Fugitive Waspinator [Age of the Primes/Deluxe Class]

When Transformers Animated worked in Waspinator from Beast Wars into a more traditional Transformers setting, I never expected to like it as much as I did. It sounded cool, but was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this version of him. His misadventures as Wasp (prior to beast mode) were fun and made for a great villain in Animated setting. While beast mode Waspinator got a toy, pre-beast Wasp's figure got canceled. Fortunately in Age of the Primes, that's no longer the case. Fugitive Waspinator is a pre-beast mode version of Wasp who is based on the Legacy: United Animated Bumblebee toy.

The originally planned Wasp toy back in Animated was a straight redeco of that lines Bumblebee as they share a body type, however now he's got a show accurate new head that one didn't have. Outside of colors and new head, it's the same toy as the Bumblebee it's based on. A good toy by all means, so that's no problem. The size might sting a little at the Deluxe price point and there's no way to sugar coat that.

I'm accepting it as is, because I wanted the toy and just winced at the $25 that it cost. Especially when thinking how the one that wasn't released in Animated would have been $9 (and bigger). Times have changed, but at least there's finally a figure that fans were denied in it's original time. Overall it's an excellent figure, though I do wish the stinger guns had yellow stripes instead of purple, to match beast mode Waspinator's better. The purple looks great, so I guess it's not a big deal. A headache in your whole body however...