Wasp

Wasp is an Autobot-turned-Decepticon from the Animated continuity family.

Wasp and Bee. Obvious, with hindsight.

Wasp is a lot like Bumblebee... physically, at least. Built from the same chassis and sharing many of the same specifications and subroutines, the two Autobots attended boot camp together. Wasp's pompous, smarmy personality leaves something to be desired, but he had a lot going for him as a soldier, being highly skilled in the use of his stingers and knowing just how to toe the line with the drill sergeant. In a better life, he might have been Elite Guard commander material.

Might have.

These days, though, Wasp is a broken bot, mentally unstable and on the run from the Autobots who have branded him a traitor. And, thanks to Blackarachnia's experimentation, he's been reformatted into Waspinator, a high-powered, techno-organic monstrosity. What little remains of his mind is focused on just one goal... destroying Bumblebee, the bot who ruined his life!

Fiction

Animated cartoon

Voice actor: Tom Kenny (English), Bumper Robinson (English, "Where Is Thy Sting?"), Kenji Nojima (Japanese, Wasp), Kensō Katō (Japanese, Waspinator), Jaron Löwenberg (German), Luca Sandri (Italian), Rodrigo Contreras (Latin-American Spanish, seasons 1 and 2), Daniel Lema (Castilian Spanish), Marco Aurélio Campos (Portuguese), Nelson Machado (Portuguese, season 3), Petri Hanttu (Finnish), Vincent Violette (French, Wasp), Bruno Magne (French, "Where Is Thy Sting?"), Sylvain Lemarié (French, Waspinator)

This can't end well.

Wasp was a cadet in the same group as Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ironhide and Longarm. Right away, Wasp took a dislike to Bumblebee, insulting him out of the blue as the yellow bot mused to himself about his future in the Elite Guard. He also dubbed Bulkhead a "mudflap," much to the amusement of his fellow cadets. The loud-mouthed drill sergeant Sentinel Minor took an immediate liking to "Wasp," as he dubbed him due to being impressed with his accuracy with his stingers–it was Bumblebee "bumbling" in trying to compete with this that led to his own name being assigned. Wasp and Ironhide quickly became close friends, often competing in little tests of strength, usually involving Wasp hitting or stinging Ironhide while the latter was in armor mode.

After Bumblebee "bumbled" several more times, leading to many transform-ups for the whole group, Wasp and Ironhide decided to take matters into their own hands, unscrewing Bumblebee's lower legs and leaving them out of reach even before they dumped the rest of him in a locker.

Unbeknown to Wasp, however, the reason for Bumblebee's foul-ups was that he was trying to out a traitor in the group—and had pegged Wasp as the likely culprit after seeing him walk out of a hangar in which someone had contacted Megatron. (Plus, let's face it, he was a complete jerk. And Decepticons are jerks, right?) At Longarm's prompting, Bumblebee eventually found evidence incriminating Wasp as a spy. Wasp was stripped of his Autobot insignia and wheeled away, protesting his innocence and swearing revenge on Bumblebee.

Wasp was once a 'Bot...

Many years later, Wasp escaped from Autobot custody and apparently eluded the now-Sentinel Prime by jumping through a space bridge. What was left of Wasp hid beneath the bridge as Sentinel left, buzzing and twittering to himself, still swearing revenge on "Bumblebot." In reality, however, the innocent bot—broken mentally by his years of imprisonment—had been set up with evidence planted by "Longarm," who had also arranged Wasp's "escape" to divert suspicion from himself. Autoboot Camp

Needless to say, when the truth was revealed to Bumblebee by his old "friend," Longarm Prime (aka the Decepticon Shockwave), he took it pretty hard. A Bridge Too Close, Part II

Wasp headed straight for the Autobots' base on Earth, with Sentinel Prime and Jazz in pursuit. Waiting until Bumblebee was left alone on monitor duty (and actually playing Ninja Gladiator instead), he struck during a power outage, knocking Bumblebee cold and switching color schemes, helmets and even speech synthesizers with his rival. When Bumblebee came to, the others had returned and had him prisoner, with the disguised Wasp at their side. Despite Bumblebee's muffled cries, the Autobots fell for Wasp's ruse, forcing Bumblebee to flee into the night. Wasp stayed behind as the others tracked Bumblebee down, allowing him to try beating Bumblebee's video game and to search through Bumblebee's personal files.

Bee-st Wars!

When the others returned, joined by Sentinel, Jazz, Jetfire and Jetstorm, Wasp was able to recount several of Bumblebee's adventures which were logged in his files to keep the Autobots confused as to which bot was which. Unfortunately for Wasp, Bulkhead proposed the two battle against each other in Ninja Gladiator, so that Bumblebee's video game skills would be readily apparent and the traitor revealed. Before their video game could begin, Wasp panicked and attacked Bumblebee, holding him hostage so he could make his escape. Wasp left Bumblebee with one final indignity, turning off the electronic paint job he'd installed in Bee and stealing his helmet back... tricking Bulkhead into pummeling the real Bumblebee while Wasp fled. Where Is Thy Sting?

The Autobots continued to pursue an erratic Wasp, though for different reasons: Sentinel Prime was still commanding the Elite Guard to bring him in on suspicion of treason, while Optimus and Bumblebee just wanted to help him (or at least keep him from damaging himself and bystanders during his crazed flight). In the midst of a pursuit through the streets of Detroit, Bumblebee tried once again to convince Wasp that he was now known to be innocent and was set up by Longarm, but Wasp refused to listen. During the chase, Wasp was suddenly abducted by Swoop, who carried him to Dinobot Island.

"Wazzpinator is back...and Wazzpinator tired of being comic relief."

Wasp soon found himself in Meltdown's old underground lab going ga-ga over Blackarachnia. The spiderbot used her feminine wiles and familiar-sounding sob stories of Autobot betrayal to win Wasp's trust, and she convinced him to undergo an organic power augmentation procedure by impressing him with the ferocity of her own beast mode (while shielding him from seeing the disfigured mutant corpses left behind from her prior experiments). Wasp entered one transwarp chamber, a real organic wasp was put into another, and out came... Waspinator, three times larger than before, with more powerful energy "stings" and a deeper, heavily processed, voice. Waspinator also now sported a Decepticon insignia, indicating a final break away from the Autobots on his part.

When he was finally tracked down by Bumblebee, who apologized to him and wanted to be his friend, he decided that while "Wasp" forgave his former accuser, "Waspinator" preferred violent revenge. Talk about Jekyll and Hyde. But before Waspinator could deliver the final blow, he overheard Blackarachnia admitting to the Autobots that she only viewed her new "friend" as another experimental attempt to cure her own organic infection. Irate at yet another betrayal, Waspinator started attacking everybody—and if that wasn't scary enough, his transwarp energy became unstable. Just as Waspinator reached critical mass, Blackarachnia sealed them both within a cocoon of her energy webbing, containing the explosion of transwarp energy.

Some assembly required.

While only a crater was left on Dinobot Island, Waspinator and Blackarachnia were teleported by the transwarp energy to an unknown jungle. Although reduced to pieces by the explosion, Waspinator was still functional, and slowly began putting himself back together. After all, he couldn't go offline yet... because "Wazzzpinator hazz planzzz!" Predacons Rising

At the time of Cheetor's demotion from Transtech to Iacon Central, a wanted poster for Wasp was hung outside Depth Charge's office. Moving Violations

Ask Vector Prime

In Malgus 508.6 Zeta, the destruction of Dinobot Island blasted Waspinator's spark clear of his body and into Unspace. It was eventually discovered by the dimension-hopping Jhiaxus of Viron 903.0 Beta, who used it to power a protoform blank who would become Thrust. Although Thrust cultivated a suave and confident persona, his subconscious memories of being an unlucky bungler continued to haunt him, manifesting as a cowardly streak in battle. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/09/09

Toys

Animated

Finally Blackarachnia has a pal... and by "pal", we mean "guinea pig".

• Waspinator (Deluxe Class, 2009 / 2010)

• Takara ID number: TA-37
• Takara release date: August 28, 2010
• Known designers: Eric Siebenaler (Hasbro), Alex Kubalsky (TakaraTomy), Marcelo Matere (packaging artist)

Part of the sixth wave of Animated Deluxe Class toys, Waspinator transforms from a techno-organic wasp into a techno-organic, four-armed, winged robot. In both modes, a lever on the thorax flaps his wings back and forth via spring-loaded internal gearing mechanism.

His antennae are made of softer rubber, to allow them to be wedged within his insect head, as well as for safety reasons.

Takara also released Waspinator in the seventh wave of their Animated toyline years later. Waspinator is mostly the same, though the silver paint on his insect-mode head has been expanded down to his mouthparts, plus his Decepticon symbol is now colored purple with a white outline, rather than the Hasbro version's plain gold.

• More information on Waspinator at TFU.info

Because nobody would buy "Forcefully Paint-Altered Bumblebee".

• Fugitive Waspinator (Deluxe Class, 2010)

• Accessories: Detachable twin boosters
• Known designers: Marcelo Matere (packaging artist)

"Fugitive Waspinator", apparently named such because of trademark issues with the name "Wasp", represents Wasp before he became a freak mutant. He is a simple redeco of Deluxe class Bumblebee, transforming into a green sub-compact hatchback. The two halves of his stinger weapon, stored in his forearms, can be flipped out and pegged together (presumably, this mold would have used the corrected version that allows them to fully retract into his forearms). In both robot and car mode, his two booster rockets can be attached on his back. In addition, although not shown in the cartoon, both Waspinator's windows and headlights are tinted purple in order to give him a more Beast Wars-like appearance while retaining his original vehicle form.

While he was actually unaligned at the point in the cartoon when Wasp had this alternate mode, Fugitive Waspinator is a Decepticon for simple branding purposes.

At his reveal at BotCon 2009, Hasbro explained that "...either Ironhide got a new head, or Wasp did." They went with the former... which turned out for the better, since Wasp was ultimately never released.

Proceed on your way to oblivion. This item has been canceled, with no current plans for release.

Age of the Primes

After 15 years, I'm finally here. Better late than never I suppose - and I finally got the new head!

• Fugitive Waspinator (Deluxe Class, 2025)

• Accessories: 2 stingers, 2 rocket boosters
• Known designers: Mark Maher (Hasbro), Yūya Ōnishi (TakaraTomy)^[1]

Part of the first wave of Age of the Primes Deluxes, “Fugitive Waspinator” is a redeco and retool of Legacy: United Animated Universe Bumblebee that transforms into a green and black police hatchback. Wasp also comes with turbo boosters, which can be pegged onto his back in robot mode or the sides of his vehicle mode. He retains the name from the above cancelled release.

Also included are his signature stinger weapons, which can be combined with the boosters mentioned above to be used as handheld weapons (or as "boost" effects), but they can also be attached to his arms by flipping the hands around. Unfortunately the ports on his wrists are angled specifically for the combined stinger attack, so using the two stingers separately looks rather awkward.

Despite utilizing an "unaligned"-styled rub sign in the cartoon, Wasp features a Decepticon insignia, just like the previously-cancelled figure.

This item is currently scheduled for release, but is not yet available at mass retail.

Notes

• The small, vestigial arms present on the Deluxe Waspinator toy's robot mode torso have their origin in an early design concept for Lockdown; the bounty hunter robot's character model was subsequently altered to make his appearance less monstrous, but Derrick J. Wyatt loved the concept of the vestigial arms enough to incorporate them instead into Waspinator's design.^[2]
• The signature quote given to Waspinator on his toy packaging is "Waspinator rules!", one of several phrases associated with the original Beast Wars incarnation of Waspinator. He uttered it in "A Better Mousetrap" and "Maximal, No More".
• Derrick Wyatt stated on his blog that this incarnation of Waspinator is inspired by his Beast Wars counterpart, but made more monstrous and buglike. Wyatt examined photographs of actual wasps, nature shows like Life in the Undergrowth and monster movies for inspiration. The FX studio, Audio Circus, added insectoid clicks and other background sounds for the character.^[3]
• In technorganic mode, Waspinator is capable of firing energy blasts from his vestigial arms. This appears to be the mutated version of his original stinger attack, similar to Elita-1/Blackarachnia retaining her downloading power.
• Wasp is the only character to have shown three different bodies throughout the show (a Cybertronian race car, a green version of Bumblebee's Earthen car mode, and a giant wasp).
• Wasp wears the 65356-9292-346 body-type.
• His last scene in the cartoon is an homage to the original Beast Wars Waspinator, who had a habit of getting blown to pieces and putting himself back together.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Wasp (ワスプ Wasupu), Waspinator (ワスピネーター Wasupinētā)
• Russian: Osa (Оса, "Wasp")

References