Transformers Beast Wars Wolfang review

Did you know that Wolfang was originally going to be in the Beast Wars cartoon? He didn't make it through because of how expensive CGI was at the time, so the Cheetor mold was reused and modified to bring in Tigatron. While Wolfang never showed up in the cartoon proper, one would have wondered if he would retain Tigatron's character traits or even his relationship with Airazor. Not to mention the whole existence of Tigerhawk, though he could be named something like Wolfrazor. Anyways, I got Wolfang for $10 at Ollie's, so let's review him!

Here we have Wolfang in his beast mode, which is a pre-posed timber wolf that feels like an interesting halfway point between official Transformers toy and generic wolfbot 2 in 1 action figure. Apart from the blue breaking up the anatomy, the wolf mode manages to look fairly believable as the actual animal, and despite not having any real articulation in this mode, he at least is sculpted in a predatory walk pose for the front legs. Some drybrushing could help make the sculpted fur pop even more, and perhaps making the blue a navy shade could help it blend in better.

For a size comparison, here he is with Tigatron, the character he was replaced by. Both figures have one thing in common: their molds were genericized versions of a general animal-type so the mold could be reused for other animals with different beast modes, with Tigatron being a redeco of Cheetor despite both figures looking proportionally different in the cartoon. The same also applies for Wolfang's reuses as we'll get to.

Transformation is not quite the traditional quadruped scheme we've seen before, mostly with the wolf head splitting in half and the robot legs integrating the wolf hind legs in the front side. The rest of the transformation mostly has the side panels lie near the hips while the forelegs are connected to the biceps. The resulting robot mode is rather wonky when it comes to proportions, mainly the thicc thighs and the fairly stumpy torso. Despite those issues, the figure does at least have a bit more creativity in the engineering department, with the missiles sticking through the chest and the kibble possibly serving as armor comparable to what warriors would wear if they scavenged through the remains of an animal they killed. So it's a case where the toy can be strange but still cool at the same time, and it makes me wonder how refined the character model or any future toys would be had he been in the cartoon.

His head sculpt, currently with the mutant mask down, does have a Zorro/vigilante look befitting the lone wolf motif, and the hot pink eyes pop amongst the cool colors that are blue, black, and grey. His articulation consists of swivels at the neck and biceps, ball joints at the shoulders and hips, and hinges at the elbows and knees. You could remove one of the missiles and attach them to the tail gun, but his back piece could serve as a shield. Just be sure to have the inside of the shield facing the other way.

Of note is that you can flip the mask up and reveal the proper robot head, with a chin that rivals Animated Sentinel Prime. In fact, the head xould almost be reused into a version of that big-chinned jerk.

As far as reuses are concerned, we have a straight repaint in the form of Wolfang, with the W pronounced as a V. This is a Predacon sold in the Telemocha line, which is another reissue line that has three of the seven Season 1 Predacons.

A slight retool, K-9, is a retool that turns the wolf into a German Shepard with the forelegs even having their poses altered. The dark grey and dandelion yellow, combined with the creamy white results in a unique color combo. That being said, German Shepards wouldn't really exist in the Beast Era, cartoon wise.

This is Max-B, the heaviest retool out of the whole lot, also also representing a somewhat undead version of BB, that one Japanese repaint of Generation 2 Dreadwing. His new back piece, combined with the Frankenstein's monster retooling, makes for a very creative method of reusing and already existing toy that rivals the heavy retoolings HasTak does nowadays in the Generations line, like Straxus from Kingdom Galvatron or AOE Drift from helicopter Dropkick.

For a size comparison, he has the same general height that Tigatron has common for Deluxe figures at the time. While Wolfang is a bit of a mess when it comes to the kibble, he still has a bit of creativity with his shoulder kibble, missile storage, and back piece doubling as a shield. While he could be bought nowadays as just a reminder of what could have been, there's something appreciative of making a figure not feel too much of a rinse and repeat from the Cheetor mold.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐