Beast Wars Blackarachnia (Transmetal 2)

Series: Beast Wars
Allegiance: Maximal
Categories: Mega Transmetal 2
Year: 1999

I use deception for the purpose of good- I use it a lot.
Stealing Megatron's mysterious new technology, Blackarachnia -black rose of the Maximals- succeeded in altering her Maximal Protoform into a powerful Transmetal 2 structure. Despite her Predacon pride, she detests Megatron and fights for now with the Maximals. The definitive femme fatale, she despises life's pleasantries. Fires strong venom pincers that operate as paralyzing claw, retrieving enemies from up to 100 meters. Electro disrupter housed in rear segment casts illusions altering her physical placement and appearance for up to 5 minutes. In robot mode she packs a deadly roundhouse kick. Generally concerned with her own self-preservation, Blackarachnia will at times astound with heroism, but cannot be fully trusted.

Robot Mode: Unlike the first Black Arachnia toy this robot is very much recognisable as female. A little too much, maybe, I think they overdid it a bit with the metal bikini and the heels, but that's a matter of taste. From a practical perspective I can say that Black Arachnia is very posable and the detailling is nice (if a bit overdone), but she has balance problems because of her slim body coupled with her big backpack. The best bet is to use some of the spider legs as additional support out back. Black Arachnia can fire a grappe from her spider behind and has a wind-up kick feature, but it's kinda hard to get it to work. Bottom line a nice robot where a bit less would have been more.

Beast Mode: Not much of a surprise, Black Arachnia transforms into a Black Widow spider. The spider uses her arms as pincers and most of her body folds up into the spider's rear. The spider legs can't really support her huge... well, ass. Look-wise she is doing okay, few complaints. On her back is her Maximal symbol which can convert into a Predacon symbol and back again, showing her changing allegiances during the series. All in all a decent beast mode.

Remarks: The original Black Arachnia toy was a repaint of the first Tarantulas figure and didn't look very female at all. By the time Beast Wars Season 3 came around the show had pretty much degenerated into a toy commercial and the introduction of Transmetal 2 Black Arachnia took up a whole episode with very little plot in it. Well, at least it didn't take a two-parter as with Transmetal 2 Cheetor. The toy itself is about half eye-candy and half a decent figure. It certainly looks better than the first one and offers some gimmicks, but all in all it's no more than average. Although one must say that, among the Transmetal 2 toys, it is definitely one of the better ones.

Rating: C