Scavenger (BW)

The name or term "Scavenger" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Scavenger (disambiguation).

Scavenger is a Predacon from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

He was binned alone, unmourned, and unloved.

Scavenger is an evil, evil Transmetal Predacon. Despite previous reports of him being their infantry commander, he's actually more interested in psychological warfare. He prefers to use fear to give him a tactical advantage, and nothing makes him feel better about himself than bullying others into being afraid of him. As well as a master blackmailer and a strategist, he's also created viruses to induce hallucinations in his foes.

Regardless of what his primary function truly is, he likes to use his drilling third mode to ambush Maximals from underground.

Fiction

IDW Beast Wars comics

Scavenger was one of the protoforms left behind by the crew of the Axalon on prehistoric Earth. He was activated and put in chronal phase by Razorbeast at Magmatron's request. He was sent to dispose of Razorbeast and his small band, but the attack was interrupted by a much larger force of Maximals. The Gathering #2

During the battle, Scavenger got his teeth re-organized, courtesy of Bonecrusher's fist. After the battle, he presumably regrouped with Ravage and the rest of the Predacons. The Gathering #4

He was next seen as part of a large Predacon assault on the Maximals' base-camp. When the Pack arrived, Scavenger was knocked over by Stampy. The Maximals and Predacons were then forced to team-up to battle the Blendtrons. It's unknown if Scavenger stayed on Earth or returned to Cybertron aboard the Pack's transwarp cruiser. The Ascending #2

Beast Wars: Uprising

Scavenger was on the Predacon team in the fateful final match of the Games, which was interrupted by Lio Convoy's assassination of Supersonic and call for an uprising against the Builders. Broken Windshields

During the subsequent civil war, Scavenger and Immorticon joined with malcontent Maximals Blackarachnia and Nightscream to escape Cybertron. They activated an experimental transwarp device, but found themselves in Axiom Nexus instead. After processing, they were placed in the care of Alpha Trion. He convinced him that the Transcendent Technomorphs who ruled the city were little different from the Autobots under whose yoke he had chafed. Under his tender ministrations, his spark was transferred from his Lowtech body into that of his Transcendent Technomorph counterpart, with the authorities of Axiom Nexus none the wiser. "TransTech" Blackarachnia's profile in Club magazine #25

Scavenger joined in the raid on Shockwave's laboratory in the hopes of rescuing Breakaway. Scavenger and his comrades successfully stormed into Shockwave's inner sanctum, where they came face-to-face with the formidable Megatron. Transcendent: Part 5

Toys

Beast Wars

He's Inferno, but hornier. You know, for his queen.

• Scavenger (Mega Transmetal, 1998)

Scavenger transforms into a robotic ant with a third "transport mode", a double-drill tank. The drills end up as his robot-mode hands, and spin using gear-wheels.

There is a variant of the toy regarding the "SCAVENGER" name tampograph. On some versions, the name is printed on his right robot-mode thigh (still visible in ant mode). The other version has the name printed on the chromed abdomen shell. It is unknown if either of these are more rare than the other, and who cares?

This toy was used as the Transmetal version of Inferno for the Japanese Beast Wars Metals line, with minimal changes. The version included with Depth Charge in Takara's Metals VS series lacks both his Predacon rubsign and name tampograph.

• More information on Scavenger at TFU.info

Notes

• Scavenger's toy was obviously originally intended to be the Transmetal form of Inferno; early promotional pictures show the figure with an "Inferno" name tampograph on the abdomen. Why the change was made is unknown; while Hasbro might have just wanted to secure the trademark on "Scavenger", it's possible that since Inferno had a tendency to be a shelfwarmer (despite his on-show status), Hasbro felt a name-change might help avoid that.

• As it happens, Scavenger was an even worse shelfwarmer. So much for that plan...