Before we delve into the review proper, here is a bit of a history lesson regarding the development of KSI Widow prior to her removal. Most of the concept art we have of her dates back to late 2012, around 2 years before Age of Extinction was released. A female Transformer design known as Widow Maker at the time, she sported aesthetics more comparable to the original trilogy era of Transformers rather than the duology consisting of AOE and TLK. I say this because she is a much skinnier character design than what the toy ended up being, though it's possible this would have not been the case. Created by Steve Jung, one of the robot designers for Revenge of the Fallen, Widow Maker sported a red color scheme and would have had either a tail or a chain whip. Initially, she had car kibble of the Pagani Huayra, which was later given to Stinger.
Various alternate head designs were made for this character, ranging from resembling a proper Cybertronian to having a bizarre human look that likely popped up when the man-made Transformer subplot was part of the script.
It appears she was going to have a rivalry with Drift, in addition to having twin laser swords rarely seen in the concept art. Of course, we all know that either Hasbro or Paramount wanted to make a bit of a rivalry between Bumblebee and Stinger, the latter stemming from making fun of Transformers knockoffs, and that's what we ended up with. The two military robots in the background are probably Hound, but that likely isn't the case.
A different version of Widow Maker was created by Vitaly Bulgarov, which represented a far more alien design where she felt less like a standard Decepticon and more like an upgraded Quintessa.
This is one of the many alternate head designs she had, with different lengths for the tips of her head and optional extensions below her head that may be comparable to head strands. Needless to say, these don't appear to have any influence on the KSI Widow figure we ended up with.
The vehicle mode she was supposed to transform into was a McLaren MP4-12C, and it was painted red instead of the orange we end up with for the toy. Certainly a beautiful car, but it was not fully part of the main selection of vehicles Paramount and Hasbro chose for their Transformers cast. Rather, the McLaren, along with an Aston Martin and two Lamborghinis, were privately owned vehicles meant for the Hong Kong shoot instead of deliberate choices for any robots associated with them. That is why they're only shown following Galvatron on the bridge and disappear in place of the KSI Sentries, Bosses, Junkheap, and Two-Head.
With that history lesson covered, here we have KSI Widow in her vehicle mode. And in a twist of irony where Hasbro can't get a Ferrari license for a final cut character like Dino, we get an official McLaren MP4-12C! It is cast in an orange shade rather than the proper red we saw in the vehicle prop and concept art though I can theorize this is due to Hasbro wanting to distinguish her from Stinger. Thankfully, it is a somewhat metallic shade and doesn't look too cheap, nor does it wash out any of the details. I also love that we have some black paint apps to break up the orange in the alternate mode; even using metallic paint for the headlights is an added bonus without using any parts of the sprue. The only discrepancy I can find would be the orange paint used on the windows, which are distracting yet thankfully this isn't an issue found on the rooftop.
For a vehicle mode size comparison, here we have KSI Widow next to Stinger, who may be inspired by Bumblebee yet was also influenced by the scrapped fembot. These two sleek and stylish alternate modes are always a treat to have as part of the AOE Decepticon line-up. While it may not be as iconic or lacking in personality compared to the prior representations of the Movie Decepticons, at least they served as a reminder of why humanity should not create a man-made Transformer, especially using the head of Megatron for any data.
Transforming KSI Widow is a genuine surprise when you consider how she not only uses a similar shoulder design to what Stinger has, but we also have the roof and rear of the altmode folding into itself like with the PRID Vehicon figure we had over a decade ago! While it results in her legs being bulky and her arms kind of small when compared to the rest of the body, there is so much a Deluxe based on a Movie design can do. After all, it's still better effort than Devastation Prime and the two Deluxe Constructions. The resulting robot mode ends up having less of a backpack than most Deluxes in the line, unlike the many Movie Bumblebees we've had since Studio Series began. In fact, I wish ROTB Mirage had a cleaner design like this than what his figure ended up with. I mean, sure, some will complain about the bulky legs or the kibble chunk on the thighs, but the way it manages to be reasonably close to the concept art while having the Deluxe restraints is highly commendable. And as a bonus for her lack of back kibble, we get to see a bit of the dreads or hair locks behind her head. They almost seen to belong to a scrapped design element for her tail or whip, but we'll cover that later.
Her head sculpt appears to be an amalgamation of the designs we previously looked at, as the face doesn't quite match any of them and instead appears more robotic and alien instead of having that human look to her. Her articulation consists of ball joints for the neck, shoulders, and hips, swivels for the biceps and thighs, and hinges for the elbows and knees. The weapons she comes with clip onto her forearms, and while those cleverly integrate with her forearms via clips instead of pegs, I have to admit I'd love to see her come with a chain whip. Weirdly, it was mentioned in the listings despite being a nonexistent accessory, though it could have been scrapped during development due to any lack of weapon storage options. Her guns can thankfully under the door wings and fit decently well! They also store inside the vehicle mode from within the legs.
Here we have her along with Stinger and Galvatron from the Studio Series line, with the former being made early on in the line and the latter in-between their releases. You can see some of the slight influence Stinger took from the scrapped KSW Widow design while also having more stylized versions of Bumblebee's own character model to represent his aesthetic evolution from the classic trilogy to AOE at least. Honestly, it feels great to see Hasbro acknowledge there can still be ways to make Studio Series rep to a nearly complete cast of robots with the Concept Art series. While many would scoff at her and say "erm she is as valuable as a glup shitton ☝️🤓" and then beg Hasbro to do more G1 characters than necessary, I think she could easily be a Top 10 or maybe even Top 5 figure in a list made by less biased fans. Stay tuned for my Studio Series 2025 ranking list to see where she's placed amongst her peers! Until then, I recommend you get her to show we could use more scrapped characters like ROTB Transit, TLK Dragon Megatron, DOTM Hot Rod, and ROTF Springer. Hell, I'd take updated versions of 2007 Wreckage and ROTF Breakaway just so we can have new versions of characters that were scrapped yet did have toys made for them; I'd argue they could hold up fine for Studio Series provided we get some retooling to make their sculpted details sharper.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
No comments:
Post a Comment