Do you know what was weirdly missing in the Kingdom series? Waspinator! He was not only nonexistent in the show itself, but his toy was made very late in the toy line. Honestly, the former itself is fine with me because I hate that show and am happy Waspinator was not treated in such a light. The latter, however, is weird, mostly from the fact that he would have been an easily marketable figure to sell in the line, but I guess that wasn't the case until he was leaked. Anyways, Waspinator, along with Shadow Panther and Tigatron, was revealed along with some Wave 3 repacks, but so far, I can only cover one of the two new molds (Shadow Panther will get the spotlight, don't worry). So let's cover the green bug himself!
Here is Waspinator in his beast mode, a green wasp. The design of it is obviously going to be hard to translate given how you have to merge a very small and skinny insect into a robot that is of general proportions. The robot legs are visible underneath, but at least they're not at the sides nor are the robot legs on the back pretending to be the beast mode legs. I will say that Waspinator is a little less wasp in terms of appearance and looks a little more bee-like, with his proportions not being as angular or droopy as they were on the Thrilling 30 version (the original had him look straight). Also, his wings are purple, as are his eyes, which are kind of reminiscent of Animated Waspinator, but I think they make sense for him given how they tend to look like that in the cartoon.
His insect articulation consists of ball-joints at the wings, swivels for all sets of legs, a hinge for the wasp head, swivels for the antennae, and mandibles that can open and close. This can be further effective with a flight stand (one that is more Transformer-friendly would be nice). For a size comparison, well, the Predacons weren't about consistent scale since the bug, arachnid, and scorpion are all bigger than they should be in real life, but this is Beast Wars so who cares. I don't.
Transformation is very involved, and I believe somewhat unique from how the other ones work in terms of how the arms transform as well as the legs. The limbs of his robot mode interestingly switch the amount of bug legs they'd have compared to previous versions, but I think that because of how they're posed and their inability of being removed, they do get in the way of the wings for the arms and require to be leveled with the feet on the latter. Thankfully, it's manageable, but not 100% perfect. The robot mode itself is another show-accurate interpretation of the design, which is also applicable for the previous Deluxe figures anyhow. Kingdon Waspinator just does his own spin on things, many with the colors. I like the green and yellow, especially with the bits of black and purple here and there to break up the palette. I'll be the first to say that the design of the character is honestly kind of hard to screw up, but what I don't like is how the torso doesn't hold together as well (the bug head doesn't tab in anywhere, and the tab for the upper torso to connect to the waist is not strong enough); it there was a way to fix them, that'd be neat, but not 100% something you should have to do to a newly opened toy. He has some hollowed-out parts on the back, but they can be covered well enough by the wings and wasp abdomen.
Head sculpt is very cartoon-accurate, and the amount of paint applied onto the figure combined with the nicely sculpted details and the light piping make this part feel like the best part of the figure as a whole. I love that he has the stripes on the antennae and that the mouth is painted, it further completes the look of a unique head like this. His articulation is pretty good along with the other WFC Trilogy guys. Ball-jointed head, shoulders that move front and back, in and out, bicep swivels, elbow bends, wrist swivels, a waist swivel (that is limited because it catches on both mandibles), hips that move front and back, in and out, thigh swivels, knee bends, and ankle pivots. His gun is just a bit of the wasp ass that feels like it's missing an extra tip that gives it a more distinct look than it currently has. It reminds me of Classics Mirage, where it's less like a proper weapon and more like a chunk of the altmode taken off and vaguely passing as a weapon.
As far as repaints are concerned, this is Legacy Buzzsaw, a repaint that now turns into a yellow jacket in addition to having a new head sculpt based on the robot head that the original toy had (which was a feature older Beast Wars toys had; Waspinator used the mutant head in the show with new liberties taken to make it more characterful). While it's hard to determine exactly, I do hope he doesn't feel as cheap as Waspinator does.
Later on, we'd get a Skywasp repaint that is similar to the Timelines Parasite repaint of Thrilling 30 Waspinator, and Horrorcon Waspinator, which came with the alternate robot head in addition to the Waspinator head. As part of the Buzzworthy Bumblebee Creatures Collide 4-pack, he comes with a toy-accurate Scorponok, a Ransack reused from Legacy Kickback, and Goldbug.
And for a Takara repaint, this is Waspeeter in the Beast Wars Again subline featuring a more cartoon-accurate repaint. The color break up on him and the better use of clear plastic helps him feel closer tl the CG model, but no word yet if the figure has better tolerances.
For a robot mode comparison, I have the original version of Waspinator with the closest deco to the show and the Thrilling 30 versions for an idea of how they stack up. I think that they each make for great iterations of Waspinator, with the original holding up better than most figures in the line he came from. The articulation is great, the design is already spot-on, and the beast mode doesn't look too bad. The Thrilling 30 version is even closer to the show model, with a more devoted cartoon head and details that make it feel much closer to the show. I will say that the beast mode legs of that figure are better handled than on the Kingdom version because of how they're pointing up instead of betting in the way. Honestly, Waspinator's figures have each had some flaw that pushed them back from making one better than the other. Maybe the Thrilling 30 version is the best one, but that wouldn't make me want to replace the Kingdom version.
And for a size comparison in robot mode, he and Scorponok are definitely shorter than Blackarachnia and especially Megatron. Looking forward to getting Terrorsaur, Tarantulas, and Inferno, but I want to be honest and say that Waspinator himself is better than I expected. He's not 100% perfect, and while Blackarachnia makes for a better Deluxe figure because of her engineering, Waspinator comes in second place because his beast mode works better than Scorponok's and has a pretty solid robot mode all around. Some fixes here and there would make him even better. Just make him less likely to untab from the waist and maybe tighten the tolerances of the wings a bit. Oh and make the waist swivel a little less compromised.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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