Remember That Cool Battle Cat Transformer RAVAGE? You Won't Believe What the Name COULD'VE Been!
We saw the beast in the film REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, but famously enough, this feline Decepticon at one point might've not been called the excellent one-word name of Ravage. For good reason. During Hasbro's stint of "Beast Wars," the name 'Ravage' was completely unavailable legally. Technically Hasbro couldn't even use the word. Here's what they then came up with:
"Shadow Panther" Became Their Go-To, Until....
That name was even off limits, believe it or not. And you can agree -- that was a cool name! Hasbro had a problem that did not know how to fix except to go with a name arguably determined to be the worst name (if it ended up being the only way to go) --
TRIPEDACUS AGENT. We don't know exactly what it meant, but you can imagine when Michael Bay was given the go-ahead for REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, we weren't going to identify much with a battle cat transformer called that.... Thankfully, Hasbro was given a miraculous opening -- and right before their Energon toy line: the name became available again!
Hasbro was clever, though -- to avoid legal issues down the road, when the Energon toy line was released, the company added a prefix to the name. For a time, Ravage was actually known as "Battle Ravage." For another redeco of the character, the name was then changed to "Command Ravage." Just to be a bit confusing.
Thankfully, We'll Always Remember Our Cute Little Decepticon Kitten as Just the One Name
Ravage. Very much like Madonna, or Cher, or Lion-O of the Thundercats. Got a nice ring to it.