Transquito (1997)

Height:  16cm (head height in robot mode), 19.5cm (overall length in beast mode), 31cm (overall length in Combat Mode

Articulation: 13 points total- swivel neck, ball joint shoulders, upper-arm swivel, hinge elbows, ball joint hips, thigh swivel, hinge knees.

Colors: Molded gold, purple, transparent yellow, and maroon. Painted black, white, and red.

Accessories: Missile.

Gallery:  14 images.

Author: RAC

There are few that can match Transquito's uncanny ability to track and discover hidden Maximal outposts. Converting to combat mode, he can hold off several Maximals at once with huge, poison-tipped pinchers. Any unfortunate robot surviving a strike from these pinchers is immediately afflicted with an irritating rash and sent into a delirious rage. His powerful wings hurtle him to blazing speeds and create an annoying high-pitched screech known to drive Maximals out of their minds. His manner is highly obnoxious and dangerous, a point well illustrated by a frequent and destructive habit of firing his missile launcher incessantly when upset. Transquito is hated by all who know him.

That last sentence would explain a lot. Transquito is a notorious shelfwarmer, a toy who surfaced in toy stores long after his native toyline had been superceded by Beast Machines. And Robots in Disguise. And Armada. I forget, exactly, whether I found mine during Energon or Cybertron. I think it was Energon. But he was $6.98, and he was the first genuine Beast Wars toy I'd seen since the Armada Transmetals and ExVee had started to soften my previous TRUKK NOT MUNKY stance, so I said why not. When I told ExVee later that I'd found a Beast Wars figure at TRU, his immediate response was "Let me guess: it was Transquito."

His reputation precedes him.

Beast Mode

Transquito is a gigantic mosquito with a primarily gold body. Though his bio identifes him as male, his Beast Mode is surely female, since only female mosquitoes suck blood. The proboscis is formed by the Robot Mode head and its missile, which flip up into firing position when you press the small purple levers towards the back of the mosquito head. (And often enough, because they feel like it. The catch isn't that strong to begin with, and weakens over time.) The rather long legs- as befits a mosquito -are all mounted on ball-joints, and five out of six are tight enough to hold a pose. But there's really nowhere for them to go, as the sockets mainly allow for vertical movement- it's hard to splay the legs out as far as you really want to. And, as seems to be somewhat common on Beast Wars toys, his Robot Mode parts- hands, in this case -can plainly be seen hanging off of the sides here.

While the wings have hinges, their functional vertical movement is minimal, and any real movement will come from the big purple lever on the back. These move the wings back and forth on a geared track, which is primarily intended for his transformation to Combat Mode. They certainly don't flap or buzz like insect wings should, but I haven't seen a Beast figure yet that did.


Combat Mode

A transitional point between the first phase of the Beast Wars line and the Transmetals' third modes, Transquito's Combat Mode is that of an Antlion- more specifically, an Antlion larva. If you happen to have some Final Fantasy figures around this could be handy to have, as gigantic Antlions often appear as midlevel boss monsters in that series. But more importantly, it's a vehicle/battlestation for your Basic Beast Wars figures, with a nice seatlike indentation in the middle of the body. Fit will vary by the amount of kibble on a given figure, but Powerpinch fits well for me.

To transform him into this mode, you flip out the robot head/missile launcher, split the mosquito's abdomen, spread the arms out to widen the legspan, flip the wing-pack outwards, and finally find the seams in the wings to open them up into tremendous mandibles. Those mandibles pretty much double the length of Transquito's body in this mode, and the purple lever can now be put to its intended use to trigger Antlion Transquito's pincing action. Not much else functional about the Beast Mode has changed, but it's much more impressive than Transquito's default Beast Mode. And in this mode and only this mode, you can see Transquito's Energon Chip- in both of the other modes it's hidden by the wings.


Transformation

From Antlion Mode it's pretty easy: put the mosquito wings back the way you found them, unfold the legs and swing them down, fold the insect head down to form the torso, and lastly unfold the arms and arrange the mosquito legs how you want them. Nothing particularly challenging in any of the three modes, but everything locks down pretty well in both insect modes, and with the exception of the hair-trigger on the spring-loaded Robot Mode head, everything works as intended.

Robot Mode

As befits a pestilence-spreading fuelsucker, he's damn ugly, but at least the ugly is intentional. There's a lot of line-standard design elements here: the beast-head torso, the insect legs hanging off the arms (kind of iffy aesthetically, if you ask me, and I'm never quite satisfied with how I arrange them), the winged backpack... then there's the head. From the side the elongated head is, like Bonecrusher's, similar to an Alien. But head-on the face is really very similar to that of an unmasked Predator, except bright purple and with a missile sticking out of it. Oddly, the front of the head, while attached tightly, is a separate piece of plastic with what look like hinges on the side. Perhaps his ugly mug was originally intended as a Mutant Mask.

The head technically has unrestricted swivel, but I say 'technically' because you first have to tilt it out of that collar piece that acts as the lever to release the missile launcher from the mosquito head. Because of that you almost have to turn it 90 degrees to the left or right, and it looks really odd. The arms are pretty nice, with all the joints I like to see- except wrists, but with no hand-weapons what would they be for? -and an elbow that has a full 180-degree range (from a single hinge joint- nice!) in order to make the transformation possible. The shoulders are particularly tight, and hold a pose most satisfyingly. The leg joints are all similarly good, though the ankles, also necessary for transformation, are a bit floppy. But Transquito is going to spend most of his time hunching forward into those joints anyway because of two issues: his feet have no heels, and his wings are too long. His legs are completely hollow, and there's nothing in the back to support his weight except maybe the wings. But if you try and stand him up straight, you'll have to slide the wings out slightly in order to not pull his feet off the ground. The most natural pose is hunched forward and bent at the knees, which looks pretty decent and accentuates the natural downward slant of his neck- a nice, monstrous look. Even then, the wings make it easy to end up tipped back slightly with his feet not touching the floor.


Paint and Deco

To my eye, there's an awful lot of large areas that go without any kind of paint to break them up- in the grand Hasbro style, there are quite a few unpainted details that could've been highlighted in a repaint, if anyone had ever bought Transquito the first time. The paint apps that are there- mostly on the wings and three faces -are all clean and sharp. My favorite of the other details is that the outer Robot legs, which become the mosquito's underbelly, have a nice gradated red paint job, to simulate the abdomen of a mosquito who's had a successful day of feeding. Nice touch!


Accessories

-Missile

It's a missile! To be more specific, it's a spring-fired missile! It has some texture, unlike a lot of modern Hasbro missiles- it looks organic, like its owner. And the indentations lead me to believe that there's a two- or three-part catch holding the missile in place when loaded. This is a good thing, because the spring feels to be a lot more powerful than most modern launchers. I haven't test-fired it yet, since Bonecrusher's missile gave me enough trouble, but I'm betting the range is impressive.


Things to Look For When Buying Loose

If you're looking for Transquito, it's not all that difficult to find one in package for not that much. But if you buy loose, the insect legs and the missile are the only things you should have to check for, fortunately. Might be best to look for one in Beast Mode, so you can see if the catch on the springloaded part is still working.

Closing Remarks


Maybe it's the face. Maybe it's the balance issues, or the touchy springloaded head. Maybe it's even the bio! I really don't know why he sat and sat and sat. Transquito is far from the worst figure I've ever owned, and as my introduction to Beast Wars, he was pretty enjoyable. Taking into account his technical problems, Transquito rates as Good- he'd rate higher if he could stand up straight and his Robot Head weren't touchy. If you see him at Toys R Us one day, he's worth a look.

-RAC