A Transformers aside

Post by **AndyThomas** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 9:04 pm

Also while in my local comics store today, was tempted into picking up a random issue of the rather lovely Dreamwave Transformers comics. Not quite sure what the underlying storyline with the Gen One plot is at the moment, but the reason I picked this one up was that it had Jetfire on the front. This was my favourite toy of the line (being essentially a Robotech Valkyrie) but due to rights ownership issues the toy version was altered for the cartoon and comics - so the comics version had a proper face and a slightly different jet form.So I was confused, not having picked up the earlier issues, that the Jetfire on the first few pages of this issue didn't look the same as the one on the cover. The one on the cover was cartoon style, the one on the inside had the Valkyrie look about it. All was finally revealed (literally) a few pages in when it turned out that the comic designers had very cunningly given Jetfire not only the removable armour he had in his toy form - but also given him his toy's head by virtue of making it a helmet that fitted over his cartoon-style humanoid head! They seem to have done something slightly similar with Bumblebee too, giving him a sort of "combat face" which is closer to the original toy form. I also really enjoyed the fact that the pair of pointy "antenna ears" on his toy's head were finally shown to be guns, which I always thought they were when playing with him as a kid! If you haven't seen this comics, they're starting to come out in collected formats now and the artwork is incredible...

FZeroOne · Post by **FZeroOne** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:22 pm

I've been interested in these since I heard Simon Furman was doing some of the writing; even when much younger I always thought the British-scripted Transformers stories were a cut above the US ones ( I hope he can work out someway to bring back Centurion...! ). Collected editions are good news!Regards Jetfire - strictly speaking, its a Robotech Veritech and a Macross Valkyrie... Very sneaky writing there, but do they answer why he was called Skyfire in the TV series, hmm?!The "antenna" on Jetfire, in the original Valkyrie form, are indeed laser cannon - Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon firing 6000 pulses per minute, to be precise!- Jetfires four marking him out as being a "aces" VF-1S model, of course, as flown by Roy Focker ( in Macross ).Interestingly enough ( er - possibly! ) I've just found out that some of the early Microman & Diaclone toys, some of which were later rebranded as "Transformers", were designed with input from one Shoji Kawamori - who went on to craft the... VF-1 Valkyrie, sometimes known as Jetfire!( something else unanswered - why did the Transformers people decide to make such an obviously kick-butt form such a wuss in the cartoon...?! )

Post by **AndyThomas** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:37 pm

Yes, both the comics and the cartoons never quite reflected the actual stats on the back of the toy boxes somehow, with the possible exception of the leaders of course. The Decepticons were always going to outnumber Jetfire in the air of course, no matter how hard he was generally. Another thing to note is that Jetfire's origin in the comics was utterly different to his origin in the cartoons, although reading the new comic they seem to be treating him as the cartoon did in terms of background history, rather than the "blank slate" he was in the comics.

Jon Talpur · Post by **Jon Talpur** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 6:55 pm

With Jetfire being based on a Bandai (after they bought out the molds from Takatoku) Valkyrie, the makers of the TF cartoon show were forced to radically redesign the character (far more than they did with other characters) so that he bore very little resemblance to the original Valkyrie form. This was because the TFs were for the most part co-produced between Hasbro & Takara, and with the show destined to be shown back in Japan, it would've been unseemly to have in it a character so obviously based on a competitor's toy!So for the show, he was redesigned and renamed. For the comics, they kept his cartoon design (since most of the characters shared their cartoon designs anyway), but kept the original Jetfire name since it wasn't as big a deal to them. Interestingly enough, in the original TV commercial for Jetfire (which was animated by the same company as the TV show), they did have an alternate character design that was clearly based closely on the Valkyrie toy. Since Jetfire wouldn't be sold as a TF in Japan, this was the one time they could get away with animating him that way!In the very early days of TFs, Hasbro, while still using toys mostly from Takara, did on occasion license toys from other companies, and Jetfire was one of these. The others never made it to the show due to Takara's interests, but Jetfire would remain the sole exception since his toy was so popular. Even so, he was only to appear in a few episodes before being conveniently forgotten entirely.

FZeroOne · Post by **FZeroOne** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 9:10 pm

Speaking of Jetfire, these colours look a bit familiar:Jetfire? Is that you?(from a proposed new TF toyline from Takara)

Post by **Crash** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 1:35 pm

I know they don't transform that much, but has anyone seen Zentrix? - They have a cool copy of the Dai-X.