Megatron/Cartoon continuity

Whether it's throwing tantrums, building giant griffins, murdering puppies or licking humans, Megatron could never be accused of not keeping busy in the Generation 1 cartoon continuity!

The Transformers cartoon


Following the exile of the Quintessons from Cybertron, the two races of robots that they had created, the Autobots and the Decepticons, went to war with each other. Although physically weaker, the Autobots claimed victory thanks to their development of a new ability: the art of transforming. The Autobots' victory began the Golden Age of Cybertron, but all was not well within this seeming paradise. After many centuries of Autobot rule, the Decepticons developed transformation as well, along with new robot-mode flight powers, leading to the creation of Megatron.

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



For whatever reason, the aggressive 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 flight powers. However, Pax soon learned the error of his ways when Megatron approached him about the possibility of using one of the local warehouses for storage, only to turn on Pax once he had gained access to the energy stored within the facility. Megatron fatally injured Orion in a scuffle and left the young robot to die while he set about pillaging and battling the guardian robots who arrived to quash his uprising. Unbeknownst to Megatron, thanks to the actions of the time-displaced Aerialbots, Orion was rebuilt by Alpha Trion into a new configuration that could truly stand up to Megatron's power—now, he was Optimus Prime. Prime and Megatron proceeded to face off on the battlefield for the first time, and, as Megatron's fusion cannon blasts splashed harmlessly off Prime's armor, the new Autobot leader declared himself Megatron's worst nightmare.



Under Megatron's leadership, the Decepticons conquered a large portion of Cybertron, but the war drained the planet of most of its energy. Learning that the Autobots were planning a space voyage to search for new worlds and new sources of power, Megatron appointed Shockwave guardian of Cybertron in his absence while he and his elite forces–including the treacherous Starscream, who considered Megatron a relic and sought leadership of the Decepticons for himself, and Megatron's most loyal subordinate, Soundwave—boarded a space cruiser to pursue the Autobots' own craft. After navigating a treacherous meteor shower, the Decepticons attacked and boarded the Autobot craft, but during the battle that ensued, the ship was caught in the g-forces of the nearby planet Earth and crashed there, knocking all its occupants offline.



Four million years later, in 1984, the eruption of the volcano into which the ship had crashed jarred the ship's computer, Teletraan I, back online. The computer restored the Decepticon Skywarp to life, and he immediately dragged Megatron into Teletraan's reconfiguration beam. Within moments, the Decepticon leader was restored, now outfitted with an Earthly alternate mode in the form of a Walther P.38 pistol, and he quickly set about reviving the rest of his troops. Realizing that they were on a planet far from Cybertron, Megatron immediately made plans to gather energy from Earth's resources and build a new space cruiser so they could return home... and perhaps he would have succeeded in this goal, if the Autobots had not been there to stop him. Unfortunately, Starscream proved petty enough to fire a few parting shots at the buried Autobot spacecraft as the Decepticons were leaving, causing a tremor that jostled Optimus Prime's body into the path of Teletraan I's beam. Thus, Optimus Prime was revived and the rest of the Autobots soon followed, and the war continued on Earth.



For their first strike, Megatron led the Decepticons to an offshore oil rig. The Autobots followed, and Prime and Megatron found themselves in battle once again, but Megatron soon broke off the fight and covered his escape by collapsing the rig with a blast from his cannon. Next, Megatron chose to attack Sherman Dam, atop which he battled Optimus Prime with his energon mace. Megatron was on the losing end of that fight until Prime was distracted by the plight of the Autobots' new human ally, Spike Witwicky, allowing Megatron to knock him off the dam and make good his escape.



After pillaging another clutch of energy from the ruby crystal mines of Burma, Megatron made preparations to attack a rocket base to acquire the last of the energy needed. Starscream took the opportunity to grouse about his leadership once more, and in a rather foolish move, attempted to shoot Megatron in the back. Responding to Soundwave's shout of warning, Megatron blocked the beam with a force field and returned fire, bringing Starscream to his knees. The following morning, the Decepticons attacked a rocket base, successfully foiling an attempt by the Autobots to dupe them with a holographic illusion, and obtained the required energy. The Autobots launched one final attack on the Decepticons before the villains could escape, during which Megatron faced the firepower of Prime's Combat Deck, but ultimately, the Decepticons made it to their cruiser and blasted off. Once airborne, Starscream challenged Megatron for leadership once again, and Megatron was fully prepared to take on the traitor...until the Autobot stowaway Mirage used the fight as a distraction to sabotage the ship and send it crashing back to Earth, where it submerged itself in the ocean.



Although the Autobots believed the Decepticons deceased, in reality, Megatron and his forces had survived, and in the intervening months, they repurposed the hulk of their spaceship as a sub-oceanic headquarters. Megatron re-established contact with Shockwave on Cybertron, arranging for the joint construction of a new intergalactic transport system called a "space bridge". After revealing his continued existence to the Autobots in an attack on a solar power plant, Megatron captured Spike Witwicky for use in the first test of the space bridge and reprogrammed Spike's Autobot friend Bumblebee, causing the little Autobot to lure his comrades into an ambush. Despite his carefully-laid plans, everything backfired for Megatron when the Autobots disrupted the test and he was inadvertently sucked through the space bridge.



While a lesser being might have been destroyed by the voyage, Megatron survived and re-materialized on Cybertron. He quickly had Shockwave send him back to Earth, where he led the Decepticons in stealing an antimatter formula from the scientist Doctor Alcazar and his student, Chip Chase. Using the formula, Megatron created antimatter cubes that he used to power himself, transforming his pistol mode into a devastating "antimatter gun". Regrettably, the plan was short-lived: During the ensuing battle, the antimatter reached ignition temperature, and he was forced to dispose of it and flee.

When Optimus Prime was badly wounded in a battle with the Decepticon jets, a group of Autobots travelled to Cybertron to secure a replacement part to save him, prompting Megatron to order the Rainmakers into battle to stop them with acid rain. Thinking this tactic a success, Megatron launched a major attack on Autobot Headquarters, but the Autobots returned from Cybertron in time to repair Prime, who thrashed Megatron soundly in one-on-one combat.



Megatron's scheme to drain heat energy from Earth's core was foiled by the Decepticon-turned-Autobot Skyfire, after which his attack on the Great Falls hydroelectric power plant was squashed by the powerful, newly created Dinobots. His attempt to use the Crystal of Power as a weapon met with similar success, so Megatron turned his attentions back to the Dinobots, using his charisma to confuse their simple minds and turn them against the Autobots. While the Dinobots were busy battling Optimus Prime, Megatron and the Decepticons stole an unstable meteorite and began draining its energy, but the meteor soon exploded, denying Megatron another success.

Megatron's next plan was his grandest yet, as he allied himself with the human scientist Doctor Arkeville for his mind-controlling hypno-chips and constructed a colossal space bridge design to teleport Cybertron itself into Earth's orbit. Prime engaged Megatron in battle just before the Decepticon leader could activate the final pylon of the space bridge, but victory in this battle was Megatron's, as he revealed his scheme to Prime, forcing Optimus to activate the pylon himself or cause Cybertron's destruction. Megatron's forces and mind-controlled human slaves set about gathering the energy generated by the catastrophic forces unleashed by Cybertron's arrival, until eventually, a huge transport full of energy cubes was ready. As Megatron personally flew the ship to Cybertron, but the Autobots opened fire on it, detonating the energon cubes and causing an explosion large enough to force Cybertron out of orbit, saving Earth. Megatron proved his preternatural durability yet again by surviving the blast, and he quickly returned to Earth, only to discover that Starscream and Doctor Arkeville had formed an alliance.



To stop Starscream's plan to use an Exponential Generator to destroy the Earth, Megatron was forced to team up with Optimus Prime, transforming into pistol mode so that Prime could use him to fire the generator into space. When the generator exploded, it knocked the passing Starscream out the sky, and he crashed right at the vengeful Megatron's feet.

Whatever revenge Megatron reaped upon Starscream, it was enough to put the Air Commander out of commission for the Decepticons' next mission to Bali, where Megatron formed a partnership with a trio of Decepticon "Insecticons" that had been living there. When an Autobot attack foiled their attempt to steal energy from an oil tanker, however, Megatron cut his losses and ordered the Decepticons to retreat with what energon cubes they had acquired, earning him the Insecticons' enmity.



After the Decepticon forces were bolstered by the addition of the Constructicons, Megatron put the builders' skills to use constructing a device that would transfer the other Decepticons' powers into him. With these additional abilities in place, Megatron challenged Optimus Prime to a one-on-one duel according to Cybertronian law, in which the loser would be exiled from Earth forever. The law, however, dictated that combatants had to fight without additional reinforcement, so to hide the nature of his new powers, Megatron dispatched the Constructicons to destroy Teletraan I, so that the computer would be unable to scan him and realise his broach of the rules. Using the powers of his Decepticons, Megatron easily defeated Optimus Prime, but the Constructicons' were foiled in their mission by the Dinobots, and Megatron's deception stood revealed. Faced with a furious Optimus Prime, Megatron was hurled into a river of lava, but as the Autobots departed, his charred form bobbed to the surface, and he vowed the Decepticons would rise again.



During a raid on an Air Force rocket base in 1985, Megatron covered the Decepticons' retreat by opening fire on Bumblebee and Spike, badly wounding the young human. While his body was being operated upon, Spike's mind was transferred into the Frankenstein-like body of "Autobot X", and Megatron was able to exploit the youth's resulting addled state and turn him against the Autobots, even allowing Spike to wield him in pistol mode. Unfortunately for Megatron, Spike got a hold of himself and turned Megatron's power on the other Decepticons, winning the day.



After attempts to drain energy from the Earth's sun with his new Solar Needle and to conquer New York City and transform it into "New Cybertron",  Megatron decided to hit the Autobots where they lived, using invisibility spray to sneak into Autobot Headquarters and plant a personality destabilizer device in Teletraan I's recharging systems. The device turned the Autobots into rampaging brutes, and while they were busy causing destruction, Megatron led the Decepticons in hijacking a solar satellite, only to be foiled at the last second when the Autobots were restored to their right minds.

Wild and wonderful technology formed the basis of Megatron's next few schemes, as he formed another unstable alliance with the Insecticons to appropriate human-made electro-cells, attempted to steal Wheeljack's new paralyzing Immobilizer weapon,  and had the Constructicons build the Transfixatron, a device which froze the Autobots in their vehicle modes. When these plans met with failure, Megatron teamed up with King Nergill of the undersea fish-race of Sub-Atlantica and tried to conquer Washington, D.C. Megatron felt right at home sitting in a "throne" made from the Lincoln Memorial, but the plan fell apart when the insane Nergill betrayed Megatron.



Despite the failure of his plan to manipulate the Earth computer TORQ III, Megatron stuck to his guns and tried controlling Earth technology again, stealing the human-made robot ninja Nightbird and unleashing it upon the Autobots. Megatron was full of praise for Nightbird, describing "her" as "all he had ever wanted", and dubbed her "hot enough" to replace Starscream if he so chose. Threatened by this prospect, Starscream helped the Autobots defeat Nightbird. Needless to say, Megatron was not pleased.



For his next plan, Megatron got very hands-on, creating a perfect clone of Optimus Prime that he controlled personally via a special helmet. Despite Megatron's inability to operate Teletraan I or even get the Autobots' names right, Prime's comrades failed to tell the difference between the clone and the genuine article. It was only when Megatron dismissed the safety of Spike during a battle for control of a crevasse of korlonium crystals that his trickery was revealed and the clone was destroyed.

Megatron's next run of plans went especially badly for the Decepticon leader. Another attempt to harness the power of the Earth's core nearly destroyed the planet, necessitating a team-up with the Autobots to save the world, while another failed alliance with the Insecticons also led to a team-up, as Megatron was forced once again to allow Optimus Prime to wield him in pistol mode, so that he could shoot capsules into the over-energized Insecticons in order to bring them under control. No alliance resulted from Megatron's attempt to harness the energies of the time-lost Dinobot Island, but his scheme nearly tore apart the fabric of space and time, until the Dinobots and the island's native dinosaurs stopped him.



Next, Megatron tried stealing Autobot technology, going after Grapple's Solar Power Tower and the Negavator,  but failure on both accounts led him to try and rediscover a piece of lost technology, rather than steal a new one. Venturing into the jungles of South America, Megatron and the Decepticons uncovered the ruins of the space cruiser that had brought them to Earth, and Megatron had its power core, the Heart of Cybertron, installed within his body. Now bestowed with incredible energy-blasting powers, Megatron would have destroyed the Autobots, had Bumblebee, Brawn and Perceptor not shrunk themselves to microscopic size and ventured inside his body to disconnect the Heart of Cybertron.



Seeking to exploit the gullibility of humankind, Megatron entered into a partnership with the human politician Shawn Berger, promising him control of Central City if he would help Megatron "expose" the Autobots for the villains they truly were. Megatron tricked Berger into believing the Autobots had ransacked an oil field by disguising the Decepticons with costumes, and the tape "proving" the Autobots' evil deeds was unveiled to the public. Found guilty in a court of law, the Autobots were exiled from Earth, and Megatron secretly reprogrammed their ship's navigation computer to send them not back to Cybertron, but into the heart of the Sun. Megatron played nice for a little while, joining in a parade and a television interview, but it was during the latter that he revealed his deception and announced his intention to conquer the planet. Central City immediately fell under his control and was turned into a huge work camp dubbed "Megatronia One", but soon, the Autobots (who had survived their plunge into the Sun thanks to Trailbreaker's force field) returned to Earth to clear their names and stop Megatron's master plan.



The Decepticons' attempt to steal Professor Greene's Ultra Plane was foiled by depletion of their cybertonium, which robbed Megatron of his ability to fly and shoot straight. Megatron was not pleased to hear that Shockwave's attempts to transport some fresh cybertonium from Cybertron were stymied by Spike and his girlfriend Carly. Once he was fully functional again, Megatron stole the Voltronic Galaxer and used it to disrupt communications signals all across Earth from a base on the Moon. Holding the world to ransom for energy in exchange for clear lines of communication, Megatron was ultimately defeated in a battle with Optimus Prime on the Moon's surface.



Megatron next led the Decepticons in a mission to Britain, after which he briefly gained the power of an electrum coating  and then turned his attention back to New York City, allying with the criminal Geddis brothers in order to make drone warriors out of the cars their crime ring stole. Later, an attempt to create a new space bridge in a baseball stadium went awry when Megatron accidentally blasted the bridge's controls, creating a disruption that transported several Autobots and Decepticons to a planet of alien giants. Megatron was lucky enough to escape this fate, and once his followers had returned, he unleashed a series of schemes against the Autobots that saw them pitted against alien creatures like the Morphobots and a creature from the heart of an asteroid.

While conducting an experiment of his own, Megatron inadvertently wound up creating the demented energy imp known as Kremzeek. Megatron released Kremzeek into the Autobot base so that he could cause havoc, keeping the Autobots occupied while he tested the Decepticons' new energy magnet off the coast of Japan. However, Megatron had not anticipated that Kremzeek would follow him to Japan and wind up destroying their operation there.



After a mission to the planet of the Tlalakans at the behest of the neurotic Decepticon computer Deceptitran, Megatron fell victim to betrayal by Starscream, Astrotrain and Blitzwing, and was frozen solid in a subterranean chamber by absolute zero degree molecules. As luck would have it, the chaos caused by the trio's attempts to take control of the Decepticons caused a flash flood that destroyed the chamber and freed Megatron, and he took on all comers to retake his leadership position.



Megatron then took a step back from the front lines for a while, delegating Astrotrain and Blitzwing to make contact with the big game hunter Lord Chumley, placing Starscream in charge of missions to hypnotise humans with the Dancitron nightclub  and to capture Elita One on Cybertron,  and appointing Thrust, Dirge and Ramjet to capture Astoria Carlton-Ritz. Megatron got proactive again when a movie studio captured footage of Dirge crash-landing in their back lot while carrying a secret cargo. Starscream's failure to recover the negatives of the footage enraged Megatron to such an extent that he slammed the Air Commander off a wall and tore wires out of his chest, knocking him offline. Megatron was tricked into believing the negative had been destroyed by Hoist, but as it turned out, the "secret cargo" was totally worthless anyway!



Seeking to challenge the Autobots' rule of the road, Megatron created the Stunticons and brought them to Cybertron so that Vector Sigma could bring them to life. Stealing the mega-computer's key from Alpha Trion, Megatron succeeded in his goal, and upon returning to Earth with the key, discovered that it possessed the additional power to de-energize matter and turn it into metal. Cutting a swathe through the Seattle-Tacoma area with the key, Megatron sought to transform Earth into a new Cybertron, but he was stopped by the Autobots' newest members, the Aerialbots.

Megatron soon sought to dispose of the Aerialbots by sending them back to the dawn of time using the Kronosphere time machine, but an Autobot attack disrupted the process, and the Aerialbots wound up on Cybertron nine million years in the past. There, they saved Orion Pax from dying at Megatron's hands, making Megatron–who was the reason for the Aerialbots being sent back in time–unwittingly responsible for the creation of his greatest enemy.



Coercing the aid of Abdul Ben Faisal and Professor Teranova, Megatron located the weather-controlling Pearl of Bahoudin and arranged the Europa 2000 so that he could obtain the experimental metal of Auggie Cahnay's car and use it to contain the pearl's power. An Autobot attack caused Megatron to lose control of the pearl, and he fled the massive storm that resulted.

While investigating the planet Antilla, Megatron discovered a new "Lightning Bug" weapon, but also fell victim to the deadly disease Cosmic Rust. Autobot scientist Perceptor was captured and brought to Decepticon Headquarters to diagnose him, and he offered a cure in the form of his newest invention, Corrostop. With the Decepticons protected by Corrostop, Megatron unleashed Cosmic Rust upon the Autobots, exacerbating its effects with the Lightning Bug. Events culminated at the Statue of Liberty, where the stricken Autobots found the strength to overcome the Decepticons and destroy Megatron's new weapon.



After another failed coup by Starscream, Megatron reached the end of his rope and dismissed the traitor from the Decepticon ranks. When news then came in from Shockwave that the personality components of the political dissidents known as the "Renegade Decepticons" had been freed from imprisonment on Cybertron, Megatron suspected the Autobots were responsible, but he soon learned that Starscream had done the deed and used the components to create an army of his own, the Combaticons. Megatron could not stand up to the power of the Combaticons' combined form of Bruticus, and he was forced to hand power over to Starscream...just before Menasor blindsided Bruticus and saved Megatron at the last minute. Megatron exiled Starscream and the Combaticons to an asteroid in space, but this merely made things worse, as the Combaticons towed the asteroid to Cybertron and took over the planet. While supervising an Insecticon rampage on Earth, Megatron received a communication from Starscream informing him that the Combaticons had rewired the space bridge and were using it to hurl the Earth into the Sun. Once again, Megatron and Optimus Prime were forced to join forces to stop the Combaticons, but first, both leaders had to donate some of their own parts to repair the damaged space bridge control panel. After a pitched battle on Cybertron, Bruticus was defeated, and Optimus Prime believed he witnessed Megatron destroying the giant warrior with a blast from his fusion cannon. In truth, the whole scene had been a holographic illusion masterminded by Starscream, who gave Megatron the defeated Bruticus's body. Planning to reprogram the Combaticons to be loyal to him, Megatron welcomed Starscream back into the Decepticon ranks as reward for his efforts.



Megatron's final recorded schemes in the twentieth century were some of his most outlandish yet, as he used armies of drone planes and a fortress in the shape of a Giant Purple Griffin to pillage the oil fields of the Middle East, created a giant laser out of a ruby,  and planned to blast the Moon out of orbit so he could control the tides of the Earth and... flood one single canyon.

Over the course of the next twenty years, Megatron turned his attention away from Earth and succeeded in conquering the entirety of Cybertron. The Autobots were forced off the planet and founded Autobot City on Earth, in addition to two staging bases on Cybertron's moons. At some point during this period of time, Megatron was known to have battled Optimus Prime in a laboratory on Earth, during which he hurled a flask of chemicals which exploded, scarring scientist Gregory Swofford.