Who are some of the characters that you wildly misread upon first being introduced to them, be it a one-off issue of a comic, a truncated bio, or an episode of the cartoon where they were acting weird?

For me, it was G1/G2 Hubcap. I had his G2 toy as a kid, and in the absence of any cartoon appearances (combined with me being like 4 and not knowing what a con artist is), I took his bio quote "Weapons can win battles, but words can win wars." to mean that he was instead a pacifist who believed in amicably talking his way out of problems instead of using violence, not that he was a sleazebag who would instantly sell out a fellow Autobot to Satan for one corn chip.

 

Having seen Beast Wars Megatron first, I always assumed that the Decepticon leader Megatron would had been very similar in personally, manipulation, and intelligence. Then I saw the G1 cartoon and I was extremely off with that assumption.

The whole alter time plot honestly feels like something Animated Megatron would had thought of, not the G1 version.

 

G1 Megatron have tried time travel before in the cartoon, but it was only to steal energy from the past instead of altering it. Perhaps it was something he came up with during the gap between season 2 & the movie where he became more ruthless.

As for misinterpretations, the first time I saw the Combaticons on screen was in aerial assault where Blast Off seem to be the leader of the group since he gave the orders to combine, turns out that episode was just the only time he does that.