Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Voyager
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: White, red, black, and some transparent light blue, dull yellow, light metallic silvery blue, and silver
Rating: 9.3

    Jetfire's alternate mode is a futuristic jet fighter. This toy is very much a homage to the original G1 toy, which was actually a Macross jet toy. In this mode, the homage is obvious in the shape of the nosecone, which is very Macross-ish. The original white, red, and black color scheme is kept-- it's a simple color scheme, and I wish a few more colors were evident on Jetfire to make him more eye-catching, but they still certainly work. The red stripes on the wings and nosecone look especially good and add to the fairly sleek shape of the toy. Jetfire's also got a ton of mold detailing for something like a jet, with a lot of "bolted metal panel" detailing, especially on the main body of the jet. (Also, his allegiance rub symbol is on his right main wing, in case you're wondering.) There is a fairly major robot extra in this mode-- his robot hands on the sides of his main jet body are pretty darned obvious. The missile launchers on the sides of them help to hide them a LITTLE, but not much. Another, more minor, robot extra is the robot head that's visible through the transparent cockpit. That's it, though, and other than that this is a very solid alt mode. Where this mode (and indeed, the toy itself) really excels, and where its main buying power lies, is in the different weapon configurations it has. I mean, really, Jetfire's PACKED with firepower. In jet mode, he has a fairly standard "normal jet mode", with all the weapons except the dual guns on the side of the nosecone removes. This allows the tail fins to fold open, though the downsides to this configuration are that the robot hands are even more obvious and there's nowhere else on the toy to put the extra gun parts. With all his weapons attached, though, MAN does Jetfire look like a butt-kicker. Besides the aforementioned nosecone guns, he has two side-mounted spring-loaded missile launchers, two guns on the underbelly (that combine to form a double-barreled gun for robot mode), and two HUGE guns on the back of this mode. To flip them out, slide the red pieces of plastic back and the two double-barreled guns flip out. Awesome! Oh, and Jetfire also has three retractable landing gear in this mode, too-- always good for a jet Transformer.

    Jetfire's transformation is fairly straightforward-- it's not much more than "stand me up and unfold my appendages"-- but his robot mode is very nice proportionally, and I love the "butterfly wing" style used for the wings on his back. Jetfire also has excellent articulation-- he can move at the head, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), wrists, hips (at two points), and knees (at two points). Although he's not back heavy, the fact that his feet actually are at a diagonal angle to the ground and don't sit flat on a surface limit his stability, albeit not by much. As with his jet mode, his main draw is that his robot mode has two different configuration-- the aforementioned "normal" configuration, with all his weapons removed and his normal cartoon-accurate head shown, and the "butt kicker" mode, with his big over-the-shoulder guns, his arm-mounted missile launchers, and his handheld double-barreled gun. In a second nod to his original Macross form, Jetfire also has a helmet, styled after the original Macross figure, that fits over his normal head! Very cool, although like the weapons, there's nowhere to store it when it's not in use.
    Classics Jetfire may not be the most innovative, imaginative Transformer ever, both in terms of overall transformation design and color scheme, but both of his modes are pretty solid and I LOVE his myriad weapons and battle helmet. Highly recommended.

Review by Beastbot

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