The Energon Pub

Not just for the obvious reason he was a pathetically weak flid who megatron would have just ripped his wings off if he spoke to him with ideals of being a leader....

I'm eager to know what prompted BB to write him in such a high profile role in the comics. Generally all US and almost all UK stories were directed by Hasbro as comercial to sell the toys with a degree of discretion to write some good stories.

With Ratbat he must have been the cheapest and shittiest toy next to wheelie to want to market so there would have been no direction from Hasbro telling BB to write him into the story, so what do you suppose his motivation was, did he have a fondness for bats and rats and took pity on the poor cassette or did he just randomly want to develop an underdog character.

Makes me wonder if given more time, better artists and less restrictions from Hasbro what else BB could have churned out character wise as Ratbat was a nice character to read as opposed to other decepticon leader who were somewhat one dimensional.

If anyone has any thoughts/rumours or info on what lead BB to promote Ratbat please share as it seems quite a random thing given the rest of his script writing.

Thanks in advance

A good question. I do remember reading an interview with Uncle Bob in which he stated something along the lines of wanting to do something unusual with characters you wouldn't expect, and also to circumvent expectation amongst readers (e.g. Grimlock and Ratbat becoming leaders). Was this in one of the TPBs intros or an online interview? Anyone remember?

I thought it quite amusing that Bob wrote nigh on all the original toy tech specs, including their personality traits, and then went and changed lots of 'em for his comics! I think Blaster is another interesting characterisation... no fun-loving rock n'roller here! More dark and gritty war vet!

wasnt ratbat supposed to be some high level fuel accountant?
i know in WW vol3 he's refer to as high executor, so even back then in the marvel comics, they're tryin to say that before he was reformatted as a cassette-acon he was a high ranking con!

You should check out the megatron origins comic. It gives a portrayal of ratbat that is quit spot on in my opinion and works with why he would be such a political/economical leader. But while i can see why he would get himself in a position of power, i can't see why anyone would listen to him as a military figure at all. i mean come on, he small, anal retentive, and probably has a voice as high as Alvin chipmonk's.

Calvatron wrote:You should check out the megatron origins comic. It gives a portrayal of ratbat that is quit spot on in my opinion and works with why he would be such a political/economical leader. But while i can see why he would get himself in a position of power, i can't see why anyone would listen to him as a military figure at all. i mean come on, he small, anal retentive, and probably has a voice as high as Alvin chipmonk's.

I think all his recent comic appearances and profile do seem to stem from the original Marvel writings, if he weren't given such a high status, do you really think he would be appearing so much...I mean how many of the other cassetes have been given so much character development time, possible Ravage and thats it it seems.

In reply to Magnus' Mate, if it has been said previously that was Bob's plan then that satisfys my curiosity, even though Grimlock wasn't much of a surprise, hes the most arrogant and powerfull autobot so it would make sense he would aim for leadership once prime was gone, guess the only other character that got a lot of development was blaster, he would have made a good leader.

Hmm.... blaster got developed as well, maybe its not Rats BB liked but cassettes, ah well guess i'll never know for sure and can only guess

ThunderThruster wrote:wasnt ratbat supposed to be some high level fuel accountant?
i know in WW vol3 he's refer to as high executor, so even back then in the marvel comics, they're tryin to say that before he was reformatted as a cassette-acon he was a high ranking con!

He was a high executor because he took control of a splinter Decepticon group after Prime and Megatron had that space bridge encounter though, not becuase he was like promoted on merit or anything. Ratbat in the Marvel comcs was like a fuel accountant that somehow was able to boss Trypticon around, and his being rebuilt as a cassetticon was a DW thing, not Marvel. At least in the DW books there is/was something brewing that would have set him up as an actual character, but in the MArvel comics he didn't make any sense. I think his original Marvel profile listed him as a fuel scout or something fuel related, but his being a leader in Marvel makes no sense, and then to top it off, he did stupid things like open a brainwashing car wash.

I think Ratbats power came from the fact that Cybertron was very quickly running out of fuel in the marvel comics, so someone who kept track of stock and distribution could litteraly decide which Transformers lived or died. Like it or not in a situation like that you need someone like Ratbat to keep an eye on things otherwise everyone would just end up infighting over fuel (whih of course just wastes even more fuel).

Calvatron wrote:You should check out the megatron origins comic. It gives a portrayal of ratbat that is quit spot on in my opinion and works with why he would be such a political/economical leader.

I'd like to see a Spotlight Ratbat in the not too distant future that goes into the how's and why's of his reformatting from corrupted Senator who controls Soundwave, to a Cassette under the control of Soundwave.

I always kinda dug the Marvel portrayal of Ratbat. It was different, but not so odd that it wouldn't make sense. Sometimes the best leaders are those who control the flow of resources, and who'd do that better than a fuel accountant? It's important to note that Ratbat's leadership seemed to stem more from neccessity than actual desire. He just so happened to be the best fit at the time. Of course, in Marvel the Decepticons were always fractured and infighting... he probably wouldn't have lasted much longer as leader anyway even if Skorponok and the Underbase hadn't come along. Though... he, arguably, had come the closest to actually winning the war on Earth next to Shockwave.

i_amtrunks wrote:

Calvatron wrote:You should check out the megatron origins comic. It gives a portrayal of ratbat that is quit spot on in my opinion and works with why he would be such a political/economical leader.

I'd like to see a Spotlight Ratbat in the not too distant future that goes into the how's and why's of his reformatting from corrupted Senator who controls Soundwave, to a Cassette under the control of Soundwave.

I see it as being something to do with how Megatron takes power. In the latest Origins issue, Ratbat says something like "this has gone too far". Now it's obvious he was in on part of the plan, or at least helped progress it in some way (perhaps looking to seize power from the Autobots himself) but now sees that Megatron is too powerful to control and too dangerous to be left unchecked. Some amount of opposition from Ratbat might result in Megatron punishing him with a reformatting into a cassette with no robot mode and made subservient to Soundwave.

craggy wrote:

i_amtrunks wrote:

Calvatron wrote:You should check out the megatron origins comic. It gives a portrayal of ratbat that is quit spot on in my opinion and works with why he would be such a political/economical leader.

I'd like to see a Spotlight Ratbat in the not too distant future that goes into the how's and why's of his reformatting from corrupted Senator who controls Soundwave, to a Cassette under the control of Soundwave.

I see it as being something to do with how Megatron takes power. In the latest Origins issue, Ratbat says something like "this has gone too far". Now it's obvious he was in on part of the plan, or at least helped progress it in some way (perhaps looking to seize power from the Autobots himself) but now sees that Megatron is too powerful to control and too dangerous to be left unchecked. Some amount of opposition from Ratbat might result in Megatron punishing him with a reformatting into a cassette with no robot mode and made subservient to Soundwave.

I can see that. Megatron pulls the old double cross and screws someone that helped him rise to power, turning them from a collaborator into just another grunt. In Ratbats' case, Megatron would have eliminated most forms of retaliation by reformatting Ratbat into such a --relatively speaking-- useless form, and by reassigning him to be a subserviant to Soundwave.

i_amtrunks wrote:

Calvatron wrote:You should check out the megatron origins comic. It gives a portrayal of ratbat that is quit spot on in my opinion and works with why he would be such a political/economical leader.

I'd like to see a Spotlight Ratbat in the not too distant future that goes into the how's and why's of his reformatting from corrupted Senator who controls Soundwave, to a Cassette under the control of Soundwave.

That would be awsome. That was the one non-major plot detail in DW's run that i really was waiting for a follow up on. Thought that would be cool as can be to see that arrogant bot get downsized and pushed away. I thought it was kinda interesting to see they took his speech away too. (I know they're was almost no continuity between writers at dw, but i can pretend. )