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.

Bios: Jetfire

"You can fall alone or you can fall together!"

Jetfire adopted the form of Earth's most advanced and adventurous craft - the Space Shuttle. He is Optimus Prime's executive officer, second in command and has the honorable and rare task of being able to combine with him - redefining the term teamwork. He exemplifies all of the special qualities found in Autobot commanders: courageous, tactically skilled, and a natural leader. Taking the time to know each Autobot, Jetfire understands their individual strengths and weaknesses - in battle, he knows exactly where each soldier will excel. While relaxed with the troops, he becomes all business when it's time for action. He is heroic in battle, caring not about size or number of enemies; with a take on all comers' mentality. Equally efficient and effective on the ground and in the air, he is air mobile and ground capable.

Let's Transform Cyberjet Jetfire!

Good old Jetfire. One of the more popular Cyberjets and for a while there, one of the more often used molds. Chances are you've probably got a version or two of it and let's transform it? As you can see above your figure should have two missiles. These fire from the launcher on the top of the jet which is also the robots right hand. It only fires one at a time, so the spare is often held in the other hand as a club.

 

In jet mode, the spare missile can be stored underneath the jet. With both missiles in place he looks pretty heavily armed. The jet itself is pretty neat. It's small, but not tiny. The wings can open up as well.

To fire the missile, just push on the end and it pops out flying a few inches. Instead of a spring trigger, the launcher has a sort of marble mechanism. 

The launcher clamps around the ball shape on the missile. The pushing plays with the friction of the holder and it just pops out. This works really well and is very handy as you won't loose missiles by accidental firings.

Let's start transforming him now. simply unfold the jet's undercarriage out. It's pretty obvious that these are Jetfire's legs. Thanks to the sculpting they blend in pretty well. There's also some fold-able landing gear built into them which stores out of the way in robot mode.

After you flip out those legs, adjust those arms into place. The missile launcher is one and by now you've noticed the other was the storage for the spare missile. Spread them out like in the picture. Just like the picture, don't get creative. 

By now you can probably see the robot's head, that's generally where you need to start folding. So do that. Fold it. Now. As you do this everything will fit into place with a little adjusting. Maybe a lot if you got creative with those arms like I told you not to.

You've mostly got Jetfire transformed. Just fold those arms up into place and you've got a pretty good looking robot.

 

Place one of those missiles in the launcher so Jetfire can shoot it at somebody. The other can be held like a club or stored on the underside of his arm. It's the same place you had it stored in jet mode and looks like an arm mounted gun when done so here.

Like I said before, this mold got a lot of use and chances are you've probably got a version or two of it. There's five different versions of it out officially and I still see bootlegs of it occasionally. 

It was used twice in G2 as Hooligan and Jetfire. In Robot Masters as R-Blade and Wind Sheer in Universe (v1). The last use was in the BotCon 2005 exclusive set as Ricochet. Each version is pretty different from the other and are pretty sharp looking toys. Go get one if you don't already own a version. Then fly him around your living room. Make "pew pew" noises.

Since everybodies talking about Jetfire

There's a lot of talk about Jetfire these days, which is easy to understand. He has a new and exciting Siege toy that just about everyone wants (including me). With a legacy character like Jetfire, you can't help but to think back to older Jetfire toys when a new one comes out. I was very fond of his toys during the Unicron Trilogy. The Armada Jetfire toy was a great figure intended to homage Galaxy Shuttle. Energon, the follow up to Armada, followed this Jetfire with a new one that always reminded me of Dai Atlas (it's the shoulders).

Energon was a line of many gimmicks. Most remembered was the Powerlinx feature found on most Autobots. Autobots that could Powerlinx with one another could either form the top half or bottom half of a more powerful form. At OTFCC 2003 after the line was shown at the Hasbro panel, many fans were comparing it to Landcross, as that team shared the same gimmick. I can still remember staring at those display cases, excited for these new figures. They just looked so good then ... and honestly still do now 16 years later.

Armada Scavenger and Jetfire

Man, I loved Armada. Such a cool line with fun gimmicks and big chunky robots!

Jetfire and Shockwave

One of my birthday gifts was a Siege Shockwave figure. It's hard not to like Shockwave, just a great sci fi looking robot and a badass villain. So having Shockwave on the mind, I decided to see what old stuff I could find on him and as logic would dictate, his old commercial popped right up. Co-sold here with Jetfire, they really present the two larger toys well. I really like the animated bit, it's not often you got to see Jetfire animated in G1. Usually, thanks to legal issues, you had to take Skyfire and like it. Sure Jetfire's original toy could be see animated on the other channel, but man it just looks great in red.

Paris Comic Con Studio Series Official Reveals

Reach past the big screen and build the ultimate TRANSFORMERS collection with Studio Series figures (each sold separately), inspired by iconic movie scenes and designed with specs and details to reflect the TRANSFORMERS movie universe.

Armada Jetfire

You can fall alone or you can fall together!

Jetfire adopted the form of Earth's most advanced and adventurous craft - the Space Shuttle. He is Optimus Prime's executive officer, second in command and has the honorable and rare task of being able to combine with him - redefining the term teamwork. He exemplifies all of the special qualities found in Autobot commanders: courageous, tactically skilled, and a natural leader. Taking the time to know each Autobot, Jetfire understands their individual strengths and weaknesses - in battle, he knows exactly where each soldier will excel. While relaxed with the troops, he becomes all business when it's time for action. He is heroic in battle, caring not about size or number of enemies; with a take on all comers' mentality. Equally efficient and effective on the ground and in the air, he is air mobile and ground capable.

Look man, I know that guy

Put mah jet pants on

Armada toys were so stinking fun to get.

Cyber Battalion Jetfire

Jetfire is one of those Transformers characters that is near iconic, but just below the obvious choices when people name off Transformers characters. For me he was always something awesome. There's a near Boba Fett level of intrigue to his name. Something that just can't be put into words, but right there in the mojo.

When the Cyber Battalion line released a version of him, I knew I had to have one. Fortunately the series has recently become available here in the US sold in Walgreen's stores for much less than can be found online. It's worth noting that there is a few available at Universal Studios, but not fair to compare the prices as that's at a theme park and sold as an exclusive to those parks here in the states (though I wonder how much longer as the Optimus and Bumblebee are available in Walgreen's now sans the Universal Studios label on the boxes). But essentially, you can now get these great figures much easier and cheaper at your local Walgreen's.

Jetfire is a remold and redeco of the Starscream that I've went over here before , so I won't have to much else to go over with him other than how great looking he is. Man these colors really look good on him. Something about that basic set of colors just really work on a jet. With the new head molding, it almost seems like this toy was always intended to be Jetfire. While Starscream was great in his own right, Jetfire just seems more natural.

These Cyber Battalion figures are a simple joy to be held. Not very complicated and possessing a very limited amount of articulation, they are basically giant legion figures and that's where their charm is. This is a big toy. Roughly voyager scaled. Sure, you can'y put him in an Ironman pose and take 5 million high def photos of him doing an Ironman pose in your fancy glass display case while using hashtags like #dope. But what you can do is open a big box full of solid chunky jet robot toy and probably throw him through a wall. I don't advise you do that, but it'd probably hurt the wall worse than the toy. Not to mention, it's just very satisfying to just fiddle with and pretty impressive to look at. While I imagine the upcoming Authentics discount line will eventually take the place of these, these are the perfect toys to sell at a store like Walgreen's or a Family Dollar.

I'm not going to try and convince you to go out and buy one if you don't want one. But I'm guessing if you read Zone Base, then you probably enjoy Transformers in a similar way to me and this is something you'd enjoy a lot.

Weekly Spotlight: Energon Overcast

We must fight alongside our enemy against a common threat.

Overcast is the long-lost brother of Jetfire and has been a loner for many eons, refusing to get involved in the conflict with the Decepticons. Overcast had a change of heart after witnessing the destruction of one of his favorite planets at the hands of Unicron. He then realized that this battle extends well beyond a simple conflict between Autobot and Decepticon. He has since joined his brother in battle against Megatron in order to avoid the potential revival of their common enemy. Like Jetfire, Overcast is a fast and powerful warrior whose impressive skills have served the Autobots well during battle with the Decepticons.