Transformers Power of the Primes Jazz review

Jazz is one of the most iconic characters in Transformers history, but for a while, he didn't get to show up in any newer fiction until the 2007 movie. Since then, he appeared in Animated, the Cybertron games, and Robots in Disguise (2015). Even then, Jazz didn't get much attention in the collector lines outside of the Legends figure from Universe and the great Reveal the Shield Special Ops figure. Years later, he had a Generations figure from FOC that sucked, but in 2017/2018, a figure made for Power of the Primes was released. Considering how it's made just for a combiner as much as it is made to be a standalone figure, does Jazz manage to be a good toy while juggling both aspects? Let's find out!

Here is Jazz in his vehicle mode. The design is sort of like the Porshe 962 with a few licensing liberties here and there to avoid copyright troubles. It's got the decals Jazz is known to have in G1, which are pretty much the Martini details that the Diaclone toy used to use. If anything, it's almost like what a Classics Mirage would have turned into (a hypothetical one, at least). The clear windows look kind of bland on the white of the car's body, especially when the headlights have a nice clear blue to them. Beyond that, the front of the vehicle mode looks decent while the back starts to lose details.

The spoiler could use a bit more paint, and the trunk could go for a few more paint apps. Worst of all is the lack of silver paint for the rims. And no, my Jazz does not have the tiny "MAGA" Cyberglyph text under the Autobot insignia on the black square. Apparently, that was a thing since a person wanting to translate them ended up finding out that it was spelled as such, but the small text somehow translated to the acronym. Honestly, doesn't matter unless you went out of your way to actually discover that bit.

You can store the hand on the center 5mm port to simulate it being a Powermaster chamber or a rocket booster. At least it adds a bit more color to the car as external devices. Makes me wish his rims had the same silver from his gun.

Here we have Jazz next to Prowl and Sideswipe. I chose these three because they were known to be in the early G1 commercials (Marvel Comics, Optimus Prime & Megatron, Seekers, and Soundwave).

The weird thing about Jazz is just how massive he looks next to the other two guys. I know he's from the POTP line, where the limbs have to be a bit bigger to fit with their torso leaders, but this feels like it's made from a time when Hasbro started to downsize their figures.

Jazz's transformation is sort of like how he normally works in the G1 days. He does have a bit more of that Combiner Wars transformation where the legs take form like they almost always do, though the chest is at least not a faux one like on his Autobot Car allies that formed Optimus Maximus.

Robot form is kind of an interesting take on Jazz. It's decent overall, though it gives Jazz a blockier look while making his torso look broader than before. I think it looks fine, but the torso's pretty hollow from underneath the hood. At least a part of the hood fills in the gap. The legs look fine, and the arms are mostly fine from the front, but they could really use both black hands and a hinge to make the hands look more visible, because they are obscured in the back.

Head sculpt is a bit of a mixed bag. I like that the helmet is black with a blue visor and a silver face, but it's not only small but also lacks a proper mouth.

Articulation is the same as with most POTP figures. Head is on a ball joint, shoulders move front and back as well as in and out on hinges. Elbows are on ball joints, and the wrists are on some barely moveable swivels. Waist swivels decently, hips move arouns on ball joints while the thighs swivel and knees bend.

His weapons are a small pistol in nice, silver paint, a Prime Armor filler piece that serves as a clear price gun, and Prime Armor that I can't get to fit on his chest, so onto the arm it goes.

The arm and leg modes look fine, and they offer the same range of movement you'd expect elsewhere. Leg mode needs a Voyager figure's foot accessory while the arm mode gives him the Prime Armor as his hand.

This mold was surprisingly repainted once, likely to do with how unique Jazz's design is. Thankfully, it's Ricochet/Stepper, who is pretty solid in terms of looks, but his car mode does have some white parts that look ugly on the otherwise slick color scheme. Prime Armor has looks stupid in white.

Here are the three Autobot Cars I showed off earlier in robot mode. Like in vehicle mode, Jazz is taller than his allies, so if you do want to use this guy for a modern Generations display, know he's not too in scale with them and would better suit a line that's made years ago.

If you want to see how Jazz scales with figures like Optimus Prime (from successor line Siege) and Bumblebee (from predecessor line Titans Return), here you go. He doesn't look as bad, though it's mainly due to the fact that Jazz is with two characters from different size classes. Overall, I feel Jazz tries to be both a standalone figure and a combiner component, but much like the Dinobots and Starscream, the figure's scale with other characters makes him look funny, while the lack of details do hurt his altmode (which would probably be added if he was a slightly smaller toy). At least he has a pretty cool car mode and decent limb modes, while Starscream only has a good torso mode but sucks elsewhere and the Dinobots have decent dino and robot modes but suck as a gestalt. You can get this guy, but don't expect Siege levels of WOW from him.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐