Ravage is the name of several fictional characters in the Transformers universes. Due to the inability to trademark the common name Ravage, he is sometimes called Battle Ravage, Command Ravage or Tripredacus Agent. In 2007 Hasbro released the Alternators toy under the name Ravage again.

Transformers: Generation 1

Ravage is one of a very small number of Transformers to have featured in both the original Transformers series and its 1990s CGI successor, Beast Wars: Transformers. His history within both series is intertwined back and forth in a unique fashion.

The original Ravage toy was packaged along with the Decepticon Rumble. When Soundblaster was reissued in Japan, and his repaint as the original Soundwave in the U.S., Ravage was included.

Oddly, in the audio books Autobots' Lightning Strike and Autobots Fight Back, Ravage is referred to as a hound.

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 advanced 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.

Like the other Decepticon cassettes ("Cassettrons" in Japan), 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 toy line to be a microcassette, the fiction presented Ravage's alternate mode as a standard-sized cassette.

Although never fully explored, it is safe to assume that Ravage, along with his other fellow cassette tapes share some sort of close bond to Soundwave, whether this be as a leader or as a parental-type figure. Whatever the relationship is, the cassettes must coexist with Soundwave for both protection and possibly regeneration, after all they stand more chance of survival housed in his compartment than on their own due to sheer size and power output. As Soundwave's loyalties ultimately rest with Megatron, the cassettes follow suit, obeying their leader's orders without question. Ravage would most likely come to Soundwave's defense or protection in battle, much like a dog and its owner, and portrayals in various continuities would show him to be almost fanatically loyal to Megatron.

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 compartment. Notably lacking in the power of speech (barring one unusual incident in "More Than Meets the Eye, Part 3", although the incident could be accredited to the fact Ravage was merged inside Soundwave at that time), 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 jaguar robot mode is the work of similar alteration, although how his robot mode appeared while on Cybertron is not revealed. (Ravage's espionage skills would go largely unused during the series, instead he would be more commonly used as an attack dog).

In the episode "More Than Meets The Eye Part 1", 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 inserted himself into Teletraan I's cassette drive in order to access data on natural resources which Soundwave recorded, but while Soundwave escaped, Ravage was captured by the Autobots and later 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 realized 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 pitted 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 and Skyfire, but such fights rarely lasted.

Among Ravage's most notable misadventures were his time-traveling in "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court" to medieval England alongside Starscream, Ramjet and Rumble, and his displacement in "Child's Play" to an alien world populated by giants, where a regular housecat hunted him down like a mouse. He also, at one point, ended up battling a real jaguar, defeating it with the aid of his rockets.

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, the episode "Call of the Primitives", 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.

Marvel Comics

In contrast to his growling, animalistic portrayal in the animated series, the first 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 lept 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 plant, 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 they might return to Cybertron. When Ravage severed Mirage's arm with his jaws, Mirage saw the light and defeated Ravage.

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. He also put in an appearance in the 1985 UK Transformers annual where he and the Insecticons attacked a meeting between the Autobots and Ronald Reagan, being defeated when he was accidentally hit by one of Bombshell's cerebro shells. Then, back in the U.S. 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 U.K. and U.S. comics would see of Ravage for quite some time. The U.K. comics were first to depict his return 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-traveling 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-traveler, 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 realized 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 U.S. 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, and all the combatants' subsequent transportation to Cybertron by Primus to battle Unicron. He was last seen battling against Unicron.

Convention Comics

Ravage would also play a brief but important role in Alignment, writer Simon Furman's take on what happened after the Transformers: Generation 2 comic series ended. When Megatron's battered body was recovered by Soundwave after a duel with Galvatron, Ravage was one of the conspirators (along with Soundwave, Ramjet and Direwolf) who gave some of their spark energy to resurrect Megatron in a more powerful body, allowing him to defeat the forces of the Liege Maximo.

Fun Publications

The Transformers Classics comics published in the Official Transformers Collectors Club magazine is set in the Marvel Comics continuity, but in a timeline where the events of Generation 2 did not occur. Ravage appears among Megatron's troops. At one point he is seen guarding Megatron's base (the wrecked Ark) and ended up battling Elita-One. Despite being fairly evenly matched in their stealth capabilities and martial arts skills, Elita eventually triumphed by overloading Ravage's optical sensors and knocking him out.

Audio books

Ravage was featured in the 1985 Transformers audio books Autobots' Lightning Strike and Autobots Fight Back. In both books he was called a mechanical hound.

Dreamwave Productions

Ravage's played a minor role in Dreamwave Productions' 21st century reimagining of the animated 80s cartoon universe. In the course of publication, the company introduced a new Cybertronian body for him — a bipedal, clawed semi-humanoid form. This body was meant to be a bestial version of the robot modes used by Rumble and Frenzy. Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, by Simon Furman threw mystery on his origin, revealing that there is no record of his creation. It also notes that he was one of the first Transformers in this continuity to possess a beast mode.

Ravage was recruited as a Decepticon under the leadership of Megatron in 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 the Insecticons and Soundwave, to attempt to kill him and bring the Matrix to Megatron, but they failed, forcing Megatron to confront Optimus personally.

Later, after Megatron's disappearance, Ravage stayed with the Decepticons under Shockwave.

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 jaguar and the 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 Cybertronians back to Cybertron, along with some human companions, but the ship exploded shortly after takeoff. The human allies were killed, but the Cybertronians 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. Ravage would only appear once more, being activated by Soundwave in order to hunt down a mysterious intruder, but was deactivated instead by the intruder — who turned out to be Starscream.

Transformers/G.I. Joe

Ravage also appeared in the G.I. Joe/Transformers crossover from Dreamwave. Part of the Cobra invasion force attacking Europe, Ravage transformed into a hand grenade. After several battles with the ninja Snake-Eyes, the Decepticon was killed when Snake-Eyes managed to jam a hand grenade into his exposed parts.

Devil's Due Publishing

In the first G.I. Joe vs the Transformers crossover from Devil's Due Publishing, Ravage, along with Soundwave and the other cassettes were recovered from the Ark and used as weapons by the terrorist organization Cobra. Attacking an energy center to gain the fuels needed to create energon the attack force met G.I. Joe, who were able to fend them off. Ravage nearly killed several of the Joes after they had decapitated Laserbeak. Later, after the Transformers had broken free, Ravage attempted to stop Optimus Prime from renewing himself in energon, but was crushed by the Autobot leader. Unlike the intelligent and speech-capable portrayal of the Marvel comics version, this Ravage was more in line with the cartoon version — a feral but mostly mindless animal.

Despite Ravage's death, he would go on to make an appearance of sorts in the second crossover. When a team of G.I Joes trying to fix a space-time tear arrived in a nightmare future where Shockwave had conquered Earth, they were surrounded by a number of drones clearly based on the original Ravage. These were dispatched by Ratchet.

IDW Publishing

In Evolutions: Hearts of Steel, the alternate-universe take on the Transformers released by IDW Publishing in which the Autobots and Decepticons awaken in the late 19th Century, Ravage appears as a steam-powered robotic puma and destroys a home. The house fills up with gas and ignites when Mark Twain throws a cigar in the doorway. Ravage is propelled into the air and crashed far away. It is unknown if he survived the crash, but he does not appear again in the mini-series.

Ravage made his first chronological appearance in the main IDW Publishing continuity in issue #2 of The Transformers: Megatron Origin, where he, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw were shown to be already working with Soundwave, unlike Rumble and Frenzy. Accompanying Soundwave to a clandestine meeting with Megatron, leader of the underground gladiator games. When they realized Autobots had tracked them, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw took out one while Ravage dealt with the other. He is shown briefly in issue 3 on Ratbat's viewscreen sabotaging an industrial plant.

His next chronological appearance was in a Spotlight issue on Soundwave. Here, he was once again serving under Soundwave, being used by him to tail Bludgeon's facsimiles to Bomb-Burst. Once Soundwave realized their true intentions — to reanimate Thunderwing — Soundwave and the cassettes attempted to stop him, with Ravage attacking Iguanus, leading to his being run through by Bludgeon's energy sword. With the explosion of Bludgeon's charges detonating Mount St. Helens. Like his Marvel incarnation, Ravage was capable of speech. The final issue of The Transformers: Escalation revealed he had been revived, but was now a prisoner of the human defense organization Skywatch. In the follow-up series The Transformers: Devastation Ravage (with his higher functions shut down) was shown being used by Skywatch to track the other Transformers on Earth. Soundwave, still trapped in cassette mode, used his own signals to throw off Skywatch's control, calling Ravage to free him.

Beast Wars

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

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 (Although Silverbolt's enhanced senses did allow him to smell Ravage, he could only detect that there was somebody there that they couldn't see, rather than being able to pinpoint Ravage's exact location).

Despite his new body, his alternate mode was still a cassette tape (a nod to Ravage's original form, the CGI version matching his 1984 cell-animated illustration; his action figure, a retooling of Transmetal Cheetor transforms into a jaguar equipped with powerful rockets—the easier of the two classic forms to recreate). It is interesting to note that while Ravage had a new body in Beast Wars, when he transformed he still made the same classic transforming sound as the original series Autobots and Decepticons, unlike the Maximals and Predacons' quieter, more metallic sounds. He also spoke with a Russian accent.

Season 2

When a rogue Predacon known as Megatron stole a Transwarp cruiser and traveled 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, under the guise of arresting Megatron, eliminate all Transformers on the planet. Doing this would prevent the Maximal elders from ever finding out about Megatron's rebellion. Arriving on prehistoric Earth, Ravage allied with the local Maximals after helping them fend off a Predacon attack. This news, of course, did not sit well with all the Maximals, especially Rattrap, who stated, "The only thing worse than a stinking PRED is a stinking DECEPTicon!"

With the Maximals' cooperation and the aid of Tarantulas, a Predacon secret police mole hidden in Megatron's forces, Ravage successfully arrested Megatron and put him in captivity. His craft was out of power, and while the Maximals sought energon to re-energize 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 former 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. During the attack, Rattrap infiltrated Ravage's cruiser and planted a series of bombs on Tarantulas and quickly made his escape. Tarantulas exploded and the ship's interior was engulfed in flames. Ravage, piloting the ship saw the flames flying towards him and raised a fist of defeat, screaming out his last words:

"Decepticons forever!"

Ravage was consumed by the explosion and the ship crashed, nearly taking out Rhinox and Rampage with it. A missile that Ravage had intended to destroy the Axalon with was left on the ship, ready for launch. When the ship crashed, Rampage was in front of the ship when it came to rest, defiantly laughing at cheating death as the ship halted mere inches from crushing him against a cliff surface. The ship's armed missile then launched and exploded in Rampage's face (who survived).

Season 3

Ravage made a brief appearance in the season three premiere in which Ravage's remains are shown scattered on the battlefield after which his head is knocked into a river by one of Tarantulas' mini-spider robots, a part that was worked in by the writers to definitively prevent Ravage from returning.

3H Enterprises

In "Primeval Dawn", an unfinished comic book published exclusively for the BotCon convention, Ravage's spark was somehow recovered. Though not technically part of the previous comics, the tech spec for the BotCon 2006 exclusive Laserbeak figure gives Ravage's reformatting into a Predacon as part of an arrangement with Decepticon Predacon sub-group member Divebomb alongside fellow cassettes Laserbeak and Buzzsaw, in exchange for his loyalty in a secret project to overthrow and destroy the Maximal/Autobot rule and the Decepticons/Predacons who chose to accept the current peace instead of fighting against it. Sometime after his reformatting, Ravage grew disinterested in the arrangement, and opted to abandon it in favor of working as an agent for the Tripredacus Council.

IDW Publishing

In 2006, IDW Publishing printed a four-issue mini-series spotlighting the many characters in the Beast Wars toy line 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 most of the other Transformers there, unless they so wished to phase into the regular timestream. Searching for the ruins of Ravage's craft, Predacon leader Magmatron discovered the former Decepticon's remains, and his intact spark core. With few options remaining Magmatron restored him to life by transplanting his spark core into a blank protoform, intending to leave him behind to finish off the Maximal double-agent Razorbeast. His form here is an alternate version of his Transmetal II body, with a different robot mode but the same Transmetal II jaguar mode. 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. The story also reveals that, while ostensibly working for the Tripredacus Council, Ravage was also feeding information to Magmatron before the events of The Gathering or The Agenda.

Ravage returned in command of the Predacons in the follow-up series The Ascending. Staging a huge diversionary attack, Ravage used his stealth features to sneak into the Maximal base, aiming to steal Razorbeast's chronal armband. With this he planned to free Megatron from his imprisonment in the Autobot Shuttle (as seen in "Nemesis pt 2"). Despite being defeated by Razorbeast and Snarl, Ravage was able to outwit them and gain the armband - but instead of changing the timestream got a disembodied Magmatron, who had been consigned to temporal limbo at the end of The Gathering, and now warned of the impending destruction of Cybertron at the hands of Unicron and Shokaract. Shaken by this knowledge, Ravage called a truce between his Predacons and the Maximals, but was too late to stop Razorbeast from being infected by Angolmois. Concluding a hasty alliance with Lio Convoy Ravage led his Predacons against Unicron's Herald, successfully downing him and extracting the Angolmois data they needed. Despite tensions rising over his dismissal of Razorbeast's sacrifice, Ravage accompanied the others back top Cybertron. In the subsequent battle he ambushed Unicron's Heralds, taking them out with an Angolmois grenade. He survived the battle, but his fate beyond this is unknown.

Japanese 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 his son, a dangerous religious fanatic who was escorted 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. This story does feature the original Ravage, represented by a Beast Wars Happy Meal toy named "Panther."

Transformers: Alternators

Ravage took on yet another new form that combined both his original and Beast Wars incarnations in 2005 as part of the Transformers: Alternators 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 toy line 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 labeled "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 Chevrolet 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, realizing 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 The Transformers: The Movie, 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.

Ravage subsequently installed Shockwave into a new Binaltech body to lead the remaining Decepticons in Megatron's absence. Unfortunately for Ravage, 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 "Operation: 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 temporal hiccups afterwards. Just as Skids flips the final switch to send the data back in time, sensors pick up a huge Decepticon battalion bearing down on their location. Skids and his team manage to hold the battalion off long enough to send the datatracks and restore the proper timeline, but with the Binaltech timeline broken off by a mysterious Black Convoy from the future, Ravage still prevailed in some of his plans: Megatron and his group are still preserved and look to be reappearing soon, and Skids' failure to preserve their own timeline due to Black Convoy's meddling has left the Autobots somewhat unprepared for the oncoming storm. It's unknown what happened to Ravage after this.

Toys

• Generation 1 Ravage (1984)

Packaged with fellow mini-cassette Rumble, the Ravage toy originated in Takara's Microman line, featuring household objects that transformed into small, in-scale robots. Armed with two chromed missiles that insert into the spool holes in his rear end, he can be stored in the chest door of the Soundwave toy.

Ravage was later reissued with Soundblaster in Japan in 2004, and at the same time, was redecoed in blue as Howlback as an exclusive for the online retailer eHobby.

Ravage was also reissued by Hasbro in 2006 along with Soundwave.

• Beast Wars Jaguar X-9 (1999)

A Beast Wars Ravage figure was a Japanese-exclusive retooling of Transmetal Cheetor, 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 with the toy designation number of X-9 (all Japanese Transformers since 1985 have been identified by both names and serial numbers), leading fans to refer to the toy as "X-9 Ravage", "Jaguar X-9" or other variations thereof. As a retool of Cheetor, the toy actually 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 stated interest in releasing this toy as part of its Beast Wars 10th Anniversary line, though reportedly the mold cannot be found).

• Beast Wars Tripredacus Agent (2001)

Another toy was a repaint of transmetal II Cheetor available exclusively at Wal-Mart in 2001. 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. Notably, for this toy's appearance in the IDW comics, artist Don Figueroa did not completely render the "official" robot mode of the figure (as the BotCon comics did). Instead, he designed an alternate robot head 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.

• Alternators Battle Ravage (2005)

A retooling of the Alternators/Binaltech Tracks figure with a new feline head, Ravage transforms into a black Chevrolet Corvette Convertible. His engine transforms into a hand-held gun, and is also armed with twin wrist-mounted blasters. As a retooling of Tracks, he possesses some of that character's defining features, include two over-the-shoulder rocket launchers. Because of problems with name licensing, the toy was known as Battle Ravage during its circulation.

On the DVD release of the 2007 live-action Transformers film, an Easter Egg video featured a mock commercial of "Bay Bot," which was Battle Ravage fitted with a sculpt of director Michael Bay's head.

• Alternators Ravage (2007)

Recently, another Ravage Alternator has been released, this time with his vehicle mode being that of a Jaguar XK that transforms into Ravage's traditional non-humanoid feline mode (and, unlike the original, received the proper character name of Ravage). This figure may be an attempt by Hasbro to satisfy American fans after the backlash they received over the Tracks retooling, especially when taking into account that both Ravage's non-humanoid robot mode and his Jaguar vehicle mode were amongst the Alternators toys in biggest demand by fans.

• Classic Battle Ravage (2007)

Packaged along with Classic Laserbeak as partners to Classic Soundwave, this toy named Battle Ravage is nearly identical to the original Generation 1 Ravage. A Toys R Us store exclusive.

• Universe Deluxe Hound vs. Ravage (2008/not released yet)

The second Hound in 2008 will be a Deluxe-class toy that includes a new, multiposeable sculpt of Ravage.

Transformers: Energon

Thus far, the only other "Ravage" character to appear in Transformers fiction, who is not the original Ravage, is the 2004 Transformers: Energon incarnation of the character, named Battle Ravage (Command Jaguar in Japan's Transformers: Superlink) for the same reason as the Alternator (which the Energon figure predated). Used as a series of grunt drones, Battle Ravage came in two forms, the later-appearing one called Command Ravage (or Command Jaguar, Desert type). Beyond his panther alternate mode, he bears no great similarity to the original Ravage. (Though his Energon weapons resemble the original Megatron's fusion cannon and gun mode.)

Animated series

Like the other Terrorcons, Battle Ravage is not an individual entity, but an unending army of drones which formerly existed 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 be attached to larger Decepticons for power boosts. A stealth-equipped radar-invisible version of the standard Battle Ravage Terrorcon was later used on a small number of missions.

Dreamwave Productions

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 realizing 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 (much like the Vehicon Generals in Beast Machines). Battle Ravage's drones attacked Moscow until they were routed by an Autobot counter-attack and a vengeful Megatron.

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

Toys

• Energon Battle Ravage (2004)

Although the toy itself bears little resemblance to the original Ravage, it is not without any homages — specifically, one of its two shoulder mounted cannons is designed after the original Megatron's fusion cannon. This gun can be combined with the figure's other weapon — a spring-loaded missile launcher — in a variety of combinations, and the jaguar's tail can disconnect to become a flail weapon that the robot can hold.

A redeco of Battle Ravage, done as a homage to original Rampage was considered for BotCon 2006. Although not released, a hand-painted prototype figure was displayed. This toy represented Rampage in the Transformers: Timelines storyline.

• Energon Command Ravage (2004)

A blue and maroon redeco of the original Battle Ravage figure.

Transformers film series

2007 Transformers film

According to an interview with producer Tom DeSanto published in issue #15 of the Transformers Collectors Club Magazine the original lineup pitched for the Decepticons in the live action Transformers film was Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble, Skywarp and Shockwave.

According to an online post by Roberto Orci Ravage was used in an early draft of the script where Scorponok was later used.

Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen

Soundwave has been confirmed to appear in Transformers 2 by Screenwriter, Roberto Orci in an interview with IGN. When asked about Ravage this is what was said:

IGN: Where Soundwave goes, will Ravage follow? ORCI: Perhaps! You know, we had Ravage in an early draft of the first movie and Soundwave, and we couldn't do it right and I think this time hopefully we'll have the ability to do it. . Ravage now has since been confirmed for Transformers Revenge of the Fallen.

References