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interests / alt.toys.transformers / Dave's TF Legacy Rant: Voyager Jhiaxus

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o Dave's TF Legacy Rant: Voyager JhiaxusDave Van Domelen

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Dave's TF Legacy Rant: Voyager Jhiaxus

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From: dvan...@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: Dave's TF Legacy Rant: Voyager Jhiaxus
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2022 01:37:58 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: Coherent Comics UnInc
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Originator: dvandom@eyrie.org (Dave Van Domelen)
 by: Dave Van Domelen - Tue, 1 Nov 2022 01:37 UTC

Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Voyager Wave 2

Jhiaxus (Cybertronian Jet)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/VJhiaxus

Jhiaxus was introduced in the Generation 2 comic as the leader of a
retconned-in faction of Decepticons that vastly outnumbered all previously
known Cybertronians. Despite his story importance, he did not get a toy at
the time, and since then while the name has been reused for redeco toys,
those were not meant to be the same character. So, this is the first time G2
Jhiaxus, leader of the neo-Cybertronians, has gotten a toy. Initial
shipments had him shortpacked alongside a slightly tweaked (no Siege
Splatter) repackage of Siege Soundwave, later shipments were mostly or
entirely Jhiaxus.

CAPSULE

$30-35 price point ($33 at Walmart).

Jhiaxus: Some minor color issues, and it suffers for being based on a
design that really wasn't meant to be a toy, but a decent shot at pulling
that off. Recommended.

RANT

Packaging: Same as wave 1 Voyagers, no plastic in the window.

DECEPTICON: G2 UNIVERSE JHIAXUS
Assortment: F3058
Altmode: Cybertronian Jet
Transformation Difficulty: 23 steps
Previous Name Use: None with "G2 Universe" appended
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Conqueror
Origin Universe: G2
Signature Weapon: Energon Blaster - Fires powerful blasts of pure Energon.

STR 8 INT 6 SPD 6 FRB 9

Jhiaxus is a calculated strategist, with a vision of a united Cybertron
spread across the universe.

I don't know where they got the stats, they only previous Jhiaxus with
tech specs was based on the comic version and had a higher INT. But just as
Legends Tarantulas can supposedly be a mad scientist with INT 4, I guess
Jhiaxus can be a universe-conquering strategist with INT 6.

Packaging: Doubled plastic ties across the torso and shins, a single tie
around each forearm, one tie around the shoulder scope, and a single tie
holds each weapon to the bottom-side panels of the inner tray. Nothing in
folded up tissue this time. The inner tray has some flaps cut in it behind
the boots so that the ankle wing joints and the heels don't get damaged if
they're pushed back. I had to significantly unfold the backpack to get it
through the hole in the back of the tray.

Robot Mode: This is definitely faithful to the very 90s design from the
comics, including open panels on the shins with lots of random cables, the
inexplicable air hoses on the helmet (something also seen in G2 Dreadwing),
random shoulder-mounted searchlight or annoying-to-use rocket launcher (the
crosshairs molded into the domes on the front argue for some sort of sensor,
but the G2 comic artists tended to deck out their designs with pointless
greebles that didn't seem to do anything), and the weird "Is that supposed to
be Emperor Palpatine's face done up in metal?" rippled facial features. The
chest doesn't quite match, but I don't think it can be made to work if you
want anything like a cockpit in vehicle mode. The ankle wings are weird,
because I think the original designer thought they'd be part of the wings in
vehicle mode even though there's also shoulder wings, so...they just sort of
sit there looking weird, but they're a distinctive part of the design in the
comics (usually, sometimes the artist left them off) and kinda had to get
brought over for the toy.
7" (17cm) tall in mostly pearly white with some yellow, green, and red.
Most of the toy is made of pearly white plastic. Most of the torso front and
back are smoky clear plastic sandwiched around a pearly white core. The
smaller gun is also made of smoky clear plastic. A slightly yellowish green
plastic is used for the wings, the ankle wings, and the shoulder struts. The
head, shoulder searchlight, and bigger gun are red plastic. The fists and
the backs of the boots are a kind of yuck yellow plastic that doesn't even
come close to matching the yellow paint on the toy.
Other than the cockpit window, the torso front and back are painted a
slightly metallic slightly greenish yellow, a color also used on the lower
boots, the feet, and the face. The air hoses on the helmet and the wire
bundles on the shins are painted silver. There's a couple of pearl white
details painted on the chest over the yellow paint. The eyes and the lenses
of the searchlight are painted metallic green, and a small dark purple G2
Decepticon symbol is printed on the sternum. Much of the small gun is
painted gunmetal.
The neck is a ball and socket joint, the waist is a smooth swivel. The
shoulders have lifting hinges inside the torso and swivels inside the
shoulder part, there's the usual bicep swivels and hinge elbows. The wrists
swivel, and the fingers have a mitten hinge, I suppose so he can try grabbing
onto a Matrix? The hips are universal, with the swivel part including part
of the pelvis (and there seem to be two slightly different shades of pearly
white plastic, as evidenced by the swivels). Upper thigh swivels and hinge
knees that bend to about 45 degrees acute. The ankles have dual hinges, with
only a littel forwards-backwards range and significant sideways bending. The
back wings are hinged at their midpoints for transformation and can be
unfurled in this mode, while the ankle wings are attached with hinges and can
be folded out of the way behind the boots.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs regardless of whether the fingers are bent
open, plus there's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the forearms (about at
the elbow), the outer faces of the shoulders, the outer faces of the boots
(about halfway up and near the front), under each heel, and a single socket
at the top of the spine in back. There's the usual 3mm socket in the back of
the pelvis, but no 3mm studs. There are some narrower studs in depressions
on the front outer corners of the shoulders, which feel like they're supposed
to be for something in vehicle mode, but that might be pre-tooling for some
later character...or abandoned gun storage.
Jhiaxus's larger gun is all red plastic with no paint, although it does
have a number of G2-style details, such as cables molded into both sides and
a general chunkiness. 2.75" (7cm) long with a 5mm peg grip near the back, a
second 5mm peg on the right side just ahead of the grip, a 5mm socket in the
back of the gun, and a 3mm stud on the barrel tip.
The smaller gun is kinda weird, as it's very flat and other than the peg
on one side if feels like one of those dollar store action figure weapons
that's designed to look okay from the side and horrible from any other
direction. Made of smoky clear plastic with a lot of gunmetal paint, it's 2"
(5cm) long and all the detailing is the same as on the red gun, only smaller
and flatter. It has the 5mm grip and the 5mm peg on the right side, but is
too narrow for the 5mm socket in back. There is, however, a 5mm socket
opposite the side peg. The muzzle is 3mm in diameter, at least. Still, it
ends up looking like he bought one gun and got a smaller knockoff of that gun
for free. (I suspect that if I went back through my G2 comics, I'd find that
the size of his gun varies while otherwise staying on model, so they made two
guns in order to let you do either size.)
The guns stack side by side thanks to the small gun's socket, and for
storage in robot mode they stack together and then go onto the socket at the
top of the spine.

Undocumented Feature: The shoulder searchlight bit is meant to have the
front part come off, with a 5mm peg on the back of it. This lets you plug it
into the socket on the back of the red gun, mostly useful for vehicle mode,
as described below. You can also then put other peg-backed weapons into the
remaining part, such as some of the detachable missiles from weapons like
Mirage's.

Transformation: The obvious starting point is to stow the fists inside
the forearms. Then pull back the wing part of the backpack and after that
pull back the clear plastic backplate. This lets you push the chest
forwards, fold out the nosecone, fold away the shoulder searchlight and tuck
down the head to make the cockpit section. Rotate the waist, and the shins
fold up on struts to cover the thighs, but you have to point the toes before
this will work, and some tabs on the now-visible thrusters go into slots on
the toes. The halves of the jet tail swing out and snap together as the
boots snap together. Then the shoulder struts unfold, letting the arms go
back towards the legs, but they don't connect to the sides of the boots.
Rather, the torso sides fold under and tabs on the forearms go into slots on
the thighs, with the shoulders and forearms also pegging to each other.
Finally, unfold the wing backpack and flex the legs a little to snap the
kneecaps onto it (technically you're supposed to do the wingpack first, but I
found it got in the way, and didn't make the final connection much easier).
The wings themselves swing down on struts and peg onto hook tabs on the
boots. Officially, the boot wings just fold under and hide, but I like
leaving them out and making Jhiaxus a sort of space biplane.
TFWiki warns against trying to store his gray gun as shown in the
instructions, instead just putting it on a boot socket above the right wing.
However, that's what my instructions say to do, suggesting maybe I got a
second printing with corrected instructions? There was a several month lag
between the first sightings and the one I ended up getting, after all.
If you take the little bit off the shoulder strut and attach it to the
back of the red gun, the remaining part can fold all the way aside inside the
nose end, which seem to be how it was supposed to go. (Note, it's kinda hard
to get back out if you do that, though.) Then put the main gun on top of the
vehicle pointing backwards, it looks better than the official under-nose
position (and the little gun can go under the nose to preserve symmetry, or
kinda wedge between the forearms on the underside).
http://www.dvandom.com/images/JhiaxusGuns.JPG for some views of
alternate storage.


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