So Jazz is the second of the deluxes from Wave One.
Okay, Jazz is a bit of a mixed bag. See the thing is, Jazz was basically perfected in toy form during CHUG. United Jazz (or Reveal the Shield if you couldn’t justify the import price) is hands down the best Jazz toy around. So already out of the gate, POTP Jazz is batting for second.
Luckily, his only other major competition is the Fall of Cybertron Jazz, who, despite my fondness for the idea of the toy, is quite bad. So POTP Jazz falls into that comfortable spot of “Good but not amazing”. (I don’t really consider G1 toys in these comparisons, just the more modern stuff).
His robot mode comes out looking pretty great from the front, but rough from the side. He has a dynamic silhouette if posed well, but he comes off a bit plain-jane if you’re leaving him in a static “arms at the side” look. At first, I heard a lot of “OMG, HASBRO IS THE WORST! HE DOESN’T HAVE DOOR WINGS!!” but here’s the thing, he’s actually pretty screen accurate. Cartoon Jazz didn’t have door wings, or at least they were not very prominent in his character design.
So I chalk that up to a win.
He comes with his normal pistol and also has his Prime Armor accessory. Unfortunately, unlike Swoop, Jazz’s armor doesn’t attach very well. There are two slots on his front fender where the thumb pieces of the hand/armor piece tab in, but they really don’t line up very well, so it’s not a very secure fit.
Plus again, it’s just a rough look over all anyway. I prefer to plug it into the 5mm port on his forearm, and have him wield the armor/Prime Master like the Voyagers do (we’ll look at them soon enough).
His alt-mode has some classic elements with a new style. He’s slightly based on a Porsche, with some liberties taken, of course.
I like the mode, it works well for Jazz. Naturally, he has the same issues as any toy with white painted parts, but that’s no big deal.
His Prime Armor attaches to his car mode in the usual way, but it works pretty well.
Finally, there’s limb mode. *sigh*… I really feel like the only combiners we should have gotten out of POTP is Abominus, but unfortunately we’re getting these guys as combiners too. C’est la vie. Here’s Foot and Arm mode. Neither are anything to write home about.
The Power of the Primes trading cards are going to be brutal to try and collect, given the fact that there are 12 for each toy. With Jazz I got Micronus Prime.
Bottom line: Would I recommend Jazz? Sure. If you missed CHUG or didn’t bother with FOC Jazz, he’s a solid representation of the character. There’s a few cons, namely he doesn’t have the strongest design of the recent toys coming out. His Combiner modes are pretty meh. Otherwise he’s a solid B/B-.
Pax Cybertron 