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Series: Legacy United
Allegiance: Predacon
Categories: Deluxe
Year: 2024
Prelude: When you want to repaint G1 figures, the modern toy designer uses Diaclone colors. But what about Beast Wars figures? Is there a Diaclone equivalent for Beast Wars? Well, there are always prototype colors, such as those seen in 1996 for Tarantulas, who was orange before he became purple. So here is Legacy United Tarantulas (or possibly Tyrantulas?) in prototype colors. Let’s say go!
Differences: This Tarantulas figure here is a repaint of the previous Legacy Tarantulas figure, which I reviewed less than a year ago. So read that review first for the basics on this figure. Done? Good, now let’s look at what was changed for this figure here.
Number one is the paint job, of course. The first commercials for Beast Wars toys in 1996 showed Tarantulas in transparent orange, while the released toy ended up purple. This figure here picks up the orange paint (though not the transparency) and adds grey and green for contrast, resulting in a paintjob that is quite beautiful in its hideousness.
It’s not just the paint that has been changed, though. In the original Beast Wars line Tarantulas shared his mold with Blackarachnia and the two characters received not only different paintjobs, but also different faces, thanks to the early Beast Wars toys’ mutant face gimmick. Tarantulas got the “monstrous” face, while Blackarachnia got the more humanoid-looking one. Since the first Legacy Tarantulas got his “real” face, this one here now sports the “Blackarachnia” face, though painted green and purple to make it more Tarantulas-y, I guess.
And that’s really it for differences. The figures are identical except for the head, they carry the same weapons, but the different colors and faces suffice to make them look pretty different.
Remarks: Tarantulas here was part of a Target-exclusive 4-pack, together with Prime Cliffjumper, Squeezeplay, and Cyberverse Tarn. In the instruction sheet his name is misspelled “Tyrantulas”, which Hasbro’s Mark Maher tried to explain away by saying that this figure here is actually a drone created by the real Tarantulas, thus it has a slightly different name. Or it might just be a typo, take your pick.
Bottom line: the Legacy Tarantulas figure is a very nice Transformers toy and while its purple colors are the ones we know from TV, naturally, this repaint here looks so very hideous, it’s beautiful. I like the trend of using early Beast Wars prototype colors for repaints (such as Blackarachnia), so I’m all in for more of that. Probably not a must unless you’re a Beast Wars fanatic like me, but very nice.
Rating: B+
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