I see how a great character she is in the series, and she is similar to Blackarchnia. But what I want to know, was Arachnid ment to be Blackarachnia? since TFA had the right of Blackarnia, perhaps
I don't know. They might make her a predacon and reboot the beast era on a small scale, but other than that they are completely different to me. Blackarachnia was a maximal protoform turned decepticon then fell in love which led to becoming a maximal. Airachnid is a sadistic hunter that finds pleasure in sport.
Plus, the Airachnid name actually makes sense, given her alt-mode. Blackarachnia with a helicoptor mode would just seem, well, random.
Well Blackarachnia turns into a spider, and Airachnid doesnt. Plus, and I think this is the main reason behind the name change: Blackarachnia is, at some point in time, good. Whether it be starting as an Autobot or ending up as a Maximal, she wasnt always a big nasty. I get the feeling that they want a truely nasty female Con, so they changed it up by making her Airachnid. Plus, if they DID make her Blackarachnia, we'd be swamped with threads like "when will she turn" plus, when the series ends and shes still a con, there'd be people complaining about her not changing sides and whatnot. Again, easier to just make a new Con.
While Blackarachnia and Airachnid are two totally different characters, I could see Airachnid as Transformers Prime's answer to Blackarachnia, a.k.a. the spider transformer of the show/continuity. Unless Blackarachnia exists somewhere in the universe, too. Then that might be a little confusing to Transformers newcomers.
More random than Bumblebee turning into a car and not an actually bumblebee? What about Wheeljack? Sometimes characters have names that make sense. Some times those names are just unique. I don't really care myself, but sometimes a name too simple can be a bit boring, but in the end a names a name.
That I'm aware they still own it since it was used recently in Transformers Animated. It still has the registered trademark symbol next to her name at least.
True, thought it seems much more obvious now with his newly added racing stripes. Still Blackarachnia didn't feel random to me at all as I figured the black was referring to her charachter and archina to her spider form.