Megatron (Beast Wars)

The Predacon Megatron is the best villain the franchise has produced, and he gets there by being almost the opposite of his namesake. David Kaye plays him as a purring, theatrical bureaucrat who calls his own troops "yesss" into submission, delights in his own cleverness, and is genuinely, unshakeably patient. He does not rant. He explains. He is also, unlike almost every other Transformers antagonist, competent: nearly every reversal he suffers in three seasons comes from his own subordinates' incompetence or from forces outside the war entirely.

He takes his name deliberately, from the Decepticon leader, as a claim of inheritance rather than a coincidence, and the series eventually reveals that the claim is literal in intent. The Golden Disk he steals in the first episode is not primarily an energon map. It is the Decepticon Megatron's own message to any descendant with transwarp capability, and it names a target: prehistoric Earth, the crashed Ark, and the dormant body of Optimus Prime. This is revealed to Ravage, and to the audience, in "The Agenda (Part II)", and it recontextualises the entire series.

In "The Agenda (Part III)" he executes it. He seals Blackarachnia and Silverbolt in the mountain, enters the Ark, delivers a speech, and shoots the offline Optimus Prime through the chest, erasing the Maximals from existence in a temporal storm. It is the single most audacious thing any Transformers cartoon has done, and it is the season cliffhanger.

His third season is a slow escalation into monstrousness. He absorbs the original Megatron's spark in "Master Blaster", is dropped into lava by Quickstrike, and emerges reborn as a Transmetal II dragon. By the finale he has raised the Nemesis from the ocean and is shelling the prehistoric landscape at random. He is defeated, restrained on the hull of a shuttle, and still talking.

Tyrannosaurus rex beast mode, later a Transmetal T-rex with flight, finally a Transmetal II dragon with vastly increased power. Armed with an arm-mounted energy cannon and, in dragon form, fire breath and enormous strength. He is a first-rate tactician and the only character who consistently reads the Beast Wars as a time-travel operation rather than a resource conflict. Limits: he is physically beaten by Dinobot, Optimal Optimus and Tigerhawk at various points; his forces are unreliable; and his need to explain himself at length has cost him at least three victories.

• Optimus Primal: an ideological opposition the show treats as almost impersonal, two philosophies rather than two grudges.
• Dinobot: a lieutenant who defects, returns, defects again, and destroys his greatest asset; the only subordinate he ever seems to genuinely rate.
• Inferno: the one Predacon who is unconditionally loyal, which Megatron exploits without a shred of reciprocation.
• Starscream: encountered in "Possession" as a disembodied spark inhabiting Waspinator, giving Megatron a direct brush with his own mythology.
• The original Megatron: an ancestor and idol whose recorded message is the mission, and whose spark he eventually absorbs.

Fun Publications' Theft of the Golden Disk and Dawn of Future's Past dramatise the archive raid the show only describes, adding the criminal Cryotek as his backer. IDW's Beast Wars: The Gathering and The Ascending continue him past the show. IDW's Beast Wars Sourcebook fills in survivors the cartoon left ambiguous. None contradict the cartoon's account of the Ark plot.

Defeated aboard the Nemesis in "Nemesis (Part 2)", restrained on the hull of the Autobot shuttle and taken back to Cybertron for trial. He escapes and becomes the antagonist of Beast Machines, where he ultimately dies in the reformatting of Cybertron.

• Voiced by David Kaye, who would later voice Optimus Prime in Transformers: Animated, one of very few actors to have played both leaders.
• The trailing "yesss" was Kaye's own invention and became the character's signature; he has said it started as a way to fill dead air in an early recording session.
• The character was originally not intended as a direct G1 sequel; the Ark reveal in "The Agenda" retroactively made Beast Wars a canonical continuation of the 1984 cartoon, a decision made by story editors Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio.
• His original 1996 Deluxe T-rex toy carried the first-wave "mutant head" gimmick; the Transmetal II dragon released near the end of the line is one of the largest and most sought-after figures in the range.
• The Predacon faction name is taken from G1's Predacons, the Decepticon combiner team led by Razorclaw, and the show treats present-day Predacons as the political descendants of the Decepticons.

Where the cartoon, the Marvel comics and the toy bios disagree, or where a popular claim does not hold up. We record these rather than smoothing them over.

• The scene returning the original Megatron's spark to the G1 Megatron's body was scripted for "Nemesis (Part 2)" and cut, leaving it unclear on screen whether the Decepticon leader was restored before the Maximals departed.