Transformers Combiner Wars/ Power of the Primes Jet Mould Bonanza: So. Many. REPAINTS!!!

If Combiner Wars was known for one thing, it was mould reuse. If there was ever a line that milked engineering dry, it was this one. To give an extreme example, let's take the Dead End mould, one introduced in Wave 2 as a part of Menasor. How many times was that mould used? sixteen times when combining Hasbro, Takara, and convention exclusives. So while at first, it might appear that this review is looking at five different toys, we are in fact only looking at two, and at the same time, we're looking at twenty-eight toys. For you can find nine versions of Blast Off, and nineteen versions of the other four. And that's ignoring the fact that all five share almost the exact same engineering so it could be argued that we're looking at the same toy five times out of twenty-eight! If I included a revisit to Vortex here too, we'd be looking at forty different versions of the same basic toy released in three years. Will this get me out of reviewing all the variants of the Arialbot moulds? I hope so. Here is the revisit for Combiner Wars Blast Off (General Retail), the review of Combiner Wars Fellbat and Guyhawk, and Power of the Primes Dreadwind and Blackwing.

Starting in the Jet modes, it's clear who got which mould. For you see, all of these started in Combiner Wars Wave 1, with the Arialbots. Or more accurately, Blast Off, Fellbat and Dreadwind were in wave 1, Guyhawk and Blackwing's variant came in Wave 2. For some reason, they released Wave 1 with Drag Strip, one of the limb-bots of the Decepticon Combiner, Menasor, and Air Raid was in Wave 2, and Wave 2 had Air Raid, one of the Limb bots of the Autobot Combiner, Superion. Now, why is this weird? Because the rest of the Wave 1 Deluxes were the other Autobots needed for Superion, and the rest of Wave 2 were the Decepticons needed to make Menasor (well, in terms of the traditional configurations). You might say that they didn't want to have a wave of Autobots and a wave of Decepticons, but every later wave in the line didn't bother mixing them up. We even got two waves of nothing but Autobots in terms of the Deluxe Class. Now, what separates all of these flyboys? In terms of engineering? Not much. What defines any variations in engineering really comes down to what happens to the wings and tailfins. Arms, Legs, Heads and Cockpits? All exactly the same. Dreadwind and Blackwing have the most variations in engineering due to the requirements of Power of the Primes, but on top of that, there's also a gimmick that the two have that no other variations of the moulds do.

They can combine into a larger jet, which is, unfortunately, more impressive then it really is. All the extra engineering really gives you is two jets barely hanging together thanks to Blackwing only relying on the port meant for the combiner hand in Dreadwind's arm mode. A port not meant to take a lot of weight, and as such it takes no effort to separate the two. I'm also not a fan of how they handled Blackwing's nosecone and head, as they kinda just hang there, breaking the "sleek" look the rest of the jet goes for. What's also annoying is that one of the wings on my copy of Dreadwind doesn't properly connect to the leg assembly, though it's manageable. It still holds in place, it's just at a slight angle.

Now then, Combiner Limb modes (I'm skipping deco until robot modes for now). While these pictures don't have them include their hands or feet, it's because there's nothing extra to talk about with them. Blast Off, Guyhawk and Fellbat all have the Combiner Wars Hand/Foot/Guns, Dreadwind and Blackwing both have Prime armour hands with two thumbs. Seen them before, not much to add on the matter. All five leg modes look like squashed jets, and all five arms look like they're stuck halfway in the transformation process. Blackwing has one of the most awkward leg modes while Dreadwind doesn't even try to hide his robot mode arms. The other three manage to hide them better purely on the basis of their arms not standing out thanks to colour schemes. One annoying problem I noticed though with Fellbat and Guyhawk though is the shape of their heads. They're a tad too long to let the combiner peg assembly they're attached to do a full 360 movement. It's not the end of the world as it's easily worked around, but it is somewhat annoying as there are only a few other toys (to my knowledge) that have that same problem in the line.

To Robot Modes, and while they all share the same engineering to an extent, all five do at least look like different robots. Dreadwind and Blackwing have the advantage of being heavy retools, but if I was reviewing any other variant of the moulds from Combiner Wars, I would not be saying that. A lot of variety in the Combiner Wars versions of the moulds were in the heads and paint jobs. There was very little retooling in the line to help separate characters. As a result, Dreadwind and Blackwing are a nice change of pace, though while I'm more open to them, I probably wouldn't be if I got all the Combiner Wars versions of the moulds. What I find strange though is that while Dreadwind and Blackwing are built off Combiner Wars moulds, their combined modes feel like an afterthought. This is especially true for Blackwing, as all the extra joints needed for the combined jet mode make the combiner limbs look awkward. But at the same time, due to how bad the execution is on the combined jet, it's at least a good sign that the jet and robot modes look good at all. Out of the five though, I prefer Fellbat's robot mode. It's still surprising to me how powerful it looks when most jets go for a leaner look in their robot modes. When Blast Off was confirmed as an Arialbot repaint, most people were mad at it due to the fact that a Blast Off that was accurate to Generation 1 would be a Space shuttle. I honestly don't care either way, though I do stand by the belief of the fighter jet making more sense in the army team. As for Guyhawk, as obnoxious as the colour is, it is accurate to the original toy. There really is a pink Decepticon jet. As a pink Decepticon jet, Guyhawk does look good, though who in their right mind thought a pink jet would be a good disguise?

Should you own one of each of these? It's up to you. Should you own all twenty-eight variations of these moulds? No way! Unless you want them for combiner limbs, you do not need every version of this ever made, and even the combiner limb excuse isn't well justified as that number includes convention repaints and Takara releases. Are they fun toys to mess around with? Yes. Fun enough to buy them that many times? No. Nothing like this is.