Combiner Wars Blast Off

Series: Combiner Wars
Year: 2016
Allegiance: Decepticon
Class: Deluxe 

Prelude: When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way, from your first Nucleon to your last dying day… that’s how the song went, right? So here we have Blast Off, member of the Combaticons, who is totally a jet. Even though Blast Off being jet made a bunch of fans so outraged, that Takara made their own space shuttle Blast Off for Unite Warriors just to appease them. Anyway, this here is Combiner Wars Blast Off and he is a jet all the way, just so you know. So, snap your fingers to the rhythm and let’s say go!

Robot Mode: Blast Off is a retool of Combiner Wars Firefly, but seeing as I never had the Combiner Wars Aerialbots, this was actually my first experience with the mold.

A Deluxe-Class robot with a mostly black, purple, and olive-green paintjob, Blast Off has the same basic design as most of the Combiner Wars limb bots. Roughly half of his torso is the combiner peg (more on that see below). He has narrow thighs and chunky boots, as well as slender arms. In the standard Aerialbot design he carries the nose and rear of his jet mode as a rucksack on his back and in addition to his standard rifle, he carries the same hand/foot/gun thing as all Combiner Wars limb bots, too.

Now despite the design being rather standardized for that toy line, the figure does look good. I really like the head mold, which is a dead ringer for how Blast Off looked in the IDW comics, and the colors fit him very well, too. The articulation of the finger is standard for the time, meaning he can move pretty well, but don’t expect ankle tilt or twisting wrists. Still, Blast Off makes for a good robot, no complaints.

Alternate Mode: Now we come to the point of controversy, Blast Off’s alternate mode. In the G1 cartoon Blast Off, despite being built from an old WW2 Corsair jet fighter, transformed into a space shuttle. Why? Because the G1 toy he was based on did it that way, full stop. For Combiner Wars, however, Hasbro decided to make him a jet, because it was easier to retool an Aerialbot than come up with a whole new figure (as Takara did with Unite Warriors Blast Off). So for Combiner Wars, Blast Off transforms into a Harrier-type jet.

The jet looks pretty good in my view, being almost entirely olive-green here. Sure, like many Jet Transformers he suffers a bit from having quite the undercarriage, but at least he has a landing gear (only in the front, but better than many more recent Jet Transformers) and looks pretty streamlined unless you look at him from the back (the robot feet are kind of visible). Blast Off’s rifle can be clipped underneath a wing, either left or right. So bottom line: a nice jet mode. Not spectacular and possibly an attempt to ruin Transformers forever, but looking good.

Combiner Mode: Blast Off can transform into either an arm or a leg for Bruticus (or any other Combiner Wars combiner) with his grey hand/foot/weapon thing becoming either a pretty decent hand or a rather lackluster foot. More on that when I review the complete combiner.

Remarks: The Combaticons have often been compared, character-wise, to the A-Team. In which case Blast Off would probably be Amy Amanda “Triple A” Allen, the only female member of the team who usually wasn’t directly involved in the action, but rather supported the team from afar. Given how Blast-Off is often shown being in high orbit and doing long-range support, that does fit him surprisingly well. Also, in the IDW comics at least, he had the hots for his team leader Onslaught.

Combiner Wars Blast Off is nothing more and nothing less than yet another retool in a very retool-heavy toy line. It’s a good retool and personally I really like the figure. Admittedly there is some nostalgia bonus here, as I bought this figure (along with the rest of the team bar Onslaught) during a trip to the US with my dad. And, if I may repeat that once again, it makes far more sense for Blast Off to be a jet rather than a space shuttle. So bottom line: a decent stand-alone figure, which you will probably buy to complete your Bruticus. Unless you left him aside for Takara’s Blast Off or the Amazon-exclusive Hasbro version, of course.

Rating: B-