Review: #893
Name: Fugitive Waspinator
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Decepticon
Line: Age of the Primes
Year of Release: 2025
Size Class: Deluxe (Wave 1)
Mold Status: Retool of Legacy United Animated Bumblebee
VEHICLE MODE:
Fugitive Waspinator is the redeco / retool of Animated Bumblebee we never had in the original toyline, so it's nice that it has finally happened.
He transforms into a sporty hatchback, that's predominantly dark green. Despite the small size, they still couldn't paint all the essentials, the rear window is unpainted.
The biggest negative of this toy is the absolutely tiny size. He is half the size of a normal Deluxe, and you can see that he's almost the size of a Core.
Unfortunately, there is a patch of lighter green which clashes with the rest of the vehicle
The robot weapon can attach one of two ways. The first are at the back as rocket boosters.
The second are at the front as some type of offensive weapon.
While he looks fine, there are some more disappointing aspects of the toy such as the unpainted rear window, and the diminutive size.
TRANSFORMATION:
The small size can be forgive if he has a transformation that's more involved than the average Deluxe, right? Alas, the figure fails in this area too, and Wasp actually has a really bland and generic transformation. The front splits to form the legs, the back and the sides are the arms. Fold the roof down for the chest and reveal the head.
ROBOT MODE:
Wasp's robot mode is pretty good, since this is supposed to represent his Earthen mode, before he got mutated into a mechanical wasp.
The greens work together very well. He has a bit of a backpack, being various pieces of the car there.
The only retool in this mode is the head, and it looks great. It perfectly captures the character.
Given the trend for contemporary Transformers being much smaller in vehicle mode and then expanding into a bigger robot (hence why they are all packaged in robot modes now), you might be forgiven that maybe Wasp isn't that much smaller in robot mode. Unfortunately, that's not the case, he's still almost half the size of a Deluxe, and barely taller than a Core.
A quick comparison against Bumblebee, the original mold, and they look very different thanks to the contrasting color schemes and unique heads.
Articulation is fine, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.
He comes with two weapons, both are blasters.
Those blasters can attach to his back as a booster jet. And you can attach the stinger components as well so that it's like the rockets are firing.
Although given his backpack already protrudes quite a bit, adding the boosters made it stick out even more.
Alternatively he has hold them as handheld weapons.
And finally, fold his hands in and you can attach the stinger components for his (well, Bumblebee's) trademark weapon.
Due to the way the pegs are located, using those stingers by themselves doesn't look great, they're angled out too much.
Unfortunately, his feet doesn't use the front of the vehicle anymore, but if you look closely, the sculpting is there.
Despite him being very poseable, his small size makes it hard to actually utilize those joints, which is a shame.
This is not a bad robot mode, the biggest flaw is the tiny size that ends up negatively affecting everything else.
OVERALL:
Fugitive Waspinator doesn't have a bad design, but just the victim of cost-cutting and an attempt as "scale". The biggest thing holding him back is his tiny size in both modes. Not only do you feel he is not worth the price point, but it also makes it harder to pose him as he becomes a lot more fiddly as a result. He's only worthwhile if you're a fan of the character, or you get him heavily discounted.
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