Power of the Primes Novastar

Prelude: When talking about female G1 Transformers, the first name usually mentioned is Arcee. Arcee wasn’t the first, though, she was preceded by the very originally named “Female Autobots” a resistance unit on Cybertron consisting exclusively of female Transformers. One of them was Firestar. Not to be confused with the Marvel heroine from Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends. Now she is called Novastar, probably for trademark reasons, and part of Power of the Primes.

Robot Mode: One of the first things I noticed about this robot is: it doesn’t have high heels! A female robot with no high heels! Has Hasbro gone mad? Don’t they know that females all over the universe are wearing high heels? All the time, even? Okay, we’ve had female Transformers without high heels before, but those were usually not female-shaped. But a female-shaped female Transformers with no high heels? Heresy! Kidding aside, I very much enjoy a female-shaped robot with feet that actually provide a stable stance. Very good.

As for the rest of the figure, Novastar is a rather tall, very slender robot that’s mostly red and orange, but the color mix looks good. She is mostly a shell-former, as the largest part of her vehicle chassis folds together into a rucksack. Thanks to the rucksack being mostly hollow and her big feet, though, she has no balance problems. Nicely done. Novastar comes with a big grey gun for a weapon, which looks pretty good on her. Articulation is good, as is the detailing, though some of it gets swallowed up by the mostly red paintjob.

And then there is the Prime Armor, aka the combiner hand. When this mold first came out as Moonracer, the original promo pics showed the robot with the Prime Armor attached to the chest… or rather, the belly. Cue an insane amount of (mostly bad) jokes about Pregnancy Armor and fat chick robots, which I do not intend to repeat here. Suffice to say that Novastar does not look good with the Prime Armor attached at all. If you wish to use it, either have her wield it as a giant hand or, much better, attach it to her rucksack and stick the gun up there, too (see fifth picture), which looks pretty good.

Bottom line: Novastar makes for a very good robot in my opinion. Looking good, no flaws worth mentioning, and as long as you don’t attach the Prime Armor to her belly, you’re good.

Alternate Modes: Novastar transforms into a futuristic car. The transformation basically consists of the robot lying down on her back and hiding her arms and legs with panels from her backpack. Unlike most car Transformers Novastar doesn’t fold in her legs, making for a very long car. The car looks pretty good and there are no visible robot bits, even though the robot’s chest plate is still visible (but not recognizable). The robot’s gun can be attached to the side of the vehicle. Alternatively you can attach the Prime Armor to the back of the vehicle and mount the gun there, but that looks about as good as the belly armor in robot mode. Bottom line: a good vehicle mode. Not spectacular, but good.

Combiner Mode: Novastar can become an arm or a leg for any Combiner Wars style combiner. It’s a bit of an interesting design because unlike most car-mode combiner limbs, the leg mode isn’t simply the car mode stood on end. Novastar has no firm combiner affiliation, but most people make her part of their Elita-1 combiner (apparently called Elita-Infin1te).

Remarks: Months before we first met Arcee in the 1986 Transformers Movie, we were introduced to the Female Autobots, a resistance cell working on Cybertron, in the double episode “The Search for Alpha Trion”. Led by Elita-1, it was comprised of multiple female Autobots, all of whom were the girlfriends of a male Autobot and color-coded to match. Hey, it was the 80s still. Anyway, Firestar was the girlfriend of Inferno. The Female Autobots never again appeared in the cartoon and didn’t really have any media presence worth mentioning until the IDW comics, which at least showed some of them, most prominently Chromia. Firestar had a brief run in the More Than Meets the Eye comic book, where she was portrayed as an old friend of Nautica. With flames for hair, even.

Novastar was part of the final wave of Power of the Primes figures, the only Deluxe in that wave, which means that she appeared rather sparingly in stores. She will not be the final use of the Moonracer mold, as a Chromia version has already been announced for War for Cybertron: Siege. Personally I was never interested in Moonracer, but the paint job of Novastar really appealed to me and I have to say she is a good figure. I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a must-have, but she is a good, solid Transformers toy.

Rating: B