When Blackout was initially devised as Soundwave for the first Transformers film, Ravage was going to be his symbiotic sidekick - the role eventually being covered by Scorponok and Frenzy. Revenge of the Fallen had a new Soundwave, though, so he had to have a new Ravage. The redesigned version was similar to Scorponok in the first film, in that we don't really know whether the Decepticon was sentient or just a semi-intelligent drone unit. Not that it matters too much now, what with Bumblebee tearing Ravage's spine out and using it to towel-whip Rampage.

Ravage was made available in the Deluxe size class.

Ravage has the same rough body shape as a cat, though he's covered in ridges and spines and the head design is rather alien. It's not a bad shape, just quite ugly. The colour scheme takes its' cues from the original Ravage rather than the metallic CG model, but it works nicely for the large part. Why some of the spines, one of the scary hooks on the tail, the gun mounts and two of the back thighs are rendered in grey is beyond me, as the nice metallic blue paint on some parts stops the thing from being monochromatic. There's not much sense to the placement as it is, and the contrast means they stand out a bit.

The toy does have a fantastic amount of articulation. Apart from the head and waist (which only rotates) it can move at pretty much like a cat, which lends Ravage a wonderful sense of movement that befits the fluidity of the CG model. Even the guns can replicate the pistoning motion they had onscreen. While the head doesn't move freely, a button on Ravage's back (relatively well disguised as a spine) causes the whole head to pop forward and the jaw to open - nice! The figure is dynamic and well-balanced, able to hold a wide number of poses. The only real problem is that there are only a few figures in scale with Ravage to interact with - the only one I've got is the Legends version of Wheelie, who therefore spends a lot of his time being pounced on, maimed and otherwise attacked.

In common with Scorponok, Ravage has an alternate mode despite the onscreen version showing no real transformation ability. It's called a re-entry mode, which does make sense - while we didn't see it in detail, Soundwave does fire Ravage at Earth, so he probably had a protoform-esque form. Again like Scorponok, the mode has probably been added to the toy so Hasbro can justify a Deluxe figure for the character. In this case it does at least look like transforming was planned from the start.

The mode folds most of the cat parts away, and is basically a spiky thing. It has the unfortunate comical look of being Ravage asleep with his front paws over his eye, legs tucked up and tail underneath. I guess when you're shot at a planet you'd want to close your eyes and curl up into a ball. There's really not a lot to do with the mode beyond this - it's difficult to imagine this thing having any propulsion or anything, it looks more like a projectile...

Ravage is a very fun figure - the cat mode really is superb fun, very flexible and very much capturing the motion of the onscreen model. It might only have limited play value in terms of being able to interact with other toys, but it displays beautifully and makes a fun thing to have on the desktop or suchlike. However, it's not really a Transformer per se - the re-entry mode is a bit pathetic, and while it might not compromise the other mode, it does mean you're paying the price of a Deluxe for a figure you'll rarely transform.

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