Megatron (Transformers: Animated)

**Megatron** is the main antagonist of the 2007 animated TV series, *Transformers: Animated*. He is the ruthless leader of the Decepticons after overthrowing its previous leader, Megazark, and rallying up support from his minions. He sought to conquer Cybertron, instigating the Great War that led to countless casualties. He eventually suffered a 50 year downfall when fighting a crew of repair bots who found the Allspark thanks to a bomb planted by his second-in-command, Starscream. He is the archenemy of Optimus Prime, who is the only Autobot Megatron calls by name.

He was voiced by Corey Burton, who also voiced Shockwave from the same series, as well as V.V. Argost from *The Secret Saturdays* and Cad Bane from *Star Wars: The Clone Wars*.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* Despite being Pure Evil, Megatron relies completely on pragmatic villainy and grandiose plans, never dipping into the personal and revolting cruelty that give the edge for fellow Pure Evils Lockdown and Meltdown.
* While none of it is sincere due to his PE status as they only extend to just mere words, Megatron speaks politely to both his enemies and allies alike, even when threatening his allies or just calling every Autobot as 'Autobot'.
* Despite being Pure Evil, this version of Megatron is arguably a better boss compared to most versions. Despite sacrificing hundreds of them, this Megatron treats them better than others, and inspires undying loyalty from them, which he succeeds to a huge degree when taking both Lugnut and Shockwave to account, and he also acknowledges their loyalty.
* Megatron has his own dry sarcastic sense of humour that compliments his clinical attitude.
* Overthrown Megazark and rallies up the Decepticons to his command using a rhetoric to free Decepticons from "Autobot tyranny".
	+ While just an empty rhetoric to gain support for his quest for power, Megatron still wasn't lying about the Autobot tyranny, as they have been pretty strict at times, or even straight up useless, with Ultra Magnus forcing sentient Transformers to be weapons of mass destruction during the Great War; the conditions in the prisons were so terrible, the wrongly accused Wasp was driven to insanity, and Sentinel Magnus turned Cybertron into a militaristic dictatorship.
* He is more competent and intelligent than his G1 counterpart, having killed Starscream from the get-go upon his return for his betrayal, and wastes no time killing him again when he gets revived and foiling most of his assassination attempts, and spares him only when his treacherous right-hand is useful to him, and then wastes no time trying to kill him yet again, knowing of his backstabbing nature, when his usefulness ends.
* Upon his resurrection, and only stuck as a head, Megatron tricks Professor Isaac Sumdac into thinking that he is an Autobot, and manipulates him and some human criminals to test equipment to build himself his new body, gaining a powerful one by the end of Season 1, and even merges with the AllSpark.
	+ One great scenario was when he has Professor Sumdac to build Soundwave, a music robot, as a gift to his daughter, Sari, and manipulating her into constantly upgrading Soundwave to the point where it its perfect as his new body. However, Soundwave gains a spark, but this proved to be no problem for Megatron as he convinces him to become a Decepticon, start a revolution against humanity, and steal the AllSpark charged key from Sari.
* Upon seeing potential in Professor Sumdac's skills in reverse-engineering, Megatron manages to abduct him after faking his own destruction and kept his location a secret, having him fill in the missing components to build his own Space Bridge upon knowing that was what gave Ultra Magnus and the Autobots an advantage during the Great War.
* Following his defeat in the Season 1 finale, Megatron has his forces set up their lair in a mine to mask their energy signatures, evading the Autobot scanners as a result, and thus, steal the Elite Guard's tachyon transmitter to announce his return to only the Decepticons.
* Using their desire to drink oil, Megatron manipulates the neutral Constructicons to turn against the Autobots and join the Decepticons.
* Plants Shockwave as a double agent on the Autobot Council after seeing his size-altering ability, and used this to recieve leaked Autobot plans or sabotage Autobot operations.
* He and Shockwave engineer Wasp's escape and start Decepticon Uprisings in many corners of the cosmos to spread the Autobot forces too thin and use the Space Bridge to transport the Decepticon armada to Cybertron and conquers it with ease. He nearly succeeded in it, had the Space Bridge not overloaded and transported him to an unknown part of the universe.
* Manages to turn all the clones of Starscream against their creator and have them be loyal to him out of nothing but sheer charisma and proving to be Starscream's superior.
* Manipulates Omega Supreme to take him prisoner to Cybertron to begin the Decepticon invasion, and when the Transwarp sequence renders him offline, he takes control of Omega Supreme.
* Upon learning that the Autobots based on Earth know Longarm Prime's real identity as the double agent, Shockwave, Megatron attempts to kill them, and nearly did had Prowl not freed Omega Supreme from Megatron's control.
* Talks Starscream out of a futile attempt to try to kill him and transporting Megatron to Cybertron, nearly conquering it had Optimus not planted a Plasma Dynamic Thruster that immediately transports him to a random part of space. The first thing upon running into Lugnut is ordering him remove the Thruster.
* Thwarts multiple future sets of assassination attempts by Starscream by destroying all his clones, using the protoforms he use for his cloning operation that remained to clone Omega Supreme.
* Intentionally ticks off Lugnut by calling Shockwave his most loyal follower, taking full advantage of his undying loyalty and Starscream's trechery to link the activation codes for Project Omega onto him, using him as the template for the Omega Supreme clones as he knows had he himself been the template, his power-hungry personality would encourage the clones to turn against him to rule for themselves.
* Even when laid helpless and bested during the final battle to save Detrot and badly battered when trapped in the container used to trap the city wide explosion, Megatron does not plead for undeserved mercy and actually goads Optimus to finish the job while he resigns to his fate.
* Considering he just calls every Autobot even after knowing their names as just 'Autobot', he finds Optimus Prime a worthy opponent to him that he even calls him by his name, and to finish him as well. For similar reasons, he also views Ultra Magnus as a worthy enemy.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* Instigated the Great War that led to heavy casualties on both sides via sacrificing hundreds of his own soldiers by using chemical weapons to wipe out entire battlefields, all without a second thought, or bombing civilian/non-combatant areas all across Cybertron, leading to a huge number of civilian casualties.
* He didn't care when Stilleto nearly destroyed an entire bridge filled with people in their cars/trucks when testing out the experimental metal alloy and high-powered laser scalpel he hired her to steal, even calling the incident a successful field test.
* Convinces Soundwave to begin a revolution to enslave or wipe out all of humanity.
* Attempts to lay waste to the Earth before moving on to conquer Cybertron. This isn't just an empty threat as he was marching outside to begin his destruction of Earth.
* Had Shockwave cause mass chaos via the Decepticon Uprisings to distract Cybertron's Elite Guards, leading to several Decepticons waging war across various parts of the universe and thus several more people being killed in the process.
* Sought to use Swindle's EMP generating weapon to trap all the Autobots in fates worse than death, leaving them aware of their surroundings, but frozen forever.
* Threatened to cut off Bulkhead's head with the HeadMaster unit and force his severed head (which would've been still alive) to watch as he uses his body to kill all his friends.
* In the series finale, he attempts to destroy Detroit with his three Omega Supreme clones, having them directly targeting the civilians.

## Trivia

* He and *Beast Wars* Megatron are the only incarnations of Megatron to be Magnificent Baddies so far. Ironically, both him and BW Megatron are MB/PE crossovers.
* It is possible had the show continued and not been cancelled that Megatron would've lost his status as a Magnificent Baddie, as plans for the Season 4 finale was to make him much darker and threaten the Earth heinously by planning to outright roboticize it, which would be played which much more gravity than Megatron's attempt to just merely lay waste to it in the Season 1 finale, and thus would've possibly become too vile for this trope. Furthermore, there apparently were plans for Season 4 to have him become a triple-changer like Blitzwing and go insane like him, which would have probably also made him too unstable.

## External Links

* Megatron at the Villains wiki
* Megatron at the Pure Evil wiki
* Megatron at the The Ultimate Evil wiki

## Navigation

*Generation One* Continuity
**Megatron**

*Transformers: Animated*
Shockwave

*Transformers Film Series*
Quintessa

*Transformers: Prime*
Shockwave

*Other Continuities*
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