As far as leaders go, Megatron from the original 1984 "Transformers" cartoon was never a really good one. He's overconfident. His plans fail usually 25 minutes into an episode. He's prone to retreating once things stop going his way. He berates his staff. And he keeps an openly potential usurper as his right hand man.
As a child of the '80s watching a cartoon whose purpose was to sell toys, I was pretty picky about which toy I wanted from the series. Most of the characters transformed into cars, planes, or other vehicles and I didn't want that because I already owned plenty of toy cars, planes, and other vehicles that didn't transform. Megatron appealed to me the most out of all the other characters simply because he transformed into a toy no healthy child living through innocent times should be without: A toy gun. Granted, the '80s were a simpler time when children could play with guns because pretend shooting was imaginative fun AND NOTHING ELSE.
Eventually the innocent times of pretend violence stopped being innocent when realistic toy guns were deemed too realistic for children. Hasbro reincarnated my beloved Megatron into another robot who transformed into vehicles--with occasional inoffensive toy gun modes. But it never stopped me from collecting his new forms. He still remained pure evil with occasional bouts of cunning manipulation. The Michael Bay incarnations have been less than stellar as toys, but the evil is still resounding as a character. With his limited screen time in the 2007 "Transformers," Megatron coldly ripped the fan-favorite Autobot Jazz in two and toyed with the notion of having the human Sam Witwicky as a pet. In the sequel "Revenge of the Fallen," Megatron plays an unfair advantage to finally kill his rival Optimus Prime with glee. And just to be even more of an evil maniac, he rolls over his right hand man's face with his tank tread as the price of failure. It would have been better for that movie if Megatron found a way to betray his inexplicable master The Fallen and taken back control of the Decepticons after defeating Prime. Here's hoping that his evil still exudes during the third film.
Though I must say that Megatron's Mack Truck mode in "Dark of the Moon" has left me feeling less than thrilled. Trucks were supposed to be Optimus Prime's thing. At least the over-sized shoulder cannon is still there.
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