Editing Megatron (section)

====IDW Publishing====
After Dreamwave's closure, the rights to the Transformers comics were taken over by [[IDW Publishing]]. IDW would take the opportunity to reboot the Transformers universe, including a revised origin for Megatron detailing how he came to power. Here, Megatron was originally a lowly Energon miner. He also formed an uneasy truce with Starscream.

In the IDW continuity, Megatron retains his role as supreme commander of the Decepticon army, although, in this continuity, they are no longer based on Cybertron (which was rendered uninhabitable by Thunderwing) and are fighting to conquer multiple worlds simultaneously. In fact, he barely seems to care about Cybertron and was willing to order its total destruction to stop the reanimated Thunderwing. Having now ingested Ore-13, Megatron is able to easily manage mass displacement and thus turn into an Earth handgun (in ''Escalation #2''), and the newfound power appears to have affected his actions—he personally went on the Brasnya mission and is confident enough to transform & battle Optimus in front of human witnesses, actions that Optimus finds out of character. His instability is also what leads the other Decepticons to awaken Starscream to stand up to him in ''Devastation''. Eventually, after witnessing [[Bumblebee (Transformers)|Bumblebee]]'s willingness to sacrifice himself in order to stop the machinations of Shockwave, Megatron does the unthinkable and joins the Autobot cause. Megatron joins the crew of the ''Lost Light'' as its captain, though the bulk of the crew refuses to accept his change of heart and mutinies against him and his new Autobot friends. Megatron subsequently leads the outcasts into battle against the fanatical Decepticon Justice Division but later is trapped in the alternate Functionist universe with his old mentor Terminus.

Megatron features prominently in ''Transformers: Regeneration One'', Simon Furman's continuation of the original Marvel series in which the events of ''Generation 2'' did not occur. Here, Megatron's lifeforce is still linked to Ratchet's, and after waking up on Earth in 1994, he has built what's left of Ratchet into a battle sled. Megatron also creates a [[zombie]] army from the mostly-Decepticon victims of the Underbase-empowered [[Starscream]], while [[Lobotomy|lobotomizing]] the still-living Starscream himself. Megatron proceeds to devastate the Earth, turning its nuclear arsenal against the population and destroying Fortress Maximus. The [[Wreckers (Transformers)|Wreckers]] discover what Megatron's done in the year 2012, prompting Optimus Prime to bring an assault team from Cybertron. Megatron is defeated when Kup destroys Ratchet, stopping Megatron in his tracks and permitting Optimus to destroy him once and for all.

In an interview, writer [[Simon Furman]] indicated that Galvatron made his first [[IDW Publishing]] appearance in ''[[The Transformers: Spotlight]]'' issue featuring [[Nightbeat (Transformers)|Nightbeat]]. Unlike other incarnations, this Galvatron was not a recreated Megatron, but instead a separate Transformer from the Golden Age of Cybertron who is driven by a belief in having a great destiny. He was one of the crew of the lost ''[[Ark (Transformers)|Ark-1]]'', which had secretly been seeking out (under orders from Nova Prime<ref>{{cite comic | Writer = [[Simon Furman]] |title=[[The Transformers: Spotlight]] | date=August 2007 |Issue=9 (Optimus Prime) |Publisher= [[IDW Publishing]]}}</ref>) an anomaly that was "a door to somewhere else... a dark mirror of the Matrix itself".<ref>{{cite comic | Writer = [[Simon Furman]] |title=[[The Transformers: Spotlight]] | date=July 2007 |Issue=8 (Galvatron) |Publisher= [[IDW Publishing]] |page=13}}</ref> Galvatron deliberately flew the ''Ark'' into the anomaly to find out the answers, thus marooning the crew in the Dead Universe. In the present day, he heads for Cybertron to obtain Thunderwing's body, destroying an alien observation station on the way. On Cybertron, Galvatron killed [[Leadfoot (Transformers)|Leadfoot]] and easily overpowered Hound's unit, though he left them alive as a small act of defiance against his master. He made his first appearance in the main storyline in issue 3 of ''[[The Transformers: Devastation]]'', being sent to Earth by Nemesis Prime to stop the Reapers from destroying it too soon. He turned the Reaper leader into a dead being able to kill by touch (like himself) and left it to decimate his fellow Reapers. Caught between this and the Ore-13-charged Decepticons, the Reapers were soon annihilated, and Galvatron left with the body of [[Sixshot]]. He then reported back to Prime, who made it clear in conversation with [[Jhiaxus]] that he was not unaware of Galvatron's rebellious ambitions.<ref name="devastation 6">{{Cite comic|writer=[[Simon Furman]]|penciller=[[E. J. Su]]|title=[[The Transformers: Devastation]]|issue=6|date=February 2008|publisher=[[IDW Publishing]]}}</ref>

As with the Marvel version of Galvatron, he is seemingly invincible and shrugs off powerful weapons. Unlike other incarnations of the character, he appears to be able to kill and decay others by touch<ref>{{cite comic | Writer = [[Simon Furman]] |title=[[The Transformers: Spotlight]] |date=July 2007 |Issue=8 (Galvatron) |Publisher= [[IDW Publishing]] |page=15}}</ref> and can even survive being shot through the head at close range by powerful weapons. In ''Devastation'' he is shown to be able to confer his touch of death onto others, turning the Reaper leader into an unwilling "giver of unlife".<ref>{{cite comic | Writer = [[Simon Furman]] |title=[[The Transformers: Devastation]] | date=February 2008 |Issue=6 |Publisher= [[IDW Publishing]] |page=13}}</ref> There are hints that he is not actually alive—after surviving his headshot, he responded to a cry of "He's not dead!" by thinking "Wrong", and he has referred to the others in the Dead Universe as actually being dead: "I killed them".<ref>{{cite comic | Writer = [[Simon Furman]] |title=[[The Transformers: Spotlight]] | date=July 2007 |Issue=8 (Galvatron) |Publisher= [[IDW Publishing]] |page=22}}</ref>