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Last Light (issue)

2017-12-12T17:55:32Z

Millia: Prowl is outraged when he thinks the mind control was one of the usual assaults but immediately accepts it when Cerebros tells him that it was "for the greater good." It falls in line with the Kup mess: if it's for the greater good it's ok by Prowl.

{{Comicstory
|series=mtmte|issueno=57
|prev=Ten to Midnight
|next=Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again!
|prev2=Ten to Midnight
|seriesissue2=''[[Titans Return (comic)|Titans Return]]''
|next2=Ping
|image=MTMTE57_regcvr.jpg
|title="Last Light"
|caption="Law and order."
|publisher=[[IDW Publishing]]
|date=[[September 28]], [[2016]]
|coverdate=September 2016
|written by=[[James Roberts]]
|pencils by=[[Priscilla Tramontano]]
|colors by=[[Joana Lafuente]]
|letters by=[[Chris Mowry]]
|editor=[[John Barber]] and [[Carlos Guzman]]
|continuity=[[IDW Generation 1 continuity|IDW continuity]]
|chronology=[[IDW timeline|Current era (2016)]]
}}

'''While Red Alert struggles to overcome Sentinel Prime's brainwashing, Fortress Maximus finds a new way to live up to his name in order to stop Sentinel's fleet of reanimated Titans.'''

==Synopsis==
''On ''[[Lost Light]]'' launch day, [[Red Alert (G1)|Red Alert]] personally reviews every applicant who wants aboard the vessel. After begrudgingly letting [[Brainstorm (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Brainstorm]] on despite his being exempt from a bag check, Red is approached by Swerve, who instructs him to look at the datapad in his hand. On the screen, Red reads the words: "THIS NEVER HAPPENED"...''

In the present day, within a [[Titan (IDW)|Titan]] on [[Moonbase One|Luna 1]], Red Alert—suddenly in the thrall of [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]—grapples with [[Fortress Maximus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Fortress Maximus]] while Sentinel gloats over the reanimation of the many other Titans in the moon's graveyard, thanks to the efforts of a reluctant [[Sovereign]]. Realizing nobody is listening to his ranting, Sentinel turns and notes with some distaste the way [[Cerebros (G1)|Cerebros]] is cradling [[Prowl (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Prowl]]'s body. Cerebros keeps Sentinel talking; first, the Prime explains how he survived his seeming death by detaching his true [[Titan Master]] form from his larger body, then details how he has been slipping in and out of hibernation beneath [[Kaon (polity)|Kaon]] for millennia as he has slowly attuned himself to the Titans, granting him the control that—through Sovereign—he now has over them. Using the [[quantum foam]] of Luna 1's [[Planetary engine|engine]]s, Sentinel plans to supercharge the Titan's [[Space bridge|spacebridge]], opening it wide enough so that the rest of the giants can travel through and raze [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]] in accordance with his wishes. His monologue complete, Sentinel prepares to do away with Cerebros and Fort Max, but is suddenly laid low when the silent Prowl, back on his feet, smashes a [[Mobile Autobot Repair Bay|M.A.R.B.]] across his back. Prowl, Cerebros, and Max escape on the remaining M.A.R.B.s, but Sentinel is content to let them go, certain they cannot interfere with his scheme.

''Years earlier, Red Alert searches [[Rewind (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Rewind]] and [[Chromedome (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Chromedome]]'s quarters aboard the ''Lost Light'', over Rewind's protestations. In a hidden compartment, Red finds a set of data disks Rewind had secreted away. Rewind takes the disks, and, urging Red to not "give in," lays them out in a familiar five-point pattern...''

[[File:LastLight-TitanFight.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Big M! ''SHOWTIME!!'']]

Prowl awakes back in Fort Max's facility, and reacts with some degree of anger upon learning that Cerebros had used his new brain implant—slipped into Prowl's head as he was cradling him—to take control of Prowl's body and strike Sentinel. While Prowl has been out, Fortress Maximus has conceived a plan: transform the base, constructed by [[Tyrest (G1)|Tyrest]] from the parts of many different Titans, into robot mode. Unfortunately, the manual release switch for the base's [[transformation cog]] is stuck... but Prowl's sharply-honed table-flipping skills soon prove exactly what are needed to force it free. The base transforms, and, using Cerebros's implant, Fort Max is able to take direct control of it, flying it into the sky to block the other Titans' path to the giant spacebridge. While Max and his Titan fight to keep Sentinel's Titans from going through, Prowl and Cerebros board their M.A.R.B.s to strafe Sentinel as he stands by the moon's thrusters. Sentinel quickly shoots them out of the sky, whereupon Red Alert appears behind the fallen Prowl, and presses his gun barrel into the back of his former ally's neck...

''Years before, back on the ''Lost Light'', Red Alert talks with [[Rung (G1)|Rung]] about his fear that he may have been brainwashed into being a sleeper agent by the establishment. Though reluctant to indulge what he believes to be a paranoid fantasy, Rung suggests that they exploit Red's fear of and resistance to the very concept by seeding his subconscious mind with triggers that, should he ever be "activated," will alert him to the fact he is not himself. These triggers take the form of "continuity errors" in Red's memory... things that never happened, conversations that never took place. Looking around the room, Red realizes that Rung's shelves are filled with model Titans instead of model ships... and that the room's portholes have moved to take on the form of the five-point pattern—a [[mnemosurgery]] scar—that he has been seeing everywhere...''

At the sight of the mnemosurgery scar on the back of Prowl's own neck, Red breaks free of his conditioning and turns his gun on Sentinel, blasting his [[Titan Master]] self clean off his host body's shoulders. Unfazed, the tiny Sentinel stalks towards Red, explaining Red was just one of a group of brainwashed sleeper agents from before the war, chosen from the ranks of Sentinel's informants to serve as his personal militia if the time ever came. But just as Sentinel begins to reassert control over Red, forcing him to aim his gun at his own head, [[Beak]] comes swooping onto the scene, and knocks Sentinel over the edge of the nearest thruster, sending him on a mile-and-a-half-deep plummet into oblivion. Given that Red's mind is freed, and the spacebridge portal automatically shuts, everyone is left to assume Sentinel has perished. Unfortunately, Fortress Maximus was unable to prevent most of the Titans from getting through—but Sovereign reveals that he has been able to grant Cybertron a reprieve, redirecting the bridge so that it deposited the Titans into deep space. The giants are still heading for the Transformers' homeworld—now, it will just take them longer to get there.

Prowl takes Sovereign back to Earth, then returns to Luna 1 for a sabbatical, joining Cerebros and Red Alert—his mind calmer now that Sentinel's presence on the moon is no longer causing his nightmares—in scrubbing their Titan-base's T-cog. Fortress Maximus is grateful for the company now that all the [[Roboid]]s and [[Outrigger]] have left, and apologizes to Cerebros for doubting him and his implant. Red and Max lament the loss of their friends on the ''Lost Light''; Prowl sympathizes as best he can, equating the loss with fear of change, and of endings. Just then, a buzzer goes off, alerting Red to the fact that a scanner he has searching for the ''Lost Light'' has found something. Alas, that something turns out to just be some gibberish background data. Fort Max wonders if there could be a hidden message within it, but Red refuses to indulge his own worst instincts. "Sometimes," he tells Max, "you just have to stop."

==Featured characters==
Characters in ''italic text'' appear only as part of Red Alert's (unreliable) memories. 
{{featuredcharacters
|c1=
{{{!}}border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background:transparent"
{{!}}-
{{!}}style="background:transparent;border:0px" valign="top"{{!}}
*''[[Brainstorm (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Brainstorm]]'' (1)
*[[Red Alert (G1)|Red Alert]] (2)
*''[[Perceptor (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Perceptor]]'' (3)
*''[[Impactor (G1)|Impactor]]'' (4)
*''[[Trailbreaker (G1)|Trailcutter]]'' (5)
{{!}}style="background:transparent;border:0px" valign="top"{{!}}
*''[[Ratchet (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Ratchet]]'' (6)
*''[[Ambulon]]'' (7)
*''[[First Aid (G1)|First Aid]]'' (8)
*''[[Bumblebee (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Bumblebee]]'' (9)
*''[[Ironfist (G1)|Ironfist]]'' (10)
{{!}}style="background:transparent;border:0px" valign="top"{{!}}
*''[[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]]'' (11)
*[[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime/Infinitus]] (13)
*[[Fortress Maximus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Fortress Maximus]] (14)
*[[Prowl (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Prowl]] (15)
*[[Cerebros (G1)|Cerebros]] (16)
{{!}}style="background:transparent;border:0px" valign="top"{{!}}
*''[[Rewind (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Rewind]]'' (18)
*''[[Rung (G1)|Rung]]'' (21)
{{!}}}
|c4=
*Luna 1 [[Titan (IDW)|Titans]] (12)
*[[Sovereign]] (17)
*[[Outrigger]] (19)
*[[Beak]] (20)
}}

==Quotes==
"[Prowl] was an '''obstacle.''' I could have crushed the Decepticons '''long''' before Kaon, but he seemed to think it his job to '''rein me in.''' Caution, caution, caution. 'Consider '''this''', consider '''that'''...' Every conversation, a lecture on '''collateral damage.''' He '''blunted''' me—and it's taken me four million years to '''recover my edge.'''"
:—'''Sentinel Prime'''

"Er—don't you need a '''permit?'''" 
"A permit?" 
"A '''search permit'''. Y'know—something you have to '''show me''' before you go through all my stuff?" 
"You're welcome to complain to '''Ultra Magnus'''. You'll have to give it four weeks, mind." 
"Four week to process the complaint?" 
"Four weeks to fill out the form."
:—'''Rewind''' and '''Red Alert'''

"I think we need a '''Plan P'''." 
"You mean a '''Plan B'''." 
"I know what I mean."
:—'''Prowl''' and '''Cerebros'''

"Go on, Red Alert... pull the trigger. You'll make a mess, but don't worry. I don't mind getting dirty."
:—'''Sentinel Prime'''

"I miss all of them. All the crew. Well, most of them. At least half of them. A good ten, fifteen percent."
:—'''Red Alert'''

==Notes==
===Continuity notes===
*Red Alert's first flashback is to the events of [[Liars, A to D Part 1: How to Say Goodbye and Mean It|issue #1]]. Panels 2-4 recreate panels 3-5 from page 11 of that issue. As an early clue that things are not what they appear, multiple characters are seen in the queue waiting to board the ''Lost Light'' who were not (and/or ''could'' not) have been there, including [[Impactor (G1)|Impactor]] (at that time, out in space running missions with [[Guzzle (G1)|Guzzle]]), [[Ambulon]], [[First Aid (G1)|First Aid]] (both stationed on the planet [[Messatine]]), [[Ironfist (G1)|Ironfist]] (''deeeead''), and even [[Bumblebee (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Bumblebee]] (leader of the 'stay on Cybertron' argument).
*The disappearance of Sentinel's head from his corpse was noted in the [[The Last Autobot|''Titans Return'' one-shot]] that began this storyline. It's made clear that in this issue that this happened because Sentinel, in his true form of Infinitus, simply disconnected when nobody was looking.
*Red's second flashback is to a previously-unseen scene that we nonetheless knew about: him finding Rewind's "snuff film" discs, set between [[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|issue #5]] and [[Interiors|#6]], which we saw the direct aftermath of in ''[[The Reluctant Specialist|Spotlight: Trailcutter]]''.
*Red refers to being a warden in [[Translucentica Heights]], and notes that [[Chromedome (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Chromedome]] and Prowl can verify this; they met him while he was working this job in flashbacks shown in [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|issue #10]].
*Prowl recalls being "brainwashed" and "shadowplayed"; the latter was perpetrated by Chromedome (as seen in [[Remembrance Day|issue #14]], in a scene set during #1), which opened the door for the former, carried out by [[Bombshell (G1)|Bombshell]] in [[Devisive|''Robots in Disguise'' #4]].
*Previously, in [[Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|issue #20]], it was implied that it was just the spacebridge portal which Tyrest built that had been pieced together from bits of other Titans' bridges. Turns out this issue that the ''base itself'' was a patchwork Titan, made of bits of others.
*Prowl's ability to flip the switch is, of course, a gag based on his history of table-flipping, going back to issue #1. His pose here mirrors the panel from that issue of him tossing his desk.

===Transformers references===
*Transformation cogs are referred to with the abbreviation "T-Cog" in this issue, taken from the [[Transformers: Prime (cartoon)|''Transformers: Prime'' cartoon]].
*Though the mechanics of the process are, by necessity of the story, quite different, Fortress Maximus controlling a giant Titan body via a link provided by Cerebros is an adaptation of his ''[[Titans Return (toyline)|Titans Return]]'' [[Fortress Maximus (G1)/toys#Generations|action figure]], and of the classic depiction of the character in Generation 1 media, where Cerebros actually forms the head of the giant Fortress Maximus robot.
*Buried amongst the alphanumeric gibberish code is a dedication to mark the end of the series: "MTMTE 2012-2016".

===Errors===
*Sentinel plans to use Luna 1's engines to supercharge the Titan's spacebridge with quantum foam, but [[quantum generator]]s were only 'invented' 5 million years ago, long after Luna 1 was 'lost'. Another error or an indication of future time travel madness?
*Red's second flashback doesn't fit with what we knew of the scene: Red's words in issue #5 ("I can hear Rewind begging Chromedome to help him look for some missing data disks—he won't find them.") clearly implied he found and took the discs without Rewind's knowledge. Of course, the scene is supposed to be marked with "continuity errors" for Red to spot, but this one feels more like a genuine goof than a hint that the scene is playing out "wrongly."
*As Prowl awakes and he, Cerebros, and Fortress Maximus come up with a plan, he has both eyes intact, when his left eye has been damaged since fighting [[Defensor (G1)|Defensor]] in [[Mistakes and Mayhem|issue #2]] of ''Windblade'' vol. 2. A few pages later, when fighting Sentinel, his eye is missing again. It finally shows as intact again a few days after, when he would have had time to get it repaired.
*Prowl has been a wanted fugitive since before the ''[[The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers|Sins of the Wreckers]]'' series. Yet he's somehow able to return Sovereign to Earth, then return himself back to Luna 1 for a 'sabbatical' and not only does no one remark on the situation, Prowl isn't re-arrested.

===Other trivia===
*This is the final issue of ''More than Meets the Eye''. Following a [[Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again!|one-shot tie-in]] to the ''[[Revolution]]'' crossover, the series relaunches as ''[[The Transformers: Lost Light]]'' in December 2016 and continues from where it left off.

===Soundtrack===
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm_rSoL8o18 Who Said This Was The End]" by {{w|Gene (band)|Gene}}
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvO6TB5rmC8 Bobby Malone Moves Home]" by {{w|Casiotone for the Painfully Alone}}
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbxW2moT1ic Something Like You]" by {{w|Mick Head|Michael Head and the Strands}}
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifY4v3maKZY The Copper Top]" by {{w|Bill Wells}} and {{w|Aidan Moffat}}
*"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b2EpmBbo8w The Dogs and the Horses]" by {{w|The Divine Comedy (band)|The Divine Comedy}}

===Covers (3)===
*'''Regular cover:''' Prowl stands at the head of a shadowy army of Titans, by [[Priscilla Tramontano]]
*'''Subscription cover:''' Our heroes bid farewell, by [[Nick Roche]] and [[Josh Burcham]]
*'''Retailer incentive cover:''' [[Cyclonus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Cyclonus]], [[Hot Rod (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Rodimus]], [[Megatron (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Megatron]], [[Nautica (G1)|Nautica]], [[Chromedome (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Chromedome]], and [[Tailgate (G1)|Tailgate]], by [[Alex Milne]] and [[Josh Perez]]
<gallery>
File:MTMTE57 regcvr.jpg|
File:MTMTE57 subcvr.jpg|
File:MTMTE57 cvrRI.jpg|
</gallery>

===Advertisements===
*''[[The Transformers: Lost Light]]'' [[Dissolution Part 1: Some Other Cybertron|#1]]
*''[[Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again!|More than Meets the Eye: Revolution]]''
*''[[Revolution]]'' tie-in one-shots
*''Revolution'' checklist
*''[[Secret Raiders: A Revolution Prelude|Road to Revolution]]'' one-shot
*[[Concorde Hymn|''Revolution'' #1]]
*''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]'' 30th Anniversary reissue (back page)

==External links==
*[http://www.newsarama.com/31185-transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-57-marks-the-end-of-an-era-with-final-issue.html Preview]

[[Category:Titans Return issues]]

Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity

2015-04-07T11:13:49Z

Millia: While they do have the same body, Megatron and the mech that was originally created have different sparks, so they are not really the same person. So I've slightly altered the "past self" line to reflect that.

{{suite}}
{{factions|decepticon|autobot}}
{{featured}}
[[File:IDWMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Megatron A, Megatron B, Megatron Retailer's Incentive, and Megatron Dynamic Forces Exclusive variant.]]
'''Megatron''' waged a battle to destroy the evil forces of the [[Senate]]! Then he ''continued'' to wage a war against the evil forces of freedom, organic life, and the very idea of an Autobot living.

{{quote|Because in the final analysis, I would happily wade across a river of corpses, chest-deep in rust and grease and engine oil, just to crush the spark of the last Autobot standing. And I would not do so simply as a means to an end. No. I'd do it, Prime, because it would give me '''pleasure'''.|Megatron to Optimus Prime|"[[Chaos Theory Part 1]]"}}

{{quote|And the thing is, when those words were in my head I didn't think I meant them; but when they left my mouth, I realized that I '''did'''. If the world thinks you're a monster, what does it matter? The world is '''wrong'''. But when you start to think of '''yourself''' as a monster...|Megatron on the previous quote|"[[slaughterhouse]]"}}

__TOC__
==IDW Generation 1 comics==
{{ongoing}}
===Birth of a tyrant===
[[File:MTMTE37 megatron under construction.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.3]]
Megatron of [[Tarn (polity)|Tarn]] was built in the 1st Cycle 012, one of the many Transformers [[reproduction|constructed cold]] during the [[Silver Harvest]]. The [[spark]] intended for this body was one generated from the [[Matrix of Leadership]] by [[Tyrest (G1)|Tyrest]]... but this spark was destroyed while his body was still in the process of being built, by time-travelling [[Autobot]]s from the future attempting to prevent the destruction they knew Megatron would come to wreak upon the universe. But the non-existence of Megatron meant that the [[Functionist Council]] would eventually plunge [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]] into [[Functionist Universe|a dystopian hell]], and the Autobot [[Whirl (G1)|Whirl]], who loathed the Functionists, refused to permit this to happen. Whirl replaced the deceased body's spark with a forged [[Point One Percenter]] spark that had been harvested by [[Brainstorm]] from [[Moonbase One|Luna 1]] millions of years in the future—and so Megatron was ''truly'' born: the first "hybrid" Transformer, a powerful forged superspark in a constructed cold body. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 3: Predestination: An Expert's Guide|Predestination: An Expert's Guide}}

Megatron desired to be a medic, {{storylink|The Becoming: Dark Cybertron Chapter 10|The Becoming}} but alas, he lived in a time of functionism, where one's [[alternate mode]] denoted one's role in society, and one's role determined one's rights. As such, the true nature of his exceptionally rare spark apparently unknown, Megatron was assigned the task for which he had been built: that of [[energon]] miner, a member of the lower class, toiling in a mine under [[Nova Point]]. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}}

[[File:ChaosTheory1 megatron symbol creation.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.66|... And thus the "Silica Fracturism" art movement was born.]]

An idealist, intellectual and poet, Megatron was sickened by the caste-ridden social apartheid of [[Nominus Prime]]'s Cybertron, and so he wrote [[After the Ark: Nominus Prime and the Illusion of Progress|a treatise]] on how pacifist dissent and the exchange of ideas could change things. It was while he was sharing this work with his miner friend [[Impactor (G1)|Impactor]] over a drink in [[Maccadam's Old Oil House|Maccadam's New Oil House]] that the event occurred which would change the course of his life, as Impactor wound up being drawn into a bar brawl with some of the city's upper classes and Megatron was among those arrested after the fracas. Megatron's writings had been growing in popularity and inspiring some dissent against the current regime, so in order to silence him, the [[Senate]] arranged for a police officer on their payroll, [[Whirl (G1)|Whirl]], to kill him. Before Whirl could finish the job, however, police captain [[Optimus Prime (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Orion Pax]], having discovered Megatron's innocence, arranged for his release. Despite Pax expressing support for the message of his writings, Megatron now found himself filled with rage and hate, disillusioned with his former ideology and realizing the power of applied violence. Angrily hurling the datapad on which he had written his treatise through a public info-screen, Megatron observed the jagged shape of the shattered glass, and later turned it into a [[insignia|symbol]] for his cause. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}}
[[File:MTMTE34 what you might call a thinker.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|When considering the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, one question remains unanswered. Why am I always pictured with phallic-shaped items in awkward positions?]]
Megatron's samizdat writings began to circulate in Cybertron's underground, spawning the "[[Decepticon]]" movement, its name derived from its own slogan, "You are being deceived", warning the common 'bot of the Senate's true nature. Knowing that, at this stage, assassinating Megatron would merely make him a martyr, the Senate instead elected to relocate him off-planet, reassigning him to a mining facility on the world of [[Messatine]] while they tried their own schemes to defuse the growing Decepticon movement. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 1: Post Hoc|Post Hoc}} It was there that Megatron met [[Terminus (G1)|Terminus]], an elderly fellow miner who encouraged him to keep writing, and who, in addition to proofreading his works for him, smuggled each new tract back to Cybertron, helping to continue the spread of the Decepticon movement. When Terminus was maimed in a mining accident and had his fuel rations cut off, Megatron kept him alive by sharing his own [[energon]] with the old 'bot. Eventually, Senate agents [[Froid]] and [[Trepan]] were dispatched to Messatine to perform mind-altering [[Shadowplay]] upon Megatron, in order to cut his writings off at the source. Tased into submission and strapped to Trepan's operating table, Megatron was helpless to stop the [[mnemosurgery|mnemosurgeon]] from beginning his vile work. Though the arrival of Froid's rival psychopathologist [[Rung (G1)|Rung]] fortunately forced Trepan to stop before Megatron's personality was altered, the experience left the miner with a lifelong fear of mnemosurgery. Subsequently, a mysterious surge of energy deep within the mine forced an evacuation of the facility; Megatron raced back to his quarters to carry Terminus to safety, but found his friend was not there. With time running out and no sign of Terminus anywhere, Megatron instead chose to save the stack of datapads containing his unpublished works—a decision that would haunt him. {{storylink|Births, Deaths, and Interventions}}
[[File:MegatronOrigin1 first kill.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.3]]
Megatron was relocated to [[Mining Outpost C-12]], and continued to seethe with hate and frustration in his new workplace. His discontent reached a peak when, some time later, [[Decimus|Senator Decimus]] arrived to announce that the mine was being automated and the workers would be relocated. When one of the Senator's guards killed a worker for insubordination and claims of Senate corruption, Megatron's fury boiled over and he hurled his pickaxe at Decimus. In turn, he was attacked by the Senator's guard, whom he killed by smashing his head to fragments—the first time he had ever taken a life. A riot erupted around him, but Megatron himself could only sit amongst the chaos, staring at his fuel-stained hands in abject horror, which allowed him to be easily pacified and rounded up with the other miners as the mayhem was quickly suppressed. En route to [[Penal Facility H-3|imprisonment]] back on [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]], however, [[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]] and [[Frenzy (G1)|Frenzy]] broke free and started a riot aboard [[Longshot (G1)|their ship]]. Megatron joined in their effort, and together, they overpowered their guards, took control of the ship, and disappeared into the [[Kaon]] underground. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 1|Megatron Origin #1}}
[[File:MegsOrigin2 Cykill.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Battle of the Awesome Voices!]]
After evading law enforcement, Megatron joined a team of underworld gladiators under the tutelage of [[Clench (G1)|Clench]]. Initially repulsed by killing his opponents, the games eventually turned him more brutal and excessive, and he took control of the entire operation from Clench. The opportunistic Senator [[Ratbat (G1)|Ratbat]], after seeing how much money there was in the underworld matches, covertly sent his agent [[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] to offer Megatron weaponry and technology to upgrade himself and his comrades. Their meeting was spied upon by [[Bumper (G1)|Bumper]] and [[Fastback (G1)|Fastback]], agents from the Senate's forces, who Megatron slew. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 2|Megatron Origin #2}} Subsequently, impressed by how he treated his animal-form [[Decepticon Mini-Cassette|cassette partners]] as equals (in contradiction to the teachings of his Senate masters), Megatron invited Soundwave back to the gladiator pits and gave him permission to use his mind-reading abilities on him. Within Megatron's mind, Soundwave saw his honest desire for all Cybertronians to be true equals, and was so moved by it that he joined Megatron's cause. {{storylink|Soundwaves (issue)|Soundwaves}}

Gradually, Megatron used the gladiatorial games to drum up an army of violent malcontents, sending Soundwave to recruit more and more warriors to his cause. Such recruits included [[Starscream (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Starscream]], [[Thundercracker (G1)|Thundercracker]] and [[Skywarp (G1)|Skywarp]], who he was presented with while having an arm he lost in a brawl replaced with a new limb that incorporated an [[energon mace]], {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 3|Megatron Origin #3}} and the disenfranchised warrior [[Drift (G1)|Drift]], who was personally asked by Megatron to fight at his side when he attended a Decepticon rally, and whom Megatron rechristened "Deadlock," {{storylink|Drift issue 2|Drift #2}} and transformed into a capable Decepticon warrior. {{Storylink|Drift issue 3|Drift #3}} Seeking to enhance his army even further, Megatron reached out to [[Shockwave (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Senator Shockwave]], offering to supply him the resources he required to carry out his own mysterious experiments in exchange for his using the teachings of his lost mentor [[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] to create a [[combiner]] that would serve the Decepticons. Shockwave cautioned that it could take some time, but Megatron was content to wait. {{storylink|Shockwaves}}

[[File:Apexthrone.JPG|upright=1.4|thumb|You should have gone to IKEA.]]
Despite all his efforts, Megatron believed that the Senate was still not taking the Decepticons seriously, so Soundwave formulated a plan for a declaration of intent that could be not denied: lure the Senate to Kaon and murder them. {{storylink|Soundwaves (issue)|Soundwaves}} In preparation for this scheme, Megatron offered to restore Shockwave's lost hands—a victim of [[empurata]]—believing that doing so might speed his work. {{storylink|Shockwaves}} The following day, in accordance with Soundwave's plan, Megatron and the Decepticons allowed themselves to be arrested by Sentinel Prime's men, after which Soundwave was freed on Ratbat's orders, while Starscream would ensure his own release by pretending to defect. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 3|Megatron Origin #3}} Together, Soundwave and Starscream exterminated the entire Senate, then liberated Megatron and the rest of their comrades, in the process granting their leader the gift of a [[fusion cannon]] liberated from the Senate forces' armory. Megatron led his army against Sentinel Prime's men, killed Sentinel himself, and took control of Kaon, now ready to turn his insurgency into a full-blown war. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 4|Megatron Origin #4}}

===Early days of war===

Megatron formally declared war on "[[Declaration Day]]" when he delivered a stirring speech from [[Nova Point|Nova Peak]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} The growing Decepticon forces swiftly spread across six [[Polities of Cybertron|Torus-States]], {{storylink|Parasites}} and to combat them, Cybertron's new leader [[Zeta Prime (G1)|Zeta Prime]] assembled a new military force, the "[[Autobot]]s", led by Megatron's old acquaintance [[Optimus Prime (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Orion Pax]]. Researching his new opposite number, Megatron was intrigued to discover that his now-abandoned treatise had been a source of inspiration for Pax, who had even quoted from it when he confronted the Senate and openly accused them of corruption. {{storylink|Cause and Effect}} Early into the war, [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] would admit to Pax that Megatron talked about him sometimes, when he was tired. When Pax asked what was said, Bludgeon told him that it would make "both of us feel ''uncomfortable''". {{storylink|Omega's Conundrum}}
[[File:Autocracy4 backroom meeting.jpg|upright=1.66|left|thumb]]
When Orion Pax came close to Kaon during a mission, Megatron saw it as a chance to speak to him and had his Decepticons bring him in. {{storylink|The Hunt for Soundwave}} Megatron attempted to convince him that Zeta Prime was even worse than he appeared—that he had planned to let Orion die in [[Nyon]] so that he could use his death as pretext to invade the rebel-infested city and drain the citizens of their energon—and proposed they work together against him, but Orion refused to hear him and then escaped. Knowing the doubts he'd placed in his head would only serve to damage the Autobot cause, Megatron let him go. {{storylink|Cause and Effect}}
[[File:Autocracy8 megs and pax together.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"Megatron, let's roll." "What you thinking?" "...Pub?"]]
Megatron continued to keep an eye on Orion Pax's activities, spying on his encounter with the Nyon insurgent [[Hot Rod (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Hot Rod]]. {{storylink|Ruins}} When Zeta Prime's [[Guardian robot|Omega Destructor]]s suddenly attacked Nyon, Megatron was surprised by how zealously the new Prime fought against the city's rebels, but his real interest still lay on how Orion would handle the crisis. {{storylink|Purge}} Orion turned on Zeta, who in turn attempted to kill him, prompting Megatron to intervene and force the Prime to retreat. Taking Orion back to Kaon, he again offered that they work together against Zeta's corruption, and this time the Autobot officer accepted. {{storylink|Choices}} As their combined forces invaded the [[Citadel]] in Iacon, Megatron and Orion Pax made their way inside and fought Zeta Prime in person. The battle ended with Megatron killing the Prime with a head shot, and with his objective complete, he then betrayed the injured Orion by shooting him in the back. {{storylink|Overthrown}} This moment lived in infamy as the point at which Megatron revealed his true colors, no longer couched in ideology; {{storylink|Dinobot Hunt}} though curiously, an alternate report incorrectly implied he had assassinated Zeta from afar, sniping him with the rifle alternate mode of [[Vos (DJD)|Vos]]. {{storylink|Bullets}} {{storylink|Liars, A to D Part 3: The Chaos of Warm Things|The Chaos of Warm Things}}

[[File:Autocracy12 no you dont megatron.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb|I can't be the only one with deja vu here.]]
With Zeta dead, Megatron conquered Iacon and declared himself ruler of Cybertron. His soldiers patrolled the planet's streets to "keep the peace", mostly by hunting down and capturing any remaining Autobots who opposed him. {{storylink|Transformation (issue)|Transformation}} During his rule, Megatron attempted to sway the neutral Hot Rod into joining the Decepticons, but he decided otherwise upon witnessing Megatron ordering the execution of several Autobot prisoners. {{storylink|Rise}} Megatron was shocked to learn that Orion Pax had survived the betrayal and was organizing a rebellion against him under the name "Optimus Prime", and even more shocked that people actually had the courage to listen to him. He wasted no time in striking back against the rebels approaching the Citadel with the full force of his army. {{storylink|Broadcast}} During the battle, Megatron unleashed Zeta Prime's energy-draining [[vamparc ribbon|vamparc annihilator]], but when the gigantic [[Metroplex (G1)|Metroplex]] took out the cannon, Megatron fell to the streets and was confronted by Optimus Prime himself. He lost the ensuing [[The Transformers: The Movie|familiar-looking duel]] and was badly wounded after a failed attempt to defeat Prime by holding Hot Rod hostage, forcing him to escape aboard Astrotrain. As he fled, he warned Optimus that he hadn't won, he had only started a war unlike any Cybertron had ever seen. {{storylink|Endgame}}

[[File:Monstrosity3 Megatron and Pentius.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Megatron insists on wearing his Darksiders cosplay when he's walking his pet Quintesson.]]
Before Megatron could recover from his injuries, he was betrayed by [[Scorponok (G1)|Scorponok]], who was gunning for the position of Decepticon leader (with aid from Starscream). As punishment for his failure to hold Iacon, Scorponok banished the wounded Megatron to the hell-world of [[Junkion (planet)|Junkion]]. {{storylink|Derelicts}} Further injured in battle with some [[Junkion (species)|cannibalistic natives]], he stubbornly refused to give up and used the trash littering the world to patch himself up, leaving him with a mismatched, monstrous appearance. {{storylink|Wreckage (issue)|Wreckage}} While searching for a way off Junkion, Megatron entered the wreckage of a starship and found a trapped [[Quintesson]] named [[Pentius]], who had mapped the planet and knew of an area known as the [[Pillar of Rust]] where starships may land and take off. Megatron freed the alien to guide him there, while also putting him in chains to serve as his slave. {{storylink|Faces of Darkness}}
[[File:Monstrosity7 megatron takes pentius spark.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb|"Thanks for turning me into the psychopath I've been the whole time!"]]
While crossing the [[Acid Sea]] on the way to the Pillar, Megatron was attacked by [[Sharkticon (G1)|Sharkticons]] who pulled him into the depths. {{storylink|Rage (IDW)|Rage}} For reasons unknown he was then released, the creatures having allowed him to live. As he emerged, Pentius was waiting with a history lesson, telling him that Junkion was once a prosperous world until its inhabitants drained it of resources, leaving it the broken husk it is today: a fate that may also await Cybertron. Megatron rejected this possibility, declaring that under his rule, Cybertron—and his legacy—would last forever. {{storylink|Fallout (issue)|Fallout}} On arrival at the Pillar of Rust, Megatron was met by the [[Terrorcon (G1)|Terrorcons]], who had come to Junkion to finish what Scorponok had started by killing him. He was able to fight off several of his attackers, but [[Hun-Gurrr (G1)|Hun-Gar]] was too much for him to handle in his injured state. Egged on and taunted by Pentius, Megatron realized he had one last resource left to use: the Quintesson himself. Telling Pentius that his legacy would live on within him, he tore out the alien's [[spark]] and used it to fuel himself, granting him enough power to defeat Hun-Gar. He spared the Terrorcons in exchange for their loyalty, then returned to Cybertron on their ship to take revenge on Scorponok and take back control of the Decepticons. {{storylink|Prey (issue)|Prey}}
[[File:Monstrosity12 strange turns.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb]]
Megatron returned to a Cybertron in chaos, as the ancient reptilian [[Trypticon (G1)|Trypticon]] had been unleashed by Scorponok and was in the midst of razing Iacon. After reasserting his leadership of the Decepticons by beating Scorponok nearly to death, he had Shockwave restore his body to it original shape and condition, {{storylink|The Illusion of Control}} and set out to investigate the Trypticon situation alone, unwilling to risk his soldiers in the face of the beast's uncontrolled fury. Finding an injured Optimus Prime on the battlefield, Megatron lectured him, but opted to leave him alive so that he could watch as the Decepticon leader defeated the enemy that Prime could not. Megatron was attacked by [[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]], but as they grappled, they were swallowed by Trypticon. {{storylink|Annihilation}} Within the giant, the pair set their differences aside to fend off the [[cyber-morphic predator]]s that populated his interior, and together, they destroyed Trypticon's internal power cell, taking him offline. A tense standoff between the Autobots and Decepticons followed as the two warriors emerged from within Trypticon, but both sides agreed to go their separate ways for the time being. Not long after the battle, however, Megatron removed Pentius's spark from within himself and installed it within Trypticon. {{storylink|Belly of the Beast (issue)|Belly of the Beast}}
[[File:Primacy4 megatron imprisoned.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4]]

After being fully repaired following his ordeals, Megatron roused Trypticon by exploiting the connection they now shared thanks to both having borne Pentius's spark. Discovering that Trypticon now possessed the consciousness of Pentius, Megatron was immediately suspicious of the Quintesson's potential treachery and was staggered by the visions of undiluted evil he saw in the aliens' past via their spark-link, but Trypticon assured him that he was dedicated to their shared goal of breaking a world. {{storylink|Primacy issue 1|Primacy #1}} Using Trypticon's city-ship alternate mode, Megatron took to the stars, rounding up the scattered Decepticon army and even recruiting Junkions and Sharkticons. {{storylink|Primacy issue 2|Primacy #2}} Returning to Cybertron in force, Megatron was content to wait and watch from the sidelines while his troops viciously tore into Iacon. Trypticon was defeated in battle by Metroplex, at which point Megatron's folly was revealed: through their link, Pentius mockingly revealed his intention to use Trypticon consume Cybertron once the Autobots and Decepticons had weakened each other. {{storylink|Primacy issue 3|Primacy #3}} Leaving his men with orders to burn Iacon to the ground if he failed in order to spare it such a fate, Megatron set off for Trypticon's fallen body in hopes that he would be able to remove Pentius's spark before the giant revived. Confronted atop Trypticon by Optimus Prime, Megatron tried to goad the Autobot leader into destroying him, believing that Pentius would be destroyed with him thanks to their link. Refusing to accept death as the answer, Optimus instead used the [[Matrix of Leadership]] to purify Megatron, burning Pentius's spark away; Megatron, however, vowed that he would never stop hating Optimus in spite of what he had done for him. Sadly resigned to the fact that the once-noble revolutionary he had admired was now lost, Optimus knocked out the weakened Megatron and took him into custody. {{storylink|Primacy issue 4|Primacy #4}}
{{-}}

===The spreading conflict===
[[File:MTMTE14 megatron vs overlord.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb]]

Escaping Autobot custody under as-yet-unrevealed circumstances, Megatron continued to wage the war. Early in the continuing conflict, he wrote ''[[Towards Peace]]'', a new treatise to replace ''After the Ark'', in which he described continuing to fight the war until the very notion of conflict was literally inconceivable. Then and only then would he finally give up his fusion cannon. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} The earliest edition of the work featured a dedication to Terminus, which Megatron would later remove to reflect the lesson his friendship with Terminus had taught him: not to get attached. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} He oversaw the creation of a class of super-warriors known as the [[Warriors Elite]], selecting only his most powerful troops to undergo the torturous upgrade, including [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]], a brilliant sadist and frequent opponent of his from his pit-fighting days who had developed an obsession with Megatron after the Decepticon leader dealt him his first ever defeat. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} At some point, he also created the [[Decepticon Justice Division]] to deal with traitors, {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} though he elected not to send them after Deadlock when he defected, valuing the warrior enough to instead dispatch [[Lockdown (G1)|Lockdown]] to bring him in. {{storylink|Drift issue 2|Drift #2}}
[[File:ChaosTheory prime vs megatron montage.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Good times, bad times.]]
Megatron would personally clash with Optimus Prime many times; Optimus grew to respect and fear Megatron as a calm, calculating and measured opponent, while Megatron himself respected Prime's sheer power and his skill as a tactician and as a leader. {{storylink|Escalation issue 5|Escalation #5}} Megatron would later incorrectly recall their battle on [[Sherma Bridge]] during the [[Rorsha Campaign]] as the first time they met. Said battle was certainly momentous—every Autobot and Decepticon stopped fighting to witness their duel, during which Megatron's cannon arm was sliced off by Prime's [[energon-axe]], and he claimed revenge by throwing the Autobot leader off the bridge. As the war spread to other planets, they would meet again and again: during the [[Siege of Massunstrad]], Megatron sealed Prime in an anti-matter chamber; on [[Rada Mor]], Prime reduced Megatron to ashes with sentient explosives; and in the midst of the [[Vorsk Offensive]], Megatron was nearly sliced in half by Prime. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}} Though he resisted [[Tyrest (G1)|Tyrest]]'s attempts to find a "Two City-State Solution" to the war, he did agree to abide by the [[Tyrest Accord]]. {{storylink|Remain in Light 2 of 5: House of Ambus|House of Ambus}}

Megatron took on a new pistol alternate mode for the [[Battle for Hell's Point]], during which he was used by [[Heretech]] to blast [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Ultra Magnus]]. {{storylink|The Gloaming}} During the same skirmish, Megatron took off half of Prime's face with his energon mace, but had a city block dropped on him by Prime in retribution, which shattered his [[transformation cog]] and trapped him in gun mode for two years. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}} Prime was not the only old face that Megatron would see again during the war: during a battle on an aerial drilling platform over the [[Manganese Mountains]], Megatron came face-to-face with his old friend Impactor, and stood poised to execute him until Impactor gave him a moment's pause by recalling his old fondness for poetry. In this moment, Megatron was knocked from the platform by [[Springer (G1)|Springer]] and sent plummeting to the mountains below. {{storylink|Zero Point}}
[[File:LastStandoftheWreckers2-teleconference.jpg|upright=1.66|left|thumb|"We attack the Rice Krispies guys at dawn! Assuming Judd Hirsch delivers the goods."]]
At the war's zenith, Megatron sealed himself in an [[Omniglobe]] to absorb the relentless flood of data coming in from countless fronts. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} With total war going nowhere, he would go on to develop a six-stage [[infiltration protocol]] to be used for conquering targeted planets. The sixth phase called for outright planetary razing, and Megatron selected three of his Warriors Elite for this task: [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]], {{storylink|Devastation issue 5|Devastation #5}}, Overlord and [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]]. He informed this trio of his decision via teleconference, but Overlord, tired of being used as someone else's weapon, refused. Megatron threatened to hunt Overlord down for his disobedience, {{storylink|Last Stand of the Wreckers issue 2|Last Stand of the Wreckers #2}} but while the powerful warrior spent the rest of his life preparing for this conflict, Megatron never followed up and left him to stew in his own obsession. {{storylink|Last Stand of the Wreckers issue 5|Last Stand of the Wreckers #5}}
[[File:Stormbringer1 get up and fight.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|You don't gotta go home Prime but you can't stay here.]]
Deducing that the Autobot/Decepticon war would culminate in an energy crisis that would threatened the stability of Cybertron itself, Shockwave left Cybertron to secretly pursue alternate energy sources. Around 10,000 years ago, when Shockwave did not return, Megatron ordered Bludgeon to investigate his files, {{storylink|Spotlight: Shockwave}} secretly assigning Soundwave to investigate Bludgeon {{storylink|Spotlight: Soundwave}} and probe deeper into whatever it was Shockwave had created. {{storylink|Shockpoint}}

Shockwave's prediction soon proved accurate, and Cybertron found itself in the throes of an energy shortage. Decepticon scientist [[Thunderwing (G1)|Thunderwing]] came to Megatron with a revolutionary, controversial plan to stave off this energy death by [[Pretender|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; instead, he experimented on himself. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 3|Stormbringer #3}} {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 4|Stormbringer #4}} The process gave him immense power, but drove him insane. He became so dangerous 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. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 1|Stormbringer #1}} 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. Shortly after the last big push by the Decepticons, Cybertron was abandoned by both factions. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 1|Stormbringer #2}}

===Breaking protocol===
[[File:Infiltration4 enter megatron.jpg|upright=1.3|left|thumb]]
In the present day, when word reached Megatron that the infiltration unit led by [[Starscream (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Starscream]], stationed on the planet [[Earth]], had broken protocol, he headed for the planet to investigate. Examining the unit's abandoned bunker in [[Nebraska]] for information, he discovered that Starscream had stumbled across [[Ore-13]]—an incredible energy source that (unbeknownst to Megatron) was the end result of Shockwave's experiments—and was planning to use it to usurp Megatron's command. {{storylink|Infiltration issue 4|Infiltration #4}} While studying the bunker's files, he was contacted by [[Razorclaw (G1)|Razorclaw]] with some distressing news: Bludgeon's investigations of Shockwave's files had led him to revive Thunderwing. Megatron ordered the [[Predacon (G1)|Predacons]] to Cybertron, authorizing them to do whatever was necessary to destroy Thunderwing, including the destruction of their homeworld itself. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 3|Stormbringer #3}} Just as he was handing down this order, Megatron was happened upon by [[Verity Carlo]], a human ally of the Autobot unit active on the planet, {{storylink|Infiltration issue 4|Infiltration #4}} but he utterly ignored her. The bunker was then leveled by an airstrike courtesy of [[Blitzwing (G1)|Blitzwing]] and [[Skywarp (G1)|Skywarp]], who were merely covering their unit's tracks and unaware of Megatron's presence; when their leader furiously emerged from the wreckage, Skywarp attempted to explain their ignorance, but Megatron simply responded by blasting him out of the sky. Blitzwing favored opening fire rather than attempting explanations, so Megatron beat the stuffing out of him too, then set off for Starscream's new bunker in [[Oregon]]. {{storylink|Infiltration issue 5|Infiltration #5}}

[[File:Infiltration6 takeyourpunishment.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Those librarians are getting really strict on late returns.]]

{{quote|You will stand down. If you fight, you ''die''. There is no room anymore for mercy. In the end, you are ''all'' expendable. Choose.|Megatron's ultimatum to Starscream's renegade troops|[[Infiltration issue 6|''Infiltration'' #6]]}}

[[Orbital jump]]ing to Oregon, Megatron called Starscream out and ordered the team to stand down, disgusted to see such power games being played amongst his troops. His brief, chilling speech was enough to take the fight out of all but Starscream, who, powered-up on Ore-13, took Megatron on himself. Though the new power source made Starscream a formidable adversary, Megatron was still more deadly than he, and Starscream was taken out by a point-blank fusion cannon blast through his torso. Megatron ordered the Decepticons to ensure that Starscream survived, and then, observing the Autobots who had been watching the battle, announced that it was time to begin phase two. {{storylink|Infiltration issue 6|Infiltration #6}}

In light of the discovery of Ore-13, Megatron took stock of Starscream's progress on Earth and elected to get the infiltration protocol back on track himself, calling a meeting to make Starscream's former troops and making them aware, in no uncertain terms, that any further insurrections would be met with deadly force. {{storylink|Escalation issue 1|Escalation #1}} He continued to order his troops on Earth directly, {{storylink|Escalation issue 2|Escalation #2}} and was even able to revisit his past gun alternate mode, once again able to achieve the [[size changing|mass displacement]] the mode required thanks to the extra energy Ore-13 provided. {{storylink|Escalation issue 3|Escalation #3}}

[[File:Megsandspidy.jpg|left|upright=1.4|thumb]]
With his forces joined by [[Ramjet (G1)|Ramjet]], a new arrival who Megatron suspected of having ulterior motives, {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Two|Man and Machine #2}} the Decepticon leader initiated phase two of infiltration protocol by destabilizing relations between the European nations of [[Latveria]] and [[Symkaria]] through use of an aggression-inducing [[Psycho-Prism]], stolen from Latverian dictator [[Doctor Doom]]. When the superhero team known as the [[Avengers]] investigated the array the Decepticons' were using to broadcast the prism's signal, Megatron abducted the arachnid-powered [[Spider-Man]] to use as a subject for their [[mirror response mode]], {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part One|Man and Machine #1}} draining the hero's powers and infusing himself and the other Decepticons with them. {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Two|Man and Machine #2}} He proceeded to forge a brief alliance with Doctor Doom, who helped him defeat and capture the allied Autobot/Avenger team who snuck inside the Decepticons' array, but when Doom's suggestion to threaten the captives in order to force the other heroes to lay down their arms failed, Megatron violently dissolved the partnership. {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Three|Man and Machine #3}} Emerging from the confines of the array to take on the Autobots and Avengers himself, Megatron refrained from engaging Prime, foreseeing a more intimate confrontation between the two of them in the near future, and instead turned his attention to destroying [[Iron Man]]'s Transformer-sized armor. The tables soon turned, however, when Doctor Doom freed the captive Autobots and used the Decepticon's mirror response technology to empower them. Defeated by these enhanced Autobots and with the Psycho-Prism destroyed by [[Wolverine (superhero)|Wolverine]], Megatron used the last of his extra power to teleport the Decepticons out with an [[emergency warp-out]]. He refrained from departing alongside his warriors, intending to slaughter the Avengers for their interference, but when he was immobilized by Spider-Man's webbing, knocked to the ground by [[Luke Cage]], and rattled by a hail of Autobot fire, he finally warped-out with a final taunt to Optimus Prime of the battle yet to come between them. {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Four|Man and Machine #4}}
[[File:Massdisplacement.jpg|upright=2.2|thumb]]
With phase two of [[infiltration protocol]] properly underway, Megatron recognized that he ''should'' rightly withdraw and install a new unit commander on Earth, but could not resist the chance to try out his new Ore-13 empowered body, selecting the nation of [[Brasnya]], where Decepticon subterfuge was already underway, as his testing ground. {{storylink|Escalation issue 2|Escalation #2}} Allowing the Decepticon's [[facsimile construct]] [[Georgi Koska]] to wield him in pistol mode, Megatron had Koska use him to first sever a [[Russia]]n oil pipeline, and then to fire upon the soldiers who came to investigate, furthering the political and military tensions already brewing in the region. When word came through from Blitzwing that Optimus Prime and the Autobots had arrived, {{storylink|Escalation issue 3|Escalation #3}} Megatron at last engaged Optimus directly, {{storylink|Escalation issue 4|Escalation #4}} and although Prime was able to destroy his fusion cannon, the extra strength afforded Megatron by Ore-13 allowed him to physically beat Prime into submission, punching directly into his chest and crushing his [[spark]]. {{storylink|Escalation issue 5|Escalation #5}} {{storylink|Spotlight: Optimus Prime}} [[File:Escalation5 prime vs megs.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb]] The horrified Autobots moved into a full but ineffective counterattack, their only edge being that Megatron had no long-range guns left. It turned out that Prime's apparent death was a desperate ruse when 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. {{storylink|Escalation issue 6|Escalation #6}}

Furious over the embarrassing defeat, Megatron threw protocol out the window and ordered that Sixshot be summoned to the planet. {{storylink|Escalation issue 6|Escalation #6}} He took out some of his anger on Ramjet, who he discovered had been busy cooking up a plot to overthrow him; without saying a word, he beat the attempted traitor to death before tearing him apart and keeping his head as a trophy. {{storylink|Spotlight: Ramjet}}
[[File:Devastation5 decepticons attack.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb]]
Upon Sixshot's arrival, Megatron ordered him to utterly destroy the Autobots, and although the [[Phase Sixer]] questioned his early deployment, he was happy to go along with the abandonment of the phase structure. The other Decepticons, on the other hand, 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. {{storylink|Devastation issue 1|Devastation #1}} {{storylink|Maximum Dinobots issue 1|Maximum Dinobots #1}} Megatron monitored Sixshot's attack on the Autobots' [[Ark-19]], ordering him to pursue the escape pod that broke away from the crashing craft, {{storylink|Devastation issue 2|Devastation #2}} but before he could obliterate the Autobots, Megatron was forced to recall him to deal with a new threat assaulting the Decepticon base—the alien [[Reaper]]s. {{storylink|Devastation issue 4|Devastation #4}} Unfortunately, the Reapers convinced Sixshot to side with them, and when an Ore-13 powered Starscream entered the fray to take Sixshot down, Megatron realized his troops had been conspiring against him. He decided not to punish them '''yet''', due to greater threat posed by the Reapers, {{storylink|Devastation issue 5|Devastation #5}} and entered battle alongside them all, even allowing Starscream to wield him in pistol mode against the aliens. After the invaders were dead, however, he turned on his men, starting with Blitzwing—but was forced to realize that they needed to remain united when it became apparent that their battle with the Reapers had made humanity inescapably aware of their existence {{storylink|Devastation issue 6|Devastation #6}} {{storylink|Spotlight: Grimlock}}
{{-}}

===All Hail Megatron===
[[File:AHM7 megs rips out matrix.jpg|upright=1.1|left|thumb|"I don't think I'd have made a good medic. No patience."]]
While the Decepticons were occupied fighting the Reapers, the Autobots had left Earth to deal with the greater threat of an incursion by the [[Dead Universe]]. Exploiting their enemies' absence, Megatron and his men went to ground; when Autobots returned, they could find no trace of the Decepticons, who kept one step ahead of them for months. Secretly abducting [[Hunter O'Nion]], former [[Headmaster (technology)|Headmaster]] partner to the Autobot [[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]], Megatron and his men returned to Cybertron, where Megatron had [[Deluge (G2)|Deluge]] conduct experiments that bred a [[Insecticon swarm|swarm]] of monstrous [[Insecticon (G1)|Insecticons]]. The experiments culminated in the creation of [[Bombshell (G1)|Bombshell]], who Megatron employed in a series of key tasks in his plan: the Insecticon obtained from Hunter's mind various Autobot secrets and codes, completed Shockwave's long-gestating combiner process, granting the [[Constructicon (G1)|Constructicons]] the ability to combine into [[Devastator (G1)|Devastator]], and created a working [[space bridge]] {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 7|All Hail Megatron #7}} based on designs sold to them by Sixshot in exchange for his freedom. {{storylink|Spotlight: Metroplex}}

Returning to Earth, the Decepticons staged a phony schism within their ranks, allowing the Autobots to believe that they had "disappeared" as a result of a power struggle that had split their ranks into two camps, one led by Megatron and one by Starscream. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 7|All Hail Megatron #7}} Starscream then approached Sunstreaker, whose experience has a Headmaster had left him bitter and jaded, with the proposition that the Autobots join with his forces against Megatron, {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 8|All Hail Megatron #8}} but when the Autobots arrived at the designated time and place, they were instead confronted by the united Decepticon army and quickly defeated by Devastator. After personally tearing [[Matrix of Leadership]] from Optimus Prime's chest, Megatron marched the captive Autobots through the space bridge back to Cybertron, where the Insecticon swarm waited for them. Prime, however, was able to damage the bridge, causing it to deposit the Autobots a safe distance from the swarm, but in the process, fried his own circuits and left himself comatose. Though the Autobots had escaped the fate he had intended for them, Megatron had successfully exiled his enemies to their dead homeworld; moreover, using information and codes gained from Sunstreaker and Hunter, he concurrently orchestrated the event that would later be known as [[Surge (event)|The Surge]], as Decepticons stormed Autobot installations all across the galaxy, achieving total victory. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 7|All Hail Megatron #7}}

[[File:Bringingthehousedown.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Megatron's urban renewal program was off to a flying start.]]
With galaxy-wide domination accomplished, one year after the Decepticons' battle with the Reapers, Megatron chose Earth to become the new Decepticon homeworld. Together with his men, Megatron stormed [[New York City]], humiliating Starscream with a display of his greater capacity for destruction. When the US Air Force retaliated, Megatron shrugged off their fire and ordered the other Decepticons to engage them; when one damaged jet threw itself toward him in a suicide run, Megatron, outraged at the [[DJ (G1)|pilot]]'s temerity, destroyed it and its occupant with a furious swipe of his hand. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 1|All Hail Megatron #1}} When US Army forces arrived, Megatron ordered [[Frenzy (G1)|Frenzy]] dispatched to deal with them, then sent Devastator to destroy the subway tunnels leading out of the city. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 2|All Hail Megatron #2}} With New York secured, Megatron directed the Constructicons to begin building a new space bridge in the city's heart, and had a candid talk with Starscream, revealing his belief that the [[Seeker (body-type)|Seeker]]'s attitude and actions marked him as the embodiment of the Decepticon cause, even if he was blind to seeing it himself. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 3|All Hail Megatron #3}} After a series of further attacks on major American cities saw the country firmly crushed under the Decepticons' collective heel, Megatron made a propaganda speech to his men in the ruins of New York. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 4|All Hail Megatron #4}} As night fell upon the city, Megatron withdrew to privately gloat over the Matrix. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 5|All Hail Megatron #5}}

[[File:AHM6MegatronVsIsrael.jpg|left|upright=1.66|thumb]]
As the Decepticons began attacking other countries around the globe, Megatron was questioned by Starscream on what the next step in his plan was. A recalcitrant Megatron merely informed him that it was merely time to savor their victory, but Starscream accused him of not ''having'' any plans post-victory, and was merely allowing his men to run wild to distract them from any notion of taking power for themselves. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 6|All Hail Megatron #6}} What Starscream did not realize was that Megatron did indeed have a plan: to defeat the Autobots, he had created an army of killers and monsters, but in order to create his perfect rule, that army would have to be destroyed, the dissenting, distasteful elements obliterated before Megatron's peace could dawn. Megatron was not distracting his warriors... he was ''waiting'' to see which of them would question and turn on him. Silently sorrowful to already know that such dissent would begin with Starscream, an otherwise-model Decepticon, {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 10|All Hail Megatron #10}} Megatron withdrew to [[Israel]] for some silent reflection amid wholesale devastation. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 6|All Hail Megatron #6}}

[[File:AHM10 megs vs devastator.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb]]
Some time later, Megatron surveyed the space bridge Bombshell and the Constructicons had built in New York. He congratulated Bombshell on his work, but revealed that he had always foreseen Bombshell's intellect as a danger—had always known he and his fellow Insecticons would side with Starscream when the time came. His gambit exposed, Starscream made his move and attacked, but the Insecticons proved no match for Megatron's might. The Decepticon leader had failed to anticipate one thing, however: he did not foresee the Constructicons siding with Starscream, and found himself having to fight the mighty Devastator. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 10|All Hail Megatron #10}} The in-fighting was halted by a last-ditch attack by the mustered might of what remained of the human resistance, forcing Megatron and Starscream to put their differences aside momentarily and organize a defense. This attack came as no surprise to Megatron, but the same could not be said for the next entrants onto the battlefield: the Autobots had returned.

After assuring Starscream that he would be leader in the future, when his time was done, Megatron confronted Optimus Prime, surprised not so much that his old foe had survived, but that he had bothered to return to Earth. Both leaders had always maintained a policy of acceptable losses through their millennia-long war, so Megatron assumed Prime had come back for selfish reasons, to reclaim the Matrix, but Prime insisted that he had changed, and would no longer allow their cold war to endanger innocent lives on this scale. [[File:AHM12 prime vs megs.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66]] Megatron scoffed at the notion, reavling that Prime's supposedly "innocent" humans were planning to nuke New York, killing millions of their own just to get rid of the Decepticons, {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 11|All Hail Megatron #11}} but Prime retorted that it wasn't ''just'' about the humans, but also about the difference between Autobots and Decepticons. The two came to blows, but Megatron triumphed in short order and commanded the Decepticons to depart, leaving the Autobots to be killed by the humans' nuke... but just before they withdrew, he was shot in the face by human soldier [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]], wielding a powerful weapon reverse-engineered from Cybertronian technology. Injured and disoriented by the blast, Megatron was finished off when Prime smashed his face in with his own fusion cannon. As he wanted to ''take'' leadership rather than just have it fall in his hands, Starscream picked up his damaged leader and ordered the Decepticons to retreat. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 12|All Hail Megatron #12}}

[[File:AllHisEngines-Megatron.jpg|thumb|Pretty sure when you float in a bacta tank you're supposed to be wearing a diaper.]]
The Decepticons departed Earth aboard Astrotrain, where the gravely wounded Megatron was put on life support and tended to by Soundwave and his cassettes. With Megatron's life signs only at ten percent capacity, Starscream attempted to appeal to Soundwave's sense of logic and have him shut down so that leadership could be his, but Soundwave refused. Starscream was soon able to take command, however, when he recovered the Matrix of Leadership and professed to have been chosen by it. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 13|Uneasy Lies the Head}}

===New body, new powers===
The Decepticons eventually settled on a desolate asteroid, where Megatron was installed in a [[CR chamber|CR tank]]. Retaining some level of awareness of the events occurring around him during his convalescence, he was forced to watch as his army languished in inactivity, their energy slowly ebbing away until they were reduced to cannibalism. {{storylink|All His Engines}} After a year of trying to free his leader from this living death, Soundwave was finally forced to conclude that Megatron's body was beyond repair, and recruited the recently returned Shockwave, whom Starscream had provided with the majority of the Decepticons' resources to create a space bridge, to help build a new body for Megatron's consciousness to inhabit. The operation succeeded and Megatron was reborn in a deadly new body, powered by Ore-13, armed with a devastatingly powerful rail gun, and even equipped with space bridge nodes stolen from Metroplex, which gave him the ability to open space bridge portals on his own. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 2: Altered Carbon|Altered Carbon}} {{storylink|Spotlight: Megatron}}

[[File:IDWongoing15 megatrons new body.jpg|left|thumb|275px|"Uh, it's like...did anyone ever see the movie ''Tron''?"]]
Back in action, Megatron devised a plan to destabilize the relationship between the humans and Autobots on Earth. Together with Soundwave and Shockwave, he chopped up his old body and used it to create human-scaled replicas of his former gun mode, containing small pieces of his own consciousness. When Starscream caught them in the act, Megatron elected to table his plan for the moment, as he considered it folly to go against Starscream's wishes for the moment since the Seeker was still in possession of the Matrix of Leadership. Megatron had never truly understood what the talisman ''did'', but it served as a threat merely by being an unknown variable. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 2: Altered Carbon|Altered Carbon}} Fortunately, for Megatron this variable was soon removed from the equation when Hot Rod, estranged from the Earthbound Autobots, infiltrated the Decepticons' asteroid base and recovered the Matrix from Starscream. Megatron seized his chance, intercepting the Autobot and blasting him and the Matrix out into the void of space. {{storylink|Heart Like a Wheel}}

[[File:SLMegatron stealth bomber mode.jpg|thumb|275px|Behold... the ''Bomberang!'']]
With Starscream's trump card now gone, Megatron had the Decepticons gathered so he could address them. Distrustful of Shockwave's motives for preparing his new body, wary of Soundwave's constant surveillance, and repulsed by the state of his once fearsome Decepticon war machine, Megatron decided that he needed to unequivocally reestablish dominance over the now Matrix-less Starscream. He intended to beat Starscream near to death as a means of letting them both work out their frustrations with Starscream's inability to lead effectively during Megatron's absence, but Starscream did not want to fight—spiritually broken by his failures, he simply wanted Megatron to kill him. Rather than accept this, Megatron instead goaded Starscream into opening fire upon him. This began a running battle between the two, with Megatron pursuing the fleeing Seeker in his new stealth bomber alternate mode, continuing to bait Starscream every time he appeared willing to give up the fight. Incensed by Starscream's accusation that he did not know what it felt like to see everything he had worked for fall apart, when that was exactly what Starscream's pitiful leadership had done to the empire he had created, Megatron pummeled him to within an inch of his life, then paused to explain why he kept a schemer like Starscream around: as a constant reminder to watch his back. The brutal display galvanized the languid Decepticons, and Megatron was ready to begin his scheme. {{storylink|Spotlight: Megatron}}

[[File:IDWongoing14 megatron guns.jpg|upright=1.66|left|thumb|Megatron doesn't support the NRA. He IS the NRA.]]
Roughly two years after the Decepticons' defeat on Earth, Megatron used his space bridge powers to dispatch a container full of the guns made from his old body to Earth, where they were found by South American gun-runners and illegally disseminated amongst an increasingly paranoid public seeking ways to protect themselves against Transformers. This allowed Megatron's consciousness to spread across North America, until it was focused enough to contact one particular owner of a Megatron gun: [[Joe Gladki]]. He deceived and manipulated the paranoid human, and eventually convinced him to perform an assassination attempt on [[Bumblebee (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Bumblebee]], the new Autobot leader. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 2: Altered Carbon|Altered Carbon}} In their ignorance, the Autobots then mistook Gladki's gun for Megatron himself and held it captive. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 1: The Demolished Man|The Demolished Man}}

[[File:IDWongoing16 megatron vs autobots.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|Not the [[Realignments|first time]] he's traded his [[fusion cannon]] for a [[rail gun]].]]
With the Autobots in chaos, Megatron started the next phase of his plan and returned to Earth personally, where he used his new stealth bomber mode to shoot down a plane carrying Optimus Prime and several other Autobots. He then hunted down the remaining Autobots, effortlessly defeating them and their new temporary leader Ultra Magnus with his powerful new body, and killing some of their [[Skywatch]] allies. Magnus tried to draw Megatron's attention from the humans, claiming the Autobots were the ones he really wanted, but Megatron assured him that humanity was his real target. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 3: Woken Furies|Woken Furies}} Taking the defeated Autobots captive, Megatron dumped them in a city and directed three of his mind-controlled human puppets to kill them. Contacting Prime directly, Megatron summoned him to the city's outskirts and revealed his plan: crush Prime's spirit and destroy the Autobots' alliance with humanity by forcing them to choose between fighting the humans or allowing them to kill them. Prime found the hole in Megatron's plan, however, when he realized that Soundwave was maintaining the connection between Megatron and his guns, and shot him in the head. His connection to his pawns severed, Megatron scooped up Soundwave and withdrew. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 4: Burning Chrome|Burning Chrome}} Thanks to a tracker Ultra Magnus had slipped on Soundwave, though, Prime was able to follow the Decepticons to their bolthole and called Megatron out for a full and proper confrontation. In actuality, Prime had lured Megatron outside so Skywatch could drop a [[kinetic harpoon]] on him, but even a weapon dropped from orbit barely proved able to put a scratch in Megatron's mighty new exostructure. Megatron proceeded to beat Prime senseless, but then returned him to the Autobots, and to their great shock, surrendered to their custody. After recovering, Optimus demanded to know why he had surrendered, but Megatron merely taunted him by revealing that Spike Witwicky had murdered a Decepticon in cold blood. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 5: Enemy Mine|Enemy Mine}} Prime immediately had Prowl begin investigating Spike and Skywatch, and Prowl interrogated the Decepticon leader for information, which he provided after a little verbal sparring. {{storylink|Police Action: Prologue}}

[[File:ChaosTheory1 megatron imprisoned.jpg|upright=1.5|left|thumb|Megatron and Optimus Prime can't agree on a safe word.]]
When Rodimus returned to Earth and warned the Autobots that [[Galvatron (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Galvatron]] had taken control of Cybertron, Optimus decided to lead the Autobots in reclaiming their homeworld. In the name of Earth's safety, he elected to bring Megatron and the confiscated guns made from his old body with them. {{storylink|Space Opera—Final Tableaux: Orphans of the Helix|Orphans of the Helix}} On the way to Cybertron aboard [[Omega Supreme (G1)|Omega Supreme]], Prime again attempted to discern why Megatron had surrendered, even releasing his old foe from his bonds and having a civil conversation with him about their past together and their dueling ideologies. Optimus tried to reach out to Megatron, offering him the chance to end the war once and for all with a handshake; Megatron appeared to consider it for a moment but ultimately remained silent. With Megatron returned to the confines of the [[variable voltage harness]], the other Autobots pressured Optimus for a decision on his fate: execution or imprisonment. Trying to come to a conclusion, Prime asked Megatron if he regretted any of his actions, but the Decepticon leader remarked that he only regretted not killing ''more'' Autobots. He taunted Prime with the notion that even he was thankful for the war, as it had raised him from a nobody to the greatest Autobot in history, and a furious Prime activated the harness, electrocuting Megatron. The jolt would have killed Megatron if Omega Supreme had not cut the power in time and Megatron, struggling to stay conscious, offered Prime his thanks for saving his life all those years ago in Rodion. Shocked by his actions, Prime realized that Megatron wanted to die and wanted Prime to be the one to kill him. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}} Eventually, Prime decided to let Megatron choose his own fate, and Megatron calmly replied that he chose death. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 2|Chaos Theory #2}}

[[File:Chaos2 armored megatron.jpg|upright=1.3|thumb|...Again...?]]
As Omega drew close to Cybertron, Megatron demanded to know who or what was threatening their homeworld, but Optimus Prime refused to provde him with any information. {{storylink| Chaos Part One: Lamentations|Lamentations}} The Autobots subsequently engaged Galvatron's forces in battle, and while they were occupied, Megatron put into motion the ace he had up his sleeve: taking remote control of the numerous "Megatron guns" aboard Omega, Megatron summoned them to him and combined with them into a new armored mode. Breaking free from his restraints, he headed out to confront Galvatron, intent that nobody would take his world from him. {{storylink|Chaos Part Two: Numbers|Numbers}} As he tore through the Sweeps, Megatron also revealed the reason for his surrender: now that he was back on Cybertron, he could open a space bridge that would allow the massed forces of the Decepticons on Earth to return to their home planet as well. Unfortunately, not long after the Decepticons arrived on the battlefield, Galvatron's secret puppet master, the Dead Universe entity known as [[D-Void]], seized control of their minds and those of the Sweeps, merging them into a gigantic, monstrous avatar. With Prime occupied pursuing Galvatron into Cybertron's depths, Megatron was left to face this "[[Deceptigod]]" alone. {{storylink|Chaos Part Three: Kings|Kings}} Fighting against D-Void's attempts to ensnare his own mind and make him part of the collective, Megatron was gravely wounded and even lost an arm to the beast, but succeeded into destroying it, blasting it apart with one massive beam from his weapons. {{storylink|Chaos Part Four: Genesis|Genesis}}

===The long game===
Even as the Deceptigod disintegrated back into its component Decepticons, Megatron could see the potential the creature embodied—D-Void had, in essence, created the perfect combiner by means of utterly obliterating free will. With Cybertron reverting into a primordial wasteland around him—a result of Optimus Prime purifying [[Vector Sigma]] with the Matrix to stop Galvatron and D-Void—Megatron chose to withdraw to experiment with the possibilities this presented. He informed Shockwave, the sole Decepticon who had not been made part of the Deceptigod, of his plans, and Shockwave in turn revealed them to Soundwave and Bombshell. {{storylink|Shockpoint}} While Megatron hid in the wilderness, his Decepticons were left to live as second-class citizens in the new [[Iacon (polity)|Iacon]] that the Autobots built; Optimus Prime left Cybertron two weeks after D-Void's defeat to calm tensions with "NAILs"—other unaffiliated Cybertronians—who had returned to their homeworld, but even as he did so, he mused that Megatron must still be out there somewhere. {{storylink|Transformers: The Death of Optimus Prime|The Death of Optimus Prime}}

[[File:RID11 megatron in wilderness.jpg|left|thumb|225px|Megatron can't find anyone who wants to join his nudist colony to save his skin.]]
In the months of study and experimentation that followed, Megatron discerned that the combination of Ore-13 and space bridge technology in his body somehow gave him the ability to manipulate the natural energy of Cybertron that D-Void had used to merge the Decepticons into the Deceptigod. After experiments on [[turbofox]]es created larger, more ferocious beasts, Megatron stepped up trials when the [[Aerialbot (G1)|Aerialbots]] seceded from the shaky government Bumblebee, [[Metalhawk (Masterforce)|Metalhawk]] and Starscream were building in Iacon and ventured into the wilderness. The signal Megatron had created from the combination energy first drove the Aerialbots mad, before uniting them in body and mind, spontaneously merging them into the gestalt [[Superion (G1)|Superion]], but this newborn Autobot combiner was considered hopelessly insane by Megatron and left to die in the wilderness. The madness aspect of the signal afforded him the chance to revive some of the principles of the infiltration protocol, however, as he blanketed the wastelands in it, forcing the Autobots, Decepticons and NAILs to stay in Iacon, causing natural conflict among them to snowball, providing a useful cover for his actions. To gain a pawn within Autobot high command, Megatron even provided Bombshell with the energy to use in conjunction with his own mind-controlling [[cerebro-shell]]s, ensnaring the mind of Prowl. With the resources and cover control of Prowl provided, Shockwave, Soundwave and Bombshell were able to use Megatron's findings to perfect the combination process, rebuilding the Constructicons with new modular designs that would allow them to merge into a perfect Devastator. The endgame was for Megatron himself to form the head of the combiner, but before risking his own mind and body, Megatron decided that Prowl would be used first as a test subject. {{storylink|Before the Dawn}}

[[File:RID12 kill him.jpg|upright=1.95|thumb]]
The appearance of a [[Crystal City Metrotitan|Metrotitan]] on Cybertron which declared that Starscream was the "Chosen One" threatened Megatron's ability to easily re-take leadership of his Decepticons, forcing him to step up his schedule. Through Prowl, he had his inner circle gathered together in the secret "[[Black Room]]", then boldly strode into Iacon for all to see. {{storylink|The End of the Beginning of the World}} His body shattered and skeletal, he professed to come in peace, but Bumblebee did not accept his surrender and ordered his Autobots to kill him. Indeed, Megatron could possibly have died there and then had Iacon's Decepticons not stepped in, insisting that Megatron's defense of Cybertron during D-Void's attack marked him a hero and that he be taken into custody instead. {{storylink|City on Fire}} After [[Wheeljack (G1)|Wheeljack]] got through examining him to prove his body concealed no weapons, Starscream approached the imprisoned Megatron and attempted to explain that he was not far away from taking complete power in the government, ensuring a Decepticon victory of a different kind. Megatron merely smiled silently at the notion, terrifying his ex-lieutenant with his grin. Presently, the Decepticons rose up in an angry mob and marched on Autobot high command to insist on Megatron's release; the situation quickly devolved into a riot, during which a squad led by [[Needlenose]] stormed the prison and freed Megatron. {{storylink|The Verge}}

[[File:RID14 new body redux.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.55|New body or not, Megatron may want to think twice about standing [[:File:Devastator-ROTFenemyscrotum.jpg|underneath Devastator's legs.]]]]
Megatron brought Starscream and the captured Bumblebee and Metalhawk to the Black Room, where he explained his plans and had himself transferred into a pre-prepared new body that could combine with the Constructicons' new forms. At his command, the Constructicons and Prowl combined into the new Devastator, who immediately set about razing Iacon. {{storylink|Before the Dawn}} Even the return of Superion seemed unable to stop the powerful new combiner, until help came from an unexpected quarter—Prowl's secret assassin [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] killed Bombshell, taking out Prowl's controller and causing Devastator to shut down. This was no real impediment to Megatron, however, as the successful function of the new combiner process has been proven, and he set out to take ''his'' place as Devastator's head. Before Megatron could reach the fallen gestalt, though, Devastator awoke, possessed of his own unique, unite consciousness for the first time, and resumed tearing into Iacon. {{storylink|Plan for Everything}}

[[File:RID20 megatron in forcefield.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|You know you can't catch a break when you find yourself trapped inside a novelty plasma lamp from Spencer's.]]
Still Megatron remained unfazed, calmly fending off Autobot attacks and waiting for the inevitable moment when the heroes would take Devastator down. When [[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] succeeded in doing so by managing to reach Prowl, Devastator separated, and Megatron immediately stepped in, re-initiation the combination with himself in control. Seconds before uniting with the Constructicons, though, his plan was foiled by Bumblebee, Ironhide and Prowl's activation of a secret failsafe: Wheeljack had integrated a forcefield generator into Megatron's spark casing during his examination of him, and when it was triggered, he was completely paralyzed in mid-transformation. {{storylink|Heavy Is the Head}}

In the fallout of the battle, Starscream killed Metalhawk, took control of Iacon and banished the Autobots and Decepticons from the city. He took custody of the immobilized Megatron, and silently gloated over the victory he had accomplished by using guile and politics, rather than Megatron's ways of brute force and firepower. {{storylink|Three Monologues}}

===A new approach===
Megatron would not remain incapacitated for long. That night, as the end result of millennia-long secret machinations by Shockwave, an [[Necrotitan|undead Metrotitan]] appeared on Cybertron and opened a portal to the Dead Universe in the planet's skies. Through the portal, Shockwave made contact with Galvatron and his master, the exiled Cybertron despot [[Nova Prime]], but was unable to bring them through to Cybertron thanks to the unexpected disappearance of the Titan's space bridge system. Intending to use the space bridge within Megatron as a replacement, {{storylink|Black Metal: Dark Cybertron Chapter 2|Black Metal}} Shockwave reanimated the deceased Metalhawk with a wave of necrotic energy from the Titan and had him liberate Megatron and bring him to his secret lab in [[Crystal City]]. {{storylink|Winners & Losers: Dark Cybertron Chapter 3|Winners & Losers}}

[[File:RID24 i remember you.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Somewhere in the multiverse, [[Override (G1)|Override]] and [[Jazz (Movie)|Jazz]] are smiling.]]
Shockwave hoped that Megatron would comply with his plans willingly, but the Decepticon leader refused and Shockwave forcibly activated the space bridge technology in Megatron's body. {{storylink|Into the Abyss: Dark Cybertron Chapter 4|Into the Abyss}} The opening of the bridge in his chest caused Megatron agony, but his screams were heard by Soundwave, who led the united forces of the exiled Autobots and Decepticons to Shockwave's lab to free his leader. Nova Prime and Galvatron attempted to squeeze their way through the space bridge despite this interference, but Ironhide was able to punch Nova back through into the Dead Universe. Just then, Shockwave's "Necrotitan" came crashing into the subterranean city, and in the chaos, Megatron was freed from the restraints holding him. No sooner had Megatron carried Ironhide to the safe hands of the other Autobots, however, than he was ripped in half from behind by Galvatron, who had successfully emerged through the portal {{storylink|Finest Hour: Dark Cybertron Chapter 5|Finest Hour}} — a briefer battle, no doubt, than the one Shockwave had forseen between the pair in a vision at the outset of his scheme. {{storylink|Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1|Dark Dawn}}

[[File:MTMTE26 megs and bee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|I smell a sitcom!]]
After the battle was over, Galvatron and [[Waspinator (BW)|Waspinator]] lugged Megatron's bisected remains back into Crystal City, only to find their way barred by the unlikely form of Bumblebee, who demanded they hand Megatron over. Galvatron attacked the Autobot, at which point Megatron revealed that he was fine, as he took down Waspinator and knocked Galvatron out with a barrage of fusion cannon fire. {{storylink|The Dead Are Not Enough: Dark Cybertron Chapter 7|The Dead Are Not Enough}} Bumblebee lugged Megatron back to Iacon, currently being razed by the Necrotitan, where the Decepticon leader announced to the assembled Autobots, Decepticons and NAILs his plan to withdraw to [[Moonbase Two|Luna 2]], summon the Decepticon Justice Division and other scattered troops, and strike back. Bumblebee rejected Megatron's notion of retreating, and struck a nerve within him by questioning his entire philosophy: Megatron had ''long'' ago abandoned any notion of fighting for freedom and equality, Bumblebee attested, and merely used the claim to ideology as an excuse for his actions. {{storylink|Burning Bright: Dark Cybertron Chapter 8|Burning Bright}} Fortunately, fighting back suddenly got a lot easier when Metroplex and the ''[[Lost Light]]'' space-bridged to Cybertron. During the battle between the Titans, Megatron observed Metroplex reaching for the ''Lost Light''; when the ship's crew explained that they had Metroplex's severed thumb aboard, Megatron had Bumblebee carry him to it, whereupon he realized that the thumb contained one of Shockwave's [[Regenesis]] ores. Megatron used his internal space bridge to teleport the thumb back to Metroplex, and the ore provided the giant with the power boost to defeat the Necrotitan. {{storylink|Finis Temporis: Dark Cybertron Chapter 9|Finis Temporis}}

[[File:DCFinale megatron the autobot.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.95|ಠ_ಠ]]
At Bumblebee's order and under protest, [[Ratchet (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Ratchet]] repaired Megatron's injuries and reattached his legs, reminding Megatron of his desire in youth to be a medic. His recent string of failures, the success of ''Starscream'', of all 'bots, and Bumblebee's stinging words had turned the Decepticon leader introspective, and he realized he had forgotten something very important that had driven his writings in his early years: winning meant turning people to your way of thinking, not dominating them. {{storylink|The Becoming: Dark Cybertron Chapter 10|The Becoming}} Subsequently, when Shockwave initiated his millennia-long plan to collapse all reality into a universal black hole, Megatron placed himself and the Decepticons under Bumblebee's command to co-ordinate a counter-strike, and journeyed with his uneasy new "friend" into Shockwave's [[Crystal City]] base to confront their shared enemy. There, they found the weakened Galvatron, who Megatron prepared to destroy for past indignities, until Bumblebee talked him down, convincing him that blood did not have to be repaid with blood. At that moment, Shockwave struck, slaying Bumblebee with a blast, and driving Megatron into a rage. {{storylink|Black Planet: Dark Cybertron Chapter 11|Black Planet}} Empowered by his various ores and the energy of the Dead Universe, Shockwave was a formidable opponent and it was all Megatron could do to hold his own against him until Optimus Prime arrived to join the fight. Prime attempted to reason with Shockwave and remind him of the kindly senator he had once been, but his words had little effect, so Megatron opted for a more object lesson: removing the fallen Bumblebee's insignia, he placed it upon his chest and declared himself an Autobot. The stunned Shockwave lost control of the time machine powering his plot, causing his old pre-[[Shadowplay]] memories to emerge. Horrified at what he had become, he allowed Megatron and Prime to kill him, which caused the time machine to collapse into a singularity. Megatron and Prime made what seemed to be a futile dash for freedom, but were saved from the singularity's pull at the last moment by the timely arrival of the ''Lost Light''. {{storylink|...And the Damage Done: Dark Cybertron Finale|...And the Damage Done}}

===Crimes against the Species===

{{quote|I don't want to be acquitted. I want to '''make amends'''|Megatron on his new goal in life|"[[World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide]]"}}
[[File:DCFinale this is not a trick.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|Optimus apparently decided a sincere Megatron was a cue for mood lighting.]]
In a private meeting between Optimus Prime and Megatron a short time after Shockwave's defeat, Megatron affirmed that his change of heart was genuine, and Optimus assured him that he could see past his wartime deeds and remember the well-intentioned 'bot he had started out as. {{storylink|...And the Damage Done: Dark Cybertron Finale|...And the Damage Done}} The rest of Cybertron, however, demanded a trial; Autobot High Command agreed, realizing that the Decepticon leader's fate had to be decided in public. Before the trial, Megatron was approached by Optimus, [[Chromedome (G1)|Chromedome]] and Rodimus in an attempt to extract some of the Decepticon's memories as evidence in hopes of expediting the proceedings, but a horrified Megatron refused, considering the sanctity of his mind all he had left. After Optimus departed, Rodimus remained to taunt Megatron with the certainty of his execution; in return, the impassive Decepticon simply asked Rodimus to deliver a [[communicube]] to Optimus, {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} containing a request to have the trial moved to the [[Raskol Arena]] on Luna 2, in order, he alleged, to accommodate the huge number of spectators that would inevitably attend. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}}
[[File:MTMTE28 megatron pleads guilty.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.95|I agreed to this trial on the condition of meeting Matlock.]]
Megatron's trial lasted five months. At the outset of the proceedings, Megatron plead guilty to "Crimes against the Species", {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} but things changed when Starscream took the stand and gave a testimony that presented Megatron as an incapable leader who was unable to control the Decepticon forces under his command, a powerful brute lacking in the qualities of true leadership who led his followers down an ultimately self-destructive path. His treacherous lieutenant's words struck home, and Megatron stunned the assembled crowd by changing his plea to "not guilty". {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 2: Words Hang in the Air|Words Hang in the Air}} Just as his defender, Ultra Magnus, was reading a statement declaring this, the trial was dramatically interrupted by the a small army of Decepticons led by [[Snaptrap (G1)|Snap Trap]] and [[Hun-Gurrr (G1)|Hun-Grr]], who had escaped from the brig on the ''Lost Light''. The invading force attempted to teleport Megatron away to safety, but he refused to escape and the uprising was quickly quelled. During the recess that followed, Optimus confronted Megatron over his true motives: he had requested that the trial be held on Luna 2 in order to exploit the moon's different legal system in the event that he felt the trial was unjust. Caused by Starscream's speech to realize that, were he to submit to execution now, his legacy would be one only of pain and death, Megatron invoked one of the moon's forgotten laws: an individual who had committed sufficiently heinous crimes could request he be judged by the long-lost [[Knights of Cybertron]]. Megatron requested that he be allowed to join the ''Lost Light'' in their search for the Knights and their homeworld of [[Cyberutopia]], thus ensuring that ''that'' would be his legacy, after which he would submit to whatever punishment was deemed necessary. Optimus agreed on the condition that Megatron read a prepared speech denouncing the Decepticon cause and asking all active Decepticons to stand down. Megatron did so, at great personal pain. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}} Hurt and angry over this perceived abandonment, Soundwave used Megatron's change of faction as evidence to forge a new allegiance of his own, decamping to Earth and working with the [[Earth Defense Command]] to create a new home for Autobots there. {{storylink|Earthfall Part 2: Detonation Boulevard|Detonation Boulevard}}
[[File:MTMTE30 cocaptains.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|O captain, my co-captain.]]
Megatron was assigned co-captaincy of the ''Lost Light'' alongside Rodimus, who immediately hated the idea and everything about it, leading to a particularly antagonistic relationship between the two. Megatron was permitted only to fuel himself with "[[Fool's Energon]]", which left him substantially weakened. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}} Shockwave's machinations had left his internal organs a tortured Gordian knot of space bridge wormholes from which it was impossible to extract his spark; his outward appearance changed between the end of his trial and his co-captaincy, suggesting that his armor was rebuilt around him, or his entire internal structure was transplanted into a new body. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} Megatron would later lament that his body did not graft to his spark like past chassis, which he considered a sign of his waning age. {{storylink|Slaughterhouse|Slaughterhouse}} Optimus would see Megatron off on his voyage before he himself headed off to Earth, a meeting Prowl found deeply disturbing. {{storylink|Earthfall Part 1: Hello Cruel World|Hello Cruel World}}
===Towards Peace===
{{ongoing}}
[[File:MTMTE28 megatron head examined.jpg|left|thumb|275px|"So Megatron, tell me about your mother." "She was delicious."]]
The ''Lost Light'' warped back out to the Galactic Rim and set off on the trail of [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]], who they considered their best lead on the location of the Knights. A month into the journey, Megatron agreed to a therapy session with ship's psychoanalyst Rung. Megatron was less than forthcoming, but when Rung inquired about the removed dedication to Terminus from ''Towards Peace'', Megatron explained to him his current thinking on personal history, and one's ability to selectively edit or abandon entirely previously-held truths. Departing for his quarters, Megatron found that his door had been heavily grafittied by Whirl, who then suddenly attacked him, declaring that their shared history made the battle inevitable. Megatron responded by undermining Whirl's entire life with the revelation that the ex-Wrecker's penchant for surviving tough scraps was a falsehood: the second order Megatron had issued upon forming the Decepticons was that under no circumstances was any Decepticon to kill Whirl. As they struggled, Megatron taunted Whirl with the knowledge that his memory of Whirl's actions all those years ago had helped keep him on the path of violence; the outraged ex-Wrecker punched Megatron in the stomach, only to find his hand teleported away by the space bridge tangle inside the former Decepticon. This took the fight out of Whirl, and Megatron offered to forget the incident if the graffiti was removed from his wall. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}}

Leaving Whirl behind and heading for the bridge, Megatron received a report that the ''Lost Light'' had crossed paths with a coffin floating in space. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} Megatron oversaw the bringing onboard of the coffin and its transport to the med-bay. A short time later, [[Trailbreaker (G1)|Trailcutter]] snuck into the med-bay on a drunken dare in search of Megatron's "Fool's Energon", unaware of its true nature; caught in the act and believing he had been poisoned by the fuel, he triggered his forcefield, which inadvertently cracked the coffin open. Megatron reprimanded him by permanently engaging his fuel intake moderation chip, and assigned him the role of Security Director in order to focus his mind. The pair then turned their attention to the opened coffin, which was revealed to contain the body of another Rodimus! {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 2: Words Hang in the Air|Words Hang in the Air}}
[[File:MTMTE32 i came to hate the person id become.jpg|thumb|275px|Lolcat is watching you deprecate.]]
Brief analysis suggested that the body was of Rodimus from the future, but before the matter could be settled, the crew of the ''Lost Light'' were forced to abandon the ship as it suddenly began disappearing around them. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}} The disappearances did not stop there, however: Megatron found himself on the [[Rodpod]] with a score of other 'bots, and when ''they'' then began to vanish, [[Tailgate (G1)|Tailgate]] accused Megatron of being responsible. A tense Mexican standoff ensued, which was brought to a surprising end when [[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]] was discovered to have been hiding on the pod, having secreted himself on the ''Lost Light'' in order to spy on Megatron for Soundwave. The disappearances continued, and Megatron clashed with [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] as he tried to find a pattern. {{storylink|Twenty Plus One}} The weirdness only continued as the remaining crew of the Rodpod—Megatron, Ravage, Nightbeat, [[Skids (G1)|Skids]], [[Nautica]], [[Riptide (G1)|Riptide]], and [[Getaway]]—discovered the wreckage of a second ''Lost Light'', point of origin for the mystery second Rodimus, orbiting the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Still believing that the duplicate ship hailed from the future, Skids accused Megatron of being responsible for the devastation, and, realizing that the recent huge changes he had made in his life left him devoid of any surety in his future actions, Megatron allowed himself and Ravage to be imprisoned until the truth could be determined. Locked in a supply closet with Ravage, Megatron had a heart-to-heart with his angry ex-subordinate, justifying his decisions and unable to offer Ravage any consolation. When power returned to the ship, the pair discovered the dead bodies of Ratchet, [[Drift (G1)|Drift]] and [[Hound (G1)|Hound]] in the closet with them, their [[brain module]]s stuffed in their mouths—calling card of [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] of the Decepticon Justice Division. Realizing the DJD was responsible for destroying the ship the team re-grouped and prepared to retreat when an even stranger discovery was made: Autobot archivist [[Rewind (G1)|Rewind]] was found, still alive, the only survivor of the DJD's attack, despite the fact that he had died months beforehand. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}}
[[File:MTMTE33 megatron skids right there.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|"...But you're not the [[Skyfall (G1)|worst]] [[Zeta Prime (G1)|guy]] to wear the badge. So keep trying."]]
Nautica and Nightbeat were able to deduce the whole story: the duplicate ''Lost Light'' was not from the future, but rather, it and its crew were quantum duplicates created in the explosion of the [[quantum generator|quantum engines]] during the ship's original launch two years prior. To make matters worse, the [[quantum foam]] leaking from the engines was threatening to destroy Ofsted XVII, but Megatron had no compunctions about getting to safety and leaving the planet to its fate until Skids called him out, forcing him to face up to the fact that being an Autobot meant more than wearing a badge, and had to be reflected in one's actions. When all other options were exhausted, Megatron admitted that he could use his old mass-displacement ability to shrink his robot form down, enabling him to safely make it through the foam and deactivate the engines, saving Ofsted XVII, "cancelling out" the duplicate ''Lost Light'', and reinstating their own. The diminutive Rewind joined him in the task; Megatron showed him kindness by holding back knowledge of his counterpart's passing so that he might die happy, but Rewind was mysteriously ''not'' erased when their task was successfully completed. As they made their way back to the returned ''Lost Light'', Megatron invited Ravage to remain at his side, hoping an up-close view of the DJD's horrors had instilled in him some doubt in the Decepticon cause. {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}
[[File:MTMTE38 send me back.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.75|"AND I WANT YOUR LUNCH MONEY TOO NERD!"]]
Returning to "their" ''Lost Light'', Megatron's team discovered that their Brainstorm had incapacitated the crew and used his mysterious [[briefcase]] to travel back in time. The ridiculousness of the entire situation caused Megatron to have a mini-breakdown, but he soon got ahold of himself, and theorized that Brainstorm was attempting to change history by killing Orion Pax. {{storylink|The Custom-Made Now - An Elegant Chaos Prologue|The Custom-Made Now}} Rodimus led a squad back in time in pursuit, which led to Megatron having a cross-time conversation with the young Orion Pax via Rodimus's "[[time phone]]" communicator. Pretending to be his own younger self during the call, Megatron found the young 'bots optimism for the future a mixed source of both affirmation and tragic amusement. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}} After Rodimus's team made several further jumps, Megatron deduced that the dates they were travelling to were not important moments in Pax's life, but Megatron's own. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 2: Stet|Stet}} Realizing that Brainstorm intended to kill him at the moment of his creation, he flew into a panicked rage, attacking [[Perceptor (G1)|Perceptor]] and demanding the scientist send him back in time to save himself, until Ultra Magnus restrained him and the pair talked him down. As events in the past played out, Megatron was visibly shaken to hear that Rewind had been the one to pull the trigger that destroyed the original spark in his body, and that the universe would truly be a better place had he never existed. Although Whirl subsequently set the timeline to rights, Megatron did not join in the celebrations when everyone returned from the past, retiring to his quarters to brood. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 3: Predestination: An Expert's Guide|Predestination: An Expert's Guide}}
When Optimus contacted the ''Lost Light'' to invite them home for first contact, Rodimus denied saying it would interfere with their quest, while Magnus promised to send a shuttle with representatives from the ship, Megatron just hung silently in the background. When the call ended Rodimus told Optimus that Megatron said 'Hi'. Megatron said no such thing but Rodimus ended the call before he could tell Optimus. {{storylink|First Contact (IDW)|First Contact}}

===Pax Cybertronia===
In a vision of the future seen by Ironhide and [[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] during the reformatting of Cybertron, fifteen million years hence, Ironhide still believed Megatron to be alive and promised a young Autobot they would defeat him again if he ever returned. {{storylink|Pax Cybertronia (issue)|Pax Cybertronia}} {{storylink|A Better Tomorrow}}
{{-}}

===''Spotlight: Mirage''===
[[File:SLMirage all in good time.jpg|thumb|275px]]
{{NoteSLMirage}}
Somewhere, in an unknown time or place, the self-serving mercenary [[Mirage (G1)|Mirage]] dreamed of Megatron and his Decepticons launching a massive attack on the Autobots. But Mirage knew that to only be a dream; in reality, the Autobots were almost eradicated, and Megatron had hired him to hunt down the last of their number. Megatron was outraged by the mercenary's demand for a majority share in all energon mining operations as payment, but it proved to be fuel well spent, as he soon succeeded in locating Optimus Prime and forcing him to surrender. Megatron demanded the prisoners be executed despite Mirage's promise to spare Autobot lives. Seeing Mirage's hesitation, Megatron appealed to his greed. {{storylink|Spotlight: Mirage}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:MegatronOrigin2 Megs hair.jpg|thumb|100px]]
*In [[Megatron Origin issue 2|''Megatron Origin'' #2]], we see that Megatron's helmet is, in fact, a helmet and not part of his head (at least in his original body). Upon removing his helmet, Megatron then briefly unfurls a crest. The significance of this moment is not explained, but it is briefly revisited in [[Remembrance Day|''More than Meets the Eye'' #14]] when a helmetless Megatron spars with [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]].

[[Category:Combiners]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW Generation 1 Autobots]]
[[Category:IDW Generation 1 Decepticons]]
[[Category:Gladiators]]
[[Category:Lost Light crew]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:Rulers of Cybertron]]
[[Category:Turncoats]]

Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity

2015-04-04T20:38:12Z

Millia: I'm pretty sure Megatron knew, or at least strongly suspected, that Starscream had been cooperating with Scorponok. When Megatron gets back, right after punishing Scorponok he tells Starscream "we'll discuss your part in this coup later."

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[[File:IDWMegatron.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Megatron A, Megatron B, Megatron Retailer's Incentive, and Megatron Dynamic Forces Exclusive variant.]]
'''Megatron''' waged a battle to destroy the evil forces of the [[Senate]]! Then he ''continued'' to wage a war against the evil forces of freedom, organic life, and the very idea of an Autobot living.

{{quote|Because in the final analysis, I would happily wade across a river of corpses, chest-deep in rust and grease and engine oil, just to crush the spark of the last Autobot standing. And I would not do so simply as a means to an end. No. I'd do it, Prime, because it would give me '''pleasure'''.|Megatron to Optimus Prime|"[[Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1]]"}}

{{quote|And the thing is, when those words were in my head I didn't think I meant them; but when they left my mouth, I realized that I '''did'''. If the world thinks you're a monster, what does it matter? The world is '''wrong'''. But when you start to think of '''yourself''' as a monster...|Megatron on the previous quote|"[[slaughterhouse]]"}}

__TOC__
==IDW Generation 1 comics==
{{ongoing}}
{{spoilers|Elegant Chaos Part 3: Predestination: An Expert's Guide|April 4th}}
===Birth of a tyrant===
[[File:MTMTE37 megatron under construction.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.3]]
Megatron of [[Tarn (polity)|Tarn]] was built in the 1st Cycle 012, one of the many Transformers [[reproduction|constructed cold]] during the [[Silver Harvest]]. The [[spark]] intended for this body was one generated from the [[Matrix of Leadership]] by [[Tyrest (G1)|Tyrest]]... but this spark was destroyed while his body was still in the process of being built, by time-travelling [[Autobot]]s from the future attempting to prevent the destruction they knew Megatron would come to wreak upon the universe. But the non-existence of Megatron meant that the [[Functionist Council]] would eventually plunge [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]] into [[Functionist Universe|a dystopian hell]], and the Autobot [[Whirl (G1)|Whirl]], who loathed the Functionists, refused to permit this to happen. Whirl replaced the deceased body's spark with a forged [[Point One Percenter]] spark that had been harvested by [[Brainstorm]] from [[Moonbase One|Luna 1]] millions of years in the future—and so Megatron was ''truly'' born: the first "hybrid" Transformer, a powerful forged superspark in a constructed cold body. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 3: Predestination: An Expert's Guide|Predestination: An Expert's Guide}}

Megatron desired to be a medic, {{storylink|The Becoming: Dark Cybertron Chapter 10|The Becoming}} but alas, he lived in a time of functionism, where one's [[alternate mode]] denoted one's role in society, and one's role determined one's rights. As such, the true nature of his exceptionally rare spark apparently unknown, Megatron was assigned the task for which he had been built: that of [[energon]] miner, a member of the lower class, toiling in a mine under [[Nova Point]]. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}}

[[File:ChaosTheory1 megatron symbol creation.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.66|... And thus the "Silica Fracturism" art movement was born.]]

An idealist, intellectual and poet, Megatron was sickened by the caste-ridden social apartheid of [[Nominus Prime]]'s Cybertron, and so he wrote [[After the Ark: Nominus Prime and the Illusion of Progress|a treatise]] on how pacifist dissent and the exchange of ideas could change things. It was while he was sharing this work with his miner friend [[Impactor (G1)|Impactor]] over a drink in [[Maccadam's Old Oil House|Maccadam's New Oil House]] that the event occurred which would change the course of his life, as Impactor wound up being drawn into a bar brawl with some of the city's upper classes and Megatron was among those arrested after the fracas. Megatron's writings had been growing in popularity and inspiring some dissent against the current regime, so in order to silence him, the [[Senate]] arranged for a police officer on their payroll, [[Whirl (G1)|Whirl]], to kill him. Before Whirl could finish the job, however, police captain [[Optimus Prime (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Orion Pax]], having discovered Megatron's innocence, arranged for his release. Despite Pax expressing support for the message of his writings, Megatron now found himself filled with rage and hate, disillusioned with his former ideology and realizing the power of applied violence. Angrily hurling the datapad on which he had written his treatise through a public info-screen, Megatron observed the jagged shape of the shattered glass, and later turned it into a [[insignia|symbol]] for his cause. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}}
[[File:MTMTE34 what you might call a thinker.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.67|When considering the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, one question remains unanswered. Why am I always pictured with phallic-shaped items in awkward positions?]]
Megatron's samizdat writings began to circulate in Cybertron's underground, spawning the "[[Decepticon]]" movement, its name derived from its own slogan, "You are being deceived", warning the common 'bot of the Senate's true nature. Knowing that, at this stage, assassinating Megatron would merely make him a martyr, the Senate instead elected to relocate him off-planet, reassigning him to a mining facility on the world of [[Messatine]] while they tried their own schemes to defuse the growing Decepticon movement. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 1: Post Hoc|Post Hoc}} It was there that Megatron met [[Terminus (G1)|Terminus]], an elderly fellow miner who encouraged him to keep writing, and who, in addition to proofreading his works for him, smuggled each new tract back to Cybertron, helping to continue the spread of the Decepticon movement. When Terminus was maimed in a mining accident and had his fuel rations cut off, Megatron kept him alive by sharing his own [[energon]] with the old 'bot. Eventually, Senate agents [[Froid]] and [[Trepan]] were dispatched to Messatine to perform mind-altering [[Shadowplay]] upon Megatron, in order to cut his writings off at the source. Tased into submission and strapped to Trepan's operating table, Megatron was helpless to stop the [[mnemosurgery|mnemosurgeon]] from beginning his vile work. Though the arrival of Froid's rival psychopathologist [[Rung (G1)|Rung]] fortunately forced Trepan to stop before Megatron's personality was altered, the experience left the miner with a lifelong fear of mnemosurgery. Subsequently, a mysterious surge of energy deep within the mine forced an evacuation of the facility; Megatron raced back to his quarters to carry Terminus to safety, but found his friend was not there. With time running out and no sign of Terminus anywhere, Megatron instead chose to save the stack of datapads containing his unpublished works—a decision that would haunt him. {{storylink|Births, Deaths, and Interventions}}
[[File:MegatronOrigin1 first kill.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.3]]
Megatron was relocated to [[Mining Outpost C-12]], and continued to seethe with hate and frustration in his new workplace. His discontent reached a peak when, some time later, [[Decimus|Senator Decimus]] arrived to announce that the mine was being automated and the workers would be relocated. When one of the Senator's guards killed a worker for insubordination and claims of Senate corruption, Megatron's fury boiled over and he hurled his pickaxe at Decimus. In turn, he was attacked by the Senator's guard, whom he killed by smashing his head to fragments—the first time he had ever taken a life. A riot erupted around him, but Megatron himself could only sit amongst the chaos, staring at his fuel-stained hands in abject horror, which allowed him to be easily pacified and rounded up with the other miners as the mayhem was quickly suppressed. En route to [[Penal Facility H-3|imprisonment]] back on [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]], however, [[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]] and [[Frenzy (G1)|Frenzy]] broke free and started a riot aboard [[Longshot (G1)|their ship]]. Megatron joined in their effort, and together, they overpowered their guards, took control of the ship, and disappeared into the [[Kaon]] underground. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 1|Megatron Origin #1}}
[[File:MegsOrigin2 Cykill.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Battle of the Awesome Voices!]]
After evading law enforcement, Megatron joined a team of underworld gladiators under the tutelage of [[Clench (G1)|Clench]]. Initially repulsed by killing his opponents, the games eventually turned him more brutal and excessive, and he took control of the entire operation from Clench. The opportunistic Senator [[Ratbat (G1)|Ratbat]], after seeing how much money there was in the underworld matches, covertly sent his agent [[Soundwave (G1)|Soundwave]] to offer Megatron weaponry and technology to upgrade himself and his comrades. Their meeting was spied upon by [[Bumper (G1)|Bumper]] and [[Fastback (G1)|Fastback]], agents from the Senate's forces, who Megatron slew. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 2|Megatron Origin #2}} Subsequently, impressed by how he treated his animal-form [[Decepticon Mini-Cassette|cassette partners]] as equals (in contradiction to the teachings of his Senate masters), Megatron invited Soundwave back to the gladiator pits and gave him permission to use his mind-reading abilities on him. Within Megatron's mind, Soundwave saw his honest desire for all Cybertronians to be true equals, and was so moved by it that he joined Megatron's cause. {{storylink|Soundwaves (issue)|Soundwaves}}

Gradually, Megatron used the gladiatorial games to drum up an army of violent malcontents, sending Soundwave to recruit more and more warriors to his cause. Such recruits included [[Starscream (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Starscream]], [[Thundercracker (G1)|Thundercracker]] and [[Skywarp (G1)|Skywarp]], who he was presented with while having an arm he lost in a brawl replaced with a new limb that incorporated an [[energon mace]], {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 3|Megatron Origin #3}} and the disenfranchised warrior [[Drift (G1)|Drift]], who was personally asked by Megatron to fight at his side when he attended a Decepticon rally, and whom Megatron rechristened "Deadlock," {{storylink|Drift issue 2|Drift #2}} and transformed into a capable Decepticon warrior. {{Storylink|Drift issue 3|Drift #3}} Seeking to enhance his army even further, Megatron reached out to [[Shockwave (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Senator Shockwave]], offering to supply him the resources he required to carry out his own mysterious experiments in exchange for his using the teachings of his lost mentor [[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] to create a [[combiner]] that would serve the Decepticons. Shockwave cautioned that it could take some time, but Megatron was content to wait. {{storylink|Shockwaves}}

[[File:Apexthrone.JPG|upright=1.4|thumb|You should have gone to IKEA.]]
Despite all his efforts, Megatron believed that the Senate was still not taking the Decepticons seriously, so Soundwave formulated a plan for a declaration of intent that could be not denied: lure the Senate to Kaon and murder them. {{storylink|Soundwaves (issue)|Soundwaves}} In preparation for this scheme, Megatron offered to restore Shockwave's lost hands—a victim of [[empurata]]—believing that doing so might speed his work. {{storylink|Shockwaves}} The following day, in accordance with Soundwave's plan, Megatron and the Decepticons allowed themselves to be arrested by Sentinel Prime's men, after which Soundwave was freed on Ratbat's orders, while Starscream would ensure his own release by pretending to defect. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 3|Megatron Origin #3}} Together, Soundwave and Starscream exterminated the entire Senate, then liberated Megatron and the rest of their comrades, in the process granting their leader the gift of a [[fusion cannon]] liberated from the Senate forces' armory. Megatron led his army against Sentinel Prime's men, killed Sentinel himself, and took control of Kaon, now ready to turn his insurgency into a full-blown war. {{storylink|Megatron Origin issue 4|Megatron Origin #4}}

===Early days of war===

Megatron formally declared war on "[[Declaration Day]]" when he delivered a stirring speech from [[Nova Point|Nova Peak]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} The growing Decepticon forces swiftly spread across six [[Polities of Cybertron|Torus-States]], {{storylink|Parasites}} and to combat them, Cybertron's new leader [[Zeta Prime (G1)|Zeta Prime]] assembled a new military force, the "[[Autobot]]s", led by Megatron's old acquaintance [[Optimus Prime (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Orion Pax]]. Researching his new opposite number, Megatron was intrigued to discover that his now-abandoned treatise had been a source of inspiration for Pax, who had even quoted from it when he confronted the Senate and openly accused them of corruption. {{storylink|Cause and Effect}} Early into the war, [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] would admit to Pax that Megatron talked about him sometimes, when he was tired. When Pax asked what was said, Bludgeon told him that it would make "both of us feel ''uncomfortable''". {{storylink|Omega's Conundrum}}
[[File:Autocracy4 backroom meeting.jpg|upright=1.66|left|thumb]]
When Orion Pax came close to Kaon during a mission, Megatron saw it as a chance to speak to him and had his Decepticons bring him in. {{storylink|The Hunt for Soundwave}} Megatron attempted to convince him that Zeta Prime was even worse than he appeared—that he had planned to let Orion die in [[Nyon]] so that he could use his death as pretext to invade the rebel-infested city and drain the citizens of their energon—and proposed they work together against him, but Orion refused to hear him and then escaped. Knowing the doubts he'd placed in his head would only serve to damage the Autobot cause, Megatron let him go. {{storylink|Cause and Effect}}
[[File:Autocracy8 megs and pax together.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"Megatron, let's roll." "What you thinking?" "...Pub?"]]
Megatron continued to keep an eye on Orion Pax's activities, spying on his encounter with the Nyon insurgent [[Hot Rod (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Hot Rod]]. {{storylink|Ruins}} When Zeta Prime's [[Guardian robot|Omega Destructor]]s suddenly attacked Nyon, Megatron was surprised by how zealously the new Prime fought against the city's rebels, but his real interest still lay on how Orion would handle the crisis. {{storylink|Purge}} Orion turned on Zeta, who in turn attempted to kill him, prompting Megatron to intervene and force the Prime to retreat. Taking Orion back to Kaon, he again offered that they work together against Zeta's corruption, and this time the Autobot officer accepted. {{storylink|Choices}} As their combined forces invaded the [[Citadel]] in Iacon, Megatron and Orion Pax made their way inside and fought Zeta Prime in person. The battle ended with Megatron killing the Prime with a head shot, and with his objective complete, he then betrayed the injured Orion by shooting him in the back. {{storylink|Overthrown}} This moment lived in infamy as the point at which Megatron revealed his true colors, no longer couched in ideology; {{storylink|Dinobot Hunt}} though curiously, an alternate report incorrectly implied he had assassinated Zeta from afar, sniping him with the rifle alternate mode of [[Vos (DJD)|Vos]]. {{storylink|Bullets}} {{storylink|Liars, A to D Part 3: The Chaos of Warm Things|The Chaos of Warm Things}}

[[File:Autocracy12 no you dont megatron.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb|I can't be the only one with deja vu here.]]
With Zeta dead, Megatron conquered Iacon and declared himself ruler of Cybertron. His soldiers patrolled the planet's streets to "keep the peace", mostly by hunting down and capturing any remaining Autobots who opposed him. {{storylink|Transformation (issue)|Transformation}} During his rule, Megatron attempted to sway the neutral Hot Rod into joining the Decepticons, but he decided otherwise upon witnessing Megatron ordering the execution of several Autobot prisoners. {{storylink|Rise}} Megatron was shocked to learn that Orion Pax had survived the betrayal and was organizing a rebellion against him under the name "Optimus Prime", and even more shocked that people actually had the courage to listen to him. He wasted no time in striking back against the rebels approaching the Citadel with the full force of his army. {{storylink|Broadcast}} During the battle, Megatron unleashed Zeta Prime's energy-draining [[vamparc ribbon|vamparc annihilator]], but when the gigantic [[Metroplex (G1)|Metroplex]] took out the cannon, Megatron fell to the streets and was confronted by Optimus Prime himself. He lost the ensuing [[The Transformers: The Movie|familiar-looking duel]] and was badly wounded after a failed attempt to defeat Prime by holding Hot Rod hostage, forcing him to escape aboard Astrotrain. As he fled, he warned Optimus that he hadn't won, he had only started a war unlike any Cybertron had ever seen. {{storylink|Endgame}}

[[File:Monstrosity3 Megatron and Pentius.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66|Megatron insists on wearing his Darksiders cosplay when he's walking his pet Quintesson.]]
Before Megatron could recover from his injuries, he was betrayed by [[Scorponok (G1)|Scorponok]], who was gunning for the position of Decepticon leader (with aid from Starscream). As punishment for his failure to hold Iacon, Scorponok banished the wounded Megatron to the hell-world of [[Junkion (planet)|Junkion]]. {{storylink|Derelicts}} Further injured in battle with some [[Junkion (species)|cannibalistic natives]], he stubbornly refused to give up and used the trash littering the world to patch himself up, leaving him with a mismatched, monstrous appearance. {{storylink|Wreckage (issue)|Wreckage}} While searching for a way off Junkion, Megatron entered the wreckage of a starship and found a trapped [[Quintesson]] named [[Pentius]], who had mapped the planet and knew of an area known as the [[Pillar of Rust]] where starships may land and take off. Megatron freed the alien to guide him there, while also putting him in chains to serve as his slave. {{storylink|Faces of Darkness}}
[[File:Monstrosity7 megatron takes pentius spark.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb|"Thanks for turning me into the psychopath I've been the whole time!"]]
While crossing the [[Acid Sea]] on the way to the Pillar, Megatron was attacked by [[Sharkticon (G1)|Sharkticons]] who pulled him into the depths. {{storylink|Rage (IDW)|Rage}} For reasons unknown he was then released, the creatures having allowed him to live. As he emerged, Pentius was waiting with a history lesson, telling him that Junkion was once a prosperous world until its inhabitants drained it of resources, leaving it the broken husk it is today: a fate that may also await Cybertron. Megatron rejected this possibility, declaring that under his rule, Cybertron—and his legacy—would last forever. {{storylink|Fallout (issue)|Fallout}} On arrival at the Pillar of Rust, Megatron was met by the [[Terrorcon (G1)|Terrorcons]], who had come to Junkion to finish what Scorponok had started by killing him. He was able to fight off several of his attackers, but [[Hun-Gurrr (G1)|Hun-Gar]] was too much for him to handle in his injured state. Egged on and taunted by Pentius, Megatron realized he had one last resource left to use: the Quintesson himself. Telling Pentius that his legacy would live on within him, he tore out the alien's [[spark]] and used it to fuel himself, granting him enough power to defeat Hun-Gar. He spared the Terrorcons in exchange for their loyalty, then returned to Cybertron on their ship to take revenge on Scorponok and take back control of the Decepticons. {{storylink|Prey (issue)|Prey}}
[[File:Monstrosity12 strange turns.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb]]
Megatron returned to a Cybertron in chaos, as the ancient reptilian [[Trypticon (G1)|Trypticon]] had been unleashed by Scorponok and was in the midst of razing Iacon. After reasserting his leadership of the Decepticons by beating Scorponok nearly to death, he had Shockwave restore his body to it original shape and condition, {{storylink|The Illusion of Control}} and set out to investigate the Trypticon situation alone, unwilling to risk his soldiers in the face of the beast's uncontrolled fury. Finding an injured Optimus Prime on the battlefield, Megatron lectured him, but opted to leave him alive so that he could watch as the Decepticon leader defeated the enemy that Prime could not. Megatron was attacked by [[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]], but as they grappled, they were swallowed by Trypticon. {{storylink|Annihilation}} Within the giant, the pair set their differences aside to fend off the [[cyber-morphic predator]]s that populated his interior, and together, they destroyed Trypticon's internal power cell, taking him offline. A tense standoff between the Autobots and Decepticons followed as the two warriors emerged from within Trypticon, but both sides agreed to go their separate ways for the time being. Not long after the battle, however, Megatron removed Pentius's spark from within himself and installed it within Trypticon. {{storylink|Belly of the Beast (issue)|Belly of the Beast}}
[[File:Primacy4 megatron imprisoned.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4]]

After being fully repaired following his ordeals, Megatron roused Trypticon by exploiting the connection they now shared thanks to both having borne Pentius's spark. Discovering that Trypticon now possessed the consciousness of Pentius, Megatron was immediately suspicious of the Quintesson's potential treachery and was staggered by the visions of undiluted evil he saw in the aliens' past via their spark-link, but Trypticon assured him that he was dedicated to their shared goal of breaking a world. {{storylink|Primacy issue 1|Primacy #1}} Using Trypticon's city-ship alternate mode, Megatron took to the stars, rounding up the scattered Decepticon army and even recruiting Junkions and Sharkticons. {{storylink|Primacy issue 2|Primacy #2}} Returning to Cybertron in force, Megatron was content to wait and watch from the sidelines while his troops viciously tore into Iacon. Trypticon was defeated in battle by Metroplex, at which point Megatron's folly was revealed: through their link, Pentius mockingly revealed his intention to use Trypticon consume Cybertron once the Autobots and Decepticons had weakened each other. {{storylink|Primacy issue 3|Primacy #3}} Leaving his men with orders to burn Iacon to the ground if he failed in order to spare it such a fate, Megatron set off for Trypticon's fallen body in hopes that he would be able to remove Pentius's spark before the giant revived. Confronted atop Trypticon by Optimus Prime, Megatron tried to goad the Autobot leader into destroying him, believing that Pentius would be destroyed with him thanks to their link. Refusing to accept death as the answer, Optimus instead used the [[Matrix of Leadership]] to purify Megatron, burning Pentius's spark away; Megatron, however, vowed that he would never stop hating Optimus in spite of what he had done for him. Sadly resigned to the fact that the once-noble revolutionary he had admired was now lost, Optimus knocked out the weakened Megatron and took him into custody. {{storylink|Primacy issue 4|Primacy #4}}
{{-}}

===The spreading conflict===
[[File:MTMTE14 megatron vs overlord.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb]]

Escaping Autobot custody under as-yet-unrevealed circumstances, Megatron continued to wage the war. Early in the continuing conflict, he wrote ''[[Towards Peace]]'', a new treatise to replace ''After the Ark'', in which he described continuing to fight the war until the very notion of conflict was literally inconceivable. Then and only then would he finally give up his fusion cannon. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} The earliest edition of the work featured a dedication to Terminus, which Megatron would later remove to reflect the lesson his friendship with Terminus had taught him: not to get attached. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} He oversaw the creation of a class of super-warriors known as the [[Warriors Elite]], selecting only his most powerful troops to undergo the torturous upgrade, including [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]], a brilliant sadist and frequent opponent of his from his pit-fighting days who had developed an obsession with Megatron after the Decepticon leader dealt him his first ever defeat. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} At some point, he also created the [[Decepticon Justice Division]] to deal with traitors, {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} though he elected not to send them after Deadlock when he defected, valuing the warrior enough to instead dispatch [[Lockdown (G1)|Lockdown]] to bring him in. {{storylink|Drift issue 2|Drift #2}}
[[File:ChaosTheory prime vs megatron montage.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Good times, bad times.]]
Megatron would personally clash with Optimus Prime many times; Optimus grew to respect and fear Megatron as a calm, calculating and measured opponent, while Megatron himself respected Prime's sheer power and his skill as a tactician and as a leader. {{storylink|Escalation issue 5|Escalation #5}} Megatron would later incorrectly recall their battle on [[Sherma Bridge]] during the [[Rorsha Campaign]] as the first time they met. Said battle was certainly momentous—every Autobot and Decepticon stopped fighting to witness their duel, during which Megatron's cannon arm was sliced off by Prime's [[energon-axe]], and he claimed revenge by throwing the Autobot leader off the bridge. As the war spread to other planets, they would meet again and again: during the [[Siege of Massunstrad]], Megatron sealed Prime in an anti-matter chamber; on [[Rada Mor]], Prime reduced Megatron to ashes with sentient explosives; and in the midst of the [[Vorsk Offensive]], Megatron was nearly sliced in half by Prime. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}} Though he resisted [[Tyrest (G1)|Tyrest]]'s attempts to find a "Two City-State Solution" to the war, he did agree to abide by the [[Tyrest Accord]]. {{storylink|Remain in Light 2 of 5: House of Ambus|House of Ambus}}

Megatron took on a new pistol alternate mode for the [[Battle for Hell's Point]], during which he was used by [[Heretech]] to blast [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Ultra Magnus]]. {{storylink|The Gloaming}} During the same skirmish, Megatron took off half of Prime's face with his energon mace, but had a city block dropped on him by Prime in retribution, which shattered his [[transformation cog]] and trapped him in gun mode for two years. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}} Prime was not the only old face that Megatron would see again during the war: during a battle on an aerial drilling platform over the [[Manganese Mountains]], Megatron came face-to-face with his old friend Impactor, and stood poised to execute him until Impactor gave him a moment's pause by recalling his old fondness for poetry. In this moment, Megatron was knocked from the platform by [[Springer (G1)|Springer]] and sent plummeting to the mountains below. {{storylink|Zero Point}}
[[File:LastStandoftheWreckers2-teleconference.jpg|upright=1.66|left|thumb|"We attack the Rice Krispies guys at dawn! Assuming Judd Hirsch delivers the goods."]]
At the war's zenith, Megatron sealed himself in an [[Omniglobe]] to absorb the relentless flood of data coming in from countless fronts. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement}} With total war going nowhere, he would go on to develop a six-stage [[infiltration protocol]] to be used for conquering targeted planets. The sixth phase called for outright planetary razing, and Megatron selected three of his Warriors Elite for this task: [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]], {{storylink|Devastation issue 5|Devastation #5}}, Overlord and [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]]. He informed this trio of his decision via teleconference, but Overlord, tired of being used as someone else's weapon, refused. Megatron threatened to hunt Overlord down for his disobedience, {{storylink|Last Stand of the Wreckers issue 2|Last Stand of the Wreckers #2}} but while the powerful warrior spent the rest of his life preparing for this conflict, Megatron never followed up and left him to stew in his own obsession. {{storylink|Last Stand of the Wreckers issue 5|Last Stand of the Wreckers #5}}
[[File:Stormbringer1 get up and fight.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|You don't gotta go home Prime but you can't stay here.]]
Deducing that the Autobot/Decepticon war would culminate in an energy crisis that would threatened the stability of Cybertron itself, Shockwave left Cybertron to secretly pursue alternate energy sources. Around 10,000 years ago, when Shockwave did not return, Megatron ordered Bludgeon to investigate his files, {{storylink|Spotlight: Shockwave}} secretly assigning Soundwave to investigate Bludgeon {{storylink|Spotlight: Soundwave}} and probe deeper into whatever it was Shockwave had created. {{storylink|Shockpoint}}

Shockwave's prediction soon proved accurate, and Cybertron found itself in the throes of an energy shortage. Decepticon scientist [[Thunderwing (G1)|Thunderwing]] came to Megatron with a revolutionary, controversial plan to stave off this energy death by [[Pretender|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; instead, he experimented on himself. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 3|Stormbringer #3}} {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 4|Stormbringer #4}} The process gave him immense power, but drove him insane. He became so dangerous 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. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 1|Stormbringer #1}} 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. Shortly after the last big push by the Decepticons, Cybertron was abandoned by both factions. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 1|Stormbringer #2}}

===Breaking protocol===
[[File:Infiltration4 enter megatron.jpg|upright=1.3|left|thumb]]
In the present day, when word reached Megatron that the infiltration unit led by [[Starscream (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Starscream]], stationed on the planet [[Earth]], had broken protocol, he headed for the planet to investigate. Examining the unit's abandoned bunker in [[Nebraska]] for information, he discovered that Starscream had stumbled across [[Ore-13]]—an incredible energy source that (unbeknownst to Megatron) was the end result of Shockwave's experiments—and was planning to use it to usurp Megatron's command. {{storylink|Infiltration issue 4|Infiltration #4}} While studying the bunker's files, he was contacted by [[Razorclaw (G1)|Razorclaw]] with some distressing news: Bludgeon's investigations of Shockwave's files had led him to revive Thunderwing. Megatron ordered the [[Predacon (G1)|Predacons]] to Cybertron, authorizing them to do whatever was necessary to destroy Thunderwing, including the destruction of their homeworld itself. {{storylink|Stormbringer issue 3|Stormbringer #3}} Just as he was handing down this order, Megatron was happened upon by [[Verity Carlo]], a human ally of the Autobot unit active on the planet, {{storylink|Infiltration issue 4|Infiltration #4}} but he utterly ignored her. The bunker was then leveled by an airstrike courtesy of [[Blitzwing (G1)|Blitzwing]] and [[Skywarp (G1)|Skywarp]], who were merely covering their unit's tracks and unaware of Megatron's presence; when their leader furiously emerged from the wreckage, Skywarp attempted to explain their ignorance, but Megatron simply responded by blasting him out of the sky. Blitzwing favored opening fire rather than attempting explanations, so Megatron beat the stuffing out of him too, then set off for Starscream's new bunker in [[Oregon]]. {{storylink|Infiltration issue 5|Infiltration #5}}

[[File:Infiltration6 takeyourpunishment.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Those librarians are getting really strict on late returns.]]

{{quote|You will stand down. If you fight, you ''die''. There is no room anymore for mercy. In the end, you are ''all'' expendable. Choose.|Megatron's ultimatum to Starscream's renegade troops|[[Infiltration issue 6|''Infiltration'' #6]]}}

[[Orbital jump]]ing to Oregon, Megatron called Starscream out and ordered the team to stand down, disgusted to see such power games being played amongst his troops. His brief, chilling speech was enough to take the fight out of all but Starscream, who, powered-up on Ore-13, took Megatron on himself. Though the new power source made Starscream a formidable adversary, Megatron was still more deadly than he, and Starscream was taken out by a point-blank fusion cannon blast through his torso. Megatron ordered the Decepticons to ensure that Starscream survived, and then, observing the Autobots who had been watching the battle, announced that it was time to begin phase two. {{storylink|Infiltration issue 6|Infiltration #6}}

In light of the discovery of Ore-13, Megatron took stock of Starscream's progress on Earth and elected to get the infiltration protocol back on track himself, calling a meeting to make Starscream's former troops and making them aware, in no uncertain terms, that any further insurrections would be met with deadly force. {{storylink|Escalation issue 1|Escalation #1}} He continued to order his troops on Earth directly, {{storylink|Escalation issue 2|Escalation #2}} and was even able to revisit his past gun alternate mode, once again able to achieve the [[size changing|mass displacement]] the mode required thanks to the extra energy Ore-13 provided. {{storylink|Escalation issue 3|Escalation #3}}

[[File:Megsandspidy.jpg|left|upright=1.4|thumb]]
With his forces joined by [[Ramjet (G1)|Ramjet]], a new arrival who Megatron suspected of having ulterior motives, {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Two|Man and Machine #2}} the Decepticon leader initiated phase two of infiltration protocol by destabilizing relations between the European nations of [[Latveria]] and [[Symkaria]] through use of an aggression-inducing [[Psycho-Prism]], stolen from Latverian dictator [[Doctor Doom]]. When the superhero team known as the [[Avengers]] investigated the array the Decepticons' were using to broadcast the prism's signal, Megatron abducted the arachnid-powered [[Spider-Man]] to use as a subject for their [[mirror response mode]], {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part One|Man and Machine #1}} draining the hero's powers and infusing himself and the other Decepticons with them. {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Two|Man and Machine #2}} He proceeded to forge a brief alliance with Doctor Doom, who helped him defeat and capture the allied Autobot/Avenger team who snuck inside the Decepticons' array, but when Doom's suggestion to threaten the captives in order to force the other heroes to lay down their arms failed, Megatron violently dissolved the partnership. {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Three|Man and Machine #3}} Emerging from the confines of the array to take on the Autobots and Avengers himself, Megatron refrained from engaging Prime, foreseeing a more intimate confrontation between the two of them in the near future, and instead turned his attention to destroying [[Iron Man]]'s Transformer-sized armor. The tables soon turned, however, when Doctor Doom freed the captive Autobots and used the Decepticon's mirror response technology to empower them. Defeated by these enhanced Autobots and with the Psycho-Prism destroyed by [[Wolverine (superhero)|Wolverine]], Megatron used the last of his extra power to teleport the Decepticons out with an [[emergency warp-out]]. He refrained from departing alongside his warriors, intending to slaughter the Avengers for their interference, but when he was immobilized by Spider-Man's webbing, knocked to the ground by [[Luke Cage]], and rattled by a hail of Autobot fire, he finally warped-out with a final taunt to Optimus Prime of the battle yet to come between them. {{storylink|Man and Machine, Part Four|Man and Machine #4}}
[[File:Massdisplacement.jpg|upright=2.2|thumb]]
With phase two of [[infiltration protocol]] properly underway, Megatron recognized that he ''should'' rightly withdraw and install a new unit commander on Earth, but could not resist the chance to try out his new Ore-13 empowered body, selecting the nation of [[Brasnya]], where Decepticon subterfuge was already underway, as his testing ground. {{storylink|Escalation issue 2|Escalation #2}} Allowing the Decepticon's [[facsimile construct]] [[Georgi Koska]] to wield him in pistol mode, Megatron had Koska use him to first sever a [[Russia]]n oil pipeline, and then to fire upon the soldiers who came to investigate, furthering the political and military tensions already brewing in the region. When word came through from Blitzwing that Optimus Prime and the Autobots had arrived, {{storylink|Escalation issue 3|Escalation #3}} Megatron at last engaged Optimus directly, {{storylink|Escalation issue 4|Escalation #4}} and although Prime was able to destroy his fusion cannon, the extra strength afforded Megatron by Ore-13 allowed him to physically beat Prime into submission, punching directly into his chest and crushing his [[spark]]. {{storylink|Escalation issue 5|Escalation #5}} {{storylink|Spotlight: Optimus Prime}} [[File:Escalation5 prime vs megs.jpg|upright=1.4|left|thumb]] The horrified Autobots moved into a full but ineffective counterattack, their only edge being that Megatron had no long-range guns left. It turned out that Prime's apparent death was a desperate ruse when 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. {{storylink|Escalation issue 6|Escalation #6}}

Furious over the embarrassing defeat, Megatron threw protocol out the window and ordered that Sixshot be summoned to the planet. {{storylink|Escalation issue 6|Escalation #6}} He took out some of his anger on Ramjet, who he discovered had been busy cooking up a plot to overthrow him; without saying a word, he beat the attempted traitor to death before tearing him apart and keeping his head as a trophy. {{storylink|Spotlight: Ramjet}}
[[File:Devastation5 decepticons attack.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb]]
Upon Sixshot's arrival, Megatron ordered him to utterly destroy the Autobots, and although the [[Phase Sixer]] questioned his early deployment, he was happy to go along with the abandonment of the phase structure. The other Decepticons, on the other hand, 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. {{storylink|Devastation issue 1|Devastation #1}} {{storylink|Maximum Dinobots issue 1|Maximum Dinobots #1}} Megatron monitored Sixshot's attack on the Autobots' [[Ark-19]], ordering him to pursue the escape pod that broke away from the crashing craft, {{storylink|Devastation issue 2|Devastation #2}} but before he could obliterate the Autobots, Megatron was forced to recall him to deal with a new threat assaulting the Decepticon base—the alien [[Reaper]]s. {{storylink|Devastation issue 4|Devastation #4}} Unfortunately, the Reapers convinced Sixshot to side with them, and when an Ore-13 powered Starscream entered the fray to take Sixshot down, Megatron realized his troops had been conspiring against him. He decided not to punish them '''yet''', due to greater threat posed by the Reapers, {{storylink|Devastation issue 5|Devastation #5}} and entered battle alongside them all, even allowing Starscream to wield him in pistol mode against the aliens. After the invaders were dead, however, he turned on his men, starting with Blitzwing—but was forced to realize that they needed to remain united when it became apparent that their battle with the Reapers had made humanity inescapably aware of their existence {{storylink|Devastation issue 6|Devastation #6}} {{storylink|Spotlight: Grimlock}}
{{-}}

===All Hail Megatron===
[[File:AHM7 megs rips out matrix.jpg|upright=1.1|left|thumb|"I don't think I'd have made a good medic. No patience."]]
While the Decepticons were occupied fighting the Reapers, the Autobots had left Earth to deal with the greater threat of an incursion by the [[Dead Universe]]. Exploiting their enemies' absence, Megatron and his men went to ground; when Autobots returned, they could find no trace of the Decepticons, who kept one step ahead of them for months. Secretly abducting [[Hunter O'Nion]], former [[Headmaster (technology)|Headmaster]] partner to the Autobot [[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]], Megatron and his men returned to Cybertron, where Megatron had [[Deluge (G2)|Deluge]] conduct experiments that bred a [[Insecticon swarm|swarm]] of monstrous [[Insecticon (G1)|Insecticons]]. The experiments culminated in the creation of [[Bombshell (G1)|Bombshell]], who Megatron employed in a series of key tasks in his plan: the Insecticon obtained from Hunter's mind various Autobot secrets and codes, completed Shockwave's long-gestating combiner process, granting the [[Constructicon (G1)|Constructicons]] the ability to combine into [[Devastator (G1)|Devastator]], and created a working [[space bridge]] {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 7|All Hail Megatron #7}} based on designs sold to them by Sixshot in exchange for his freedom. {{storylink|Spotlight: Metroplex}}

Returning to Earth, the Decepticons staged a phony schism within their ranks, allowing the Autobots to believe that they had "disappeared" as a result of a power struggle that had split their ranks into two camps, one led by Megatron and one by Starscream. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 7|All Hail Megatron #7}} Starscream then approached Sunstreaker, whose experience has a Headmaster had left him bitter and jaded, with the proposition that the Autobots join with his forces against Megatron, {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 8|All Hail Megatron #8}} but when the Autobots arrived at the designated time and place, they were instead confronted by the united Decepticon army and quickly defeated by Devastator. After personally tearing [[Matrix of Leadership]] from Optimus Prime's chest, Megatron marched the captive Autobots through the space bridge back to Cybertron, where the Insecticon swarm waited for them. Prime, however, was able to damage the bridge, causing it to deposit the Autobots a safe distance from the swarm, but in the process, fried his own circuits and left himself comatose. Though the Autobots had escaped the fate he had intended for them, Megatron had successfully exiled his enemies to their dead homeworld; moreover, using information and codes gained from Sunstreaker and Hunter, he concurrently orchestrated the event that would later be known as [[Surge (event)|The Surge]], as Decepticons stormed Autobot installations all across the galaxy, achieving total victory. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 7|All Hail Megatron #7}}

[[File:Bringingthehousedown.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb|Megatron's urban renewal program was off to a flying start.]]
With galaxy-wide domination accomplished, one year after the Decepticons' battle with the Reapers, Megatron chose Earth to become the new Decepticon homeworld. Together with his men, Megatron stormed [[New York City]], humiliating Starscream with a display of his greater capacity for destruction. When the US Air Force retaliated, Megatron shrugged off their fire and ordered the other Decepticons to engage them; when one damaged jet threw itself toward him in a suicide run, Megatron, outraged at the [[DJ (G1)|pilot]]'s temerity, destroyed it and its occupant with a furious swipe of his hand. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 1|All Hail Megatron #1}} When US Army forces arrived, Megatron ordered [[Frenzy (G1)|Frenzy]] dispatched to deal with them, then sent Devastator to destroy the subway tunnels leading out of the city. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 2|All Hail Megatron #2}} With New York secured, Megatron directed the Constructicons to begin building a new space bridge in the city's heart, and had a candid talk with Starscream, revealing his belief that the [[Seeker (body-type)|Seeker]]'s attitude and actions marked him as the embodiment of the Decepticon cause, even if he was blind to seeing it himself. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 3|All Hail Megatron #3}} After a series of further attacks on major American cities saw the country firmly crushed under the Decepticons' collective heel, Megatron made a propaganda speech to his men in the ruins of New York. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 4|All Hail Megatron #4}} As night fell upon the city, Megatron withdrew to privately gloat over the Matrix. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 5|All Hail Megatron #5}}

[[File:AHM6MegatronVsIsrael.jpg|left|upright=1.66|thumb]]
As the Decepticons began attacking other countries around the globe, Megatron was questioned by Starscream on what the next step in his plan was. A recalcitrant Megatron merely informed him that it was merely time to savor their victory, but Starscream accused him of not ''having'' any plans post-victory, and was merely allowing his men to run wild to distract them from any notion of taking power for themselves. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 6|All Hail Megatron #6}} What Starscream did not realize was that Megatron did indeed have a plan: to defeat the Autobots, he had created an army of killers and monsters, but in order to create his perfect rule, that army would have to be destroyed, the dissenting, distasteful elements obliterated before Megatron's peace could dawn. Megatron was not distracting his warriors... he was ''waiting'' to see which of them would question and turn on him. Silently sorrowful to already know that such dissent would begin with Starscream, an otherwise-model Decepticon, {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 10|All Hail Megatron #10}} Megatron withdrew to [[Israel]] for some silent reflection amid wholesale devastation. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 6|All Hail Megatron #6}}

[[File:AHM10 megs vs devastator.jpg|upright=1.4|thumb]]
Some time later, Megatron surveyed the space bridge Bombshell and the Constructicons had built in New York. He congratulated Bombshell on his work, but revealed that he had always foreseen Bombshell's intellect as a danger—had always known he and his fellow Insecticons would side with Starscream when the time came. His gambit exposed, Starscream made his move and attacked, but the Insecticons proved no match for Megatron's might. The Decepticon leader had failed to anticipate one thing, however: he did not foresee the Constructicons siding with Starscream, and found himself having to fight the mighty Devastator. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 10|All Hail Megatron #10}} The in-fighting was halted by a last-ditch attack by the mustered might of what remained of the human resistance, forcing Megatron and Starscream to put their differences aside momentarily and organize a defense. This attack came as no surprise to Megatron, but the same could not be said for the next entrants onto the battlefield: the Autobots had returned.

After assuring Starscream that he would be leader in the future, when his time was done, Megatron confronted Optimus Prime, surprised not so much that his old foe had survived, but that he had bothered to return to Earth. Both leaders had always maintained a policy of acceptable losses through their millennia-long war, so Megatron assumed Prime had come back for selfish reasons, to reclaim the Matrix, but Prime insisted that he had changed, and would no longer allow their cold war to endanger innocent lives on this scale. [[File:AHM12 prime vs megs.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.66]] Megatron scoffed at the notion, reavling that Prime's supposedly "innocent" humans were planning to nuke New York, killing millions of their own just to get rid of the Decepticons, {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 11|All Hail Megatron #11}} but Prime retorted that it wasn't ''just'' about the humans, but also about the difference between Autobots and Decepticons. The two came to blows, but Megatron triumphed in short order and commanded the Decepticons to depart, leaving the Autobots to be killed by the humans' nuke... but just before they withdrew, he was shot in the face by human soldier [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]], wielding a powerful weapon reverse-engineered from Cybertronian technology. Injured and disoriented by the blast, Megatron was finished off when Prime smashed his face in with his own fusion cannon. As he wanted to ''take'' leadership rather than just have it fall in his hands, Starscream picked up his damaged leader and ordered the Decepticons to retreat. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 12|All Hail Megatron #12}}

[[File:AllHisEngines-Megatron.jpg|thumb|Pretty sure when you float in a bacta tank you're supposed to be wearing a diaper.]]
The Decepticons departed Earth aboard Astrotrain, where the gravely wounded Megatron was put on life support and tended to by Soundwave and his cassettes. With Megatron's life signs only at ten percent capacity, Starscream attempted to appeal to Soundwave's sense of logic and have him shut down so that leadership could be his, but Soundwave refused. Starscream was soon able to take command, however, when he recovered the Matrix of Leadership and professed to have been chosen by it. {{storylink|All Hail Megatron issue 13|Uneasy Lies the Head}}

===New body, new powers===
The Decepticons eventually settled on a desolate asteroid, where Megatron was installed in a [[CR chamber|CR tank]]. Retaining some level of awareness of the events occurring around him during his convalescence, he was forced to watch as his army languished in inactivity, their energy slowly ebbing away until they were reduced to cannibalism. {{storylink|All His Engines}} After a year of trying to free his leader from this living death, Soundwave was finally forced to conclude that Megatron's body was beyond repair, and recruited the recently returned Shockwave, whom Starscream had provided with the majority of the Decepticons' resources to create a space bridge, to help build a new body for Megatron's consciousness to inhabit. The operation succeeded and Megatron was reborn in a deadly new body, powered by Ore-13, armed with a devastatingly powerful rail gun, and even equipped with space bridge nodes stolen from Metroplex, which gave him the ability to open space bridge portals on his own. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 2: Altered Carbon|Altered Carbon}} {{storylink|Spotlight: Megatron}}

[[File:IDWongoing15 megatrons new body.jpg|left|thumb|275px|"Uh, it's like...did anyone ever see the movie ''Tron''?"]]
Back in action, Megatron devised a plan to destabilize the relationship between the humans and Autobots on Earth. Together with Soundwave and Shockwave, he chopped up his old body and used it to create human-scaled replicas of his former gun mode, containing small pieces of his own consciousness. When Starscream caught them in the act, Megatron elected to table his plan for the moment, as he considered it folly to go against Starscream's wishes for the moment since the Seeker was still in possession of the Matrix of Leadership. Megatron had never truly understood what the talisman ''did'', but it served as a threat merely by being an unknown variable. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 2: Altered Carbon|Altered Carbon}} Fortunately, for Megatron this variable was soon removed from the equation when Hot Rod, estranged from the Earthbound Autobots, infiltrated the Decepticons' asteroid base and recovered the Matrix from Starscream. Megatron seized his chance, intercepting the Autobot and blasting him and the Matrix out into the void of space. {{storylink|Heart Like a Wheel}}

[[File:SLMegatron stealth bomber mode.jpg|thumb|275px|Behold... the ''Bomberang!'']]
With Starscream's trump card now gone, Megatron had the Decepticons gathered so he could address them. Distrustful of Shockwave's motives for preparing his new body, wary of Soundwave's constant surveillance, and repulsed by the state of his once fearsome Decepticon war machine, Megatron decided that he needed to unequivocally reestablish dominance over the now Matrix-less Starscream. He intended to beat Starscream near to death as a means of letting them both work out their frustrations with Starscream's inability to lead effectively during Megatron's absence, but Starscream did not want to fight—spiritually broken by his failures, he simply wanted Megatron to kill him. Rather than accept this, Megatron instead goaded Starscream into opening fire upon him. This began a running battle between the two, with Megatron pursuing the fleeing Seeker in his new stealth bomber alternate mode, continuing to bait Starscream every time he appeared willing to give up the fight. Incensed by Starscream's accusation that he did not know what it felt like to see everything he had worked for fall apart, when that was exactly what Starscream's pitiful leadership had done to the empire he had created, Megatron pummeled him to within an inch of his life, then paused to explain why he kept a schemer like Starscream around: as a constant reminder to watch his back. The brutal display galvanized the languid Decepticons, and Megatron was ready to begin his scheme. {{storylink|Spotlight: Megatron}}

[[File:IDWongoing14 megatron guns.jpg|upright=1.66|left|thumb|Megatron doesn't support the NRA. He IS the NRA.]]
Roughly two years after the Decepticons' defeat on Earth, Megatron used his space bridge powers to dispatch a container full of the guns made from his old body to Earth, where they were found by South American gun-runners and illegally disseminated amongst an increasingly paranoid public seeking ways to protect themselves against Transformers. This allowed Megatron's consciousness to spread across North America, until it was focused enough to contact one particular owner of a Megatron gun: [[Joe Gladki]]. He deceived and manipulated the paranoid human, and eventually convinced him to perform an assassination attempt on [[Bumblebee (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Bumblebee]], the new Autobot leader. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 2: Altered Carbon|Altered Carbon}} In their ignorance, the Autobots then mistook Gladki's gun for Megatron himself and held it captive. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 1: The Demolished Man|The Demolished Man}}

[[File:IDWongoing16 megatron vs autobots.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|Not the [[Realignments|first time]] he's traded his [[fusion cannon]] for a [[rail gun]].]]
With the Autobots in chaos, Megatron started the next phase of his plan and returned to Earth personally, where he used his new stealth bomber mode to shoot down a plane carrying Optimus Prime and several other Autobots. He then hunted down the remaining Autobots, effortlessly defeating them and their new temporary leader Ultra Magnus with his powerful new body, and killing some of their [[Skywatch]] allies. Magnus tried to draw Megatron's attention from the humans, claiming the Autobots were the ones he really wanted, but Megatron assured him that humanity was his real target. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 3: Woken Furies|Woken Furies}} Taking the defeated Autobots captive, Megatron dumped them in a city and directed three of his mind-controlled human puppets to kill them. Contacting Prime directly, Megatron summoned him to the city's outskirts and revealed his plan: crush Prime's spirit and destroy the Autobots' alliance with humanity by forcing them to choose between fighting the humans or allowing them to kill them. Prime found the hole in Megatron's plan, however, when he realized that Soundwave was maintaining the connection between Megatron and his guns, and shot him in the head. His connection to his pawns severed, Megatron scooped up Soundwave and withdrew. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 4: Burning Chrome|Burning Chrome}} Thanks to a tracker Ultra Magnus had slipped on Soundwave, though, Prime was able to follow the Decepticons to their bolthole and called Megatron out for a full and proper confrontation. In actuality, Prime had lured Megatron outside so Skywatch could drop a [[kinetic harpoon]] on him, but even a weapon dropped from orbit barely proved able to put a scratch in Megatron's mighty new exostructure. Megatron proceeded to beat Prime senseless, but then returned him to the Autobots, and to their great shock, surrendered to their custody. After recovering, Optimus demanded to know why he had surrendered, but Megatron merely taunted him by revealing that Spike Witwicky had murdered a Decepticon in cold blood. {{storylink|Revenge of the Decepticons Part 5: Enemy Mine|Enemy Mine}} Prime immediately had Prowl begin investigating Spike and Skywatch, and Prowl interrogated the Decepticon leader for information, which he provided after a little verbal sparring. {{storylink|Police Action: Prologue}}

[[File:ChaosTheory1 megatron imprisoned.jpg|upright=1.5|left|thumb|Megatron and Optimus Prime can't agree on a safe word.]]
When Rodimus returned to Earth and warned the Autobots that [[Galvatron (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Galvatron]] had taken control of Cybertron, Optimus decided to lead the Autobots in reclaiming their homeworld. In the name of Earth's safety, he elected to bring Megatron and the confiscated guns made from his old body with them. {{storylink|Space Opera—Final Tableaux: Orphans of the Helix|Orphans of the Helix}} On the way to Cybertron aboard [[Omega Supreme (G1)|Omega Supreme]], Prime again attempted to discern why Megatron had surrendered, even releasing his old foe from his bonds and having a civil conversation with him about their past together and their dueling ideologies. Optimus tried to reach out to Megatron, offering him the chance to end the war once and for all with a handshake; Megatron appeared to consider it for a moment but ultimately remained silent. With Megatron returned to the confines of the [[variable voltage harness]], the other Autobots pressured Optimus for a decision on his fate: execution or imprisonment. Trying to come to a conclusion, Prime asked Megatron if he regretted any of his actions, but the Decepticon leader remarked that he only regretted not killing ''more'' Autobots. He taunted Prime with the notion that even he was thankful for the war, as it had raised him from a nobody to the greatest Autobot in history, and a furious Prime activated the harness, electrocuting Megatron. The jolt would have killed Megatron if Omega Supreme had not cut the power in time and Megatron, struggling to stay conscious, offered Prime his thanks for saving his life all those years ago in Rodion. Shocked by his actions, Prime realized that Megatron wanted to die and wanted Prime to be the one to kill him. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 1|Chaos Theory #1}} Eventually, Prime decided to let Megatron choose his own fate, and Megatron calmly replied that he chose death. {{storylink|Chaos Theory Part 2|Chaos Theory #2}}

[[File:Chaos2 armored megatron.jpg|upright=1.3|thumb|...Again...?]]
As Omega drew close to Cybertron, Megatron demanded to know who or what was threatening their homeworld, but Optimus Prime refused to provde him with any information. {{storylink| Chaos Part One: Lamentations|Lamentations}} The Autobots subsequently engaged Galvatron's forces in battle, and while they were occupied, Megatron put into motion the ace he had up his sleeve: taking remote control of the numerous "Megatron guns" aboard Omega, Megatron summoned them to him and combined with them into a new armored mode. Breaking free from his restraints, he headed out to confront Galvatron, intent that nobody would take his world from him. {{storylink|Chaos Part Two: Numbers|Numbers}} As he tore through the Sweeps, Megatron also revealed the reason for his surrender: now that he was back on Cybertron, he could open a space bridge that would allow the massed forces of the Decepticons on Earth to return to their home planet as well. Unfortunately, not long after the Decepticons arrived on the battlefield, Galvatron's secret puppet master, the Dead Universe entity known as [[D-Void]], seized control of their minds and those of the Sweeps, merging them into a gigantic, monstrous avatar. With Prime occupied pursuing Galvatron into Cybertron's depths, Megatron was left to face this "[[Deceptigod]]" alone. {{storylink|Chaos Part Three: Kings|Kings}} Fighting against D-Void's attempts to ensnare his own mind and make him part of the collective, Megatron was gravely wounded and even lost an arm to the beast, but succeeded into destroying it, blasting it apart with one massive beam from his weapons. {{storylink|Chaos Part Four: Genesis|Genesis}}

===The long game===
Even as the Deceptigod disintegrated back into its component Decepticons, Megatron could see the potential the creature embodied—D-Void had, in essence, created the perfect combiner by means of utterly obliterating free will. With Cybertron reverting into a primordial wasteland around him—a result of Optimus Prime purifying [[Vector Sigma]] with the Matrix to stop Galvatron and D-Void—Megatron chose to withdraw to experiment with the possibilities this presented. He informed Shockwave, the sole Decepticon who had not been made part of the Deceptigod, of his plans, and Shockwave in turn revealed them to Soundwave and Bombshell. {{storylink|Shockpoint}} While Megatron hid in the wilderness, his Decepticons were left to live as second-class citizens in the new [[Iacon (polity)|Iacon]] that the Autobots built; Optimus Prime left Cybertron two weeks after D-Void's defeat to calm tensions with "NAILs"—other unaffiliated Cybertronians—who had returned to their homeworld, but even as he did so, he mused that Megatron must still be out there somewhere. {{storylink|Transformers: The Death of Optimus Prime|The Death of Optimus Prime}}

[[File:RID11 megatron in wilderness.jpg|left|thumb|225px|Megatron can't find anyone who wants to join his nudist colony to save his skin.]]
In the months of study and experimentation that followed, Megatron discerned that the combination of Ore-13 and space bridge technology in his body somehow gave him the ability to manipulate the natural energy of Cybertron that D-Void had used to merge the Decepticons into the Deceptigod. After experiments on [[turbofox]]es created larger, more ferocious beasts, Megatron stepped up trials when the [[Aerialbot (G1)|Aerialbots]] seceded from the shaky government Bumblebee, [[Metalhawk (Masterforce)|Metalhawk]] and Starscream were building in Iacon and ventured into the wilderness. The signal Megatron had created from the combination energy first drove the Aerialbots mad, before uniting them in body and mind, spontaneously merging them into the gestalt [[Superion (G1)|Superion]], but this newborn Autobot combiner was considered hopelessly insane by Megatron and left to die in the wilderness. The madness aspect of the signal afforded him the chance to revive some of the principles of the infiltration protocol, however, as he blanketed the wastelands in it, forcing the Autobots, Decepticons and NAILs to stay in Iacon, causing natural conflict among them to snowball, providing a useful cover for his actions. To gain a pawn within Autobot high command, Megatron even provided Bombshell with the energy to use in conjunction with his own mind-controlling [[cerebro-shell]]s, ensnaring the mind of Prowl. With the resources and cover control of Prowl provided, Shockwave, Soundwave and Bombshell were able to use Megatron's findings to perfect the combination process, rebuilding the Constructicons with new modular designs that would allow them to merge into a perfect Devastator. The endgame was for Megatron himself to form the head of the combiner, but before risking his own mind and body, Megatron decided that Prowl would be used first as a test subject. {{storylink|Before the Dawn}}

[[File:RID12 kill him.jpg|upright=1.95|thumb]]
The appearance of a [[Crystal City Metrotitan|Metrotitan]] on Cybertron which declared that Starscream was the "Chosen One" threatened Megatron's ability to easily re-take leadership of his Decepticons, forcing him to step up his schedule. Through Prowl, he had his inner circle gathered together in the secret "[[Black Room]]", then boldly strode into Iacon for all to see. {{storylink|The End of the Beginning of the World}} His body shattered and skeletal, he professed to come in peace, but Bumblebee did not accept his surrender and ordered his Autobots to kill him. Indeed, Megatron could possibly have died there and then had Iacon's Decepticons not stepped in, insisting that Megatron's defense of Cybertron during D-Void's attack marked him a hero and that he be taken into custody instead. {{storylink|City on Fire}} After [[Wheeljack (G1)|Wheeljack]] got through examining him to prove his body concealed no weapons, Starscream approached the imprisoned Megatron and attempted to explain that he was not far away from taking complete power in the government, ensuring a Decepticon victory of a different kind. Megatron merely smiled silently at the notion, terrifying his ex-lieutenant with his grin. Presently, the Decepticons rose up in an angry mob and marched on Autobot high command to insist on Megatron's release; the situation quickly devolved into a riot, during which a squad led by [[Needlenose]] stormed the prison and freed Megatron. {{storylink|The Verge}}

[[File:RID14 new body redux.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.55|New body or not, Megatron may want to think twice about standing [[:File:Devastator-ROTFenemyscrotum.jpg|underneath Devastator's legs.]]]]
Megatron brought Starscream and the captured Bumblebee and Metalhawk to the Black Room, where he explained his plans and had himself transferred into a pre-prepared new body that could combine with the Constructicons' new forms. At his command, the Constructicons and Prowl combined into the new Devastator, who immediately set about razing Iacon. {{storylink|Before the Dawn}} Even the return of Superion seemed unable to stop the powerful new combiner, until help came from an unexpected quarter—Prowl's secret assassin [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] killed Bombshell, taking out Prowl's controller and causing Devastator to shut down. This was no real impediment to Megatron, however, as the successful function of the new combiner process has been proven, and he set out to take ''his'' place as Devastator's head. Before Megatron could reach the fallen gestalt, though, Devastator awoke, possessed of his own unique, unite consciousness for the first time, and resumed tearing into Iacon. {{storylink|Plan for Everything}}

[[File:RID20 megatron in forcefield.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|You know you can't catch a break when you find yourself trapped inside a novelty plasma lamp from Spencer's.]]
Still Megatron remained unfazed, calmly fending off Autobot attacks and waiting for the inevitable moment when the heroes would take Devastator down. When [[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] succeeded in doing so by managing to reach Prowl, Devastator separated, and Megatron immediately stepped in, re-initiation the combination with himself in control. Seconds before uniting with the Constructicons, though, his plan was foiled by Bumblebee, Ironhide and Prowl's activation of a secret failsafe: Wheeljack had integrated a forcefield generator into Megatron's spark casing during his examination of him, and when it was triggered, he was completely paralyzed in mid-transformation. {{storylink|Heavy Is the Head}}

In the fallout of the battle, Starscream killed Metalhawk, took control of Iacon and banished the Autobots and Decepticons from the city. He took custody of the immobilized Megatron, and silently gloated over the victory he had accomplished by using guile and politics, rather than Megatron's ways of brute force and firepower. {{storylink|Three Monologues}}

===A new approach===
Megatron would not remain incapacitated for long. That night, as the end result of millennia-long secret machinations by Shockwave, an [[Necrotitan|undead Metrotitan]] appeared on Cybertron and opened a portal to the Dead Universe in the planet's skies. Through the portal, Shockwave made contact with Galvatron and his master, the exiled Cybertron despot [[Nova Prime]], but was unable to bring them through to Cybertron thanks to the unexpected disappearance of the Titan's space bridge system. Intending to use the space bridge within Megatron as a replacement, {{storylink|Black Metal: Dark Cybertron Chapter 2|Black Metal}} Shockwave reanimated the deceased Metalhawk with a wave of necrotic energy from the Titan and had him liberate Megatron and bring him to his secret lab in [[Crystal City]]. {{storylink|Winners & Losers: Dark Cybertron Chapter 3|Winners & Losers}}

[[File:RID24 i remember you.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|Somewhere in the multiverse, [[Override (G1)|Override]] and [[Jazz (Movie)|Jazz]] are smiling.]]
Shockwave hoped that Megatron would comply with his plans willingly, but the Decepticon leader refused and Shockwave forcibly activated the space bridge technology in Megatron's body. {{storylink|Into the Abyss: Dark Cybertron Chapter 4|Into the Abyss}} The opening of the bridge in his chest caused Megatron agony, but his screams were heard by Soundwave, who led the united forces of the exiled Autobots and Decepticons to Shockwave's lab to free his leader. Nova Prime and Galvatron attempted to squeeze their way through the space bridge despite this interference, but Ironhide was able to punch Nova back through into the Dead Universe. Just then, Shockwave's "Necrotitan" came crashing into the subterranean city, and in the chaos, Megatron was freed from the restraints holding him. No sooner had Megatron carried Ironhide to the safe hands of the other Autobots, however, than he was ripped in half from behind by Galvatron, who had successfully emerged through the portal {{storylink|Finest Hour: Dark Cybertron Chapter 5|Finest Hour}} — a briefer battle, no doubt, than the one Shockwave had forseen between the pair in a vision at the outset of his scheme. {{storylink|Dark Dawn: Dark Cybertron Chapter 1|Dark Dawn}}

[[File:MTMTE26 megs and bee.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|I smell a sitcom!]]
After the battle was over, Galvatron and [[Waspinator (BW)|Waspinator]] lugged Megatron's bisected remains back into Crystal City, only to find their way barred by the unlikely form of Bumblebee, who demanded they hand Megatron over. Galvatron attacked the Autobot, at which point Megatron revealed that he was fine, as he took down Waspinator and knocked Galvatron out with a barrage of fusion cannon fire. {{storylink|The Dead Are Not Enough: Dark Cybertron Chapter 7|The Dead Are Not Enough}} Bumblebee lugged Megatron back to Iacon, currently being razed by the Necrotitan, where the Decepticon leader announced to the assembled Autobots, Decepticons and NAILs his plan to withdraw to [[Moonbase Two|Luna 2]], summon the Decepticon Justice Division and other scattered troops, and strike back. Bumblebee rejected Megatron's notion of retreating, and struck a nerve within him by questioning his entire philosophy: Megatron had ''long'' ago abandoned any notion of fighting for freedom and equality, Bumblebee attested, and merely used the claim to ideology as an excuse for his actions. {{storylink|Burning Bright: Dark Cybertron Chapter 8|Burning Bright}} Fortunately, fighting back suddenly got a lot easier when Metroplex and the ''[[Lost Light]]'' space-bridged to Cybertron. During the battle between the Titans, Megatron observed Metroplex reaching for the ''Lost Light''; when the ship's crew explained that they had Metroplex's severed thumb aboard, Megatron had Bumblebee carry him to it, whereupon he realized that the thumb contained one of Shockwave's [[Regenesis]] ores. Megatron used his internal space bridge to teleport the thumb back to Metroplex, and the ore provided the giant with the power boost to defeat the Necrotitan. {{storylink|Finis Temporis: Dark Cybertron Chapter 9|Finis Temporis}}

[[File:DCFinale megatron the autobot.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.95|ಠ_ಠ]]
At Bumblebee's order and under protest, [[Ratchet (G1)/IDW Generation 1 continuity|Ratchet]] repaired Megatron's injuries and reattached his legs, reminding Megatron of his desire in youth to be a medic. His recent string of failures, the success of ''Starscream'', of all 'bots, and Bumblebee's stinging words had turned the Decepticon leader introspective, and he realized he had forgotten something very important that had driven his writings in his early years: winning meant turning people to your way of thinking, not dominating them. {{storylink|The Becoming: Dark Cybertron Chapter 10|The Becoming}} Subsequently, when Shockwave initiated his millennia-long plan to collapse all reality into a universal black hole, Megatron placed himself and the Decepticons under Bumblebee's command to co-ordinate a counter-strike, and journeyed with his uneasy new "friend" into Shockwave's [[Crystal City]] base to confront their shared enemy. There, they found the weakened Galvatron, who Megatron prepared to destroy for past indignities, until Bumblebee talked him down, convincing him that blood did not have to be repaid with blood. At that moment, Shockwave struck, slaying Bumblebee with a blast, and driving Megatron into a rage. {{storylink|Black Planet: Dark Cybertron Chapter 11|Black Planet}} Empowered by his various ores and the energy of the Dead Universe, Shockwave was a formidable opponent and it was all Megatron could do to hold his own against him until Optimus Prime arrived to join the fight. Prime attempted to reason with Shockwave and remind him of the kindly senator he had once been, but his words had little effect, so Megatron opted for a more object lesson: removing the fallen Bumblebee's insignia, he placed it upon his chest and declared himself an Autobot. The stunned Shockwave lost control of the time machine powering his plot, causing his old pre-[[Shadowplay]] memories to emerge. Horrified at what he had become, he allowed Megatron and Prime to kill him, which caused the time machine to collapse into a singularity. Megatron and Prime made what seemed to be a futile dash for freedom, but were saved from the singularity's pull at the last moment by the timely arrival of the ''Lost Light''. {{storylink|...And the Damage Done: Dark Cybertron Finale|...And the Damage Done}}

===Crimes against the Species===

{{quote|I don't want to be acquitted. I want to '''make amends'''|Megatron on his new goal in life|"[[World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide]]"}}
[[File:DCFinale this is not a trick.jpg|thumb|upright=1.95|Optimus apparently decided a sincere Megatron was a cue for mood lighting.]]
In a private meeting between Optimus Prime and Megatron a short time after Shockwave's defeat, Megatron affirmed that his change of heart was genuine, and Optimus assured him that he could see past his wartime deeds and remember the well-intentioned 'bot he had started out as. {{storylink|...And the Damage Done: Dark Cybertron Finale|...And the Damage Done}} The rest of Cybertron, however, demanded a trial; Autobot High Command agreed, realizing that the Decepticon leader's fate had to be decided in public. Before the trial, Megatron was approached by Optimus, [[Chromedome (G1)|Chromedome]] and Rodimus in an attempt to extract some of the Decepticon's memories as evidence in hopes of expediting the proceedings, but a horrified Megatron refused, considering the sanctity of his mind all he had left. After Optimus departed, Rodimus remained to taunt Megatron with the certainty of his execution; in return, the impassive Decepticon simply asked Rodimus to deliver a [[communicube]] to Optimus, {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} containing a request to have the trial moved to the [[Raskol Arena]] on Luna 2, in order, he alleged, to accommodate the huge number of spectators that would inevitably attend. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}}
[[File:MTMTE28 megatron pleads guilty.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.95|I agreed to this trial on the condition of meeting Matlock.]]
Megatron's trial lasted five months. At the outset of the proceedings, Megatron plead guilty to "Crimes against the Species", {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} but things changed when Starscream took the stand and gave a testimony that presented Megatron as an incapable leader who was unable to control the Decepticon forces under his command, a powerful brute lacking in the qualities of true leadership who led his followers down an ultimately self-destructive path. His treacherous lieutenant's words struck home, and Megatron stunned the assembled crowd by changing his plea to "not guilty". {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 2: Words Hang in the Air|Words Hang in the Air}} Just as his defender, Ultra Magnus, was reading a statement declaring this, the trial was dramatically interrupted by the a small army of Decepticons led by [[Snaptrap (G1)|Snap Trap]] and [[Hun-Gurrr (G1)|Hun-Grr]], who had escaped from the brig on the ''Lost Light''. The invading force attempted to teleport Megatron away to safety, but he refused to escape and the uprising was quickly quelled. During the recess that followed, Optimus confronted Megatron over his true motives: he had requested that the trial be held on Luna 2 in order to exploit the moon's different legal system in the event that he felt the trial was unjust. Caused by Starscream's speech to realize that, were he to submit to execution now, his legacy would be one only of pain and death, Megatron invoked one of the moon's forgotten laws: an individual who had committed sufficiently heinous crimes could request he be judged by the long-lost [[Knights of Cybertron]]. Megatron requested that he be allowed to join the ''Lost Light'' in their search for the Knights and their homeworld of [[Cyberutopia]], thus ensuring that ''that'' would be his legacy, after which he would submit to whatever punishment was deemed necessary. Optimus agreed on the condition that Megatron read a prepared speech denouncing the Decepticon cause and asking all active Decepticons to stand down. Megatron did so, at great personal pain. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}} Hurt and angry over this perceived abandonment, Soundwave used Megatron's change of faction as evidence to forge a new allegiance of his own, decamping to Earth and working with the [[Earth Defense Command]] to create a new home for Autobots there. {{storylink|Earthfall Part 2: Detonation Boulevard|Detonation Boulevard}}
[[File:MTMTE30 cocaptains.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|O captain, my co-captain.]]
Megatron was assigned co-captaincy of the ''Lost Light'' alongside Rodimus, who immediately hated the idea and everything about it, leading to a particularly antagonistic relationship between the two. Megatron was permitted only to fuel himself with "[[Fool's Energon]]", which left him substantially weakened. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}} Shockwave's machinations had left his internal organs a tortured Gordian knot of space bridge wormholes from which it was impossible to extract his spark; his outward appearance changed between the end of his trial and his co-captaincy, suggesting that his armor was rebuilt around him, or his entire internal structure was transplanted into a new body. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} Megatron would later lament that his body did not graft to his spark like past chassis, which he considered a sign of his waning age. {{storylink|Slaughterhouse|Slaughterhouse}} Optimus would see Megatron off on his voyage before he himself headed off to Earth, a meeting Prowl found deeply disturbing. {{storylink|Earthfall Part 1: Hello Cruel World|Hello Cruel World}}
===Towards Peace===
{{ongoing}}
[[File:MTMTE28 megatron head examined.jpg|left|thumb|275px|"So Megatron, tell me about your mother." "She was delicious."]]
The ''Lost Light'' warped back out to the Galactic Rim and set off on the trail of [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]], who they considered their best lead on the location of the Knights. A month into the journey, Megatron agreed to a therapy session with ship's psychoanalyst Rung. Megatron was less than forthcoming, but when Rung inquired about the removed dedication to Terminus from ''Towards Peace'', Megatron explained to him his current thinking on personal history, and one's ability to selectively edit or abandon entirely previously-held truths. Departing for his quarters, Megatron found that his door had been heavily grafittied by Whirl, who then suddenly attacked him, declaring that their shared history made the battle inevitable. Megatron responded by undermining Whirl's entire life with the revelation that the ex-Wrecker's penchant for surviving tough scraps was a falsehood: the second order Megatron had issued upon forming the Decepticons was that under no circumstances was any Decepticon to kill Whirl. As they struggled, Megatron taunted Whirl with the knowledge that his memory of Whirl's actions all those years ago had helped keep him on the path of violence; the outraged ex-Wrecker punched Megatron in the stomach, only to find his hand teleported away by the space bridge tangle inside the former Decepticon. This took the fight out of Whirl, and Megatron offered to forget the incident if the graffiti was removed from his wall. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}}

Leaving Whirl behind and heading for the bridge, Megatron received a report that the ''Lost Light'' had crossed paths with a coffin floating in space. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace|Towards Peace}} Megatron oversaw the bringing onboard of the coffin and its transport to the med-bay. A short time later, [[Trailbreaker (G1)|Trailcutter]] snuck into the med-bay on a drunken dare in search of Megatron's "Fool's Energon", unaware of its true nature; caught in the act and believing he had been poisoned by the fuel, he triggered his forcefield, which inadvertently cracked the coffin open. Megatron reprimanded him by permanently engaging his fuel intake moderation chip, and assigned him the role of Security Director in order to focus his mind. The pair then turned their attention to the opened coffin, which was revealed to contain the body of another Rodimus! {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 2: Words Hang in the Air|Words Hang in the Air}}
[[File:MTMTE32 i came to hate the person id become.jpg|thumb|275px|Lolcat is watching you deprecate.]]
Brief analysis suggested that the body was of Rodimus from the future, but before the matter could be settled, the crew of the ''Lost Light'' were forced to abandon the ship as it suddenly began disappearing around them. {{storylink|World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide|Predestination: A Beginner's Guide}} The disappearances did not stop there, however: Megatron found himself on the [[Rodpod]] with a score of other 'bots, and when ''they'' then began to vanish, [[Tailgate (G1)|Tailgate]] accused Megatron of being responsible. A tense Mexican standoff ensued, which was brought to a surprising end when [[Ravage (G1)|Ravage]] was discovered to have been hiding on the pod, having secreted himself on the ''Lost Light'' in order to spy on Megatron for Soundwave. The disappearances continued, and Megatron clashed with [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] as he tried to find a pattern. {{storylink|Twenty Plus One}} The weirdness only continued as the remaining crew of the Rodpod—Megatron, Ravage, Nightbeat, [[Skids (G1)|Skids]], [[Nautica]], [[Riptide (G1)|Riptide]], and [[Getaway]]—discovered the wreckage of a second ''Lost Light'', point of origin for the mystery second Rodimus, orbiting the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Still believing that the duplicate ship hailed from the future, Skids accused Megatron of being responsible for the devastation, and, realizing that the recent huge changes he had made in his life left him devoid of any surety in his future actions, Megatron allowed himself and Ravage to be imprisoned until the truth could be determined. Locked in a supply closet with Ravage, Megatron had a heart-to-heart with his angry ex-subordinate, justifying his decisions and unable to offer Ravage any consolation. When power returned to the ship, the pair discovered the dead bodies of Ratchet, [[Drift (G1)|Drift]] and [[Hound (G1)|Hound]] in the closet with them, their [[brain module]]s stuffed in their mouths—calling card of [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] of the Decepticon Justice Division. Realizing the DJD was responsible for destroying the ship the team re-grouped and prepared to retreat when an even stranger discovery was made: Autobot archivist [[Rewind (G1)|Rewind]] was found, still alive, the only survivor of the DJD's attack, despite the fact that he had died months beforehand. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}}
[[File:MTMTE33 megatron skids right there.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.4|"...But you're not the [[Skyfall (G1)|worst]] [[Zeta Prime (G1)|guy]] to wear the badge. So keep trying."]]
Nautica and Nightbeat were able to deduce the whole story: the duplicate ''Lost Light'' was not from the future, but rather, it and its crew were quantum duplicates created in the explosion of the [[quantum generator|quantum engines]] during the ship's original launch two years prior. To make matters worse, the [[quantum foam]] leaking from the engines was threatening to destroy Ofsted XVII, but Megatron had no compunctions about getting to safety and leaving the planet to its fate until Skids called him out, forcing him to face up to the fact that being an Autobot meant more than wearing a badge, and had to be reflected in one's actions. When all other options were exhausted, Megatron admitted that he could use his old mass-displacement ability to shrink his robot form down, enabling him to safely make it through the foam and deactivate the engines, saving Ofsted XVII, "cancelling out" the duplicate ''Lost Light'', and reinstating their own. The diminutive Rewind joined him in the task; Megatron showed him kindness by holding back knowledge of his counterpart's passing so that he might die happy, but Rewind was mysteriously ''not'' erased when their task was successfully completed. As they made their way back to the returned ''Lost Light'', Megatron invited Ravage to remain at his side, hoping an up-close view of the DJD's horrors had instilled in him some doubt in the Decepticon cause. {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}
[[File:MTMTE38 send me back.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.75|"AND I WANT YOUR LUNCH MONEY TOO NERD!"]]
Returning to "their" ''Lost Light'', Megatron's team discovered that their Brainstorm had incapacitated the crew and used his mysterious [[briefcase]] to travel back in time. The ridiculousness of the entire situation caused Megatron to have a mini-breakdown, but he soon got ahold of himself, and theorized that Brainstorm was attempting to change history by killing Orion Pax. {{storylink|The Custom-Made Now - An Elegant Chaos Prologue|The Custom-Made Now}} Rodimus led a squad back in time in pursuit, which led to Megatron having a cross-time conversation with the young Orion Pax via Rodimus's "[[time phone]]" communicator. Pretending to be his own younger self during the call, Megatron found the young 'bots optimism for the future a mixed source of both affirmation and tragic amusement. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}} After Rodimus's team made several further jumps, Megatron deduced that the dates they were travelling to were not important moments in Pax's life, but Megatron's own. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 2: Stet|Stet}} Realizing that Brainstorm intended to kill him at the moment of his creation, he flew into a panicked rage, attacking [[Perceptor (G1)|Perceptor]] and demanding the scientist send him back in time to save himself, until Ultra Magnus restrained him and the pair talked him down. As events in the past played out, Megatron was visibly shaken to hear that Rewind had been the one to pull the trigger that killed his original past self, and that the universe would truly be a better place had he never existed. Although Whirl subsequently set the timeline to rights, Megatron did not join in the celebrations when everyone returned from the past, retiring to his quarters to brood. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 3: Predestination: An Expert's Guide|Predestination: An Expert's Guide}}
When Optimus contacted the ''Lost Light'' to invite them home for first contact, Rodimus denied saying it would interfere with their quest, while Magnus promised to send a shuttle with representatives from the ship, Megatron just hung silently in the background. When the call ended Rodimus told Optimus that Megatron said 'Hi'. Megatron said no such thing but Rodimus ended the call before he could tell Optimus. {{storylink|First Contact (IDW)|First Contact}}

===Pax Cybertronia===
In a vision of the future seen by Ironhide and [[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] during the reformatting of Cybertron, fifteen million years hence, Ironhide still believed Megatron to be alive and promised a young Autobot they would defeat him again if he ever returned. {{storylink|Pax Cybertronia (issue)|Pax Cybertronia}} {{storylink|A Better Tomorrow}}
{{-}}

===''Spotlight: Mirage''===
[[File:SLMirage all in good time.jpg|thumb|275px]]
{{NoteSLMirage}}
Somewhere, in an unknown time or place, the self-serving mercenary [[Mirage (G1)|Mirage]] dreamed of Megatron and his Decepticons launching a massive attack on the Autobots. But Mirage knew that to only be a dream; in reality, the Autobots were almost eradicated, and Megatron had hired him to hunt down the last of their number. Megatron was outraged by the mercenary's demand for a majority share in all energon mining operations as payment, but it proved to be fuel well spent, as he soon succeeded in locating Optimus Prime and forcing him to surrender. Megatron demanded the prisoners be executed despite Mirage's promise to spare Autobot lives. Seeing Mirage's hesitation, Megatron appealed to his greed. {{storylink|Spotlight: Mirage}}
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:MegatronOrigin2 Megs hair.jpg|thumb|100px]]
*In [[Megatron Origin issue 2|''Megatron Origin'' #2]], we see that Megatron's helmet is, in fact, a helmet and not part of his head (at least in his original body). Upon removing his helmet, Megatron then briefly unfurls a crest. The significance of this moment is not explained, but it is briefly revisited in [[Remembrance Day|''More than Meets the Eye'' #14]] when a helmetless Megatron spars with [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]].

[[Category:Combiners]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW Generation 1 Autobots]]
[[Category:IDW Generation 1 Decepticons]]
[[Category:Gladiators]]
[[Category:Lost Light crew]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:Rulers of Cybertron]]
[[Category:Turncoats]]