Alright, here we are with the second set of Decepticon henchmen. To start it off, I’m just going to assume that someone, somewhere, may have been a little upset that I didn’t talk about Soundwave. You know, the purple one who turns into a cassette recorder (Yes, he is a cassette recorder and not a boombox. That would be the red & yellow Autobot named Blaster). Anyway, Soundwave acts as the primary Decepticons Communications Officer, which essentially mans that he only answers to Megatron, the Decepticon General. And he’s probably one of the most loyal Decepticons you’ll come across, however, his loyalties align with whoever is leader… Which ties into a sort of “Henchiness” which I’ll speak on later, and that’s because Soundwave isn’t my focus. The focus today is Soundwave’s lovable stable of cassette deck goons.

[Clockwise: Soundwave, Buzzsaw, Ratbat, Rumble (peaking behind leg), Frenzy, Ravage, Overkill, Slugfest, Laserbeak]

Frenzy, Rumble, Ratbat, Laserbeak, Ravage, Buzzsaw, Slugfest, and Overkill. I think that’s all of them that appeared in the original cartoon… So, as you may have noticed, all of these characters are smaller than your standard Transformer. Most often, they’re depicted to being about the size of a standard adult sized human. Generally, they are utilized in a spy capacity, often being able to shrink to smaller sizes to go unnoticed. And they all answer to Soundwave. And most of them would probably die for Soundwave if necessary. The exception being Ratbat, which I will get to later. But out of these tapes, five of them stand out above the rest. Those being Rumble, Frenzy, Ratbat, Laserbeak, and Ravage.

So, let’s start with Ravage. Ravage is the cassette that starts off as a black and gray panther. He was featured in the 2nd live-action Transformers movie… You may remember him as the cyclopian cat-robot that attacked the facility that held the All-Spark shard. In his original conception, Ravage was envisioned as some sort of espionage spy-robot. He doesn’t make noise when he walks, and he has super-camouflage when in subdued light. He’s also more or less, Soundwave’s dog. At least, in the cartoon. But to the point, he is very loyal to his master and will defend Soundwave at the drop of a hat.

Next up are the brothers, Frenzy and Rumble. Starting with Frenzy, he’s the little dude who can a high pitched noise measured at 200db. This, I understand, is an absurd sound rating. From what I’ve gathered (read on the internet), that’s about 100x louder than the Krakatoa eruption in 1883 that was heard from 3000 miles away. Anyway, Frenzy was featured in the second Transformers live-action movie as the Decepticon that turned into a boombox. From what I recall, he was noted as being Soundwave during the production of the movie, which made most fans upset. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. His brother, Rumble, is arguably the cooler of the two robots. In the cartoon, Rumble is just an all-around jerk. It seems like he’s always ready to fight someone, and his voice and pronunciation of words are ridiculous. Also, his special ability consists of transforming his arms into smooth and rounded piledrivers that can cause earthquakes. In the original animated movie, Rumble used his piledrivers inside the hull of fellow transport Decepticon Astrotrain, and broke apart the merged gestalt known as Devastator. There’s actually a lot wrong with the scenario, but I don’t feel like getting into it. As a special note, Frenzy and Rumble were often colored wrong. It took a long time for the two of them to actually match the toys that inspired them, and even then, they still aren’t completely right.

[I'm not even going to bother listing them]

And then there’s Laserbeak and Ratbat. You can expected to see Laserbeak in the upcoming 3rd Transformers live-action movie. In the comics and cartoons, he’s the more sleek of the these two flying robots. Initially, Laserbeak was the primary device used for spying on the Autobots, but once Megatron was destroyed, Ratbat took that position. But most interesting about Laserbeak is that he seemed to have a greater loyalty to Megatron over Soundwave. Typically, one would find Laserbeak perched on Megatron’s shoulder or his arm cannon, not unlike a pirate and a parrot. When it comes to Ratbat, whatever continuity you choose to follow, his story is always interesting. Most notably, in the original comics, Ratbat assumed leadership over the Decipticons in the absence of both Megatron and Soundwave. But in the cartoon, Ratbat was apart of a “primitive” collective that consisted of a few other cassettes (both Autobot and Decepticon) including Ravage but not Laserbeak , as well as the Dinobots, Predacons, Terrorcons, Skylinx and Trypticon. This group fought against Unicron’s successor, the energy monster known as Tornadron. They did terribly. At one point, Tornadron split into 4 entities, one of which was a giant energy tiger. The tiger ate Ratbat. It was hilarious.

[That's the tiger paw grabbing Ratbat]

Anyway, there’s about 9 more cassettes but I think you all have gotten the point. Soundwave has a ton of Henchmen. And they are awesome. That is all.

-Fleet

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