Megatron (G1)

Generation 1
Megatron is incredibly powerful and ruthless. His primary weapon is his arm-mounted fusion cannon, capable of levelling a city block in one blast, which he can sub-dimensionally link to a black hole, generating even more powerful antimatter blasts. He has a secondary weapon barrel mounted on his back, and can retract and replace his right hand with an energy flail. Megatron transforms into a Walther P38 pistol, delivering more focused energy blasts. He can shrink as he transforms, assuming sizes that comfortably allow either another Transformer or a human to wield him. In one instance, he retained his full size and connected to jet-mode Starscream's underside.

There have been several interpretations of this character; some see Megatron as a strategic leader who call the shots from afar, other takes see Megatron as a battlefield commander who leads by brutal example, but all agree on one thing - all versions of this character are cunning, ruthless and without mercy. Unlike many other villains in various fictional scenarios, Megatron was not generally depicted as overly chaotic or insane. He was highly aggressive and megalomaniacal, but there was usually a (at least internally) consistent rationale behind his actions.

According to his original tech spec, Megatron has no known weaknesses. This does not, however, prevent him from losing the majority of the battles that he fights - for all his famed battle prowess and tactical ability, Megatron often overlooks some significant detail, and has a bad habit of ordering a retreat when tables start to turn against him. However, despite his lust for galactic domination, one of Megatron's key priorities remains the safety and health of Cybertron - and the best way to accomplish that is for him to conquer it.

Animated series
Megatron is a Decepticon, one of the lineal descendants of the military hardware robots created by the Quintessons on their factory world of Cybertron. 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 advantange of stealth. The Autobot victory in the war began the Golden Age of Cybertron, but a viper lurked within this paradise, as the Decepticons too eventually developed transformation, eventually leading to the creation of Megatron. Gathering a small number of troops together, Megatron made a small strike on an outer city, killing the current Autobot leader. However, this event was 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 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.

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 the Decepticon was too powerful 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, 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.

Megatron was voiced by prolific voice actor Frank Welker in the English version, and by Seizo Kato in the Japanese.

Battlestars: Return of Convoy
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 colour magazine spreads), 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 recovers Galvatron's body, and restores him to life as Super Megatron, pitting him against Star Convoy (the reborn Optimus Prime) and his Autobots. Super Megatron subsequently gets an upgrade to Ultra Megatron, and for the final battle, merges with Dark Nova himself, becoming Star Giant.

Marvel Comics
Rising from his beginnings as a gladiator for the city-state of Tarn, Megatron and the Decepticons were the ones who developed transformation first, using it to begin the war against the Autobots, who fought back by mimicking the technology. In time, the war grew so fierce that Cybertron itself was shaken from its orbit, and set adrift in the cosmos. Eventually, four million years ago, 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 attack, 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, but this only afforded him the chance to poison their fuel, deactivating them all. The Autobots were not saved, however, as Shockwave then defeated them all and brought the Decepticons back online to serve him - including Megatron. Chafing under his command, Megatron battled Shockwave, but was soundly defeated, forcing 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.

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. Eventually descending into insanity, Megatron boarded the spacebridge to Cybertron and detonated it with his fusion cannon, apparently killing himself.

That would be all the US comics saw of Megatron for quite some time, but their sister title in the UK, which produced its own material, interspliced with the US stories, soon brought back the great slag-maker for more adventures. Prior to Megatron's seeming death, there had been a story which had seen both him and Prime transported to Cybertron, where the disembodied local Decepticon leader, Lord Straxus, attempted to possess his body. The attempt failed, but Straxus made another attempt with a specially-crafted clone of Megatron, which was transported to Earth soon after the real Megatron vanished. The clone believed itself to be the real thing - as did the comics' readers, thinking that the spacebridge explosion had transported Megatron elsewhere on Earth - and after a battle with the mechanoid, Centurion, it was salvaged by Shockwave, who brainwashed it and unleashed it on Galvatron, a recreated future version of Megatron who had travelled 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 susbequently destroyed itself to prevent Straxus, buried inside its mind, from taking over. A toy of Megatron's clone was released in 2002 by Takara. Named Megaplex after Machine Wars Megatron's clone, the toy was a reissue of the Japanese G1 Megatron toy. Megaplex was exclusively sold via the online Japanese dealer, eHobby. Megaplex came with a recoloured Energon flail weapon which was also available with the Transformers Collection reissue of Megatron.

The stage was now set for Megatron's return in the US comics, as he had his Micromaster Sports Car patrol capture the Autobot medic, Ratchet, and 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. When Megatron then attempted to flee through a trans-time dimensional portal, Ratchet tackled him as his base then 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 the two discovered when they were reactivated with Nucleon - sharing each other's thoughts, feeling, sensations and sights, Ratchet attempted to break the cycle by crashing the Ark on Earth.

Generation 2
A few years later, Transformers was given a shot in the arm with the launch of the Generation 2 toyline and comic book series. Toy safety laws had changed, and it was now no longer legal to sell realistic toy guns, like the original Megatron figure, so for Generation 2, Megatron became an Abrams tank, and Marvel Comics told the tale of how it happened.

Although thought dead for a year or two, Megatron had actually survived the Ark crash, and had quietly worked to repair it, concealing it beneath the ground (apparently, Ratchet died in the crash, as their shared mind does not come up in the story). Tracking a transforming signal mistakenly believing it was another Transformer, Megatron came across the shape-shifting castle of the terrorist organisation, COBRA, and entered into a bargain with its leader, Cobra Commander, offering him the technology of the Ark in exchange for the new weapons his organisation was developing. Reconstructed into a new tank body, with a powerful rail gun, Megatron defeated a sqaud 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 airborne Ark. Following a climactic battle with Fortress Maximus, Megatron then battled and soundly defeated Bludgeon, reclaiming leadership of the Decepticons and stealing the Matrix from Optimus Prime, using it to bring his newest warriors online - only to have his faction bested by the forces of Jhiaxus and his second-generation Cybertronians. Megatron then entered into an alliance with the Autobots to both defeat Starscream, who had seized control of the Decepticon ship, the Warworld, through the power of the Matrix, and stop Jhiaxus. The tale ended with the Autobots and Decepticons uniting.

While this was the only version of Generation 2 Megatron to appear in the comics, several other incarnations of the character were released in the toyline itself, including "Hero Megatron" - a smaller, purple tank with a bellows-operated missile launcher and articulated robot mode - and Go-Bot Megatron; the Go-Bots were Transformers made to the same scale as Hot Wheels toys and had free-spinning axles which conserved momentum, allowing these Transformers to be compatible with Hot Wheels launchers, race tracks etc. Go-Bot Megatron was a repaint of a previous figure named Blowout and transformed into a silver Porsche. There were also unreleased versions of Megatron which turned into an Advanced Tactical Bomber and a smaller fighter jet, which would be used for Megatron in the Machine Wars series.

Other comic stories
In the course of its run, the UK comics produced several stories which do not fit into the continuity of the G1/G2 storyline, branching off in their own direction. For example, after the first disappearance of Ratchet and Megatron, a disparate continuity of storylines based around the "Earthforce" - a team of Autobots based on Earth - began, which saw Megatron and Shockwave establishing a joint leadership of the Decepticons, only to have command usurped by Starscream and Soundwave.

Also, after the end of the G1 comics, the final UK annual printed a text story entitled "Another Time And Place", which followed up on the events of the Ark crash, and saw Bludgeon and his followers locate Megatron's body and revive it with Nucleon, only for him to be defeated by Optimus Prime and Grimlock. This, of course, clashes with the G2 comic - but it does not clash in with the rewritten UK G2 comic, in which Megatron simply attributes his new body to human scientists, with no further explanation to contradict the events of "Another Time and Place".

Dreamwave Comics
In the 21st Century reimagining of the Generation One universe by Dreamwave Productions, Megatron was envisioned as an ancient 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 attempt by the Cybertronian elders to hide the truth of Cybertron’s history from the masses. When Megatron attempted to gain access to that knowledge through exploration and research, the Cybertronian elders attempted to have him assassinated - a plan that only resulted in stirring up even more discontent among Cybertronians which allowed Megatron to begin recruiting for the Decepticon movement.

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 part of this ultimate intent for the planet - it would transformed into a massive Warworld that would cut a swathe of destruction through the galaxy. This plan initially failed as during a conflict with Optimus Prime, Megatrons 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 new unstable Spacebridge matter-transport system. Spending an undisclosed time on the planet Quintessa, Megatron returned with an overwhelming army of lifeless seeker clones, quickly subjugating Cybertron. However this story was never finished due to the closure of Dreamwave.

Four million years BCE, when Cybertron was threatened by a massive approaching asteroid, Optimus Prime led a contingent of Autobots aboard the Ark to blow the rock to fragments, which were transported away by an orbital Spacebridge 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 Spacebridge portals, and was tarnsported 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 - but 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, 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 Rook during an auction. Megatron forced Rook 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, where Megatron, tired of the war, continuously asked Prime to join him. After his first failed attempt, Megatron unleashed Devastator on San Francisco in a 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, arresting 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 to be rid of him by jettisoning him into space on the return trip. Megatron used the time floating in space in stasis lock to contemplate his existence and the Decpticon goal. Realizing that he had wasted millennia in his feud with Prime, Megatron absolved to once again conquer Cybertron as a means to 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, who took him to the planet of Junk and repaired and re-armed him, only to be killed in return.

Travelling to the Planet Beest, Megatron defeated the exiled Decepticon warlords, the Predacons, and rebuilt them into the mightiest of all combiners, Predaking, to server 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 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.

Other appearances
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 i 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, 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."

The Reverse Convoy/Rebirth Megatron toy is a remoulded version of the Generation 2 "Hero Megatron" figure, with a new cannon and gun, and two interchangeable heads - one Convoy, one Megatron.