Posted July 26, 2013 at 1:45 am
I'm almost always into the little GIJOE dudes we get at Comic-Con, but not so much the giant vehicles they come with.  I am rarely into Joe vehicles ever.  They're huge and they take up space and they're not characters.  Now, the SDCC Joe vehicles for the past three years have been characters -- Transformers characters, even -- but even then I'm not really sold on them.  I have versions of these guys that transform into robots and take up less space.  But if you want to get, like, Decepticon Destro or a GIJOE-style Bludgeon, you also have to swallow the giant-ass rides they come with.  The Shockwave HISS from last year is still the centerpiece of our kitchen table 'cuz there's no where else for it to go.

Currently, Harmony Gold is famously trying to sue Hasbro for this year's Jetfire, claiming it infringes on their ownership of Robotech.  I don't know how that'll go down, but the stated terms of their suit is kind of over-reachy.  They seriously want everyone to return their purchased toys to them.  You do your best, guys, we'll see how that works out.  But the event raised my interest in this Giant Thing I Happened To Buy With My Bludgeon enough to try to start putting it together Wednesday night.

Immediately I had regret.  This thing is so huge.  I mean, I have some huge toys, but there's this algorithm in my brain where the size of a toy needs to match my desire to possess it, and my desire to own this giant Jetfire thing was almost zero, but its footprint in my house was titanic.  I actually started to feel a little claustrophobic as the damn thing took up half the couch as I stickered it.  Halfway through the process, I texted my friend Ron to please remove this thing from my house for me.  (He gladly accepted, but he's currently out of town.)

The jet itself is a Skystriker.  A big thing!  It's even bigger with the newly-tooled jet booster pack that you attach to it, which makes it look more like Jetfire.  There's even room for a new seat in that extra part section.  Seriously, this thing is large.  The stickers are... well, they fall in line with Metroplex's stickers, but less fit-where-it's-supposed-to-go-y.  There're some mislabeled things and some stuff that doesn't exactly fit, and the paper likes to come up along with the sticker part basically always, so it helps to have fingernails.  Don't even try to get the striping around the cockpit to match up.  It won't.  You're just gonna have to agree with yourself that it's gonna be imperfect.

It's actually a pretty neat giant-ass Jetfire.  If you have room for a giant-ass Jetfire.

I do not.

No, you can't have my Baroness.  Stop asking.
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