Animated Waspinator

Robot Mode: Waspinator is a very obvious homage to Beast Wars Waspinator, and the figure bears quite a bit of resemblance to that classic character. He's about the same size, though quite a bit slimmer. Waspinator is pretty much fully posable, including the wings on his back, and the detailing on the figure is also done quite well. He doesn't have as many organic elements to him as the original Waspinator had, but he still manages to pull off the techno-organic look quite well.

Sadly Waspinator has no weapons. Unlike the original Waspinator his wasp tail does not contain a removable gun, so the only thing he has are his claws (from which he probably fires the energy stingers mentioned in his bio). So the bottom line is: Waspinator looks great, poses great, and except for the missing weapon there is no reason to complain here. Nicely done.

Alternate Mode: Waspinator transforms into a (female) wasp and in doing so suffers from the same problem all insect/spider Transformers have: How to manage six or eight beast mode legs with four robot mode limbs and vice versa. In Waspinator's case his robot arms split in two, creating the four front legs, while the robot legs become the rear legs. The rest of his transformation pretty much consists of covering his robot mode head with the wasp head he wore as a breast plate in robot mode. And you're done.

Unlike the organic-looking wasp from the Beast Wars days this version of Waspinator looks rather robotic in beast mode, but that isn't a bad thing. What is a bad thing, though, is that this robotic wasp here, while a bit better in regards to limb proportions than its predecessor, still doesn't quite get it right. The wasp is certainly recognisable as one, but it's also quite recognisable as a robot lying on his stomach. Apart from that, though, it looks very nice, especially the wasp head is well done. So the bottom line for the beast mode: Better than it was in Beast Wars, but still not quite there.

Remarks: In Beast Wars Waspinator was arguably the most popular of the bad guys, known for his weird speech pattern and habit of getting blown to pieces. Now Animated, a series rife with homages, brings this character back. At first he was simply called Wasp, an Autobot who went to boot camp with Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Longarm. Wrongly accused of being a spy, he spent years in an Autobot prison camp and went mad. Seeking revenge on Bumblebee, he encountered Black Arachnia, who made him into a techno-organic freak like herself. We'll see what role he plays in season 3.

As a toy Waspinator is a great homage to the original Beast Wars whipping boy, but sadly that's pretty much all he has going for him. A nice, fun robot mode, but the beast mode is only a tiny bit better than it was 13 years ago and the figure offers little else except nostalgic value. I'm a big fan of Beast Wars in general and Waspinator in particular, so getting this figure wasn't a question for me, but unless you're a fan as well, you probably won't get much off this figure. So objectively I can only mildly recommend him.

Rating: B-

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