Here is Metalhawk in his jet mode. It appears to be based on the F-15 Eagle with Cybertronic/futuristic elements added to avoid licensing fees. That's fine and all, but I don't really like the gray plastic that breaks up the blue. It not only makes the toy look incoherent in terms of coloring, but it also makes things worse with how cheap and lifeless the gray plastic is compared to the more lush navy blue and red. It looks prototypey, and it does not look good for a figure like this. Imagine if it yellowed. Shame too because I don't mind the design it has, especially when it already has a lot of great details and an already good combo of navy blue and red.
The sword can peg on the back with two tabs that go onto the legs. It too has that bad gray plastic like the back of the robot and the guns.
For a comparison with another Cybertronic Jetformer, here he is next to Cyclonus. I'll be honest: it's going to be impossible to trump a jet like Cyclonus. This guy was very sleek and looked clean in terms of coloring, even with the Legacy releases toy-accurate deco. I'm sorry but Metalhawk lacks that flare that made Cyclonus work so well. Now why is Cyclonus here, you may ask?
Because the transformation is mostly the same as Cyclonus, with theonly differences being the arms and nosecone having slightly different steps from the original toy. Everything else remains the same, which I'm fine with. And the robot mode luckily remains faithful to the cartoon without it being Autobot Cyclonus. I like that we get the yellow chest with a golden hint to it, which, honestly, doesn't look too bad outside of the fact that it's in-between the nice red/navy blue plastic and the bad light gray plastic. What also hurts is that some parts of the robot have silver paint, which is only on the lower legs. That being said, it is a good design overall, and I like what they put into the rest of the toy in terms of making this inner robot the best it's ever been compared to tbe old toy and the Titans Return one.
Head sculpt is made well enough like a lot of the WFC/Legacy era sculpts, but the golden yellow plastic lets it down somewhat. It just feels a bit unfinished as mentioned earlier, and while I don't expect it to have any paint applied anytime soon, it could use that flare to help it pop a bit more. His articulation is virtually the same as Cyclonus's, but the wrists are not as free in range as the Decepticon he was retooled from.
As for his weapons, he can hold his sword and twin-rifle blaster no problem, but the former won't get any helpful wrist articulation that made the Universe version fitting for any IDW enthusiasts. The twin-rifle gun can be split in half, but it fits well if combined for the robot mode. And that's his Evo-Fusion gimmick so wooo.
For a robot mode design comparison, here he is with Cyclonus once more, and we can see here that they're almost like they so happen to borrow engineering rather than be retools, much like how we saw that with DOTM Roadbuster and AOE Lockdown. However, the shoulders and thighs are the only reused parts, which is fine by me! This is how you do a reuse for two similar yet different designs. Not the way we saw Hasbro fail with stuff like Studio Series Crankcase or AOE's Voyager Drift. Generally, the only issues with the toy are how lackluster the gray plastic looks as well as the yellow plastic being in-between the polish of that and the red and blue plastic of the toy.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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