Elita One

Elita One is the name of several fictional characters in the world of Transformers. The original Elita One was the commander of a covert group of Autobot fighters and most later versions of the character also put her in a leadership role among the Autobots. She is also often depicted as having a romantic relationship with Optimus Prime.

In the first year of the Transformers brand, Hasbro didn't want to create female Transformers, but in late 1984 they were convinced by Ron Friedman to add at least one female Transformer to The Transformers: The Movie, which was planned to come out in 1986. This led to the creation of Arcee and also permission for the writers of The Transformers cartoon to add some female Transformers.^[1] Elita One is introduced in "The Search for Alpha Trion", an episode of the second season of the 1980s cartoon. In this episode, she is depicted as the female counterpart to Optimus Prime that remained on Cybertron to lead the remaining Autobots while Optimus was on Earth.^[2] Being introduced as part of the second season, which aired in 1985, Elita One and her team were the first female Transformers to appear in any medium.^[3]: 032 In the 1980s cartoon, she is voiced by Marlene Aragon in English and Kazue Komiya in Japanese.

Because she was a cartoon creation, no toy was made of Elita One in the 1980s. Her earliest toy version was a garage kit by MC Axis released in 1996, which included Elita One's first profile and motto.^[4][5]

Elita One briefly appears as part of a trio of female Transformers early in the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. However, her name is not mentioned and her identity as Elita is only given by a tie-in comic.^[6] The tie-in comic, titled Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Rising Storm, establishes her as a former romantic partner of the film's version of Optimus Prime. She races to warn Optimus of a Decepticon trap but is killed by the Decepticon Shockwave right as she reaches him.^[7] Elita One is one of the four main characters of the 2024 film Transformers One. Director Josh Cooley said that he wanted to "actually [make] her really important to the development of Orion Pax."^[8] In the film, Elita One is voiced by Scarlett Johansson^[9] and she transforms into a motorcycle.^[10]

Elita One is a key character in the Transformers comic series published by Image Comics and Skybound Entertainment. She debuts in the seventh issue and briefly travels to Earth to convince Optimus Prime to bring the Autobots back to defend their home planet of Cybertron.^[2] Optimus Prime's refusal to abandon Earth drives them into conflict, which leads Elita to question his worth as a leader and attack him. In response, Optimus voluntarily lets go of the Matrix of Leadership, and it chooses Elita as the new leader of the Autobots. Elita is transformed into Elita Prime and leads many of the Autobots back to Cybertron.^[11][12]

• Elita One at the Transformers Wiki