TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

Robot Mode:
Alternate Mode:
Box Art:
Technical Specifications:
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INT
SPD
END
RNK
CRG
FPR
SKL

numbat's review of: Beast Wars Jetstorm

Name: Jetstorm
Allegiance: Predacon
Function: Sky Patrol
Sub-Group: Insecticon

Mesmerized by his awesome appearance, enemies seldom realize the power of this Predacon...until it's too late! Striking silently from the sky, Jetstorm's internal coolant capacitors produce a toxic venom that, when regurgitated from his mouth, can destroy an enemy at a range of 500 feet. To keep his aerial compensation in check, Jetstorm can launch twin air-to- air missiles that explode on impact in a blaze of destruction!

Now, I have very few Beast Wars figures in my collection. This isn’t deliberate – it was just they came out at that point in my teenage life when I was more interested in doing stupid things, and girls, than I was in Transformers. The only ones I have were given to me by my family, who were oblivious to this aspect of my teenage angst at least, as Christmas presents.

One of these is Jetstorm, and he’s a rather cool Transformer, if not the greatest ever. Besides, I’ve always loved Insecticons…

Alternate Mode:
Jetstorm’s alternate mode is a rather evil looking dragonfly. The colour scheme looks a little tacky, due to the bright orange-red spots and details, but otherwise the dark green, black and transparent green works rather well. A button flips out a pair of spring-loaded missile launchers, which otherwise lie alongside the dragonfly’s abdomen, giving a pretty green streak to each flank. Water can also be squirted from the head.

I particularly like the wing articulation, as it offers a fair degree of nice display poses, mimicking real dragonflies.

Alas, there are negative points, and these are visible robot parts. Forgivable are the legs just folded along the underside of the dragonfly, with toes pointing forwards. Unforgivable is the robot’s head being visible through the dragonfly’s mouthparts.

Still, in general, this is a nice alternate mode, and perfectly display worthy.

Robot Mode:
Jetstorm’s transformation is not difficult, but is relatively fun, with his chest swivelling out from the underside of the dragonfly, and his hands coming away from the dragonfly’s head.

The robot mode looks pretty cool, and quite unusual, with the wings running up his chest, and sticking up off his arms. He’s also a decent height, measuring in at around 6”. The colour scheme isn’t too bad, although there is a lot more of the orange-red paint. There’s some nice details picked out on the head using white paint, and the metallic blue-green paint also used on the dragonfly’s eyes, but the four large pegs for attaching his hands to in dragonfly mode are more than a little distracting. The green light-piping also is less than successful, and he has something which looks very much like a third eye on his forehead, but I’ll be damned if he’s a Buddha.

Jetstorm’s articulation is superb, but his poses are highly limited by the dragonfly’s abdomen which just hangs off his back, sticking out a a rigid 45º angle, and somewhat by the wings on his arms and chest, and the insect legs sticking out from his robot legs.

His water-blast feature still works in this mode, but it’s not possible to use the missile launchers, as they can no longer swing forwards due to the rearrangement of body parts.

Overall, this figure is adequate – doing well in design areas, but failing in colour and a few others. Still, he looks a lot nicer than the Japanese Cybertron Insectron Tonbot, who was repainted from Jetstorm’s mold in 1998 (with Jetstorm being available in 1997). However, Tonbot really lucked out with the tech specs – he’s way up on every category compared with Jetstorm!

Transformation: 3 – It’s really not that complicated at all.
Durability: 5 – He’s pretty standard, with the missiles being a bit flimsy (one of mine broke, and I had to repair it).
Fun: 4 – He’s not bad fun – it’s just you can only get so much enjoyment out of flying a toy dragonfly around the room.
Price: 9 – He’s pretty cheap, but most of the one’s I’ve come across are missing their chest wings.
Overall: 3 – Your collection won’t miss him, but he’s not bad if you like Insecticons.