Rav (BM)

Rav is a Maximal from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

He is the Cybertronian member of the Knights Who Formerly Said Ni

Rav is a reformatted ancient task drone who was found by Nightscream. As one of the Deployers, he is capable of quick transformation abilities and has devastating assaults in siege weapon mode, which he gained millennia ago thanks to an ancient female Autobot warrior. He's a quiet scout with a penchant for singing to Nightscream, because Nightscream wasn't annoying enough.

Fiction

Universe: The Wreckers

Having recently been discovered by Nightscream, Rav and his fellow Deployers Mol and Dillo were escorting the young Maximal and Optimus Primal back to their hidden base when they were stopped cold by a squad of Vehicon Tank Drones. Things looked grim for the group until Ramulus, Primal Prime and Apelinq arrived and were all super-awesome and unstoppable. The whole group then journeyed underground, where the Oracle gave the gathered Cybertronians their tasks. The shifty Maximal Packrat convinced the Deployers to join up with the Wreckers crew.

The Deployers took part in the later battle for the Autobot shuttle that would take the Wreckers off-planet, fighting through hundreds of Vehicon drones. However, once they were on board and off-planet, the Deployers, Spittor and Sonar were battered insensible by a stowaway, the bounty hunter Devcon. Departure

Things didn't get much better for Rav and crew, as an act of sabotage by Cyclonus sent explosions rocking through the ship. The section the Deployers, Spittor and Sonar were in was jettisoned by Packrat, leaving the five to die a fiery death in deep space. Betrayal

Maybe they should have stuck with Optimus Primal after all.

Toys

Beast Machines

Cr(ossbo)oooooow!

• Rav (Deployer, 2000)
  • Accessories: 2 missiles

Rav transforms from a mechanical raven with an opening beak (which is very hard to see when closed!) into a siege "energon crossbow" weapon, featuring a pair of spring-loaded missile launchers. His transformation to crossbow mode is a largely one-step, spring-loaded autotransformation.

The early (and ultimately harder-to-find) releases of Rav were red, black and bronze.

• More information on red Rav at TFU.info

I'm different!

• Rav (Deployer, 2001)
  • Accessories: 2 missiles

Later on, Rav was given a running change redeco into navy and dark blue, though the packaging was not altered in any way to reflect this change. The blue version of the toy was later repurposed by 3H into Chro, owing to unrealized pre-release plans (see Trivia below).

• More information on blue Rav/Chro at TFU.info

Notes

• The running-change redecoes of the Deployers were originally meant to be renamed as new characters, but ultimately came out with their original names. What happened is unknown, but the name for the Rav redeco "Chro" (or sometimes "Cro") made it to "canon" via retcon in the Wreckers comics.

• Rav's bio makes a veiled reference to him having been trained by the ancient Autobot Beta, who used a crossbow weapon in her only cartoon appearance.