Dave's Transformers Classics Rant: Voyagers Wave 2

     Jetfire

     Also shipping with more of Prime and Megatron.

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/Voyager2

CAPSULE

     Jetfire: Good vehicle mode, good transformation, very good robot mode.
Simultaneously homages G1 Jetfire AND Skyfire.  Strongly recommended.  $19.76
at Wal-Mart.


RANTS

     Packaging: Same keystone box as wave 1.  The cosells on the side panel
are for Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Mirage and Grimlock.  The callouts on
the back panel are: "Arm blasters fire two projectiles!"  "Removable helmet!"
"Booster unit becomes backpack!" and "Rotating laser cannons!"
     Only two ties connect the jet to the rear cardboard tray, but there's an
extensive plastic blister tray that the jet is also tied into (X twist-ties),
and little plastic covers held onto the tops of the booster jets by rubber
bands.  The missiles are held down by a pair of ties, and the rifle is in
combined mode and held down by one tie.  The rifle and the jet both poke
through the bottom of the cardboard tray.  The plastic tray is not taped or
glued down, it's just held in by the two beefy ties.  One more tie wraps
throughout the vehicle to keep it together, and there's a third rubber band
around the nose.
     It's packaged slightly mistransformed, with the missile launchers
pointed the wrong way (in robot mode configuration).

     Skyfire: For those not steeped in G1 Transformers lore, here's a VERY
brief summary.  When Hasbro was snapping up various toys to rebrand as
Transformers in the mid 80s, one such mold was essentially the Super Valkyrie
(Veritech) from the Macross toy line, with possible minor changes that I
won't go into here, but I'm sure you can find arguments about if you look.
However, Harmony Gold got the rights to the designs for their Robotech show
(which used Macross and two other shows as raw material), so while Hasbro was
able to release a rather nice TOY of Jetfire (for pictures, see
http://www.tfu.info/1985/Autobot/Jetfire/jetfire.htm) in stores, they
couldn't use the design for the cartoon.  So a new design was made that had
similar characteristics, but was different enough to avoid licensing issues,
and he ended up renamed Skyfire.  More details can be found at Teletraan-1,
http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Jetfire_%28G1%29#Why_.22Skyfire.22.3F
(gotta love URLs that incorporate punctuation codes).
     Attempts have been made to rationalize the two characters as being the
same in some way, including things like a battle helmet that looked like
Jetfire's head, covering the Skyfire face (as seen in the Dreamwave comic), a
design element incorporated into this toy.  Classics Jetfire is mostly
Jetfire in vehicle mode, but strongly Skyfire in robot mode (especially the
non-super robot mode).  I consider it a rather successful but of toyetic
syncretism.  :)


AUTOBOT: JETFIRE
Altmode: Fighter Jet
Function: Autobot Air Guardian
Weapons: Particle beam repeaters, plasma missiles, rifle, quad lasers
Motto: "Victory lies in the conquest of unknown mysteries."

     JETFIRE was once famous across the face of CYBERTRON.  As a great
scientist and explorer, he was the first to journey to the black depths of
deep space, and the only one to ever face and defeat the Star pirates of the
Blot Nebula.  It was because of his status as a hero that his sudden
disappearance was greeted with worldwide dismay.  He was discovered millions
of years later, frozen deep within the Arctic glacier on Earth, and rose
immediately to the challenge presented by the DECEPTICONS.  He is among the
mightiest and bravest of AUTOBOTS, driving into battle without a moments'
[sic] hesitation, the stuttering roar of his particle beam repeaters drowning
out all other sounds.

STR 6  INT 10  SPD 10  END 5  RNK 10  COUR 9  FRB 7  SKL 9  Avg 8.25

     Some odd capitalization choices in there.

     Jet Mode: Officially this is the Super Vehicle Mode.  Removing the
booster pack gets you the regular vehicle mode.  It has an F-14 Tomcat style
wing and tail configuration, but more of an F-15 Eagle profile with the shape
of the cockpit area.  Of course, it's intentionally sci-fi'ed up to not
exactly look like any Earthly jet, and the nose in particular is blunt and
spaceship-ish.  8" (20cm) long.  The wingspan is 5.5" (14cm) in full
swept-back position, 8.5" (22cm) in realistic non-swept position, and up to
9.5" (24cm) in an unrealistic straight-out-to-the-sides pose.  If he was
supposed to be F-14-sized in vehicle mode, the toy would be about 1:92
scale.  G1 Skyfire was big enough to carry Optimus Prime inside, standing up,
with headroom to spare, which would require an Optimus Prime toy the size of
a Diaclone pilot to be in scale.  I think I'll just call this version a
slightly beefier jet, and have it be 1:144 scale (about 50% larger than a
real jet).  Why 1:144?  Because that's a standard robot and kaiju model
scale.  :)
     Most of the main plane is white plastic (moderate UV glow) with black
and red (FF0000) paint details.  The landing gear, cannons, missile
launchers, thrust nozzles and some connecting bits are black plastic.  The
cockpit window and missiles are clear light blue (33FFFF) plastic.  The
booster unit is mostly red plastic or white plastic with red paint.  The
flip-out guns and the rocket nozzles are black plastic, but the very tips of
the guns are a separate softer black plastic (no doubt to reduce the chances
of injury).  The rubsign is on the left wing, and there's printed Autobot
symbols on the undersides of both wings.
     The wings can swing forward in a soft ratcheting motion, from fully
swept to being as far forward as they were back, for those who want a pseudo
Space Case look.  The tail and elevators are hinged, but mostly blocked by
the thruster pack.  The nozzles on the thruster pack are on ball joints.  The
pack itself is removable, letting you fix the tail to look more like an
F-14.  The cannons on either side of the cockpit swivel to elevate or
depress.  The missile launchers have that joint as well, but are mainly
blocked by the wings and tail.
     Pulling part of the housing of each booster pod back lets a black gun
(I'm guessing these are the particle beam repeaters) flip out on a
spring-loaded joint, and these are deployed in-package.  With the housing
pulled back, there's a joint mid-thruster that can bend with ratcheting (but
doesn't have room to in this mode).
     The rifle stores on the underside, split into two with each half held by
one of the robot hands.  The jet nozzles, rather than being squared off as in
the G1 Jetfire, have stealth-style triangular ends and zigzags intended to
help defeat radar.
     Once you get everything firmly pegged together (it rattles loose a bit
in the package), the vehicle mode is quite stable.  You can pick it up by
just about anything but the tail and nothing comes out of place.
     [Later note: JediTricks pointed out to me that there's an instrument
panel molded into the inside of the cockpit.]

     Gerwalk Mode: Yep, he has one.  For those confused by my jargon, a
gerwalk mode (G-walker, Guardian mode, etc) is something the original Macross
transforming jets have, a sort of halfway stage between jet and robot, with
legs down and arms out, but the main body still in jet mode.  The tail
section doesn't fold up like the Veritech fighter's does, and the legs can't
bend backwards at the knees to shift the support point forward, so the
booster pack has to stay on for balance.  However, you can move the legs
forward a bit by swinging the hips outward.

     Transformation: Lift up the rear top to free the legs to swing down and
the arms out.  The nose opens up to remove the battle helmet, and then does a
nifty folding trick to split the front end into pectorals.  A part behind the
canopy folds down to give him an actual solid-looking chest, rather than the
open-topped bucket many jet TFs carry on their chests.  
     The very stiff ratcheting joints all over the place do make it a bit
tricky to transform.
     Officially, the wings point up as far as possible in both regular and
super robot modes (which is Skyfire-style, but they look kinda like butterfly
wings), but I prefer them down.  
     To make regular robot mode, remove the booster pack, helmet and forearm
launchers.  There's no place to store them, though, and the helmet has to be
removed from the chest for the chest to fold together properly.  The backpack
can make a credible gun emplacement for smaller robots, though:
     http://www.dvandom.com/images/jfemplace.JPG (it stands on its own, it
doesn't have to lean on another figure)
     Also, the helmet fits my fingers well as a finger puppet.  Or on the tip
of my nose, although that looks silly.  And hurts a little.

     Robot Mode: 7" (18cm) tall at the head, the "standard" Voyager size.  If
you keep the wings up in official position, the top of the wingtips is 8"
(20cm) high, and the wingspan is 6" (15cm).  If I stick to my 1:144 scale
idea and say there's no mass-shifting involved, that makes the robot mode 90
feet tall (27m), towering over the 50 foot tall G1 Prime (BTW, the G1 Prime
toy's robot mode would be about 50 feet tall at 1:144 scale) and most
Gundams, not to mention stomping all over Battlemechs.  But only coming up to
Godzilla's upper abdomen.  Yes, I'm being silly, so?  Scale is one of those
things that tends to get brushed under the rug in super robot shows, it can
be amusing to poke at.
     The insides of the shoulders, the elbow joints, and fists are black, as
are the nosewheel (now the, um, undercarriage junk?), rear wheels (now
kneecaps) and thruster nozzles (now the feet).  Pretty much everything else
is white plastic, or painted white (the chest center/cockpit is clear blue
but mostly painted).  The face is silver with lightpiped light blue eyes and
metallic blue forehead dot.  The small antennas on the head are painted
black. 
     The head is on a ball joint, letting it turn as well as lean back.  The
shoulders are ratcheting universal joints (swivel and hinge).  The elbows are
VERY stiff ratcheting hinges.  The wrists swivel smoothly.  No upper arm
swivel, but there is a swivel just below each elbow.  The hips are a pair of
hinges, the top one swinging out and the lower one forward and back (both
ratcheting).  Thus, his armor skirt does not need to be hinged to let his
legs move freely.  This arrangement also makes the gerwalk mode more stable.
The knees are ratcheting hinges, and there's a smooth swivel below each.  The
feet are geared to fold open, and can be pointed tiptoe.
     The double-barrelled rifle evokes Skyfire's gun without looking exactly
like it (although it's fairly close).  It can be split into two single-barrel
weapons like Prime's gun, but looks really bad that way.

     Super Robot Mode: Add on the helmet, arm launchers and booster pack,
and fold the guns down to be over-the-shoulder.  Snapping the booster pack on
takes significant force.  Also, while leaving the guns straight up looks more
Jetfire-G1-ish, the heels aren't long enough to cope with the shifted center
of mass very well, deploying the guns helps keep the center of mass a bit
farther forward.
     7.5" (19cm) tall at the helmet guns if they're pointed up.  Wingtip
height the same as in robot mode, and they rise higher than the deployed
guns.  If you leave the boosters pointed up, you get a height of 9" (23cm).
If you deploy the guns and point them up, 11" (28cm).  Why yes, he IS happy
to see you.
     The helmet is made from clear blue plastic mostly painted white, with
yellow minigun bumps.  The helmet guns are black plastic, two barrels on each
side in the classic Super Valkyrie style.  The helmet evokes the look of G1
Jetfire's head, but is much wider and more detailed.  It's a little big in
proportion to the body, and ironically makes the robot look *smaller* in
super mode (proportion rule of thumb: smaller heads give the impression of
greater size, especially when it comes to giant robots).  If you point the
guns back as far as possible, they look kinda like pigtails.  Pretty Warrior
Sailor Jetfire?  :)
     The booster pack and missile launchers have already been covered under
vehicle mode.  Aside from the balance issues created by the backpack, there's
no change to poseability.  The head can still turn and tilt back, and the
guns on the helmet can swivel down.  The booster's guns are on ratcheting
hinges, and the missile launchers soft-ratchet, but it's not a really useful
joint.

     Overall: A bit more robot stuff visible in vehicle mode than I'd like,
and it'd be nice if there was a way to assemble the super armor into
something when it's not on the robot, but those are really my only serious
complaints.  And it has a helmet that can be fitted nasally.  Best Voyager of
the three.

     Dave Van Domelen, also likes the ways in this this toy can be silly.