Legends Blackarachnia

Prelude: Legends Blackarachnia is a repaint with a new head and some other modifications of Animated Blackarachnia, which I have previously reviewed. So this review here will focus mostly on the differences.

Robot Mode: Several changes have been made to the robot mode, including a new head that is a dead ringer for Blackarachnia’s head from the Beast Wars TV series. The black and purple paintjob of the Animated figure has been replaced with a black and golden one and Blackarachnia’s also gotten her golden bra. Of course the general design of the figure is slightly different from how TV Blackarachnia looked, but you barely notice that. Overall a very good job at making this figure look like the TV characters.

Looks aside the figure remains as it was. Definitely female, nicely articulated, a tad unstable due to very tiny feet, but overall very nice. The grappling hook situated on her back works fine, too, and there is really nothing worth complaining about here. A very nice robot mode which has gotten a great do-over in order to resemble the character from the Beast Wars TV show.

Alternate Mode: Naturally Blackarachnia still transforms into a robotic spider. She is supposed to be a Black Widow, of course, but I can’t say how close the resemblance actually is. The red panel on the back isn’t exactly an hourglass shape, but it does somewhat point in that direction. Otherwise the spider has a black body and orange or gold appendages, with the grappling hook gimmick still functional in the spider’s rear end. The one detriment of an otherwise pretty cool spider mode is the pincers, which are formed from Blackarachnia’s bra. They, well, don’t really look like pincers, more like shovels. But that’s just a minor flaw in an otherwise excellent mode. No complaints beyond that.

Remarks: Blackarachnia was a very interesting character, even among the many great, odd, crazy, and outstanding characters of Beast Wars. Not just because she was one of the series’ two female characters, either. A Maximal protoform reprogrammed as a Predacon, Blackarachnia was a mixture of ambition, cunning, and guile. She came close to winning the Beast Wars for herself once by taking control of a Flying Island and even tricked both Megatron and Tarantulas. In the end, though, her feelings for the Maximal Silverbolt proved stronger than either her programming or her ambition, causing her to defect to the Maximals. Her relationship with Silverbolt is also the best Transformers romance ever in my opinion.

For all that she was a great character, Blackarachnia didn’t have much in the way of great toys to her name. The Beast Machines version was pretty good, but it wasn’t until Animated that she got a really cool one. So I like that it is this version that was used as the basis for what is now my favorite Blackarachnia figure of them all. The figure isn’t perfect, mind you, but it’s the closest we have come yet and if you are a fan of Blackarachnia, Beast Wars, or spider Transformers, you definitely need this figure.

Rating: A-