Ravage (Transformers)

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Ravage (Jaguar in Japan, Sabateur in France, Iena in Italy, Destructor in Latin America) is a fictional character in the Transformers universe.

The original Ravage

Ravage is one of a very small number of Transformers to have featured in both the original Generation 1 Transformers series and its 1990s CGI spin-off, Beast Wars: Transformers. His history across both series is intertwined back and forth in a unique fashion, and this article has been arranged specifically to allow for the most coherent relation of information, combining the G1 and Beast Wars sections together in the best way to relate this, rather than splitting them into their own separate section, in the style of other Transformers entries on Wikipedia.

Generation 1

"Today's Autobots are tomorrow's scrap metal."

The stealthy, shadowy Ravage operates best alone. A creature of the night, Ravage performs most of his actions in the darkness, both literally and figuratively - there are times when he will cloak himself in such shadow and subterfuge that not even his fellow Decepticons know where he is or what he's doing... but since whatever he's up to is sure to be bad news for the Autobots, they don't really mind. Ravage is aloof, but his craftiness and deadliness mean that his actions command respect from his comrades.

Not in possession of a conventional humanoid form, Ravage's robot mode resembles an Earth jaguar. He is capable of masking himself from many forms of detection: he walks without a sound, becomes virtually invisible in subdued light or shadow, and he can shield his internal electromagnetic radiation from monitoring devices. Superior sensors in his nose module give him highly advances senses of smell, hearing and electromagnetic wave detection, and he is armed with two low-radiation one-megaton proton bombs mounted on his rear hips. Ravage's greatest weakness is the light - in addition to robbing him of his invisibility powers, he is simply particularly sensitive to it, and can be blinded by especially bright bursts.

Released in 1984, Ravage is one of the Decepticon cassettes (known in Japan as "Cassetrons"), and came packaged with his fellow cassette, Rumble. Like the other cassettes, Ravage is connected to Soundwave, although the strength of this link varies from continuity to continuity, appearing at its strongest in the original animated series. Although presented by the toyline to be a microcassette, the animated series and movie presented Ravage's alternate mode as a standard tape cassette.

Animated Series

Like the other cassette Decepticons in the animated series, Ravage was strongly tied to Soundwave, spending the vast majority of time not battling stored in his chest. Notably lacking in the power of speech (barring one unusual incident in More than Meets the Eye pt 3, in which Ravage speaks his one and only line of dialogue in the entire series), Ravage seemed marginally more intelligent than the animal he resembled - capable of basic deductive reasoning and the ability to manipulate simple mechanisms - but was treated by the Decepticons in much the same manner as a human being treats a pet. As Laserbeak's robot mode was modified by the Ark to resemble a condor, it stands to reason that Ravage's panther robot mode is the work of similar alteration, although how his robot mode looked while on Cybertron is unknown.

Upon the Transformers' awakening on Earth in 1984, Ravage was first deployed to dissuade humans from investigating a Decepticon attack on a power plant. Later, when Soundwave infiltrated the Autobots' headquarters, Ravage installed himself into Teletraan I in order to access data on natural resources which Soundwave recorded, but while Soundwave escaped, Ravage was captured by the Autobots and used in an attempt to tricking Megatron into a trap. Autobots Hound and Mirage spoke loudly of a nearby rocket base and the fuel it housed, deliberately allowing Ravage to overhear them and purposefully dropping the key to the cage he was held in so that he might escape and pass the information on to Megatron, allowing the Autobots to ambush him. Ravage acted according to plan, reporting to Megatron (this being the strange instance in which he appeared to speak, as he relayed information in a voice belonging to no other character from his cassette mode), but Megatron realised the trick at work, and successfully fooled the Autobots and acquired the energy required.

Ravage was frequently deployed on hunting and spying missions throughout the Transformers' adventures on Earth, often coming up against the small Autobot, Bumblebee and the Autobots' human allies - opponents that his comparatively small size did not prevent him from engaging. Occasionally, he even tussled with Optimus Prime, but such fights rarely lasted. Among Ravage's most notable misadventures were his time-travelling visit to medieval England alongside Starscream, Ramjet and Rumble, and his displacement to an alien world populated by giants, where a regular housecat hunted him down like a mouse.

Ravage was among the Decepticons who attacked Autobot City in the Earth year 2005, disabling an Autobot communications array alongside Rumble, Frenzy and Ratbat, then battling their Autobot Cassette counterparts. In 2006, Ravage was among the "Primitive" Transformers amassed by the ex-assistant of the ancient genius Primacron in order to combat his energy-draining creation Tornedron; alongside Ratbat, Steeljaw and Ramhorn, Ravage was defeated and had his energy drained by Tornedron in the form of a tiger, but was later restored when Grimlock defeated the monster.

Ravage's vocalizations were performed by animation voice over veteran, Frank Welker, and were not redubbed for the Japanese version of the series. However, for Ravage's few appearances in the Japanese-exclusive series, Transformers: Headmasters, he suddenly acquired the power of full speech, and was voiced by Shimaka Yutaka.

Marvel Comics

In contrast to his growling, animalistic portrayal in the animated series, the incarnation of Ravage featured in Marvel Comics' Transformers series was an intelligent, cunning and loquacious warrior. In Cybertron's past, he and his partner, Nightstalker, were the bodyguards of the Overlords, the Autobots who had ruled Cybertron for generations, and guarded them until only one, last, enfeebled Overlord remained. Before the beginning of the Autobot/Decepticon civil war, when the Overlord was visiting the city-state of Tarn, a war between it and its neighbor Vos erupted, and Ravage, Nightstalker, Megatron and Optimus Prime attempted to get the elder mechanoid to the safety of the capital, Iacon. When the bridge from the city collapsed, Prime leapt the ravine to get aid from Iacon, but as the forces of Tarn bore down on them, Nightstalker self destructed to save the Overlord. In constant need of re-energizing to survive, the Overlord turned to Ravage to help him, but Ravage refused and allied with Megatron, believing that he would be the next ruler of Cybertron, allowing the Overlord to perish.

Ravage was one of Megatron's closest allies as he began the Autobot/Decepticon war, and accompanied him in his attack on the Autobot spacecraft, the Ark, which resulted in Megatron and Optimus Prime's forces being entombed on Earth in stasis for four million years. When the Transformers then awakened in 1984, Ravage used his stealth powers to survey a nuclear power planet, and had a series of encounters with the naive Autobot, Mirage, who appealed to Ravage to stop fighting and work together with the Autobots so that the might return to Cybertron. When Ravage severed Mirage's arm with his jaws, however, he saw the light and defeated him.

Across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom's exclusive Transformers series (which interspliced its own original stories with reprinted American strips) briefly shone the spotlight on Ravage when he and Windcharger were forced to team up to shut down the Ark's malfunctioning computer, AUNTIE. Then, back in the US title, during a period in which the Decepticons had allied themselves with the human Donny Finkleberg, the Autobots staged an attack on their base, and Finkleberg fled and fell in with the Autobot, Skids, only to be pursued by Ravage. Skids led him to an abandoned mining town, where, after a battle, Ravage was tricked into falling down a mineshaft.

Rendered inactive by the fall, this was all that both the UK and US comics would see of Ravage for quite some time. The UK comics were first to depict his return, however, when a rift in space and time threatened the destruction of Earth and Cybertron. The tremors that ripped through the planet as a result of this jarred Ravage back online, and he soon discovered the base of the time-travelling future Decepticon, Galvatron, in the cave system he had fallen into. Siding with Galvatron initially, Ravage battled the Autobot Wreckers and the Decepticon Mayhem Attack Squad alongside Galvatron, a clone of Megatron (believed by all to be the real article) and Galvatron's fellow time-traveller, Scourge, who was convinced by Springer that he, Galvatron and their deceased companion Cyclonus needed to return to the future to stop the rift. As the situation deteriorated, Ravage realised that this was the truth, and aided Scourge by presenting Shockwave - driven to madness by the illogical nature of events - with the most logical argument for helping accomplish this.

With reality saved, Ravage accompanied the Megatron clone back to Cybertron, where they were attacked by the real Megatron. At a loss due to his senses' inability to tell the difference between the two, Ravage watched the scene play out as the real Megatron convinced the clone to destroy itself to prevent the personality of its creator, Lord Straxus, buried within it, from taking over.

With Megatron's subsequent apparent destruction battling the Autobot medic Ratchet, the stage was sent for Ravage's return in the US comic. Returning to Earth, Ravage joined up with Shockwave again, who established a small cell of Decepticons to depose the current Earth-based Decepticon leader, Scorponok. The battle was interrupted by the arrival of the Neo-Knights, however, and all the combatants' subsequent transportation to Cybertron by Primus to battle Unicron.

Dreamwave Comics

Ravage's played a minor role in Dreamwave Productions' 21st century reimagining of the Generation 1 universe. In the course of publication, the company introduced a new Cybertronian body for him - a bipedal, clawed semi-humanoid form.

Ravage was recruited as a Decepticon under the leadership of Megatron his war against the Autobots on the planet Cybertron. He worked under communications officer Soundwave.

When a new Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, was chosen, Ravage was sent along with Shrapnel, Bombshell, Kickback and Soundwave, to attempt to kill him and bring the Matrix to Megatron, but they failed, forcing Megatron to confront Optimus personally.

Ravage was chosen as a member of the crew of the Nemesis when Megatron launched it to attack the Ark, an Autobot ship. Both ships fought, and after the Decepticons boarded the Ark, it crashed on the planet Earth, where all on board were placed in emergency stasis lock for millions of years.

In the Earth year 1984, a volcanic explosion awakened the Ark and it's computer, Teletran One, reformatted all on board to be able to assume the forms of Earth machines. Ravage was given a robotic form resembling an Earth cougar and an alternate form of a cassette tape.

Eventually the combined forces of the Autobots on Earth, and their human allies were able to capture the Decepticons. A ship called the Ark II was built to take the Cybertonians back to Cybertron, along with some human companions, but the ship exploded shortly after takeoff. The human allies were killed, but the Cybertonians were lost in the ocean, again in stasis lock.

Ravage was among the Transformers who briefly fell under the control of the terrorist, Lazarus. Bumblebee, Frenzy, Grimlock, Laserbeak, Prowl, Ravage, Soundwave and Starscream were forced at attack the Smitco oil refinery in the Arctic to display their power for sale to the highest bidder (Transformer: Generation One #2).

Beast Wars

Unlike the wide array of other characters featured in the Beast Wars toyline who shared the names of older Generation 1 characters but shared no other connection with them (with the exception of Grimlock and possibly Prowl), the Predacon known as Ravage truly was the original Ravage from Megatron's army.

Within the Beast Wars toyline, there was actually no figure named "Ravage" released (during the time that the series was on the air in the US, there were a couple later released but hard to come by), though there are several which represent the character, each one a repaint of one of the three Cheetor figures from the line. The first was offered exclusively by Hasbro's online toy shop in 1999 - a repaint of the original Cheetor toy formerly exclusive to Japan, there named Shadow Panther, now named "Tripredacus Agent". This character did not immediately have any connection to Ravage, but it would later be retroactively established.

The second figure, meanwhile, was a Japanese-exclusive remould of Transmetal Cheetor, also from 1999, openly designed to visually represent the Beast Wars animated series version of Ravage, and dubbed with a version of the original character's Japanese name - Jaguar X-9. As a remould of Cheetor, the toy transformed into a jaguar, although the animated series did not show Ravage with this ability; rather, he retained his original cassette transformation. The toy was not released in America (though it was later repainted into Tigatron exclusively for the BotCon convention, and Hasbro has announced interest in releasing a new batch of this toy as part of its Beast Wars 10th Anniversary line, though those plans are on hold, as they try to find the mold for it).

Finally, there is his third body, a repaint of Transmetal 2 Cheetor available exclusively at Wal-Mart in 2001. Again called only "Tripredacus Agent", the toy's biography made it clear that he was Ravage, and furthermore established that he was also the original Tripredacus Agent toy, retroactively establishing it as a Ravage figure.

Animated Series

Following the end of the Great War, when the Decepticons finally met their defeat at the hands of the Autobots, some of Megatron's army were granted amnesty and were reformatted along with the majority of the other Transformers on the planet into new, smaller energy conservative forms. Thus, Autobots and Decepticons became Maximals and Predacons, each ruled by a council, but with the Maximals firmly in control of the planet. Ravage put his espionage history to work serving under the Predacons' ruling triumvirate, the Tripredacus Council, as a covert agent - in his new bipedal Predacon body, his stealth abilities were enhanced from invisibility in darkness to true invisibility, imperceptible to both the naked eye and any scanning mechanisms. Despite his new body, his alternate mode was still a cassette. It is interesting to note that while Ravage had a new body in Beast Wars, when he transformed he still made the same transforming sounds as the original series Autobots and Decepticons, unlike the Maximals and Predacons' quieter, more metallic sounds.

When a rogue Predacon also known as Megatron stole a Transwarp cruiser and travelled back in time with the goal of altering history to ensure Decepticon victory in the war, the Tripredacus Council outfitted Ravage with a Transwarp cruiser and dispatched him to pursue and arrest Megatron. Arriving on prehistoric Earth, Ravage allied with the local Maximals, and, with the aid of Tarantulas, a Predacon secret police mole hidden in Megatron's forces, successfully arrested Megatron and put him in captivity. His craft, however, was out of power, and while the Maximals sought Energon to re-energise it, Megatron and Ravage were left together... long enough for Megatron to reveal that his plans to alter the timeline had been obtained from a message left by the original Megatron, Ravage's commander. Discovering this, Ravage immediately switched sides along with Tarantulas (who was working towards his own agenda in any case), siding with Megatron in attacking the Maximal base. The Maximal, Rattrap, infiltrated Ravage's cruiser and planted a series of bombs which tore the craft - and Ravage - apart. With a final cry of "Decepticons Forever!" his body was consumed by the explosion, and his remains were ignored by Tarantulas's drones, sent tumbling down a cliff.

The Beast Wars incarnation of Ravage was voiced by Lee Tockar with a thick, stereotypical Slavic accent to play off of Ravage's function as a master spy. In the Japanese dub of the series, he was voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa.

BotCon Comics

In "Primeval Dawn", an unfinished comic book published exclusively for the BotCon convention, Ravage's spark was somehow recovered, although it was never shown how, in his second "Tripredacus Agent" body. His absence from later storylines has led to the assumption that he was destroyed, most likely in combat with Tigatron.

Although no explanation was given as to how Ravage survived the Beast Wars storyline, the IDW comics which were printed later, but whose story took place before Primeval Dawn shed some light on his resurection.

IDW Comics

In 2006, IDW Publishing printed a four-issue mini-series spotlighting the many characters in the Beast Wars toyline not featured in the animated series. Set in continuity with the animated series, but not specifically the BotCon comics, the story occurs on prehistoric Earth at the same time as the animated series, but the characters remain out of phase with the time period, preventing any interaction between them and the other Transformers there. Searching for the ruins of Ravage's craft, Predacon leader Magmatron discovered the former Decepticon's remains, and his intact spark core, restoring to life by transplanting him into a blank protoform in his second "Tripredacus Agent" body. Working with Injector, Sky Shadow, Jetstorm, Buzzsaw and Lazorbeak as his "eyes and ears," Ravage arranged an attack on the Maximals who had gathered to oppose Magmatron's plan, but the arrival of reinforcements saw his plan defeated. Although Magmatron was forcibly returned to Cybertron, Ravage was left alive, with the prospect of a return in future stories (maybe intending set the comic in continuity with the BotCon comics).

Notably, comic artist Don Figueroa did not render Ravage in the "official" robot mode of the Tripredacus Agent toy (as the BotCon comics did, pictured), designing instead an alternate robot form to give Ravage his distinctive feline head, in line with his appearance in the Beast Wars animated series. It is possible to transform the toy into this mode, although it consists solely of standing the beast mode on its hind legs.

Comics Bon-Bon Manga

Published in the Japanese magazine, Comics Bon-Bon, the Beast Wars manga takes a particularly different approach to the Beast Wars incarnation of Ravage, not in continuity with the animated series but noteworthy nonetheless. In this storyline, the character is not the original Ravage, but is in fact his son, a dangerous religious fanatic who was ensconced in a maximum security prison. Breaking free, he killed his father and his army, and vowed to kill Megatron and all the Maximals and Predacons, but met his own end at the hands of Optimus Primal.

Interestingly, in the manga, the original Ravage is represented by the 1996 McDonald's Happy Meal toy, "Panther".

Transformers: Alternators

Ravage took on yet another new form that combined both his original G1 and Beast Wars incarnations in 2005 as part of the ' line (in which he was named Battle Ravage''', due to Hasbro's inability to trademark a generic word such as "Ravage" to use as a name). Although the American toyline offers no supporting fiction, the Japanese version of the series, Binaltech, (in which the character actually was named Ravage, not Jaguar) tells the story of how Ravage acquired this new, deadly form.

Throughout the late 20th Century, the government intelligence agency Triple I acquired a large number of Cybertronian artifacts from around the world, including a mysterious box that they dubbed "Schrödinger's Box". After the agency was disbanded, staff members continued to secretly store the items, until, in the early 21st Century, advances in technology resulting from human interaction with Transformers, they discovered the truth about the mystery box - it was the flight recorder from the buried remains of Ravage's Transwarp cruiser, left on Earth after the Beast Wars in prehistory. The flight recorder contained a duplicate of Ravage's personality labelled "File X-9," and their studies eventually allowed them to communicate with it. In exchange for sharing with them his knowledge of future events, Ravage desired that they create for him a new body. The Autobots on Earth had recently arranged for the construction of new bodies for themselves after infection by Cosmic Rust, and the Triple I staffers set up a fake project to arrange for the construction of one of these "Binaltech" bodies, in the form of a Chevy Corvette, for Ravage. Ravage's personality was transferred from the flight recorder into his new body, but to truly be brought to life, it required a Spark. Coincidentally, the original, present-day incarnation of Ravage had recently been captured by the Earth Defense Command and stasis-locked into his cassette mode; purloined by the Triple I staffers, he was implanted into the cassette deck of the Binaltech body, providing it with a Spark, and uniting the past, present and future Ravage into one deadly whole. Easily overcoming the failsafes that the staffers had placed on his weapons systems, Ravage killed his benefactors, and, realising that his involvement in the Beast Wars had failed to change history, set out to alter the timestream a different way.

Hijiacking a shuttle belonging to the Autobot, Wheeljack, Ravage returned to Cybertron and set about locating the Kronosphere, a Decepticon time-machine developed by Shockwave. Locating and repairing the machine, Ravage made his play during the final, decisive battle between Megatron and Optimus Prime's forces in early 2005, turning the machine on Megatron's armada and transporting them into a rift in the space-time continuum. With this act, Ravage successfully altered the timeline - had this not occurred, Prime's forces would have been defeated and forced to withdraw to their bases on Cybertron's moons, setting up the events of , but with Ravage's success, they won the battle and retook Cybertron, thereby diverging the events of the Alternators timeline off from the animated series universe. Now, the Autobots would have to face the coming of Unicron alone, and when they were weakened in the wake of the battle, Ravage would bring Megatron back, and the Decepticons would finally crush their opponents.

Subsequently, Ravage installed Shockwave into a new Binaltech body to lead the remaining Decepticons in Megatron's absence. Unfortunately for Ravage, however, the Autobot known as Overdrive was aware of the space/time disturbances caused by his tinkering with future events, and teamed up with Wheeljack to capture Ravage and draw out his full plan. With a smirk of satisfaction, Ravage openly spilled the details of his plans, just as Unicron had been spotted on a collision course for Cybertron, revealing that his audacious plan may save some of those Autobots destined to meet their end during the events of the proper timeline (dubbed 'Prime Time' by Wheeljack, with Ravage's altered timeline noted as 'Ravage Time'), but that they were all expendable in his plans save Optimus, as he held the one thing that could defeat the Chaos Bringer. Realizing the complex dangers of Ravage's intentions, Optimus takes off with Ultra Magnus in a shuttle to intercept Unicron and use the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to destroy the planet-eater, while Autobot Skids is ordered to initiate "Opperation: Distant Thunder", which would send the information gleaned from Ravage to their past selves at a point in history prior to the Decepticon cat's meddling, thus theoretically warning and preparing them for Ravage's assault on time and hopefully stopping him before he could do so, with the Binaltech project smoothing over most of any temperal hiccups, afterwards. However, just as Skids flips the final switch to send the data back in time, sensors pick up a huge Decepticon batallion bearing down on their location. Until further chapters are published, it is unknown if "Opperation: Distant Thunder" was successful in halting Ravage's plans or not.

Transformers: Energon

Thus far the only other "Ravage" character to appear in Transformers fiction who is not the original Ravage is the 2004 ' incarnation of the character, named Battle Ravage (Command Jaguar' in Japan) for the same reason as the Alternator (which the Energon'' figure predated). Beyond his jaguar alternate mode, he bears no great similarity to the original Ravage, though one of his two shoulder-mounted Energon cannons is a replica of the original Megatron's fusion cannon. The cannons can be combined in a variety of ways, and the beast mode's tail disconnects to form a flail that can be wielded in robot mode.

Motto: "What my claws don't destroy my teeth will."

Animated Series

Like the other Terrorcons, Battle Ravage is not an individual entity, but an unending army of drones which formerly existing as the army of the doomed Planet Q, consumed by Unicron and recreated from him by the planet's deranged ruler, Alpha Q using the power of Energon. Possessed of no true intelligent thought and only very rarely transforming into robot mode, the Battle Ravage legions are sufficiently fragile, exploding under minimal artillery fire, but will swarm over their objective like insects, usually managing to tear down opposition through sheer numbers. They can consume raw Energon orally and store it in their massive internal reserves, where it can be converted into negatively-charged Energon stars which can attached to larger Decepticons for power boosts.

A blue and maroon recolor of the figure named Command Ravage (given the suffix Desert Type in Japan) was released later in the line, and incorporated into the animated series as a stealth-equipped radar-invisible version of the standard Battle Ravage Terrorcon.

Dreamwave Comics

In the Dreamwave Productions Transformers: Energon comic book series, Battle Ravage was a singular entity, a Decepticon who soon tired of the peace on Cybertron following the Autobot/Decepticon alliance that formed in the wake of the Unicron Battles. He knows no emotion save the thrill of the hunt, and cannot be distracted from his objective when on the prowl. He has an unquenchable thirst for Energon, and is a highly skilled tracker, although his single-minded focus while doing so is often detrimental, leading him to charge into enemy territory without realising it.

Approached by Scorponok to join his rebel squad, Battle Ravage accepted, and the group then found itself working under the direction of Alpha Quintesson, a go-between for the deactivated Unicron himself. Exposed to the reformatting powers of Unicron, the team were upgraded with new, more powerful Hyper Modes, and attacked the AlterEnergy facility in Australia on Earth - during which Battle Ravage pursued the human, Kicker - only to be stopped by the Autobots. Later, through Unicron's power, he and the other Terrorcons were multiplied into a vast army of cloned drones under the originals' command. Battle Ravage's drones attacked Moscow until they were routed by an Autobot counter-attack and a vengeful Megatron.

Transformers: Energon #26 – Earth Year 2015 - After a flashback to Optimus Prime forming the Cybercord Treaty between the United Nations and Cybertron we find Prowl and Jetfire on Cybertron trying to find out what happened to Optimus Prime. Jetfire then has to speak to the High Council instead of Optimus Prime. Although council member Leviticus does not wish to assign the Autobots more troops and energon on Earth, council member Avalon comes to Jetfire’s aid and gets convinces the council to do as asked. Hidden inside Unicron Megatron attempts to get Optimus Prime to help him move Megatron’s spark into a new body without Unicron being aware. Megatron offers to help Optimus Prime stop a Terrorcon invasion of Earth if he will help Megatron move his spark into a new body. In the Black Sea Kicker and the Omnicons are attempting to find a new Energon deposit when they are attacked by Mirage, Slugslinger and Sharkticon. Alexis and Rad witness the anti-robot protests in Los Angeles. On Earth Terrorcon invasions start in four cities. Divebomb and his clones attack Toronto, Battle Ravage and his clones attack Moscow, Cruellock and his clones attack Tokyo and Insecticon and his clones attack Los Angeles.

The bankruptcy and subsequent closure of Dreamwave Productions left their story of Battle Ravage and the rest of the Transformers: Energon universe untold.

 

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