Combiner Wars Skydive Review

Skydive-110Combiner Wars deluxe Skydive is a classic member of the Aerialbots, the team’s “master combat tactician” (the entirety of the packaging’s bio). Skydive transforms into an F/A-18 Hornet jet that has some of the F-16 Fighting Falcon mixed in, since the G1 figure was an F-16; of course he also becomes a combiner leg or arm. Skydive is part of the first wave of Combiner Wars deluxe figures, and comes on the smaller card without a comic book. Read on for the full review and photos.

Packaged: Skydive comes on the wave 1 cardback design that doesn’t include a comic book, instead coming with a collector card featuring character art. The back has 4-lingo text.

Vehicle Mode: Skydive in this mode is basically an F/A-18 Hornet as evident by the angled twin tails and the notched wings, although some of the lines and the cockpit layout borrow from the F-16 of the G1 figure. The rear of the jet shares parts with Air Raid, including the rubbery twin vertical stabilizers. The underside of the jet still looks like a block of robot hanging on for dear life, just like the other Aerialbot jets. The nosecone is rubbery but holds shape well. The wings don’t line up that well with the fuselage, but somehow this sculpt seems more satisfying than the others anyway. There’s a 5mm hole on the top and one under each wing for accessories.

The colors on Skydive are much more fighter-jet styled than the other Aerialbots, featuring gray instead of white plastic, and painted missiles and air intakes. The wing deco isn’t quite as garish as on the G1 figure, but does feature a nice use of gold on black design.

Robot Mode: Breaking the sameness of this team’s transformations, Skydive’s shoulders rotate up before his arms hinge out, which is nice because otherwise this is exactly the same thing as the other deluxe jets here.

Skydive gets an interesting sculpt, the head is an exaggerated version of the G1 cartoon character with the orange face and angled helmet, and the torso has broader shoulders for a more heroic physique. There are some interesting sculpted details in the torso, but also a pair of exposed screws at the top. The forearms have blocky shields designed into them as if he needed them for battle more, and has a dummy second elbow joint sculpted into each forearm. The lower body is the same mold as Air Raid, relying on paint to separate them. The red color blasts the team connection, but the gray on black deco feels more battle-ready than the other Aerialbots.

Skydive shares the same accessory molds with Air Raid as well, although his twin blaster is in black. The hand/foot accessory makes a passable gun, but really looks more like a pointy punching weapon than a multi-barrel blaster.

Limb Modes: Skydive traditionally becomes Superion’s right leg, transformation is like the other jet bots on the team when starting from vehicle mode — fold back the cockpit, rotate up the combiner joint, attach foot. Due to Silverbolt’s design, you can’t turn Skydive around to more closely emulate G1 Superion, so instead of having red and black limb you get a mostly gray one, at least from the front.

Arm mode (not pictured) is similar to the other Aerialbots in that it’s robot mode with the combiner joint folded out and arms folded back, although the arms here are folded in a different orientation that’s a little closer to the body but exposes the entire Skydive arm to the fist facing out. Having Skydive on the team feels “different” in a good way, not too outside the team aesthetics yet unique enough to feel like he’s not just towing the company line.

 

Overall: Skydive shares a lot of design ideas with the rest of the Aerialbot deluxe jets, yet the deco differences, the slight change in transformation, and the different physique make Skydive a bit of a standout figure from wave 1. The obvious screw holes on the chest, the brick of robot under the vehicle mode, and the exposed hands in combiner arm mode do take the figure down a little, but the pros outweigh the cons. I like the figure a little more than most of the other Aerialbots, but it’s still not quite as good all around as the Stunticon figures.

Review sample supplied by Hasbro