Toy Review: Special Ops Jazz

Special Ops Jazz

Sometimes I think that Hasbro must have some kind of multiple personality disorder. How else do you explain the number of sub lines in their top franchise, Transformers? I could appreciate the Generation 1 (G1), Cybertron, Energon, Armada lines. They were all matched to corresponding cartoon series. They were also out only one at a time, one after the other. These days, we’ve got several lines being marketed all at the SAME time. I can understand having a separate movie line from the ones based on the original G1 aesthetic, but this goes far beyond that.

Right now at Toy Kingdom, you’ll see Powercore Combiners, Hunt for the Decepticons, Generations, and now we’ve got a brand new one to fill in while we wait for Dark of the Moon to hit; Reveal the Shield.

Reveal the Shield (RTS) is a line that is built around the classic idea of the Transformer “rub sign”. This is a small, heat-sensitive sticker that is black at room temperature. When you touch it, your higher body temperature changes the color of the sticker, revealing the faction that the robot belongs to.

One thing though; the temperature in the Philippines is often the same as body temperature. When I display this, or when kids play with it, there’s not much mystery. Oh, well. As play features go, at least this one’s relatively innocuous.

Jazz is one of the bots stuffed into this little sub-line, along with Windcharger and both the Autobot and Decepticon Legends and several other G1 characters. It’s a weird choice for Hasbro, since he’s a shoe in for the Generations line, that being a continuation of the “Classics” and “Universe” lines where all the G1 toys were re-designed to look like their cartoon models. It’s not that Hasbro dropped the Generations moniker; the Kup and Scourge will be coming out anytime now and they’re both under that banner.

Not that it matters in the end. I’m just glad to finally have a REAL Jazz; not a flub like that guy in the movies who gets his balls handed to him by Megatron.

This time around, he’s not a Porsche 935 Turbo like he was in G1. As far as I can tell (thanks, Google!), He’s a fictional car that is a cross from the 935 and his movie form, the Pontiac Solstice. Sure, I was looking forward to adding a Porsche to my collection (the silhouette of that car was so sweet!), but the new alt form isn’t too bad.

The transformation process isn’t that different from the original toy. His hood is his chest, his head is somewhere under the windshield, the trunk form his feet, and the roof is his back. Only this time there are a lot more little twitches to fit it all underneath his chassis.

Here’s what he used to look like:

Now he looks like this:

He really is a piece of work. Of ALL the Classic, Universe, and Generations figures that have come out, I’ve got to say that this guy is at the top of the food chain. Not only is he damn close to the original model, he’s got joints up the wazoo! Double hinge knees and ankles! He’s even got a ball jointed head with a fair degree of movement.

He’s got other things going for him as well. He’s got accessories. His gun fits under his hood, but bring it out and it folds out into a rifle.

Personally, I prefer the weapon folded up. It looks like a bad ass, beefy pistol that way.

He’s also got something I NEVER would have expected until I saw the photos on the Net. The speakers that he used in “Attack of the Autobots” are included as C-Clip parts that fit onto his doors. They can fold out just like they do in that episode!

Of course, they’re smaller than they appear in the show, and are a different shape, but it’s a welcome treat for fans of the cartoon. You can remove them as well. I’ve read that you can connect them to his rifle to make it into some kind of super weapon, but no thanks. I prefer them mounted and blaring saccharine pop songs at the enemy:

“BABY BABY BABY, OOOH!”

That ought to burn out more than a few Decepticon audio receptors.

Paint is about the only thing that he’s got going against him, insomuch as there is none to speak of really. I’m pretty sure that the racing stripes and numbers are all tampographed, so that’s good, but he really could have used a nice white base coat before it. The white and gray plastic is too translucent.

Still, I can’t say that that takes anything away from this toy. Paint has always been a lower priority to me when it comes to the criteria with which I judge action figures, and Jazz exceeds expectations on all the others. He cost me only Php 700.00 (about $16-17 US), which is fair in our corner of the world. At first there were only limited quantities of the figure reaching retail outlets and people were swiping them off the shelves as fast as they were brought out, but in the past few weeks re-stocks have been coming in.

If you haven’t picked on up, do it now. Or if you really are a stickler for paint, get the Japanese Henkei version. Just remember that it’ll cost about TWICE as much.

 Happy hunting!