megatron then revealed his trump card - Trypticon!

Super Robot Magazine manga
Continued Autobot and human interaction led to a joint project to create an interstellar transport system in the late 1990s. When Starscream fused with the mechansm and attempted a coup, Megatron and Prime were forced to team up to stop him, and went missing following the battle that ensued.

Binaltech
After the Autobot's Earth-based forces were decimated by a Cosmic Rust plague unleashed by Swindle in 2003, Megatron made his big push to fully take over Cybertron in 2004. The vast majority of the Autobots were occupied battling Megatron's forces on Cybertron, leading to the creation of new "Binaltech" bodies for the injured Autobots on Earth to protect the planet.

In the midst of this Binaltech affair, the time-tossed Decepticon Ravage attempted to alter history by using the Kronosphere time-machine. In the middle of a decisive battle between the Autobots and Decepticons, Ravage used the Kronosphere to transport Megatron and the Decepticons through time, altering history so that the Autobots were left to face the looming threat of Unicron alone. This disruption of the natural order of time proved almost catastrophic, but reality was saved by the appearance of a mysterious entity known only as "The Protector," which restored the timeline as it should have been, but also preserved the "Binal-Time" timeline as an alternate universe.

In this alternate universe, Unicron was ultimately defeated, but the weakened Autobot forces were then overwhelmed by the fighting-fit Megatron and the Decepticons when they reappeared in 2006, and Cybertron was conquered by them once again. Megatron then turned his attention on the Sol system, and launched an attack on the Earth Defense Command base on Mars. At the same time, however, the Autobot spy Mirage had been dispatched to Cybertron, where he was instructed to locate and throw a large switch that the Autobots had received information on. This switch effectively froze every non-Binaltech Transformer throughout the entire universe, including Megatron and his armada on Mars. The only active Decepticons in the area, Nemesis Prime and Shockwave, staged a full retreat while using drones to gather up as many of the frozen Decepticons as possible. Since Nemesis Prime was last seen taking Megatron's throne for himself, it is unknown if he took the frozen Megatron to safety, or left the former Decepticon leader to be taken into custody.

Robot Masters



 * Voice Actor: Jirō Saitō (Japanese)

In the year 2004, Megatron disappeared through unknown circumstances, leaving his time-displaced descendant from the Beast Wars to take his place as Decepticon leader in the battle for the mysterious element solitarium. Precisely what happened to Megatron was never explained, but the Decepticon leader was later able to effect his return by using his inter-dimensional black hole uplink powers to take over the body of Reverse Convoy from the planet Vehicon. Posing as an ally to the Autobots, Megatron proceeded to betray them by revealing himself as the aptly-named "Rebirth Megatron". Eventually, however, Optimus Prime returned all the Autobots and Decepticons to proper place in time and space through the power of solitarium and rid the Earth of Decepticons.

The Transformer manga
At some point in 2010, 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 they 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, who was, as it turned out, actually disguised as one of the Megatron clones himself. Once Rodimus defeated Galvatron, all the Megatron clones lost power and were easily vanquished.

Battlestars: Return of Convoy


During his time as Galvatron, Megatron had been seemingly vanquished forever when he was crushed beneath an iceberg. Over fifteen years later, a evil force named Dark Nova recovered Galvatron's body from its ice tomb, and recreated him 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 by the Battlestars and their Triple Combination Battlestar Attack. 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 story pages and mini-comics


Recovering from the Star Giant incident, Megatron abandoned his evil ways and was upgraded into a new Action Master body. His new peaceful intentions were genuine, and he joined with Optimus Prime to form the Cybertron Alliance, ushering 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 essences of the previous Autobot Supreme Commanders within the Matrix of Leadership used the Reconfiguration Matrix to transform Optimus into Laser Optimus Prime. The fight raged on for a while until Prime managed to drive the Decepticon forces to retreat into outer space.

Comic Bom Bom Generation 2 manga
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.

Beast Wars II cartoon
Megatron is briefly mentioned in the animated theatrical short film Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger, in which the Predacon Galvatron (no relation) attempted to use a time-and-space-warping gate to summon "Megatron" to his aid. It is not clear whether he was searching for Beast Wars Megatron or the original Decepticon to bear that name, however his statement "Now we can summon the greatest and most vicious Transformer in history" arguably suggests that he was more likely talking about G1 Megatron.

However, when his brother Megastorm screws up the wavelength calculations and instead summons the titanic Majin Zarak, Galvatron is pleased and declares that "we obtained a weapon far superior to Megatron".

Dissed, Megsey. Dissed!

Kid Stuff Talking Story Books continuity

 * Voice actor: Earl Hammond(?)

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

Marvel Books Big Looker Storybook continuity


A bunch of humans set up a race for charity, and 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. What he required, however, was a power source for the engines, which he believed could be found in the Matrix. He personally killed Sentinel Prime, but found the Matrix was not with him. He sent two assassination squads after Optimus Prime, the new Autobot leader, before going for him personally. During the fight, Megatron's lieutenant Starscream, shot both leaders into a deep hole. During their subsequent battle, Megatron explained his goals, and urged Prime to join him. His attack on Prime also cracked the Matrix's casing, causing both Transformers to see visions of the future. Unfortunately for Megatron, Starscream activated the planet mechaforming process too soon, resulting in the destruction of the machinery, and Prime erased Megatron's memories of the future, and of the engines.

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 their battles in the 1980s and 1990s are unrecorded. (Presumably, they broadly resembled the G1 cartoon and comic books.) In 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.''

Dreamwave Transformers/G.I. Joe continuity
Megatron and the other Decepticons were unintentionally revived by Major Bludd. Bludd's leader, Cobra Commander used Megatron as a weapon of global conquest. Megatron took the opportunity to harvest energy from the conquered human establishments. To enforce Megatron's loyalty, the Commander was willing to use his possesion of The Matrix as a weapon capable of causing Megatron great pain. Megatron eagerly awaited the Commander's death.

When Cobra Commander's legs were crushed during Bruticus's rampage, Megatron suggested the Commander use Megatron's gun mode as a means of killing himself to relieve the pain, but it was Baroness who was bold enough to fire the killing shot.

Then Snake-Eyes broke the Matrix and Megatron died. He remained dead.

Devil's Due G.I. Joe vs. The Transformers continuity
After Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world, found a crashed spaceship full of Transformers in stasis lock, these beings were rebuilt into Cobra vehicles and reprogrammed to serve Cobra. One exception to the latter detail was Megatron, who was rebuilt to transform into a Walther P38 handgun, but only was locked in this mode and not reprogrammed. He mocked Cobra Commander's decisions, especially deciding Starscream, Megatron's traitorous lieutenant, would serve as the Commander's choice of transport.

Megatron was able to bargain for his freedom when the Transformers were cleared of their reprogramming, including a very stern Optimus Prime. The two leaders clashed, but ultimately Megatron was defeated. Unbeknownst to the victors, Megatron's remains were seized by the United States government.

Megatron's remains were eventually used to create Serpent O.R., a synthetic creature that combined the personalities of several of Earth's most famous warmongers and Megatron. During a Cobra raid, Serpent O.R. was prematurely activated. After discerning his origins, Serpent O.R. considered himself the son of Megatron.

IDW comics continuity
Long ago, before the war, Megatron was an Energon miner, a member of the lower class, in Mine C-12. One day Senator Decimus arrived at the mine to announce that the mine was being closed immediately and the workers would be relocated. However, one of the Senator's guards killed a worker for insubordination and claims of Senate corruption, which spurred Megatron into action. He attacked Senator Decimus and killed the guard in self-defense, and was shocked to find he had done so. He and the other miners were en route to imprisonment when Rumble and Frenzy broke free and started a riot aboard their ship. They escaped and made their way to Kaon.

After evading law enforcement, Megatron joined a team of underworld gladiators under the tutelage of Clench. Initially repulsed by killing his opponents, the games eventually turned him more brutal & excessive and he took control of the entire operation from Clench. The opportunistic Senator Ratbat, after seeing how much money there was in the underworld matches, sent his agent Soundwave to offer Megatron weaponry and technology to upgrade himself and his comrades. Sentinel Prime's Autobots were sent to investigate the gladiatorial games, but when two Autobots were personally killed by Megatron, Prime's forces stepped up their pursuit. Megatron recruited used the gladiatorial games to drum up an army of violent malcontents and spread chaos throughout Cybertron. He then deliberately allowed Sentinel Prime's forces to capture his burgeoning army, so that Starscream (pretending to defect) and Soundwave & his hidden cassette army could exterminate the Kaon Senate and then free every last prisoner. Megatron led the army of prisoners against the Autobots, beat Sentinel Prime to death, and took control of Kaon.

Over time, the war between Megatron's Decepticon army and Optimus Prime's Autobots covered the entire planet and soon beyond to the rest of the galaxy. Optimus grew to respect & fear Megatron as a calm, calculating and measured opponent, a contrast to his almost sociopathic personality in Origin. Megatron also constructed Sixshot, a living weapon with frightening amounts of power that only he had the "off-switch" for. The confilct became 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 ordered Bludgeon to investigate his files, secretly assigning Soundwave to investigate Bludgeon.

Later, a Decepticon scientist, Thunderwing, came to Megatron with a revolutionary, controversial plan to stave off this energy death by polydermal grafting, a process where they encased 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, but 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 at Thunderhead Pass accelerated the apocalypse destined to befall Cybertron, leaving it an uninhabitable, radioactive husk and forcing both armies to continue their war on other worlds. Megatron advocated that they simply destroy Cybertron to ensure that Thunderwing was destroyed, but Prime refused, and threatened to stop Megatron if he tried. Megatron agreed not to destroy the planet, but warned Prime that whatever happened was on his head.



Seven hundred stellar cycles later, in current times, it was discovered that as a result of digging through Shockwave's files, Bludgeon had resurrected Thunderwing's dangerous project, as well as Thunderwing himself. After being informed of Thunderwing's attack on Nebulos, Megatron dispatched the Predacons in a ship to Cybertron, authorizing Razorclaw to do whatever was necessary to destroy Thunderwing, including the destruction of Cybertron. However, Optimus Prime and the Wreckers were able to thwart both Bludgeon and 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 - this annoyed him as he thought they were beyond such power games. After seriously damaging the hesitantly rebellious Skywarp and Blitzwing, Megatron ordered the AWOL team to stand down and then took on a super-powered Starscream. Though the Ore-13 made Starscream a formidable adversary, Megatron was still more deadly than he, and Starscream was destroyed. All throughout, he acted eerily calm & measured and made both Autobot and Decepticon wet themselves in fear.

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 the second stage of the Decepticons' plans, wishing to try out his new mass-displacing handgun altmode and the Ore-13 power. He personally took charge of the Decepticon subterfuge in Brasnya, guiding the facsimile of Georgi Koska in an attempt to escalate an international incident into a full polarizing war, and acting as Koska's personal weapon. (His alt-mode only works when a human is holding and firing him, which left him at a disadvantage against the Autobots who could simply pin him down in that form. Maybe Megs just wants to be held)

When Optimus Prime arrived, Megatron transformed and started a full-blown to-the-death melee with his longtime foe for all the nuts and bolts - this surprised Optimus, who accused Megatron of letting the Ore-13 power go to his head and causing him to be "some raging braggart". Even with his fusion cannon disabled almost right away, Megatron gained the upper hand due to his Ore-13 high. Beating his foe down, he squeezed Prime's Spark and seemingly killed him; aghast, the Autobots moved into a full but ineffective counterattack, their only edge being that Megatron had no long-range guns left. However, Prime's death was a desperate ruse, and the Autobot leader countered with a surprise attack on Megatron, able to exploit Ore-13's weakness - the more it's used, the faster it burns itself out. Megatron almost collapsed from power loss and was forced to have Skywarp take him to safety before the Autobots could kill him.

Upon returning to base and being refueled and repaired, Megatron was hopping mad. Mad enough to prematurely call in his ultimate living weaponSixshotdespite Astrotrain's panic attack on hearing that.

During this time, he discovered a plot by Ramjet to overthrow him. Without saying a word, he beat the living slag out of the attempted traitor.

Upon Sixshot's arrival, Megatron ordered him to utterly destroy the Autobots, throwing out the methodical "Phase" stragy. The other Decepticons were worried that Megatron was losing his grip - and since they were too scared to tell him that, they decided to revive Starscream to do it for them. Before Sixshot could obliterate the Autobots, Megatron recalled him to deal with a new threat—the Reapers. Megatron deduced that the other Decepticons betrayed him by awakening Starscream, but decided not to punish them yet, due to the present task of destroying the Reapers.

IDW Hearts of Steel continuity
He is referred to (as a leader Starscream wants to replace, big surprise), but does not appear.

IDW Hearts of Steel Concept Art micro-continuity
Megatron is depicted with three different altmodes: a giant cannon (with big studded wheels that become shoulder-shields), a 19th-century Colt revolver, possibly a Colt 1851 Navy, and another very similar revolver, with an anachronistic scope and a bulkier muzzle. Since these altmodes have no place in the story, these sketches constitute a micro-continuity in which Optimus and Megatron are active in the late 19th century.

Beast Wars

 * Voice actor: Gary Chalk  (US)



After the Autobot/Decepticon war moved to Earth, Megatron hunted down the Voyager probe as it traveled through the Solar System and encoded a message on its disc. Should his efforts fail, he left detailed instructions to any Decepticon descendants who recovered the disc, instructions which apparently condoned use of transwarp technology to alter history in his favor by locating the Ark before it is reactivated, with access codes to the Ark stored in the disk, and killing Optimus Prime before the Autobots and Decepticons reawaken.



The disk (dubbed the Golden Disk) eventually fell into Cybertronian hands and was stolen by a Predacon who shared Megatron's name. This new Megatron, later stranded in Earth's past, was able to use a recording of the original Megatron to sway one of the original Megatron's most loyal troops, Ravage, to his cause.



The original Megatron himself was stranded in Earth's past on board the Ark, offline. Before long, Predacon Megatron was able to approach the comatose body of his namesake and steal his Spark, integrating it into his own system. Almost immediately, however, during Predacon Megatron's painful reaction to this integration, he was thrown into a pool of lava by his treacherous underlings. In spite ofor perhaps because ofthis, Predacon Megatron emerged from the lava, with a new body that could now transform into a fire-breathing dragon. It is unknown how much influence the original Megatron's Spark had in this metamorphosis. At the end of the Beast Wars, after Predacon Megatron was succumbed, the original Megatron's Spark was returned to his body, restoring the flow of history.

A Megatron is mentioned in the Covenant of Primus, an ancient sacred text which claims to prophesize future events, including the Beast Wars. It is implied that both Megatrons took their name from here.

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.


 * The name "Megatron" was originally used by Marvel Comics for another robot that appeared long before the Transformers toyline came about, in issue 18 of the Shogun Warriors series (written by Doug Moench, art by Herb Trimpe, released in July 1980) . Bob Budiansky suggested the name "Megatron" for the Transformers line (it's unclear if he was aware of the existing Marvel character, though as an editor it seems likely that he at least had a subconscious memory of it) 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 bad guys.  Hasbro responded, "Oh, right," and then approved the name.


 * In the UK comics, Dreadwind explains that Megatron is the equivalent of a 'blueblood,' possessing some royal lineage.


 * After his fight with Optimus Prime in the animated movie, Megatron appears to have energon leaking from his eyes and mouth. Either that or he's been crying, which seems unlikely.


 * In Megatron: Origins #2, we see that Megatron's helmet is, in fact, a helmet and not part of his head. Upon removing his helmet, Megatron then briefly unfurls a crest.  The significance of this moment is not explained, nor is it ever revisited.


 * Megatron once crushed Brawl's head with his bare hands!