I am a fan of Jazz. Really, he is my favorite character across all Transformers. But to me he is also such an unlucky guy (comparing to Tracks), here is why. Jazz has always been put up as a big role but doesn’t be treated and acted like one. He appeared in the More Than Meets The Eyes trilogy as Prime’s first lieutenant or second in command and he did command troops before handing over to Prime to roll out. But that’s it. After the trilogy, his role had been reduced as story went and the second in command role had been moved to Ironhide. He still got some nice screen time in season 2 but pretty much gone in the ‘86 movie and season 3. Then Hasbro lost his naming right. When Hasbro finally brought him back in the ’07 live action movie, fans cheered and he was again being introduced by Prime as his first lieutenant. But sadly he didn’t do much and in the end got killed in two by Megatron. Now to recent IDW comic books. In early issues, he was introduced as in the commanding team but who really was in high command and made command is Prowl. Later in AHM, he seemed like a leader in special ops team and stood side by side with Prowl. But really, who were in the special ops team. For sure not the Wreckers, otherwise Springer would never tease him. Then he had a spotlight, but had to share with Tracks and the story was so-so. Then he was gone again in the ongoing series until now. Good news is he is in the first wave of Hasbro’s new bring-the-rub-sign-back toy line, Reveal The Shield, but then Hasbro gave him a rank at 8, lower than Blurr. Oh, Jazz! Lucky me don’t have to wait for 20+ years to finally get him but just in couple years.

Jazz was a Porsche Martini and he is a Porsche. They all fit together so well. But because of the license issue and GM, the 07 movie had to make him a Pontiac Solstice. Which is okay, at least still a sports car. In this RTS toy line, Hasbro has no license to use any cars, so they made one up and now Jazz looks so much like a mix between Martini and Solstice. Well, at least still a sports car. This car looks nice and rolls smoothly. He has see through blue headlights and windows and the biggest and good feature is he has flip out speakers, which was what he had been using in the cartoon. The speakers are good addition but I don’t use them often. Now to the colors. Hasbro has been trying to use as less paint as possible on this figure. Besides the racing stripes and the number 4, he pretty much has no other paint. The grill, hubcaps, spoiler, tail lights, license plate, many of the basic things are unpainted even the lines are cut there. So there yet again, I have to bring my old shaky painting skills back and Reprolables stickers to my beloved character.

Jazz’s transformation is pretty straight forward and logical. Problem is, the part should be smooth (lower leg) is very tight and the part should be tightly clipped into place (chest) has none. But anyway, he is Jazz. This is what Jazz looks like on a wiki site. Amazingly this figure looks almost identical to it, but there is one part I don’t like. If you look at this again how he looked in the G1 cartoon, yes, he has no door wings. But up until now, all his G1 like toys have door wings. Guess I have not much choice here. His face reminds me so much of EJ Su’s art on his spotlight but someone on the forum related him to this guy. He has the light pipe visor but because of the color is so dark, the light can barely go through. Besides the flopping chest, his robot mode looks really, really nice. He is poseable (aside the wheels blocking the shoulder) and well balanced. He has double joints on the elbows and knees and open palms for the size of hole to hold any standard size weapons. The speakers can be flipped out also, but again I don’t use it often. Another feature is the speakers can be unmounted and attached to beef up his gun. I don’t do that often too because it looks silly to me. Detail is good but like his car mode, not much new colors show up.

Since Jazz looks so plain, here comes my customizations and Reprolables stickers upgrade. What I’ve painted are silver to hubcaps, black and silver line to grill, red to fill the front bar underneath, and silver and black to smoke pipes. These additions improve the entire look and feel so much. Beat that HasTak. Now the stickers. The Porsche Martini style racing stripes are fantastic plus the Autobot sign at front (cheers on removing the rub sign from the roof). There are 4 options of text decals (IMO a little bit too much) and I choose Martini for windshield, doors, and wing. I cut a little bit for the spoiler because I don’t like it all in chrome. Then choose Jazz for license plate. Back light and metallic blue back window are nice. I didn’t choose the grill because I like to keep the bars visible and my painting is much better. After that, it is amazing how this car looks like so close to the real one now.

 

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