Bot Reviews: Transformers: Legacy United Leader Beast Wars Universe Tigerhawk

Sometimes, a Transformers figure has outsized importance compared to the character’s actual role in the stories they come from. This is the case for me with the original 1999 release of Tigerhawk. This Beast Wars character was a fused version of the Maximals Tigatron and Airazor, after they were kidnapped by an alien race. The new, combined bot was then possessed by one of the aliens, and sent to the world of the Beast Wars specifically to kill Megatron (this was a bad thing at the time for complicated reasons).

The thing is, Tigerhawk was literally on the show for two-and-a-half episodes, and those episodes were the last ones of the third, and final, season. Sure, he got his big, flashy debut episode (which ended with him being freed from alien possession, and allowed to rejoin his fellow Maximals.) But then the next episode was part one of the entire show’s two-part series finale, so he was present, but not the focus, and then he got one big moment in the series finale (no spoilers), and that’s it. Ravage was on the show more, and he didn’t even have a toy at the time! (As an aside, since he was Tigatron and Airazor fused together, they really should have gone for a different portrayal for the character than “Tigatron’s voice actor doing his usual voice and characterization.” Yet another case of Airazor erasure.)

Tigerhawk did have a figure, though, and oh, what a figure it was. A huge Ultra-Class Transformer full of spring-loaded gimmicks, Tigerhawk was the thing I wanted most for Christmas in ‘99, and I actually got it, too. And while I don’t have it anymore, I made some memories with that guy. So this new Legacy United update is laser-guided towards Me, Specifically, but not because of anything he did in his tiny amount of screentime. I think his original toy commercial is probably the more important Tigerhawk lore, so here it is:

Frankly, I’m just surprised this new one even got made, and got made *now,* since the train of Beast Wars updates that began in Kingdom has mostly been going in chronological order, but decided to skip ahead right to the end of the story (same with Transmetal 2 Megatron), rather than continuing to update the Season 2 cast (at least until the new Silverbolt comes out). I’m not complaining, though, I’m just happy for a chance to look at a new form of this old favorite.

Robot Mode

While I don’t have the original to compare, I’ve seen in photos that this new version of Tigerhawk is the exact same size as the original. That means he’s a tall, bulky Leader-class figure, on par with Kingdom and Legacy Beast Megatron, which is always good to see at this price point.

Most impressively, he’s really wide, thanks to his generous wingspan.

This is a very show-accurate design, which is to say, toy-accurate as well, since by the end of the series, the animators were matching the figures pretty closely. One issue with the design is that, to me, there isn’t much to really suggest that it’s Tigatron and Airazor fused together, as opposed to just an original character, though this is really something to take up with the design team in ‘99, not the 2024 guys, who are just copying the original.

If anything, he reminds me more of Beast Wars Silverbolt, what with the wings on his back, and the feathery loincloth around his waist. Combine that with the fact that he’s barrel-chested, with bird talons on his shoulders, and a tiger head on one shoulder, he really has a barbarian-type look.

On the other shoulder is a green orb, which on the original, had a cockpit chair inside, but this one can’t fit it, due to joints going there.

One detail shared amongst all the Transmetal 2 toys of the time was that they had a ton of asymmetrical detail on them, but, much like Legacy Megatron, it’s mostly absent on Tigerhawk, being limited to his two different shoulders, and some of the detailing on his boots being different on each foot. Again, this is moreso a problem with the original design.

Uptop, Tigerhawk’s got a cool headsculpt, with a crested helmet, and a green visor in front of his eyes. One thing I appreciate is that the designers kept his extremely 90’s tough guy snarl sculpted in there. 

Tigerhawk’s colors are interesting, because they feel reflexively wrong to me. See, the original figure was white, with bright blue accents. But this was a last-minute change, and the prototypes on the box had purple instead of blue. Thanks to production lead times, he had the purple prototype colors on the show, too, and therefore, this figure goes with that deco.

Can’t say I blame them, all these updates have been aiming for animation accuracy, which explains the third main color, a sort of brownish copper, which was added to his animated design, though it was a lighter shade on the show. I don’t mind the copper, though, because it breaks up the white nicely. Beyond those three, he’s got some really nice hits of translucent green (like on his visor), as well as a bit of black, some red for his eyes and faction symbol, and some very nice silver paint on the feathers of his wings, and on his face, to pick out detail. And much like the Transmetal 2 Megatron update, there isn’t a lick of chrome on him, which works for me, since that means it won’t chip the second a stiff breeze hits it.

As befits a barrel-chested barbarian like Tigerhawk, he’s a solidly-built, stable bot, and his mass and weight are on the denser side of leader-class. While his feet are small, they have generous heel spurs, and he can stay standing even if you flare his wings out.

Tigerhawk’s got an impressive suite of articulation, with all the amenities of a modern mainline figure (minus wrist swivels), but what’s more impressive is that there’s a bunch of really specific engineering on him to facilitate that articulation. There’s a panel next to his shoulder-orb that raises and lowers specifically to let his shoulder move freely, and his tiger head on the other shoulder has a raising panel on the top of his head for the same purpose.

Meanwhile, you can raise his loincloth a little bit to allow his waist to swivel, and free up his extremely loud ratchety hips. It all feels very carefully considered. I get a kick out of him having ankle tilts on a boot and foot sculpt that was originally sculpted without one in mind. 

In terms of extra articulation, his wings have multiple joints, letting them flap from the center of his back, and halfway through the wing.

The features on Tigerhawk are interesting to contemplate, as an owner of the original. So, that original had a bunch of spring-loaded features, and none of them are present here, since Legacy’s not really about that. However, features and accessories that homage each of them are here, and manage to make him have a lot going on in his own right.

So, on the original, the outer part of his wings could originally flip from down to up with the push of a button. Here, you can just twist them upwards, as an additional point of articulation, which lets you do poses where they’re fully spread out. Meanwhile, the tip of each wing had feather-shaped missiles that could shoot out. Here, they’re mounted on 5-millimeter pegs, and you can remove them, to put in his hands as bladed weapons (furthering his resemblance to Beast Wars Silverbolt). 

A little further into his wings, you have sculpted tri-barrelled gatling guns facing upwards, with folded-back missile launchers beneath them.

On the original, the launchers would flip up via a spring-loaded gimmick where his wings could flap. Here, you can manually rotate them upwards (and they don’t fire). The advantage this time around is you can’t accidentally trigger them, a problem on the original. Plus, they share the same feature as the original, where you can pop them off (on 5-millimeter pegs on this one), and turn them into handheld cannons, though you need to line some pegs up when returning them to the wings, so they lock in when un-deployed.

Speaking of hand-cannons, there’s a little double-barred wrist gun on his left hand, where they actually added a feature. The weapon was molded in on the original, now you can remove it on a 5 millimeter port, and have him hold it, or mount it on the port on his other arm.

He’s got less 5-millimeter ports than I’d like, but there’s some on his forearms, and inside the gatling guns on his wings, plus 5 millimeter pegs where the feather missiles go, and his weapons themselves all using them, so there’s a bit you can do with -Izers.

While there’s something to be said for losing his spring loaded gimmickery, I think what makes this guy work for me, where someone like Legacy Laser Optimus Prime didn’t, is that all of his original features are still present in some form, and there’s some genuine value-adds to make up for what’s missing. 

Transformation

Wow, this is complicated! First, you explode his upper torso.

Then, you explode his lower torso. Then, you rebuild the whole thing in a different combination. It’s not a bad transformation, though. There’s no fiddly bits, everything fits where it’s supposed to, but there’s enough going on that I don’t see myself going at this without the instructions any time soon. I really wish I had my original to compare it to, I don’t have a muscle memory of how this is or isn’t different. One little bit of trivia: Exploding his torso exposes where the Spark Crystal was on the original figure, but on this one, it’s just a bit of sculpting on some purple plastic.

Oh, well.

Beast Mode

It’s a robotic tiger….with wings! At this point in the original Beast Wars line, we were well beyond realistic animals, and fully into bio-mechanical hybrids, like this one.

Again, this is a very animation-accurate alternate mode, which means it’s a very toy-accurate original mode, with one fairly large exception: The original toy had a falcon-like battle mask behind his head that you could slip down over his tiger face for a marginal third mode, and it’s absent here, because it was absent on the show. The upshot is that this means he can actually point his head straight forwards (the original couldn’t unless his mask was on). 

But there’s a conspicuous dent in his forehead that points to it being intended to be present as a removable piece, which has people thinking there’s going to be a repaint in the works that’ll include it (he got a black-and-purple repaint a couple years later, in the Universe toyline, as the villainous Razorclaw).

Missing mask aside, it’s a pretty good headsculpt again, a tiger with a big copper robotic brow. And they actually found room for some more of that Transmetal 2 asymmetry, with half of that tiger face being fur, and the other being steel. It kind of vanishes into the white, though, as does his unpainted tongue and teeth (those are the only new colors worth talking about, since the rest of him is re-arranged robot.)

As for the rest of him, I kind of feel like Silverbolt had the right idea when he made the bird legs his front legs, and the wolf legs the back ones, because here, his gigantic tiger forelegs and shriveled bird back legs are a little bit funny.

Still, this is what the original looked like, and it pings some good memories in me. 

One funny little concession to the show’s animation model this time around is that while the green orb of a cockpit, which now goes under his chest, is in proper cockpit position, because the CGI model on the show shrunk it way down, the cockpit’s actually covered up by a tiny version of the same orb. It’s not even a bad thing, it’s just funny.

What’s also funny is that double-barrelled wrist cannon sticking out directly behind him, in kind of a crude way. But hey, that’s where you’re supposed to stash it. 

In terms of his build quality, a couple tiny issues rear their head in this form, and they have to do with his forelegs. The purple part of his robot boots have now been flipped up to his upper legs, and just kind of hang there. The problem is, when you move his elbows (knees?), they like to leave their place and come down with them.

The other is his flipped-away robot feet, the one on his right can’t fit into its storage space quite as well as the one on his left, thanks to the asymmetric sculpt, and so it make his heel spur stick out a bit more than it ought to. 

As for poseability, he manages to still have a fair amount. Like I mentioned above, his head can move up and down, with that forehead panel moving out of the way to facilitate it, and he’s got a moveable jaw. His forelegs have full shoulder movement, and simple elbow and foot swivels (I really don’t know what the terms are for front legs on animals). His rear bird legs are even more articulated, with four joints apiece so they can do the whole bent-back-birdie thing. Oh, and you can kinda lift and lower his feathered tail.

Uptop, the wings have all the same articulation, and more importantly, the same flip-out features as the robot mode. If anything, they’re more relevant now that the weapons face forwards, and not upwards.

This is also a mode where I actually appreciate the lack of spring-loaded gimmickery. See, on the original, you couldn’t straighten out his wings while keeping his cannons flipped back into “gatling” mode. They’d automatically spring forwards, and fire their missiles when you did so.

Not having that problem on this guy honestly feels really nice. Of course, he can’t really hold any of the weapons or missiles when detached in this mode, but you can still add some items to the 5-millimeter pegs and holes left in their wake. 

There’s one last little easter egg I want to call out, because I love that it’s here. So, the original 1999 Tigerhawk figure was going to have some sort of rolling tank mode. It was abandoned in the design process, but the final figure still had four rolling wheels on top of his wings that go unused. The new version of Tigerhawk has a sculpted version of those same wheels in the same place.

Granted, they’re just a detail, and don’t roll (like on Legacy Bludgeon and Tarn), but the fact that they remembered and included them is really something, especially considering the show’s CGI model didn’t have them. And you can still make some kinda fake tank mode of your own, if you want (we’ve never seen what it was supposed to look like).

Overall

A friend of mine, talking about Legacy Armada Optimus Prime, called him “a tribute to the greatest toy of all time.” Armada Prime was a little after my childhood memory-making phase, but Tigerhawk was right there, and that’s the feeling I get off of this figure. This guy feels like a loving tribute to the original, as well as being a great figure in his own right.

I kind of wish his purple were blues, but the colors he has make sense, so I can’t really complain. And beyond that, there’s nothing wrong with him beyond the little things with his beat forelegs. Most importantly, he feels really substantial and full-featured. Removing the spring-loaded gimmicks makes him easier to handle, and there’s value-adds to cover their absence.

This guy was made for me, specifically, but beyond that, there’s enough plastic, joints and features to justify the Leader-Class prices, so if you’ve got Leader-Class money, he’s well worth it. 

For over 100 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.