Manta Ray (BW)

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

Manta Ray turns into a manta ray. Amazingly, she still had to steal the name.

Manta Ray (aka Manta) is one of the best energy scouts the Predacons have. She's got loads of sensors in her beast mode that help her track down any power hidden in the dark ocean depths. Unfortunately, her mental state isn't quite as well put together. To put it bluntly, Manta Ray talks to herself a lot. Or rather, talks to (and even argues with) other people who aren't there. It's speculated that these figments might be a side effect of long, lonely stretches spent alone below the sea.

When threatened, she emits a disorienting toxic gas. Really.^[1]

Fiction

Beast Wars Perfect Book

Manta was a Predacon ocean soldier. He was invincible in the water, but on the shore, he was far less mobile. Beast Wars Perfect Book

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

"Excuse me sir! But I do believe you've dropped your wallet."

At the end of the Great War, "Manta Ray" was one of the Decepticons operating under Megatron during his final push on the Primal Council. Dawn of the Predacus

On Earth during the Beast Wars, Manta Ray was present during a battle with the Maximals. The Ascending #1 She was later killed in battle against the Blendtrons when she and Bantor were crushed when Drancron rolled over on them. The Ascending #4

The AllSpark Almanac

Readers of Venus, a trans-dimensional magazine for Decepti-femmes, were invited to decide who is deadlier, Manta Ray or Scylla. The AllSpark Almanac

Beast Wars: Uprising

A Maximal, Manta was on the team led by Optimus Minor in a fateful match of the Games, which was interrupted by Lio Convoy's assassination of Supersonic and call for an uprising against the Builders of Cybertron. Broken Windshields Along with the rest of her team, Manta subsequently fled the match. Head Games

2005 IDW continuity

The Eukarian Manta Ray, representing the Wave Walkers tribe, gathered with representatives of the other three tribes in Talon Valley, in front of a spacebridge portal, to discuss the Cybertronian combiners who invaded three weeks prior. She agreed with Sonar of the Cloud Walkers tribe that this was not a concern for those who did not dwell on the land.

When representatives from offworld arrived through the portal, Manta Ray demanded that only Windblade speak, as she was not a "compromised" Cybertronian, but a Camien. The planet's gigantic guardian, Chela, awoke before their eyes to quell this reunion of worlds, but was summarily defeated. In its wake, the tribal representatives agreed to send a single delegate to Cybertron, but Manta Ray feared that if the delegate was from a tribe, that tribe would gain an advantage over the others. Blackarachnia suggested Tigatron and Airazor, outsiders, to be impartial delegates. Windblade vol. 2 #6

When Unicron arrived to consume Eukaris, Manta Ray and Cheetor watched in horror as the planet-eater began devouring their homeworld, and were themselves presumably destroyed shortly thereafter. Our Darkest

2021 Beast Wars comic

Manta Ray, Rhino and Panther were visiting Iacon's Sculpture Garden where they mocked the Preadcon Skold for trying to indulge in Maximal activities, lowering her self-esteem enough for Megatron to recruit her. Thicker Skin

Toys

Beast Wars

*fart*

• Manta Ray (McDonald's Happy Meal toy, 1996)

Manta Ray transforms into, well, a manta ray. She was one of four McDonald's Happy Meal boys' toy premiums in the very first Beast Wars promotion.

• More information on Manta Ray at TFU.info

Notes

• Manta Ray was conceived as Optimus Prime with the alternate mode of a manta ray, to go with Megatron as a sea turtle.^[2] This may have been a play on the then-in-production toy of Optimus Primal as a bat, who transforms identically to the "Optimus Prime Manta Ray" concept art (but not the finalized Manta Ray toy).
• Like Airazor before her, Manta Ray is male in Japan and female in Hasbro fiction. Her gender was established by the Beast Wars Sourcebook published by IDW.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Manta (マンタ)^[3]

References