Airachnid is a Transformer that's growing more and more rare as the years go on-- a completely new character with no homages to past characters. Her vehicle mode is a helicopter-- judging by the size of the cockpit seat, a relatively small one that would seat only one person (I'm talking about scale in-universe here-- the toy's a slightly smaller-than-average deluxe). By and large, this helicopter mode doesn't have a whole lot to talk about in terms of features-- the mold detailing is sparse on nearly all the vehicle mode pieces, with no visible side doors or landing gear in this mode, and with almost the enitre main body of the helicopter being black, with zero paint apps. Granted, this is show-accurate, but still... a silver paint app or two couldn't have hurt, could it? At least her cockpit window is transparent violet, which goes nicely with the black in addition to emphasizing her eeevil-ness. Her three-pronged rotor up top is a bit angled with small "spikes" jutting off the sides in a few places, giving her a slightly "spider-y" look even in this mode, and the purple coloration of it goes quite well with the black (along with it being a pretty Decepticon-y color in general). The rotor also spins quite freely, so no obstructions here. There's a bit of robot mode kibble on the underside-- Airachnid's chest and waist-- though it's not obvious from most angles, and is a minor complaint at best. More obvious are her high heel toes on the back end of this mode, which are a bit too long to effectively blend in as part of the tail rotor. Airachnid has two weapons, which can be plugged into the sides of this mode (her elbows in robot mode)-- they're both claw-stinger weapons (non-firing), which resemble Airachnid's own robot mode arms when they're "transformed" into weapon mode on the show. They're a bit large proportionally, but I'm definitely glad they're there as they give Airachnid some firepower in this mode while also bringing in a little gold to the color scheme.
    Airachnid's transformation is quite simple, almost entirely consisting of just separating out her helicopter body into her skinny limbs. This unfortunately ends up making her legs and arms look rather two-dimensional, particularly from the front. The arms are particularly bad, only having little purple hand and elbow pieces to turn what are otherwise obvious hollow vehicle shell-pieces into her arms. This would be acceptable at a Legion-class scale for me, but not at a deluxe price. Her extra spider legs that are such a central focus of her design on the show, however, are the REAL disappointment in this mode. Three of them are her rotors, which can bend at two points along each rotor to make them bend forward in front of her a little, but not by much-- they're not NEARLY long enough to look like genuine extra legs, and the two black legs that the helicopter pieces around her butt split into are even worse, being completely unpainted plastic and only having limited movement at the base of those legs. As for her actually being able to STAND UP on these extra spider legs or form that "spider-robot mode" like on the show, fuhgeddabowdit-- these legs aren't nearly long enough and can't withstand nearly enough weight to have her stand up via them, and her three purple legs don't click into place anywhere, thus rotating around freely in a very annoying manner on her back (one of the legs can peg in slightly to part of her back, but it's not that solid of a connection). She also has a helicopter cockpit right behind her head, which looks kinda bad, too. On the plus side, the mold detailing on her chest, waist, and head are excellently done and quite show-accurate, particularly on the head, which is a very evil-looking feminine design with gold "eyebrows" and a silver face with nicely working violet eye piping, even if it's a bit TOO much of a rip-off of Disney's Maleficent. The paint apps on her main body and head are also quite well-placed as well, with the metallic purple helping to break up her abdomen in addition to her upper legs, though her arms and/or lower legs definitely could've used some paint. Airachnid's articulation is another one of her weaknesses-- she can move at the neck (restricted because of how the back of it forms the cockpit chair in helicopter mode), shoulders, elbows (at two points), wrists, hips, and knees. However, with the exception of the shoulders and hips, none of these are ball joints, only allowing forward-and-back movement, and even with the hips--due to how they're molded and her transformatio--you can't move them that much. Add to this her tiny high heels which are bad for stability, and she's easily the least poseable of all the Prime deluxe toys. As mentioned before, Airachnid's weapons can be stored on the sides of her elbows, though her hands also have holes to hold them-- though again, the weapons are a bit big proportionally.
    Airachnid has an okay helicopter mode, but her robot mode is a disappointment in pretty much every sense of the word (detailing on the main body and head notwithstanding). Her articulation is horrible, her stability is horrible, she's tiny even comppared to other 2012 deluxes, her arms look horribly hollow and awful, and her spider legs are the biggest offender, being skinny little stumpy things and not at all the large long "spear" things she can walk on in the show. She should've been a voyager-- her spider/robot mode and extra legs are such a part of her character in the show, getting a regular-sized toy of her without these features is a very bad oversight. My least favorite out of all the "mainline" Prime toys of 2012.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers: Prime Index