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Series: Legacy
Year: 2022
Allegiance: Decepticon
Class: Voyager
Prelude: We are truly living in a golden age of Transformers toys. Don’t believe it? Well, had you asked any given Transformers fan ten years ago or so which Transformers characters would certainly NEVER be made into toys, Generation 2 Jhiaxus would certainly have been included on many a list. Sure, we had a few repaints who sported the name, but a toy truly depicting the mad warlord from the Marvel comics? No way! Now, though, we have a Voyager-sized Jhiaxus figure in the Legacy line, so now we can only wonder: who’s next? Ambulon? Boltax? Or even Botanica? Well, let us first see whether this figure here was actually worth the thirty year wait. Let’s say go!
Robot Mode: Yes, we finally have a toy depicting the mad warlord from Generation 2, Jhiaxus. And no, he is not a repaint, not even a retool. He is an entirely new Voyager-class mold that faithfull depicts the look of the character from the Marvel Comics, both in color and shape. He is mostly white, cockpit on his chest, bat wings on his legs, that head with the tubes on the side and the pissed-off look on his face, everything. This is clearly Jhiaxus, possibly a bit slimmed down from his bulky extreme-90s days, but still: Jhiaxus. A pleasure to finally see him in toy form.
The figure is as well-articulated as you expect from a present-day figure and even includes fists that can open up, which is very rarely seen on a Voyager-Class figure. He has little green bat wings on his legs (glorious!) and the folded green wings of his jet mode on his back. One thing worth mentioning: Jhiaxus has no need for fillers. Both his arms (where the fists fold in) and the legs (which shorten during transformation) have panels to hide all hollow spaces. I also very much like those exposed wire details on his legs, nicely done.
In terms of weapons Jhiaxus carries a big red rifle and a smaller silver rifle (which can attach to the larger one). Both weapons can either be held in hand or attached to his forearms. He also has a sort of sensor pod on his right shoulder, the front piece of it can detach and be mounted on the red rifle (though that is more for jet mode). The smaller rifle looks a bit, well, small in Jhiaxus’s hands, but the weapons work well enough.
If there is one thing to complain about on this mode, it’s the coloring. Namely the white parts are a weird sort of milky white plastic instead of being painted white. And parts of the hip are a slightly different white plastic (with a bit of a green tint to it). Also, I have heard word that a few people have had troubles with the white parts starting to yellow already. So yeah, maybe a bit of white paint instead of simply using white plastic would have worked better here.
Still, a great robot mode, faithfully depicting a character we never thought we’d see a (faithful) figure of. Nicely done!
Alternate Mode: If I remember correctly, we only ever saw Jhiaxus transform into his alternate mode once in the G2 comics. The character was, of course, never meant to be a transforming toy back then, so it was basically his torso, which had shed all the limbs and extended wings. The toy manages to transform into a jet mode without detaching any limbs, thankfully, and it’s really a pretty basic transformation. Tug in the legs, fold up the cockpit from the chest, fold the arms underneath the jet, done. Well, a few more steps in-between, sure, but that’s the basic concept.
The resulting jet manages to look sufficiently alien while still being recognizable as a jet and also resembles the jet we (briefly) saw in the comics. Maybe a bit sleeker, but that is okay. Both of Jhiaxus’ weapons can be attached to the jet in several spots (on top, on the sides, underneath the cockpit), so you are free to chose whatever configuration you wish. Just one thing: you need to remove the piece of Jhiaxus’ shoulder pod and attach it to the red rifle, otherwise the shoulder pod doesn’t fold away inside the cockpit properly.
The jet looks great from the top, but looking at it from the side you clearly see the two robot arms hanging underneath it like a big box (maybe he should have shed them after all). This is also the closest thing the jet has to a landing gear, sadly. Looking at it from directly underneath, you also cannot help but notice that the cockpit lacks a bottom, you can see right through the canopy. An additional panel or something to properly close off the cockpit from underneath would have worked wonders here.
So bottom line: a great-looking jet mode (from certain angles), but with a few issues that probably date back to the original comic character never having been meant to become a toy.
Remarks: Jhiaxus, Liege Centuro of the Cybertronian Empire, was the main bad guy in the Generation 2 comics from Marvel and his name was basically a joke made by Simon Furman. It stood for “Gee, axe us!”, given that Marvel apparently had highly unrealistic expectations as to the sales numbers of this comic and Furman (correctly) predicted it would get cancelled again relatively quickly. Jhiaxus holds the distinction of having beaten both Optimus and Megatron without breaking much of a sweat, but in the end he was devoured by the Swarm. Jhiaxus returned in both the Marvel Regeneration and IDW comics, the former basically placing him in the role of his G2 boss, Liege Maximo, while the latter made him a mad scientist in the employ of Nova Prime.
Legacy Jhiaxus is not the first toy depicting this character, but it is the first one to accurately depict him, the former toys being mere repaints that barely looked like him (if at all). The robot mode works great and apart from some possible future issues with the white paint yellowing, there isn’t really any issue here. The vehicle mode is only so-so, I must say, but given that we barely ever saw Jhiaxus transform in-fiction, I can live with that. So bottom line: the best Jhiaxus figure we have seen so far. Which is a low bar, granted, but still.
Rating: B-
Robot Mode: Yes, we finally have a toy depicting the mad warlord from Generation 2, Jhiaxus. And no, he is not a repaint, not even a retool. He is an entirely new Voyager-class mold that faithfull depicts the look of the character from the Marvel Comics, both in color and shape. He is mostly white, cockpit on his chest, bat wings on his legs, that head with the tubes on the side and the pissed-off look on his face, everything. This is clearly Jhiaxus, possibly a bit slimmed down from his bulky extreme-90s days, but still: Jhiaxus. A pleasure to finally see him in toy form.
The figure is as well-articulated as you expect from a present-day figure and even includes fists that can open up, which is very rarely seen on a Voyager-Class figure. He has little green bat wings on his legs (glorious!) and the folded green wings of his jet mode on his back. One thing worth mentioning: Jhiaxus has no need for fillers. Both his arms (where the fists fold in) and the legs (which shorten during transformation) have panels to hide all hollow spaces. I also very much like those exposed wire details on his legs, nicely done.
In terms of weapons Jhiaxus carries a big red rifle and a smaller silver rifle (which can attach to the larger one). Both weapons can either be held in hand or attached to his forearms. He also has a sort of sensor pod on his right shoulder, the front piece of it can detach and be mounted on the red rifle (though that is more for jet mode). The smaller rifle looks a bit, well, small in Jhiaxus’s hands, but the weapons work well enough.
If there is one thing to complain about on this mode, it’s the coloring. Namely the white parts are a weird sort of milky white plastic instead of being painted white. And parts of the hip are a slightly different white plastic (with a bit of a green tint to it). Also, I have heard word that a few people have had troubles with the white parts starting to yellow already. So yeah, maybe a bit of white paint instead of simply using white plastic would have worked better here.
Still, a great robot mode, faithfully depicting a character we never thought we’d see a (faithful) figure of. Nicely done!
Alternate Mode: If I remember correctly, we only ever saw Jhiaxus transform into his alternate mode once in the G2 comics. The character was, of course, never meant to be a transforming toy back then, so it was basically his torso, which had shed all the limbs and extended wings. The toy manages to transform into a jet mode without detaching any limbs, thankfully, and it’s really a pretty basic transformation. Tug in the legs, fold up the cockpit from the chest, fold the arms underneath the jet, done. Well, a few more steps in-between, sure, but that’s the basic concept.
The resulting jet manages to look sufficiently alien while still being recognizable as a jet and also resembles the jet we (briefly) saw in the comics. Maybe a bit sleeker, but that is okay. Both of Jhiaxus’ weapons can be attached to the jet in several spots (on top, on the sides, underneath the cockpit), so you are free to chose whatever configuration you wish. Just one thing: you need to remove the piece of Jhiaxus’ shoulder pod and attach it to the red rifle, otherwise the shoulder pod doesn’t fold away inside the cockpit properly.
The jet looks great from the top, but looking at it from the side you clearly see the two robot arms hanging underneath it like a big box (maybe he should have shed them after all). This is also the closest thing the jet has to a landing gear, sadly. Looking at it from directly underneath, you also cannot help but notice that the cockpit lacks a bottom, you can see right through the canopy. An additional panel or something to properly close off the cockpit from underneath would have worked wonders here.
So bottom line: a great-looking jet mode (from certain angles), but with a few issues that probably date back to the original comic character never having been meant to become a toy.
Remarks: Jhiaxus, Liege Centuro of the Cybertronian Empire, was the main bad guy in the Generation 2 comics from Marvel and his name was basically a joke made by Simon Furman. It stood for “Gee, axe us!”, given that Marvel apparently had highly unrealistic expectations as to the sales numbers of this comic and Furman (correctly) predicted it would get cancelled again relatively quickly. Jhiaxus holds the distinction of having beaten both Optimus and Megatron without breaking much of a sweat, but in the end he was devoured by the Swarm. Jhiaxus returned in both the Marvel Regeneration and IDW comics, the former basically placing him in the role of his G2 boss, Liege Maximo, while the latter made him a mad scientist in the employ of Nova Prime.
Legacy Jhiaxus is not the first toy depicting this character, but it is the first one to accurately depict him, the former toys being mere repaints that barely looked like him (if at all). The robot mode works great and apart from some possible future issues with the white paint yellowing, there isn’t really any issue here. The vehicle mode is only so-so, I must say, but given that we barely ever saw Jhiaxus transform in-fiction, I can live with that. So bottom line: the best Jhiaxus figure we have seen so far. Which is a low bar, granted, but still.
Rating: B-
Picture Gallery:
