General Information:
Release Year: 2006
Retailer: General (Toys R Us, Target, Wal-Mart etc.)
Price: $3.99 (Average depending on retailer)
Accessories: None
When "Classics" was conceived as a sub-line of Transformers, it was meant to be a "filler" line that would hold space for Transformers on toy store shelves while the movie product was prepared for the market. Part of this strategy involved selling figures in multiple price points. While the primary line was made up of all new sculpts, the Legends line were figures from the Cybertron line with decos that paid homage to classic characters. One of the figures used for this assortment was Jetfire. The original intent was to redeco Jetfire into Classics Powerglide. However, at the time the name "Powerglide" was not an available trademark, so the name "Fireflight" was chosen instead. Fireflight, for those who don't recall, was a member of the Generation One team known as the Aerialbots who combined into a giant robot named Superion. This review will focus on the changes made to the figure for this release. For a more detailed look at the sculpt and transformation, check out Jetfire's review [Note: to be restored at a future date].
Robot Mode:
It would be easy to look at Fireflight and just say "He doesn't look like G1 Fireflight because he was meant to be Powerglide.". The problem is, his colors really don't look like Powerglide's either. G1 Powerglide was mostly red and grey. G1 Fireflight was red and white (for the most part). This figure is composed of two primary plastic colors: brown and a light green that resembles the color of glow in the dark paint. The brown color leans towards being a reddish brown and it makes up his legs, lower arms, chest, head and the plane parts such as his wings and the weaponry on his back. The green pieces are the turbines under the wings (the shoulders in this form) and his upper legs. It's a rather odd color combination, but I won't go so far as to say it doesn't work. In an odd way it does, but they're not colors I would intuitively put together. Nor does either color scream "Powerglide homage!" or "Fireflight homage!". If they named this guy something completely different and made him an original character I would have never caught a whiff of G1 homage.
Paint details are done in a yellowish white color, dark grey and red. The dark grey is used for detail work on the wings, chest and knees. A small red Autobot symbol is painted onto the center of his chest and the sides of the legs and lower arms are painted the off white color. The white color seems to have been intended to offer some continuity from the green color to the rest of the figure, but they're so distinctive they wind up clashing a bit instead. Again, it's not that colors don't work at all, they're just not quite intuitive.
All of Fireflight's articulation points are still just as tight as Cybertron Legends Jetfire's parts.
Vehicle Mode:
In vehicle mode, the grey colors come together nicely, and by folding down the ends of his wings you see continuity of grey between the mid-section of the plane and the edges leading to the wing tips. This mode also reveals a touch of silver, used on the cockpit windows. In this form a lot more brown shows and the uniformity of the colors works well to make a good looking vehicle. Add to that a really nicely sculpted figure and the vehicle mode looks really nice.
Final Thoughts:
It's really kind of hard to see this figure as a clear homage in the same sense as some of the other Legends releases in "Classics" such as Trypticon or Perceptor. However, as a stand alone figure the colors work well and the dark tone of the reddish brown works unexpectedly well with the brighter colors used on the arms and legs. Recommended if you're looking for a neat toy to have on your desk at work or something, but not really as homage material.
