Jetfire (Robot & Vehicle) [Defender Version 05-Traitor to Tyranny]

It's clearly not a secret to anyone at this point that Jetfire's original toy was a reuse of a Macross Valkyrie, which was also getting used in Robotech. This of course led to his character getting named Skyfire in the cartoon and given a different look on the show. Various toys and lawsuits later and it's still a thing.

That leads us to today's really well executed Blokees Transformers Defender Version Jetfire, who's appearing in his G1 cartoon looks and I'm pretty happy about that as I've always liked that design. In Series 05-Traitor to Tyranny, Jetfire was released in robot and vehicle forms with a Special Armor Type available if you were lucky enough to get one.

Starting with the vehicle kit, you actually get a pretty neat little approximation of Skyfire's jet mode seen in season 1. It assembles pretty easily and features wings that can fold back similar to the Valkyrie Jetfire's based on. I probably should have taken pictures of the jet's additional features... but it didn't occur to me until just now that I should have. The jet has features, and some pretty neat ones.

For starters, the top can be opened which allows for a Defender Type robot mode Transformer to ride on top of Jetfire via two pegs. In addition, there's two pegs on the jet's bottom that allow it to be used as a jetpack. On top of that, thanks to those pegs and a few other ball joints, you can take the legs and arms from a robot mode Jetfire and recreate a Macross Gerwalk mode. That's a lot of features for this little vehicle that I probably should have showed off, but honestly I was more focused on how cool I think the jet looks. To further illustrate that, in the picture I used a piece of popcorn to prop him up at an angle. Tunnel vision.

The robot mode kit is pretty special. The Skyfire design really lends itself to the Blokees look and that really shines as a Defender Version. I specifically favor Defender Versions due to their proportions and smallness (the site's named after a Micromaster base, there might be something to that). That and Defenders have a lot of really cool features like all the gimmicks in Jetfire's vehicle mode kit for example, or the various combiners.

Not only can Jetfire interact with his alt mode kit in fun ways, but he's pretty visually distinct in robot mode too. Of course he's representing his Skyfire design, but that big honking backpack contrasts so neatly with those smaller proportions that it really looks fabulous. I'm glad these are smaller, not just because I lean towards smaller toys often, but because if this was a larger figure, the design would lose a lot of its personality.

It kind of reminds me of Skyblast, who of course was patterned after Skyfire, but the proportions are similar enough that I think a clever repaint would make for a fun conversion.

Of course he's fairly well articulated. For a blind box model kit that results in a mini figure, the range of movement is pretty impressive. Frankly, it's pretty impressive overall regardless of any of those factors. Jetfire has his Photon Missile Launcher and if you got the Special Armor Version, it also came with launching missile effects and a mounted forearm sword similar to his appearance in the War for Cybertron cartoon, which the kit is colored to match.

It's honestly pretty neat how Blokees managed to reference War for Cybertron, G1, and those Macross roots. Not to mention giving the Skyfire design Macross style gimmicks is really clever.

Ultimately, it's a solid case of why Defender Versions are so damn cool.