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In Transformers, Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. With the lines between the heroes and villains so cleanly drawn, Transformers usually doesn’t feature moral ambiguity in its storytelling.
Sometimes, characters have crossed over the lines between these two factions. Looking across the franchises’ many iterations, there have been times when Decepticons saw the light and became Autobots, and others when Autobots fell to the Decepticons’ darkness.
10 Decepticon To Autobot: Jetfire Was The Original Turncoat
Jetfire was the first introduced Autobot with aerial alt-modes—usually, the Autobots were land-bound and the Decepticons ruled the skies. Perhaps to explain this disparity, Jetfire’s cartoon debut, “Fire In The Sky” (where he was known as Skyfire) depicted him as an old Starscream’s friend, one who had been lost on Earth millions of years ago.
Discovered by the Decepticons in the present day, Jetfire was tricked into joining the Cons but quickly turned against them. The contemporary Transformers comics had a different but similar origin—created by Shockwave as a Decepticon super-soldier, Jetfire turned against the Cons after achieving sentience.
9 Autobot To Decepticon: Grimlock Has Sometimes Defected
Grimlock, leader of the Dinobots, is a warrior with a lust for battle and disregard for any authority but his own. This means that he often butts heads with Optimus Prime and Prowl, and in some extreme cases, has even led him to defect. Grimlock, alongside fellow Dinobots Slag and Sludge, were manipulated by Megatron into attacking Prime in “War Of The Dinobots” while the Dreamwave comics saw Grimlock blackmailed onto the Cons after Megatron captured the other Dinobots.
Apparently, Grimlock of the IDW comics briefly defected at some point as well—this made him a target of the Decepticon Justice Division, but he repaid their attack by scarring the face of their leader, Tarn.
8 Decepticon To Autobot: Starscream Wrestled With His Loyalties In Transformers: Armada
Starscream is usually a selfish, evil character to his core, but Transformers: Armada went in a different direction with him. This time around, Starscream was an honorable warrior with no desire to usurp Megatron—he just wanted his leader’s approval.
Instead of trying to overthrow Megatron, Starscream left the Cons for the Autobots. While he grew close with the Autobots’ human friend Alexis, he simply didn’t fit in and returned to the Decepticons. Even still, his hatred for Megatron still burned—combined with his newfound respect for Optimus Prime and kinship with Alexis, Starscream was left conflicted. In the end, Starscream died a hero’s death to unite the warring factions of Transformers against Unicron.
7 Autobot To Decepticon: Wheeljack Joined The Cons After Being Left For Dead
In Transformers: Armada, Wheeljack (or Rampage in the original Japanese) is a far cry from the wacky, Doc Brown-esque mad scientist of Generation One. Once an Autobot and a close friend of Hot Shot, Wheeljack was left pinned under rubble on a fiery battlefield. Hot Shot left his friend, promising to get help, but never returned. Instead, Megatron saved Wheeljack that day, and in return, the young Autobot became a Decepticon.
Coming to Earth in the two-part episode “Past,” Wheeljack initially acts as a lone wolf, planning to get revenge on Hot Shot by killing his new protégé, Side Swipe. When that plan falls through, Wheeljack joins up with the other Decepticons. While he eventually resolves things with Hot Shot, Wheeljack never returns to being an Autobot.
6 Decepticon To Autobot: Drift Was Once Deadlock
For mini-series All Hail Megatron, writer Shane McCarthy debuted his personally-created character: Drift, a Samurai-influenced Autobot swordsman with a sordid past. Specifically, he had once been a Decepticon named Deadlock, but after some life-changing events, he left for the Autobots, casting off the name Megatron had bestowed on him.
While McCarthy introduced Drift post-Heel Face Turn, he later got the chance to tell his creation’s backstory in a four-issue eponymous mini-series about Drift. Later incarnations of Drift have reused his turncoat backstory.
5 Autobot To Decepticon: Blackarachnia Was Once Elita-One
In Beast Wars, Blackarachnia had been a Maximal protoform reprogrammed into a Predacon. For their new version of the character, the writers of Transformers: Animated reimagined this to more tragic ends. Once Blackarachnia was Elita-One, a friend of future Primes Optimus and Sentinel, and an Autobot who could mimic the special abilities of others. On a trip to planet Archa Seven, the three young Autobots were attacked by giant spiders and Elita was left behind.
Thought dead, Elita’s absorption powers mutated her into a techno-organic. Repulsed by her new appearance, Elita changed her name and joined up with the Decepticons—she spends the series looking for a way to undo her transformation and if she gets some revenge on Optimus along the way, all the better.
4 Decepticon To Autobot: Knock Out Changed In The End
Introduced in Transformers: Prime, Knock Out was all ego, yet struggled to achieve respect from his fellow Decepticons. Despite being valuable as the Cons’ resident doctor, his less-than-optimum fighting skills and car vehicle mode left both Megatron and Starscream unimpressed. When the Autobots triumphed in series finale “Deadlock,” Knock Out attempted, and failed, to join “the winning team.”
After being freed by Starscream, Knock Out outright turned on the Decepticons and once again offered his services to the Autobots. This time, they were more accepting.
3 Autobot To Decepticon: Wildwheel Was Left On Earth & Sought Revenge
A recent addition to the Transformers franchise, Wildwheel debuted in the third and final season of Transformers: Cyberverse. An Autobot crew member of The Ark, Wildwheel’s stasis pod was knocked off the ship onto prehistoric Earth—awakening in the western US during the 1800s, Wildwheel became a bounty hunter then eventually made his way back to Cybertron after two centuries.
Challenging Optimus Prime to a gunslinging duel, Wildwheel was felled but rejected Prime’s offer to return to the Autobots, instead throwing his lot in with Megatron.
2 Decepticon To Autobot: Megatron Renounced The Decepticons In The IDW Comics
During comic crossover Dark Cybertron, some talks with Bumblebee and Ratchet convinced Megatron how, over millennia of war, he and the Decepticons had fallen from his original beliefs. Rather than being an army of freedom, they had become a new breed of oppressors like those they had risen up against. Thus, he declared himself an Autobot, taking the fallen Bumblebee’s badge as his own.
Initially content to stand trial, a biting testimony from Starscream convinced Megatron he needed to cement his legacy. Thus, in exchange for Megatron publicly denouncing the Decepticons, Optimus permitted his arch-enemy to travel on Autobot ship The Lost Light in search of the mythical Knights Of Cybertron.
1 Autobot To Decepticon: In The Mirror Universe, Sideswipe Went From Villain To Hero
In the world of Shattered Glass, the Autobots are conquerors and the Decepticons heroes. One character is still a good guy on both sides of the looking glass, though: Sideswipe. This wasn’t always the case—initially one of Optimus Prime’s loyal enforcers, Sideswipe was disillusioned by the tyrant’s brutality, particularly when Prime killed Sideswipe’s mentor, Clench. Sensing Sideswipe’s misgivings, Prime set him up to be assassinated. Sideswipe survived the ambush, however, and fell in with the Cons.
This backstory, combined with his design (especially the scarred Autobot symbol along his chest) make Sideswipe as much of a counterpart to Armada Wheeljack as G1 Sideswipe. Likewise, compared to his cocky, wisecracking self from the “normal” universe, SG Sideswipe is much grimmer. That his brother Sunstreaker is still an Autobot, and thus an enemy of his, no doubt adds to his angst.
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