History Main / WasOnceAMan

* ''Film/LostInSpace'': This fate happens to Doc Smith in the future timeline, when he is infested/mutated by spiders.

* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'': King Caesar and Monster X were both men who volunteered to be transformed into Kaiju in order to protect and serve their people. King Caesar was an Okinowan Royal Guardsman who lived centuries ago, and sacrificed his life to put his soul into a giant shisa golem to animate it so that he could fend off an attack by Dagahra. Monster X was a [[HumanSubspecies Xilian]] soldier who fused himself with Grand King Ghidorah's power and [=DNA=] to fight Ghidorah when the dragon attacked Planet X, but he has TraumaInducedAmnesia and does not remember this.

%% Alphabetical, please. * ''Fanfic/BlueSky'': This is revealed to be [[spoiler: true of Wheatley, though he isn't pleased to realize it. He eventually makes it back to his real body.]]

See also: BodyHorror, AndThenJohnWasAZombie, ViralTransformation, TheVirus, TragicMonster, StagesOfMonsterGrief and ReforgedIntoAMinion. Compare ''and'' contrast UncannyValley. Also contrast with AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, for a non-monstrous transformation.

This trope has nothing to do with GenderBender. Not to be confused with {{Animorphism}}, {{Transflormation}}, or ForcedTransformation, in which the thing that used to be a human is ''not'' a monster, although it can still be a BrownNoteBeing. Also do not confuse with a UsefulNotes/{{transgender}} woman.

* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'': The Reavers. Actually, it was BECAUSE their minds were warped that their bodies are so messed up (self-mutilation).

[[OurMonstersAreDifferent Monsters]] are pretty damn scary. Horrible, bug-eyed, slobbering, and in ''no way'' '''''ever''''' human. Therefore, it's all the more [[NightmareFuel unsettling]] when it's revealed that a monstrous creature was once human, but became a monster through some sort of [[TheVirus infection]], [[TheCorruption curse]], sheer [[EvilMakesYouMonstrous personal evil]] or [[TransformationTrauma transformation]] and there's no means of changing them back.

** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Queen Atomia's identical adoring subjects and mindless robotic seeming slaves are revealed to be created by forcing humans through transformation chambers. Not even Amazonian medical science can do anything to help them.

** [[RealityWarper The Mutant]], a hideous multi-limbed...thing from an alternate future timeline where he tortured and killed Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson, as well as destroyed Mega City One, ruling over the ruins along with the now corrupted and mutated judges. [[spoiler: He is actually Owen Krysler from The Judge Child storyline]]

* Jake Sully from ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' is a heroic example. He was a human marine who, via a remote neuro-transmissive pod, drove an engineered Na'vi body to infiltrate the Na'vi for a forced relocation by the human military forces invading Pandora. The more Jake interacted with the Na'vi, the less like his human self he became even later referring to humans as "the ''aliens''" or "Sky People" as the Na'vi call them. Jake's transition is complete when he voluntarily transfers his consciousness into his avatar body and is thus reborn as a Na'vi.

* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': Jake Sully is a heroic example. He was a human marine who, through a remote neuro-transmissive pod, drove an engineered Na'vi body to infiltrate the Na'vi for a forced relocation by the human military forces invading Pandora. The more Jake interacted with them, the less like his human self he became even referring to his fellow humans as "the ''aliens''" or "Sky People". Jake's transition is complete when he's mortally wounded in the climactic mutiny and his consciousness is transferred into his Na'vi avatar via the Tree of Souls.

* ''Webcomic/ThePropertyOfHate'': This is origin of all of the monsters introduced with the exception of Assock [[spoiler: who was orignally an elephant.]]

* Doctor Cockroach [[PropheticName (also his legal name)]] from ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens'' was originally a handsome scientist who invented a machine that would give humans the cockroach's ability to survive, with himself as the first and only test subject. It worked, [[GoneHorriblyRight but with side-effects]].

* ''Film/Howl2015'': After the Scar werewolf breaks into the train and the {{Action Survivor}}s kill him in self-defence, they look over his body. After coming to terms with Matthew's statement that what they are looking at is the body of a werewolf, they notice that he is still wearing a ring, concluding he used to be an ordinary person. This film's depiction of werewolves is ultimately TheVirus, complete with a ZombieInfectee, where it appears that the transformation into a werewolf is one-way and gradual.

* ''Film/IslandOfTheFishmen'': Claude and Amanda discover that the titular fishmen were in fact the natives of the island that Professor Ernest Marvin has been using for his experimentation into creating the next dominant species on Earth for after humans have gone extinct. They discover this when [[spoiler:They find Jose in Professor Martin's lab half-transformed.]]

* Creator/{{Toho}} Studios, famed for their Godzilla movies, released a trilogy of standalone "Transforming Human" films, the first of which was ''The H-Man'' (1958) and featured a set of shapeshifting blob-like monsters that melted other living beings on contact, transformed by exposure to radiation. While not a part of the trilogy, the 1963 film ''Film/{{Matango}}'' had a similar theme and featured humanoid mushroom-like creatures, formerly humans who'd consumed the mushrooms after getting shipwrecked on a desert island and were transformed by them.
* ''Film/{{Xtro}}'': Sam Philips returns home three years after his [[AlienAbduction mysterious disappearance]]. What his ex-wife and son don't realize is that after being taken by the mysterious aliens, they changed him so that he can adapt to their homeworld's atmosphere. Unfortunately, [[GoneHorriblyWrong it also turns him into a dangerous mutant]] operating on BlueAndOrangeMorality who won't hesitate to exploit or murder those around him. [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Except his own son]], who eventually [[spoiler: becomes an alien like his father and returns with him to the alien homeworld]].
* Charles Lee "Chucky" Ray of the ''Film/ChildsPlay'' films was initially a human SerialKiller who used voodoo to transfer his soul into a Good Guy doll before dying from being shot. Even in his doll form where he's been brutally killed numerous times, he is seemingly immortal and unstoppable.

* In ''Fanfic/TheBridge'', King Caesar and Monster X were both men who volunteered to be transformed into Kaiju in order to protect and serve their people. King Caesar was a Okinowan Royal Guardsmen living centuries ago, who sacrificed his life to put his soul into a giant shisa golem to animate it so he could fend off an attack by Dagahra. Monster X was an [[HumanSubspecies Xilian]] soldier who fused himself with Grand King Ghidorah's power and [=DNA=] to fight Ghidorah when the dragon attacked Planet X, but he has TraumaInducedAmnesia and does not remember this.

* ''Fanfic/{{Experiment}}'': The inhabitants of Sezaria were all human once excluding the "original one" - Ladrafiefr/Kaito. Said inhabitants are now freaky aliens with tentacles coming from their backs.

* ''Fanfic/{{Spider-Ninja}}'': When they meet for the first time, Master Splinter [[InternalReveal explains to Fury and Black Widow]] that he was once a human named Hamato Yoshi, and that he was a ninjutsu master in Japan. After his rival framed him for the murder of their grandmaster, he left Japan for New York, taking up residence under the city to better hide from his enemy's forces. It was while he was in the city's storm sewers that he found four baby turtles crawling through a pool of [[AppliedPhlebotinum strange ooze]], and came in direct contact with the chemical while fishing the turtles out. By the next morning, he was a giant rat and the turtles were all anthropomorphic.

* ''Fanfic/IfWishesWerePonies'': Zig-zagged. The portal between Harry's original world and Equestria turns any being with magic into a pony (usually a pegasus or unicorn, although Ron and Percy become Earth ponies). Harry, the first one to go through the portal, became a unicorn colt, and transformed into a human boy whenever he goes back through. The transformation isn't permanent, as anyone who has been a pony once can return to that form in the human world.

* ''Fanfic/{{Spider-Ninja}}'': Master Splinter [[InternarlReveal explains to Fury and Black Widow]] that he was once a human named Hamato Yoshi, and that he was a ninjutsu master in Japan. After his rival framed him for the murder of their grandmaster, he left Japan for New York, taking up residence under the city to better hide from his enemy's forces. It was while he was down there that he found four baby turtles crawling through a pool of [[AppliedPhlebotinum strange ooze]], and came in direct contact with the chemical while fishing the turtles out. By the next morning, he was a giant rat and the turtles were all anthropomorphic.

* "WesternAnimation/MonstersVersusAliens'': Dr. Cockroach was once an ordinary human, albeit an incredibly brilliant one. In an attempt to give humans a cockroach's ability to survive practically anything, he conducted an experiment on himself that turned him into an insect-headed MadScientist.

* ''Fanfic/DateAReLive'' follows the example from its below-mentioned [[LightNovel/DateALive source material]], [[spoiler:Except that Tohka Yatogami plays it straight where she was born human prior to becoming a spirit several months before she turned 16 biologically]].

* ''Blog/BetterBonesAU'': Or rather, was once a cat: the rats attacking [=SkyClan=] are the spirits of [=SkyClan=] ancestors unable to fade away once they were [[RememberTheDead forgotten]] due to the [=SkyClan] ancestors' separation from [=StarClan=].