Beast Wars - Transquito
Transquito is one of those toys that's hated by a lot of folks. Up there with Optimus Minor
and other famous peg and shelf warmers. However, upon stumbling into Toys R Us and finding two each
of B'Boom, Transquito and Inferno, I had to pick it up (well, not Inferno, I already have one). Call
me crazy. Crazy for paying $15 for something I could get
on eBay for a lot less. Heh. Oops.
Transquito, as you might be able to figure, is a mosquito. As with a lot of early Beast Wars bugs,
he has some trouble standing on his insect legs without flopping to his stomach. Actually, if you
stand him on a rug, he's able to do it quite well. Scorponok can't say that, now can he?
Beast mode suffers from undercarrage garbage as well. His robot arms are quite visible, and
his robot hands are nearly eye sores just kinda sitting under his beast head. Aside from that there's
no real problems with beast mode though. His gimmick is spring loaded to the extreme, but nothing is
overly touchy, even the launcher which takes a bit of strength to load with its massivly tight spring.
So the gimmicks? Well, pressing down on two little purple spikes on the back of his beast head
causes his robot head/missile launcher to flip upwards, cleverly splitting the sides of his beast
head. Pushing the button on his head makes him fire his translucent yellow missile, and that thing
packs a punch. The first time I fired it was at point blank range right into my chest and it was
the first time I can say that a missile from a Transformer actually hurt. Well, I don't want to
sound like a wuss, it sort of stung for a second, but my point is that this thing packs a punch. Firing it
from roughly eight inches high it went around nine feet. Wow. That's quite impressive.
Transformation is pretty easy to do, no explaining needed. There's no hidden bits, though you
may want to rotate the thigh joints around so the screw on his legs isn't facing forward, but that's
not necessary for anything but looks.
I actually like robot mode a lot. He's got a weird alien-bug head (reminds me a Predator) and
the missile firing thing still works. He has a few stability issues though. Mainly they have to
do with his problems standing. For one his legs have no heels of any sort (like Wedge from RID, they
are completly hollow) which greatly hinders his standing abilities. His wings are good for
adding some support, but anything other than a 'standing straight' pose and they don't come in
handy too much.
However, he is quite the poseable robot. His arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and have a swivel
below that and hinge elbows. His legs are the same deal with slight ankle/foot articulation, though
it isn't overly useful.
As with B'Boom (and Inferno to some extent), Transkeeter has a third mode, though I'm not
quite sure what it's supposed to be. In beast mode you fold down his head and abdomin and flip his
wing mechanism over and extend the wings. It's neat looking, but quite cumbersome and not overly
stable since the wings unfold to huge proportions.
Overall Skeeter is pretty cool, though I would have liked to pay a lot less for him considering
what he fetches on eBay. For $5 - $10, he's worth the cash, but don't go crazy getting the
Japanese version or anything (Bigmos) who will set you back twice that much (give or take) or
more.
