Transform Element Black Widow

 

Review by Bulkhead:

Prelude: Legal stuff first: Black Widow is not a figure from Hasbro or Takara-Tomy and thus not an official Transformers figure. The figure hails from Transform Element and is of course meant to portray Transformers Beast Wars Blackarachnia, but for legal reasons it can’t be called by that name.

Robot Mode: Finally we have a figure that looks like Blackarachnia in the Beast Wars series. The official figures we got so far were always repaints of Beast Wars Tarantulas or Animated Blackarachnia. The former lacked the female curves, while the latter didn’t really look like the Beast Wars original.

This small Black Widow figure is very nicely articulated with lots of ball joints. The body is mostly plastic, while the legs and the hip plate with spider eyes (as well as the other one without eyes) are die cast. The chest plate is made from a flexible rubber (silicone? ;) ). The colors are very nicely done and the detailing offers are unparalleled in this size class, I believe. The face of the lady looks exactly like it did on the TV character.

The only slight downside in robot mode are the spider legs on her upper arms, seeing as the arms and spider legs are all a single piece. So take good care here, lest you break something off.

Beast Mode: Black Widow looks nicely scary in beast mode. Arachnophobes might want to avoid it, as it looks very icky, again resembling her TV counterpart. Very cool. The beast mode needs a few extra parts, which can in theory be part of the robot mode, too, but don’t really look good there. The big black discs that form her rear end and over the robot legs can be attached to the hip in robot mode, but somewhat ruin her proportions. The hip plate (having eyes in robot mode, but none here) forms the front portion of the rear end and thus looks better without eyes. Here, too, the inflexible spider legs are a bit of a bother and one needs to be careful not to break them. They are pretty stable, best I can tell, but don’t tempt fate.

The head is not part of the body, which would be anatomically correct for a spider, but rather separated like with an ant or bug. That is, sadly, not entirely screen accurate, either.

Conclusion: Black Widow is a very nice figure and despite some minor issues she is a great portrayal of the TV character. As mentioned above one should be careful when handling and transforming her. I would have preferred the spider legs to be ball-jointed, too, not only to make the spider more posable, but also to prevent breakage.

I hope for more Beast Wars figures from Transform Element, preferably all 14 characters from Beast Wars’s first season. I can fully recommend this series to all Beast Wars fans who lack the money for the bigger Masterpiece figures and like the Legends-Scale.

Rating: A-