I feel like Nova Prime is such a criminally underutilized character. The egotistical, imperialist xenophobe that despises both the ideals of the Autobots and the weaknesses of the Decepticons, who can harness the dark energy of an alternate dimension. He is such a perfect “neutral” villain and I’m so mad he’s been completely underused aside from a Devastation credits teaser.

For all the talk of human characters I'm surprised Meltdown wasn't on here honestly. He's a serious threat and clearly handled 3 cybertronians when he had run of dinobot island, and he wasn't just a frankenstein for them, his acid was a rather unique threat among human villains

I can appreciate not using unicron or his heralds as a cop out for this list, and the result is very interesting collection of characters that don't get as much attention as they deserve in media. Like not just factionless characters but also humans and even autobot villians. That's pretty cool.

The Uk marvel Autobot Flame who created an army of Zombie Transformers from both sides. He is the first ever evil Autobot in the franchise.

I do feel like Mandroid was a better execution of the same idea and I know she wasn't 100% villainous, but I want to give a shout-out to Circuit Breaker, the original augmented human who became disabled due to Cybertronians and then wanted to wipe them off the face of the planet. I like her a lot, though I feel like she was more of an anti-hero, and I REALLY felt like G.B. Blackrock (a character I despise) kept dragging down her story and potential arc. I also liked Agent Croft from Earthspark because her scenes with the human Maltos especially felt dangerous in a real-world way, not in a sci-fi fantasy way. I felt actual dread when she was in the car with Dot.

Kinda disappointed with the lack of circuitbreaker, but overall not a bad list

Honorable mention (in my opinion) would have to be Nova Prime. Nova's ideals in IDW was to colonize inhibited planets to spread Cybertronian Supremacy, cuz in his eyes, sentient robots are the superior & dominant species of the universe and not indigenous organic species. While on this crusade, the whole discovering the Dead Universe thing happened. No one knows what happened to him since then.

As someone who grew up on G1, I never liked the idea of the Quintessons as the creators. Given how loose the continuity was maintained in the cartoon, I always imagined them as having enslaved the planet in the past. Doesn't lessen them as villains, I just think it makes more sense that they like taking credit for more than they actually did. Also, Marvel comics Circuit Breaker was def a villain, even though she came around at the end of the G1 run.

Nightbird would have been a good one for this list, a robot built by a human scientist. Airachnid from Prime is a good one too, she was a Decepticon technically but like Lockdown she was more of a rogue agent, especially when she ended up the vampire queen of the insecticons (did that EVER get followed up? Like in a comic adaptation or anything?) The Scraplets are a good "force of nature" type enemy. Plus I'd just like to give a shout out to all the human villains from Animated as a whole, not often you get a rogues' gallery in a transformers fiction.

I’m surprised Dr Arkville wasn’t on the list seeing how he was the first human villain.

I was always a fan of Circuit Breaker when she appeared in the G1 Marvel Comics

Man they should really bring back Dreamwave Fallen his design was awesome

If I remember right, Shattered Glass Optimus Prime is the Reason Shattered Glass Bumblebee became Goldbug

Totally agree 💯 with everything you said about no.1. The true origin of the Transformers and super interesting villains.

I hope we a toy of The Fallen In Transformers Legacy.

Great episode, and I love your choices, though I do wish Dr. Morocco from Transformers Rescue Bots was on the list since he is a really good villain. That and Pharma since you can't go wrong with a creepy Doctor villain.

Horseradish isn't a loophole, either.

I feel for Animated, Meltdown and The Headmaster were pretty dangerous threats, which is wild knowing how The Headmaster is. I do feel Meltdown would've been a great foe had he interacted with both factions

Can't believe you forgot Autobot's greatest adversary Professor Princess

It would be cool to see Optimus battling his Shattered Glass counterpart.

How about rogue Autobot Flame? He’s the perfect example on how Autobots can do nasty stuff.

I believe there can be a syncretism between the Primus origin story and the Quintesson origin story.

If you dig deep enough, I think this could become a Here’s 20. You could add G1 Nightbird, Marvel comics Circuit Breaker, IDW Sunder, VENOM’s Miles Mayhem, & the Dead Universe as well.

Lockdown, the Fallen, and Jhaxius I don't think belong on this list. People always put Lockdown in lists like this because in the show he isn't loyal to Megatron and never actually wears a Decepticon insignia. However it's not loyalty to Megatron that makes someone a Decepticon. The Autobots have been known to brand any criminal as a Decepticon like what they did to Wasp, a character who never had any true alliegence to the Decepticons. Hasbro themselves also still market the toys as a Decepticon. Same thing with Jhiaxus, I don't know anything about the character so I can't really agure anything from those comics but Hasbro has still marketed and sold his toys as a Decepticon. The Fallen is literally written in fiction to be the first Decepticon. I don't think that really make sense cause technically according to the Covenant of Primus Liege Maximo was created first and the Fallen was never even really evil, everything he did was because Liege Maximo lied to both Megatronus and Solus to turn them against each other which I think technically makes Liege Maximo the first Decepticon not the Fallen but still every fiction has literally given the title of the first Decepticon to Megatronus Prime/The Fallen. I completly agree with everything you said about the original depiction being the best version I just don't agree with his inclusion on a list of villains who aren't Decepticons cause he is. I personally don't like when other lists include Unicron either but that's also for the same reason that Hasbro still markets the toys as a Decepticon even if he's never really been one in fiction. There are 3 characters I'd like to substitute in who are truely not Decepticons and aren't already on this list. 1. Meltdown/Prometheus Black. The only human villain from Animated who was actually a legitimate threat. This is a guy who was on par with Issac Sumdac in terms of intelligence but specialized in genetics rather than robotics. And his powers as the name suggests allowed him to damage any Transformer he came into contact with. The Autobots couldn't even touch him because he burned through and melted their metal. I freaking loved every episode this character was in. 2. Dr. Morrocco from Rescue Bots who created his own Transformers called the Morbots. This might technically be cheating cause the Morbots were kind of a Decepticon replacement as no real Decepticons ever appeared in the show. But Doctor Morocco did appear as a villain more times that the robotic drones he created so I think he still kind of counts. 3. Scrapletts, these things have appeared in a few different continuities now, they're just metal eating little robots. I actually really like the design of these things being these little cute unassuming robots that are totally safe and friendly twards humans cause we aren't made if metal but are freaking terrifying to Transformers as they're kind of like the Cybertronian equivelent of paranah. Honorable mention for Doctor Arkenvile who is kind of a G1 predesessor to Dr. Mandriod.

As a comic guy, I was hoping for Death's Head and Circuit Breaker!

I knew the Quintessons were going to be # 1.

Great list! One little note I will say, the Vok are more an antagonistic force rather than purely villainous

After hearing your list I realized how many more were contenders. I do think Morocco, circuit breaker or even Arkeville should have been on the list instead of Mandroid. Mandoid feels like a mish mash of what came before with a name Marvel had already used for decades.

A few really good IDW villains to add to the list would be Nova Prime, Adaptus, the Functionist Council, and Judge Tyrest (although he is technically an Autobot, I believe). Also, Getaway, although again, Autobot.

I still think Mandroid might be one of the most terrifying human villains in transformers shows for the fact he would have won had there not been a literal deus ex machina (deus est machina) at the last second. Sure, earthspark is a kid show, but every scene with mandroid shows him to be menacing, intelligent, and most importantly, effective. He rarely has his schemes foiled in a substantial way, and even when they are, he comes out of it with something even more dangerous.

Calling the movie version of the Fallen a "wet fart" had me LMAO...

Y'know TJ you'd love that Return of the Primes podcast here on KZfaq, what you're wanting the Fallen to be portrayed as again is exactly how he's portrayed in that series and everything I'd want out of a robot Lucifer

Wish he mentioned Nova Prime

I’m surprised Meltdown from animated wasn’t on this list.

No Kremzeek? That little bugger could mess things up fast.

Meltdown was an intimidating villain he was a guy who could actually injure transformers and he got the best of all the dinobots Optimus prime and bumblebee and blackarachnia

I’m glad that Silas and MECH were my introductions to human villains in Transformers. Thank you transformers prime.

One that I feel should have been on the list is Sunder (the IDW version) If we're talking "villains who aren't Decepticons," I personally feel that an insane Autobot serial killer and former mnemosurgeon who has the ability to literally turn his victims inside out and who speaks in creepy black speech bubbles with white lettering takes some beating.

I am surprised Sideways did not make it to the list.

Lol i always thought the rotf movie fallen looked like the bionicle satan, makuta.

Sure Nemesis Prime looks cool, Shattered Glass Prime is brutal, and ruthless, and Sential Prime is a jerk. But Nova Prime is on a whole another level, and he is an autobot so I was surprised he didn't make the list

0:08 top 10 coldest villain speaches

I'm surprised Circuit Breaker or Flame, maybe early Death's Head, weren't on the list

BAM! Out of all the villains in this list the Fallen, Lockdown, Man-Droid, and the Quintessons are my favs. Also, spoilers below! I was so happy when Man-Droid became a Quintesson in the season finale.

Learned some new characters here that I didnt know about. Awesome videos as always

I'm not surprised about Silas being on the list, or Dr. Morocco being left off. I am surprised about the first human to oppose all Cybertronians - Josie "Circuit Breaker" Beller being left out.

Tbh, I'm a little disappointed by the lack of Star Seekers. I'm guessing they didn't qualify under the "no replacement faction" rule, but still, I love me some Space Pirates.

You know what will be a good movie a movie that goes deep into the 13 Primes

When you mentioned that we haven't had SG cross over into main universe, we DID but it was only a highly-restricted Botcon plot. But yeah, we need a mainline story with SG crossing over into the main universe. I'd give the Quintesson arc in Cyberverse more credit if it wasn't a Matrix clone. Like it is literally just The Matrix with a copout ending. It is good up until the ending though, sans being a ripoff.

I changed my patreon name then subbed to the patreon specifically to see if he would say it after he talked about the patreon loophole in a previous video.

I keep saying this, but I prefer to combine his human and robot names into one. Dr. Mandroid. Plus, that just sounds more like a villain name.

Surprised Death's Head wasn't in the list. But, I guess he's not really a 'villain', just a Freelance Bounty Hunter who doesn't care for factions.

Wait, The Fallen spoke in yellow work boxes? Oh sweet Primus, he was DEADPOOL ALL ALONG!!!

There are actually _two_ Spongebob jokes in this video. See if you can find the second one!

Another human villian that comes to mind is Circuit Breaker from the marvel comics and also Deathshead

The Cyberverse Quintesson story was awesome!

Would one consider Circut-Breaker a villian? She has the whole concept of seeing herself as a hero, while commiting what a cybertronian would see as cold blooded assualt and murder?

Ha! Lockdown would make a good partsformer given your lore. I have the cybertron lockdown who looks like wheeljack but with lockdowns paint job. "Loose cannon cowboy" was already the vibe it gave off as a figure.

6:10 the dark matrix really should’ve become a driving force behind Nemesis Prime instead of changing his origin every five seconds or doing the goofy corrupted Optimus thing

Power Rangers and transformers both like to take science, and strap, in this case, one of the wrecker’s explosives to it.

Should’ve put wheelie on the list. Creepy little dude

Fun fact: Lockdown's Hook is an Easter Egg in Ben 10 Omniverse

Don’t forget that shattered glass Optimus Prime is absolutely insane. Like schizophrenic insane

While he’s part of the tired trend of IDW turning otherwise normal Autobots into full-on villains, IDW Getaway is one of my favorite non-Con baddies. He’s someone so dangerously convinced that he’s right (and to an extent, he is; Megatron was far too easily integrated into and accepted by the Lost Light crew) that he’s willing to do anything to prove he IS right. Not only that, but he’s a great foil to Rodimus- both are charismatic, self-aggrandizing captains with hero complexes, but where Rodders worked past many of his vices, Getaway gave into his… dare I say it, he couldn’t get away from them.

Flame from Marvel UK. An autobot who raised a zombie army of dead Cybertronians for his aim

Yeah, Mandroid is the one guy who shook the entire status quo of Transformers forever, especially in regards to Earthspark. Crazy, huh?

Recall, if you ever did a video on it, but maybe he should do a video about the servants of unicron

Circuit Breaker would be good for this list.

I like animated headmaster his outfit was cool and he had silly gamer lingo from that time his head master unit was a vehicle head he piloted that turned into a smaller robot that he piloted he was a human in 2 robots and he stole one of them a g1 headmaster is just another minion he was a funny human pilot they are both vehicle pilots but headmaster was funny

No Death’s Head? No Circuit Breaker? No Sector Seven? No RAAT?

17:50 He's basically Robo-Venger.

I think the Quintessons as "creators of the Cybertronians" can still work without conflicting the Primus origin. It will require leaning into even more spiritual aspects, even religious lore, than before, but it works. Go Gnostic. If Primus is the True Creator, the Quintessons are the Demiurge. The fake Creator God that portrays itself as the real one. The Gnostics view this God as the one the Abrahamic faiths actually worship (so there's your spicy religious angle). In that sense, while Primus created the Thirteen as the "superior ancient lifeform" that is common in many mythologies, the Quintessons would have created the type of Cybertronians that would be the equivalent of us "inferior, flawed humans" in such myths. Ultimately, the Cybertronians that serve as the slave race revolt and drive them off for good. Fittingly, Gnosticism emphasizes "Sophia" or "wisdom" as a means for people to circumvent the Demiurge. And isn't there a trinket that acts as a font of wisdom and connection to Primus himself?

Transformers villans that aren’t decepticons. 10.megatron 9.megatron

I think Transformers shattered glass Ultra Magnus is it pretty good villain

Powell from Animated.

You would’ve put Nova Prime in it, maybe even Pharma, but hey…it is what it is!!!

Honorable mention star seekers and mercenaries

R.E.D Again Proving It's The Worst Thing Ever By not giving Us Good No Transforming Semi Possible Quintesons.

I'm not sure I'd count the Vok as villains; antagonistic, certainly, and many of their actions can be called evil, but I always felt they were more like Marvel's Celestials: too alien and mysterious to really be judged and understood. It's one of the reasons I don't like the Generations Selects retcon that made them generic universe-destroying entities. I'd also like to highlight another set of villains far too obscure to appear on this list, but that a recent interpretation I think made them more unique and noteworthy: the Destructons. Originally just a Decepticon-like faction from a cancelled Transformers 3D comic, the BW Uprising stories really expanded them in a bold direction: they're all mechanical lifeforms that rebelled against their oppressive creators, but are genocidal against Cybertronians as well due to misunderstanding a part of Transformers biology fans now take for granted: the spark. To them, sparks are energy parasites inhabiting mechanical shells, and the Destructons are "liberating" Cybertronians by extinguishing them. Their leader, Lord Imperious Delirious, is particularly interesting: he's a living repository of the minds of an entire dead species, and as such has all their knowledge and experience, like an artifical species-wide Matrix, and can weaponise all those experiences as a hallucinatory attack.

Is mayonnaise an instrument?

I'd love to put Getaway on the list, another autobot villain who also kinda thought he was doing the right thing, he just had a mania that made him believe he was a prime that needed to rise up through any means necessary

What about DEATH'S HEAD?

I love Transformers earthspark

Getaway was pretty dastardly from idw.

My personal favorite is Rhinox. While I do not agree with what he did, he was still a very smart villain. All of Rhinox's intelligence, none of his demeanor. And it was set up for in Season 1 or 2 of Beast Wars when Megatron forcefully changed his maximal programming to predacon programming.

I still see Mandroid as a poor combination of Circuit Breaker (who hates Transformers), Silas, and Dr. Morocco. Also, Morocco has a redemption story, which sets him apart from most of the human villains in the franchise.

In the continuity I'm writing, origins and religion on Cybertron are much like Earth. There are various beliefs, each of which has a piece of the truth. There was a Primus, there were the Thirteen Primes. And millennia later the Quintessons conquered Cybertron, and recreated it as a factory. After which, Cybertronians rebelled, developed transforming, then ossified into a rigid caste society. Leading to Megatron and Orion Pax, and the Great War. Which ended four million years ago, when the Allspark was ejected into space as Dark Energon was corrupting the planet. And Optimus Prime's Ark deliberately lured Megatron's Nemesis to pursue it, so Elita-One and Ultra Magnus could lead separate exoduses. The crash on Earth - with Cybertronian tech scattered across the planet, inspiring a lot of human history. Most recently being the basis for MacCullen Arms and Research Syndicate. But other tribes of Cybertronian exist in space, long evolved from what they were at the Fall.

21:00/21:02 Arcee knows this personally.

Darn I thought Hasbro would be number 1!

I'd give an honorable mention to Dr. Morocco. He's not particularly interesting in and of himself, but the fact that, in a show aimed at such a young audience that they weren't even allowed to use Decepticons, the fact that a human ended up being more or less the main villain is interesting.

How bout "old snake?" I mean it's kinda cheating using someone else's villain. But he can turn transformers into humans and steal their bodies for weapons. Also HAIL COBRA

Regarding Shattered Glass Optimus Prime, would you consider him closer to G1 Galvatron? Galvatron seems to not really care about his subordinates either.

I just thought it was all interesting. I knew that number one would be the quintessons.

Kinda wish Nova prime was on the list but I could see how similar he would be to Sentinel as both are predecessors to Optimus who went bad.

Don't ask me I voted for Circuit Breaker

I think circuit breaker and Dr arkhaville deserve spots circuit breaker was paralyzed by the transformers and she wanted revenge for it Dr arkhaville was a mad scientist who helped the decepticons and he got turned into a cyborg by starscream and we never saw him again they were the first

Earthspark is definitely not just for Kids It has some TRULY dark moments, but of course they don't show much of it

Where's the S.U.V?

To be completely honest, I was really expecting ROTB Scourge to be on this list, and I was hoping to see circuit breaker. Still a good list, despite it being a little surprising. And what about Nova Prime?

What about the Mechanic or curcuit breaker