One Winged Angel / Western Animation

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• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters featured Ickis, a small red monster with an unfortunate resemblance to a bunny rabbit. He also comes from a long line of loomers, meaning he can size shift into a gigantic beast with red eyes and dripping fangs. For the humans he managed to scare, he definitely came across as a One-Winged Angel.
• Adventure Time: If you dare press Marceline the Vampire Queen's Berserk Button, she turns into a giant rampaging bat. This is taken up to eleven in the finale, when she uses the power absorbed from the Vampire King's cloud-essence to outright pulp a GOLB-mutated monster that she thought had just killed Princess Bubblegum.
  • Her father, Hunson Abadeer, also has one◊.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: In the four-part "Quest For the Chaos Emeralds" saga, Robotnik's goal is to collect the four Chaos Emeralds so he can transform into the Supreme High Robotnik and take over Mobius. Although his plans are foiled by Sonic in the first three parts, his plan succeeds in the fourth part, "Prehistoric Sonic", and Sonic, Tails, and their temporal clones have to defeat him.
• The Game Child in the The Amazing World of Gumball episode, "The Console" takes this form as the final boss. It helps that it was a Shout-Out to the trope namer
• There is also Atomic Betty villain Maximus IQ becoming a giant demonic cat when he wore the Amulet of Shangra-La-Di-Dah in its titled episode.
• In a heroic version, Avatar: The Last Airbender has Aang and the Ocean Spirit bond to form a super-monster. The Avatar State might also count, but it's actually more of a Superpowered Good Side with Glowing Eyes of Doom....It's still not safe to be near Aang when he's in the Avatar State, though.
  • Interestingly, Hei Bai's One-Winged Angel form is the one in which we first see him. He has a normal form; it's just that the heroes arrive in the middle of his Freak Out.
  • Shows up in the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, when Korra's Evil Uncle merges with Vaatu to create the Dark Avatar. After he defeats Korra and destroys Raava, he becomes a battleship sized Dark Spirit and proceeds to go on a rampage.
• In the terrible trio episode of The Batman, The Trio uses skin patches to administer the Langstrom serum. In the end Fox (a guy turned anthro fox) ends up turning into a griffin-like monster.
• Kevin 11 from Ben 10 is an odd spin on this: His true form is his first form, an orphaned eleven-year-old boy with the power to absorb energy. Attempting to absorb the Omnitrix's energy, however, resulted in him losing the only thing he had left... His humanity.
  • Then again, there's more than one way to look at the phrase "true form":
    Kevin: It's payback time for turning me into a freak!
    Ben: You always were a freak, Kev. It's just that now the ugly's also on the outside.
  • Fortunately for Kevin, Ben 10: Alien Force ends with the Omnitrix destroyed (which Ben replaces with the Ultimatrix) and Kevin regaining his humanity as a result.
  • In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Kevin absorbs the power of the Ultimatrix to stop an incredibly powerful villain, attaining a new one-winged angel form.
  • Doctor Victor, from the third season finale, is another straight example, an absurdly large NASA scientist at first appearance but secretly a hulking Frankenstein's Monster-esque alien beneath the façade.
  • The third season finale of Ben 10: Alien Force sees it happening a few times, with Albedo's Ultimatrix being able to unleash the "ultimate evolution" of the various alien forms. Ultimate Humongasaur is green and much stronger than the normal version, while Ultimate Swampfire is a tree with blue growths. And then once Vilgax's ship floods, he unveils "his true form" - a giant squid/octopus.
  • An interesting justified example occurs in the Spiritual Successor to Ben 10, Generator Rex. Justified because the character who goes One-Winged Angel is a shapeshifter, interesting because the hero, Rex, is the one who does it, admittedly in a flash back.
• Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys has "Gormungus", an alter-ego of Gentle Giant Gor. For roughly the first third of the series, pushing Gor's Berserk Button sends him into an Unstoppable Rage. After the malevolent alien Apax captures Gor and decides that the temper and strength make him the perfect gladiator, but that gentle side just has to go, he zaps Gor with a home-made mutagenic raygun. As a result, whenever Gor gets angry, he grows into a massive, more feral-looking gorilla creature, sort of a cross between The Incredible Hulk and King Kong, until he gets calmed down.
• Parodied in an episode of Catscratch. While the brothers are watching a scary monster movie, they are interrupted by Human Kimberly at their door with a gift of broccoli. Gordon is fiercely allergic to the broccoli and he puffs up so bad that he looks just like the monster in the movie. Mr. Blik and Waffle think he is the monster from the movie and run for their lives. When they can no longer run they are faced with their only option: fight the beast.
  • It also subverted in the episode with the Banshee. The true form of the Banshee is revealed to be a "beautiful" seal woman - depicted as a seal with a dress and long blonde hair.
• In Chaotic, Aa'une went from glowing Evil Overlord to a giant monster with several tentacles when exposed to the energies of Lake Blakeer. Then in the next episode he goes down right Eldritch Abomination by growing extra mouths and more tentacles.
  • Promptly subverted when Iparu's shapeshifting power allows him to assume an identical form and match Aa'une blow-for-blow in his powered-up state.
• In Cubix: Robots for Everyone, the second main villain, a female Corrupt Corporate Executive who runs Rubix Corp, turns out to actually be an alien and in one episode reveals her true form.
  • Even more squicky is that the alien sounded like a male!
• In the Danny Phantom movie "Reality Trip", Freakshow turned into a large and grotesque ghost to combat Danny. He didn't realize it until the last minute that Danny tricked him into being a ghost so that he could easily suck him up in the Fenton Thermos.
• Characters, particularly Batman villains, in the DC Animated Universe like this trope a lot as well:
  • Clayface... it's easier to say he really liked to turn into horrifying things during combat.
  • "I! AM! BANE!"
  • One of the more way-out examples is the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Home & Garden", in which Poison Ivy creates a race of plant people who start out as normal-looking babies (save for the fact that they've emerged from giant seed pods) but may suddenly mutate into huge, green, ogrish thugs.
  • Eventually it got to the point where the Preserver assumed a monstrous form to fight Lobo in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Main Man".
  • It was even nastily subverted by the time the Batman Beyond episode "Splicers" came along. The evil scientist leader of the Splicers pumps himself full of LEGO Genetics Juice, transforming into a fearsome monster combining the features of many creatures. Terry fights him normally for a bit, then gets the bright idea to inject more of the serum into the baddie, horribly mutating him into a blobby thing... that is actually still quite capable of fighting and, worse yet, is even more powerful than before.
  • Speaking of Batman Beyond, the writers liked this trope enough to play it fairly straight in every other episode. The episode "Curse of the Cobra" is a good example; as a matter of fact, it uses LEGO Genetics as well. This is also the series in which the writers admitted that they would blow up the building if they couldn't figure out a good way to end an episode.
• Dex Hamilton: Alien Entomologist: When Zap's insect DNA overwhelms his human DNA, he transforms into a gigantic, monstrous insect form. Fortunately, his friends are able to bring him back.
• Drawn Together: When the king of Mexico drinks the worm . . .
• At the end of DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, the villain Merlock uses his talisman to transform himself into a gryphon as an attempt to take away the titular magic lamp and use it to take over the world.
• Venger, from Dungeons & Dragons (1983), transforms into a monster in the episode "The Girl Who Dreamed Tomorrow".
• The Fairly Oddparents has The Lead Eliminator, who eventually morphs into the powerful Destructinator in the "Wishology" trilogy.
  • Very earlier than that, we had Super Bike, a Cyborg-Like motorcycle with a Humanoid torso that greatly resembles a "Hunk" Superhero. However, if you piss him off, and his human-half will turn into a mechanic, red-dragon monster that's more than capable to incinerate you while crushing you with his tires.
• In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Movie Destination Imagination, Mr. Herriman makes the mistake of verbally threatening an emotionally unstable Reality Warper named World with the thing he fears most, to be sealed away alone again. World replies by destorying his imaginary world and transforming into a massive chimera creature to try and reclaim Frankie, the only person in years who has treated him with kindness. It actually works out pretty well for him as no one can really stop him until Frankie calms the poor kid down.
• Galvatron from The Transformers, an upgraded form of the series Big Bad, Megatron.
  • Unicron does it with style in the 1986 movie.
  • A human example with Silas in Transformers: Prime. After being mortally injured when Nemesis Prime falls on top of him, his mind is transferred into the body of the recently killed Breakdown.
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Dreamscaperers", after Mabel foils Bill Cipher's plans, he turns into a giant, red version of himself that shoots fire and lasers and makes your worst nightmares come true. Yeesh.
  • Later on down the line, in the episode "Weirdmageddon Part 1" Bill achieves his physical form, which while only slightly different than his original form, he does briefly turn into a prism-like monstrosity. His physical form also allows him complete control over reality. To say it works for him is a huge understatement.
  • On the series finale, Weirdmageddon:Part 3 he transforms into what may very well be his most demonic version of him: While chasing the twins, Bill becomes a three dimentional, red monstrosity with a yellow hat, several mouths filled with sharp teeth, his arms and legs become yellow, long and spindly like those of a spider, his eyes become black with a yellow, reptilian sclera and he also gains some more too, and he also sprouts some extra limbs growing from his mouths.
• Spoofed in Igor where Jackyln runs out of pills and turns into her true form: a cute little Igorrette.
• Happens a lot in Jackie Chan Adventures. This happens to anyone who wears one of the oni masks, and in the final season it happens to the villain Drago, or anyone else, who absorbs a demon power. When Drago gets all the demon powers, the end result is quite...monstrous. Most people would probably say that Ultimate Power is not worth the price of looking so ugly.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes has this done... by a Girl in the Tower Jimmy and Beezy spent the episode trying to rescue.
• Kaeloo: A heroic example, when Kaeloo gets angry enough, she turns into a giant monster.
• In the Kim Possible Grand Finale, Dr. Drakken is mutated by accidental exposure to a plant serum. This is initially Played for Laughs ("I look like a kid playing the flower in a school play!"), and then played straight as Drakken's vines prove powerful enough to defeat alien fighting machines.
• In LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales, once Vaneé is finally able to wield the power of the Sith Holocron, he uses it to construct a towering Giant Mecha suit around himself and wield the dangerous Saber of Scardont with full control. In a variation of the trope, he loses the holocron quite quickly, but is still able to hold on to his new powers, though he knows they'll fade in a relatively short time.
• In ¡Mucha Lucha!: The Return of El Malefico, after El Malefico is beaten in the first fight, he transforms into a towering giant to continue the fight.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: Lavan, villain of the "Quest of the Princess Ponies" serial, transforms to a powerful crystalline form by absorbing the magic of the six great magic wands he stole from said Princess Ponies. His careless wresting of the power from the wands disrupts all the world's magic, meaning that doom is coming on two fronts.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fourth-season two-part finale "Twilight's Kingdom", we get Tirek. He starts out as a small, raspy-voiced goatlike creature, a far cry from G1 Tirek, a monstrous centaur with an deep dramatic voice courtesy of Victor Caroli. But as he absorbs more and more magic, he goes through a string of One-Winged Angel forms, ending up a gargantuan, monstrous, kaiju-esque version of himself for the climax.
• The Owl House:
  • Emperor Belos looks like a normal man with a skin condition affecting his face, but due to him consuming Palismen to extend his lifespan, his body has slowly started to deteriorate and warp beyond recognition. He's been keeping himself together with magic, but when Luz brands him with a sigil, the Draining Spell drains all of the magic out of his body, forcing a transformation into his true form — a twelve foot tall, skeletal monster made of rotting, liquefied flesh, absolutely covered in glowing blue eyes.
  • In the series finale, Belos possesses the heart of the Titan itself in a desperate attempt to complete his genocide of witchkind with no one to stop him after learning that Titan magic can cancel the Collector's Reality Warping. In the process, he gains an even more monstrous form in which the flesh-like goop that makes up his body becomes a lichen-like Meat Moss that covers the entire Boiling Isles, and Belos himself transforms into a towering draconic beast rooted to his castle, in mockery of the Titan's image.
• On the Ozzy & Drix series, a corrupt mayoral candidate who has been illegally using growth hormones to sabotage his rival's campaign gets caught red-handed with the stuff, downs it in a panic, and you can guess the rest.
• Phineas and Ferb makes a joke about this trope in the episode "Nerds of a Feather". A TV producer Dr. Doofenshmirtz has captured in order to pitch a TV idea to him, who is voiced by Seth MacFarlane, says when Doofernschmirtz's plot has the shapeshifter pretending to be the mayor turns into a giant monster to fight Doof and Puss, "Having monsters come out of nowhere at the end of stories is lazy story writing." He changes his mind when the holographic monster that Phineas and Ferb have made comes out.
• A few characters on The Powerpuff Girls pulled this trick. In the episode "Knock It Off", for example, Professor Utonium's slacker roommate from college, Dick Hardly, gets some Chemical X and starts making hordes of Powerpuff clones, renting them out to big cities as a new crime-prevention system. When the Girls learn about his scheme and confront him, he tries to hide the remaining Chemical X by swallowing it... and turns into a giant monster.
  • Mojo became one giant ape in the Powerpuff Girls movie. Him also did this in the episodes "Speed Demon" and "Power Noia", though into two different forms. It actually works very well for HIM in "Speed Demon" and for Mojo in The Movie. So does Sedusa when she tricks the Gangreen Gang into stealing three Egyptian artifacts for her. Not only does it restore her hair, but it turns her into a giant monster, with live snakes for hair, bent on destroying the Powerpuffs and Townsville. Remember, it's always about the tiara!
• Samurai Jack; Aku forcibly transforms Ashi into a stronger, faster, demonic version of herself after discovering she's his biological daughter.
• Parodied with typical relish in a Halloween episode of South Park. The spirit of Wall-Mart revealed his "terrifying true form"... by removing his stick-on moustache.
  • Korn (stay with us here) tried to do a heroic version of this during their guest appearance in another Halloween episode. It didn't quite work out. "Korn powers activate! Form of — CORN!!!"
    • And in "Pandemic Part 2", there was an evil U.S. secretary of Homeland Security who, after revealing he was the leader of the guinea creatures, transformed into a GUINEA PIRATE.
  • Ahem. Mecha-Streisand.
• In all versions of Spawn, Violator eventually changes from his Monster Clown appearance into a huge horned monster whenever he wanted to smack some stupid out of Spawn.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: The Mewni queens have a special ability to invoke this, turning into super-powered humanoid butterflies as a last resort in life-threatening situations. Star unlocks the ability at the end of Season 2 to escape from the dark dimensional prison Toffee put her in and literally nuke him to death. Star's mother Queen Moon can do this too, and the way she talks about it indicates that it's normal for a queen to have this ability.
• In the Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo OAV, the human bad guy leaps into a tank of magical ink, turning into a giant inky monster with metal tentacles, constantly spawning four-color minions.
  • Do not piss off Raven. Seriously, don't. Dr. Light and Terra nearly got their souls eaten, and I'm pretty sure Dr. Light didn't escape without getting a few bites taken out of his.
• ThunderCats (1985): "Ancient spirits of evil, transform this decayed form into MUMM-RA, THE EVER-LIVING!!" Snarf proves that anyone can channel the 'ancient spirits of evil' if they're allowed into the transformation chamber. This might seem disloyal of them, but hey, the spirits are evil...
• In the T.U.F.F. Puppy episode, "Toast of T.U.F.F.", Keswick invents R.I.T.A. (short for Robotic Interactive Toasting Appliance), a toaster with artificial intelligence who proves she can do much more than make toast. Near the end of the episode, when Keswick tries to unplug R.I.T.A. to keep T.U.F.F. Headquarters eco-friendly, she turns against him and turns herself into a mechanical monster using all of T.U.F.F.'s electronic devices.
• In the finale of Ultimate Spider-Man's 4-part "Spider-Verse" arc, the Goblin infuses himself with the DNA from the various Spider-Men that he's encountered traveling across the multiverse to become the Spider-Goblin, requiring the original Spider-Man to team up with the six other Spider-Men they've met to defeat him.
• This happened to Valtor in Winx Club.
  • And the Trix, in Season 2 (the Negatrix), Season 5 (their Dark Sirenix forms, which was a physical mutation instead of their usual costume change upgrades), and Magical Adventure (when the Ancestral Witches possess them).
  • Tritannus, the main villain of Season 5, invokes this in the second episode of the season when he absorbs magically corrupted oil that gives him incredible magical power. Not only has he stuck around since then, but the One-Winged Angel form is what he's used for most of the season; he's pretty much useless when in his original body, though he typically has someone to protect him when that happens. His plan seems to be acquiring another such form, which cannot be good.

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