The man who stares at toys: League Assignment: Compare and Contrast

League Assignment: Compare and Contrast!

I've been meaning to put a showcase of photos all up in one place to do this specific pop culture icon justice. Call him/it what you will The Valkyrie, The Veritech Fighter, Jetfire, Skyfire... this one specific jet/robot hybrid has possible been the most manufactured cross-platform figure character ever. Take a look at all the companies who tackled his mold, Takara/Tomy, Hasbro, Playmates, Revoltech, Bandai, Imai...it's really unheard of something being handled by so many properties across three different franchises...Robotech, Macross, Exo-Squad, Transformers. The killer is that this figure was such an instant hit when he transferred over to Transformers that we are still seeing likenesses of him now with minimal changes to comply with cease and desist orders from Harmony Gold who rather than actually make a toy of him stateside will choose to just sue anyone else who tries. To be fair, the American Robotech line and the EXO squad lines only released him in Jet mode but so did Hasbro who released him as a redecoed Sky-Striker (which was the source of the HG lawsuit)!

The story behind him in Transformers is amazing if you ever do your homework and look into the Diaclones/Microman lines when Jetfire was actually supposed to be the LEADER of the Autobots! Pretty amazing trivia for anyone who cares for bipedal supersonic sentient jets. His earlier origins can be linked here.

So let your eyes do the comparing and contrasting...I had to do some looking to find all of these pictures as they don't just come up on one comprehensive google search so enjoy what, in my opinion, is one of the best figure likenesses ever to hit our collections.