Yay! The first fembot to be released since the end of Beast Machines. The wonderful Maximal bird, Transmetal Airazor, returns in Armada with a much darker color scheme, and what a return it is.
Packaging
Airazor and her little buddy Nightscream (Oval Repaint) come in standard Armada: Unicron Battles packaging. She includes Volume 4 of the mini-comic. She's held in her bubble with three twist-ties, and an extra two keeping the toy itself together. My, these are a pain. One twist tie wraps through her wings and around to her underside. Yipe! Oh, and Nightscream has two ties himself.
Ok, they're out now.
Nightscream: Vehicle Mode
Nightscream is a repaint of Oval from the Street Speed Team. He's some kind of fast, expensive car, but I forget what model. He's mostly dark purple with black for his windows, and some silver on his rear. It's a little plain, but it works. He uses the same purple Airazor does, so it unifies the two. It also goes with his name. He holds together fairly well, better than Oval.
Nightscream: Robot Mode
Well, while his vehicle mode holds together, the same can't be said for his robot mode. Even with Excessive Force, I just can't lock his chest to the rest of his body. Those puny pegs just don't work. Color-wise, he adds a new color, grey. It's on his legs and mid-section. It really helps to break up the monotony of his color scheme. As mini-cons go, this one wouldn't be too bad if his robot mode actually worked. Keep him in vehicle mode (not that you really have much of a choice).
Airazor: Beast Mode
This is the third use of this mold (original TM, Fox Kids TM, and now this), and I'd have to say it's the best.
Airazor's beast mode is a technological falcon. The first thing anyone will notice is her color scheme. It's drastically different from her previous incarnations. It's mostly black and dark purple. She has red and silver highlights on her wings and tail, and red around her eyes. No vac-metal paint this time. It's very subdued and eye-pleasing, far better than the hodge-podge of brightness the original was.
Her bird mode is articulated at the wings, and three places on each leg. Her joints are a lot stiffer than the original. It takes a little work to move her around, especially the wings. This could be due to the plastic, which feels softer and stickier than the original, or maybe her mold just filled out better. In any case, she has no trouble standing on her bird legs.
She has two Powelinx Points added, one on each wing, with a blue lightning pattern emerging. Nightscream can ride on either one with no problem, but a car riding on a bird just looks silly. All in all, a nice beast mode with an even nicer paint job.
Airazor: Vehicle Mode
Not much to say here. Same good paint job, and it's certainly different, but by Primus, she's a bird on skis! Next.
Airazor: Robot Mode
Much of what was said about her beast mode can be said about her robot mode. Her color scheme is basically unchanged, save for some blue on her face and the side of her chest. Her eyes are painted green.
She's articulated at her head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. Her joints are very stiff, most noticably her legs. All of her legs joints are extremely stiff. Even with her huge backpack, made of her wings and engines, she can stand just fine without using her wingtips for support. This is a great improvement over the original. Maybe it's just mine, but the original TM Airazor I own came out of the package with floppy legs, and most of her weight rested on her wingtips. Not so with this girl. She stands just fine.
This is a very lithe and feminine-looking robot mode. Her color scheme and stiff joints make it even better.
Final Thoughts
Nightscream isn't the greatest mini-con out there, but Airazor is well worth the money, even if you have the original. She looks great and has great play value. This incarnation improves on the original in every way, even fixing the original's fatal flaw (loose joints). She looks a lot better than Terrorsaur or Rhinox. :)
Oh yeah, in case anyone is wondering, she does indeed have a Decepticon symbol molded onto her back. It's only visible during transformation, though, as it's sufficiently covered in both modes. Everything else about her, though, including instructions, sticker sheet, ads, etc., say she's an Autobot. Oh well, make of this what you will. She's still a darn fine toy.
Reviewer | Dana R. Clark |
Date | July 12th 2003 |
Score | (9 out of 10) |
Reads | 6409 |
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