The minion of MP-13B

Deficiency of my cassette collection

When searching for MP-02 I was grumbling about that Soundwave only coming with five out of six of his most important cassette minions, as Ratbat was solely bundled with the black version (MP-13B). This summer I realized that someone could sell just the individual minicassettes and started searching. Before long I found myself in ebay and of course someone was offering a Ratbat for mere 8€ (incl. S&H).

A couple of weeks later

The guesstimate for delivery was almost three weeks in the future, so I wasn't really holding my breath. Then, two whole days before the first day of the timeframe I noticed a padded envelope on the desk next to mine. I obviously assumed it was for a colleague, who occasionally had worked there. My well-intended idea was to take it to him, as I had seen him in the café area a while earlier, so I rechecked the recipient's name and oops, it was for me instead!

The bells in my head were still silent, because as I said, I wasn't expecting to get my order delivered in at least a week. Only when the bubble-wrap revealed a small, magenta-coloured transparent plastic box, I got super excited. Of course I showed the thing happily around the office, only Tuomas from IT knew to appreciate my shoppings. Oh well, at least I wasn't the only one who thought it was cool!

Ratbat

"The road is my dinner plate." 

"Has no friends, only business partners... his only allegiance is to himself. Refuels by plunging his mecha-fangs into new cars' gas lines -- the better made the car, the better the gasoline tastes. Maximum flying speed: 104 km/h. Carries two radar-guided, free-electron lasers that detect the presence of an object as small as a fly. Wings contain mechanical sensors for locating fuel sources. Has 30cm wingspan that can enlarge to three meters. Wings are vulnerable to artillery."

In the old Marvel comics Ratbat was the baddie who told Trypticon what to do, bossed / scared the fleshlings on the Decepticon's paradise island resort and who knows what else. Sadly I've forgotten so much over the years, and as I gave away my pretty-well set up collection of the comics (those that were translated to Finnish in the late '80s - early '90s) about an eon ago, I couldn't really refresh my memories.

The great overseer of fuel consumption, the minion of the Comms Officer of the Deceptions, the sixth minicassette minion. That was it, now this part of my collection was complete.

Specs

Strength      **********
Intelligence  ********** 
Speed         ********** 
Endurance     ********** 
Rank          ********** 
Courage       ********** 
Firepower     ********** 
Skill         **********

The toy

A slightly bothering little detail was that the cassette container was coloured like a charged Energon Cube. Or maybe it worked nicely with the nature of the character. At any rate, I was certainly not going to order more stuff just to get a clear plastic box for him to keep the set looking uniform.

Cassette form

As all the other minicassettes, the Masterpiece Ratbat was wonderful. Funnily enough, now that I was rechecking these photos, I noticed that the shape in the front face of the cassette looked like a skull.

Bat

Because Ratbat's body was pretty small compared to the massive wings, the transforming process required while forming the torso the outer edges of the cassette and the center piece were to be rotated around and bent over a few times. It was gorgeous!

"What is your command, commander Ratbat?"