Phil's Beast Machines & Universe Blackarachnia,
Universe Crystal Widow
and
Beast Wars Returns Black Widow Review


Beast Machines Blackarachnia

My original Blackarachnia review said "BA's short front legs are a little disconcerting but other than that a very fine toy in an attractive colour scheme. Both are 6 inches + tall in Robot mode - towering over BM Optimus ! "

Blackarachnia was always onto a looser after the good and much sort after Beast Wars Transmetal 2 version. Here she's reduced to a deluxe toy again and molded in mainly gold (covered with green shapes) and purple plastic with some black for the early stages of the limbs and some clear green for the head. The back pair are ball jointed at hip & knee. The next pair on each side share a ball joint at the hip, have a straight flat edge between them, and bend at the knee & ankle. The front pair are far too small looking more like mandibles than legs and are ball jointed at their base. IIRC Moving the front pair of legs causes the mandibles to move which in turn does something with eyes inside the clear body.

TF: Bring the middle pairs of legs together to form the robot's legs which fold under the front of the spider. The back legs become the arms and the body 7 head fold out of the spider's abdomen. Something like that. Again this is a toy I don't have an example of in front of me.

The robot is quite thin and feminine looking but with surprisingly chunky legs. The head is molded with hair down the back and a gold visor with an additional three pairs of eyes molded into it. The head turns, the shoulders and elbows are ball joints, there's a swivel joint bellow the elbow and the outer two claw fingers move. I *think* there's a waist joint followed by ball jointed hips with bending knees & ankles.

Spider needs some work to make the front legs bigger. Robot is OK without being spectacular.


Universe Blackarachnia

Gold becomes yellow orange and looses the pattern. Purple becomes blue. Clear orange replaces the clear yellow green.

A brighter version of what came before.


Universe Crystal Widow

vs

Oil Slick

Blackarachnia returns as Crystal Widow in a vs pack with Oil Slick, a purple Decepticon version of Armada Sideswipe. Crystal Widow is similar to Universe Blackarachnia except that the orange is now a brighter redder orange than before.

Beast Wars Returns Black Widow

Finally when Beast Machines was released in Japan for Beast Wars returns Takara took the original version of the colourscheme and swapped the purple for a pinkish purple colour to more closely match the show colours.


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