ALRIGHT I’LL ADMIT that I’m verging on clickbait here. But I gotta say my piece somewhere, and this blog might as well be my soapbox.
So. Megatron. What is there to say? The name is synonymous with villainy. Among other names such as Darth Vader and the Joker, he’s the robotic king of the bad guys.
But ol’ Megs has been around for quite some time and with time comes new ideas and radical reinventions of a core character. Thanks to comics, there’s a whole new side of Megatron that’s been explored, one that dares to explore the possibility of Megatron becoming a good guy.
For a point of reference, let’s look at Prince Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender. We all love him, right? His tale of redemption is airtight, he took the imperceptibly long road to reclaiming his honour. It’s crazy to think that the main antagonist from the first season of the show becomes one of the protagonist’s closest friends.
If you believe that Zuko can do it, why not Megatron? Well, it’s not an exact parallel. Megatron is closer to Fire Lord Ozai than he’ll ever be to Zuko. I mean, just look at him in the original Transformers cartoon.
This is where the glory of comic books come in, my friends. It accepted the challenge of making the world’s foremost robotic asshole a sympathetic figure, and you know what? I think they damn well pulled it off.
Picture this: A downtrodden miner who toils for an obscene amount of hours in a dingy pit is summoned by his bosses and assembled with his co workers in the confines of the facility. A figurehead appears flanked by riot troopers addresses the crowd and tells them they are promptly being moved from the mine effective immediately.
Another miner calls out that they’re being replaced by automated machines, but is swiftly and violently silenced by a riot trooper, wearing a badge that to the miner, is synonymous with oppression. The badge of the Autobot. Yeah, the one that the ‘good guys’ wear. Crazy, right?
The miner’s rage boils over. For years, he has been writing and publishing various manifestos decrying the oppressive regime that forces bigger citizens like him to be confined to a single role for their entire lifespan. For years, he has been passed over and shunned as a non-intellectual purely because of his appearance. For years, he has endured prejudice.
But no longer.
The miner rushes the riot trooper, tackling him to the ground. Pandemonium ensues in the crowd, but the miner is oblivious. He is blind with rage, unleashing in a furious eruption upon the manifestation of the regime that has spurned him for so long. Before he even realises it, the miner has reduced the trooper’s head to an oily mess of spare parts.
“Woah. That was intense,” you may find yourself saying. To which I would agree wholeheartedly. And tell you that it is indeed the origin of Megatron.
From there, it goes to hell pretty fast. He joins a Cybertronian Fight Club, becomes a lot more complacent with violence, and starts the Decepticon movement and loses himself to the merry madness of murder, becoming the villain we all know and love today.
But his foundations of believing in a fundamentally better society motivate him when the Autobots win the war. Basically, he adopts the “if you can”t beat ’em, join ’em” stratagem and joins those so called good guys and renounces violence in an attempt to return to his peaceful philosophical days. (Long story short, it doesn’t last.)
The continuity in which this fascinating reiteration of Megatron debuted wrapped up pretty recently, so if I were you I’d go seek out any stories that feature him in prominent detail. I’ve include the most prominent ones below that really illustrate this nuanced take on the big silver meanie.
In conclusion, Megatron probably isn’t a hero. He shouldn’t be, because he works a lot better as a villian, obviously. But I know you don’t want to hear the expression about “every villian is the hero of their own story” because let’s face it, that’s been done to death. I suppose what I’m trying to say is through the medium of comic books, Megatron has become such a fascinating character to me, and I’m grateful some awesome writers took the time to flesh him out.
Rise Up Deceptigamers,
CD
The three flavours of Megatron (courtesy of u/SkwarpCracker on r/transformemes).
PS: Recommended Reading
The Transformers: Megatron Origin
The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #34 – Births, Deaths and Interventions
The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #50 to #56 – The Dying of the Light
The Transformers Lost Light #22 – Crucible (Part 4): The Return of the King
The Transformers Lost Light #25 – How To Say Goodbye And Mean It: Part 2
WORLD OF MADNESS 