Allegiance: Cybertron
Alternate Mode: Cybertronian Space Crusier
Height: 5.5cm Length: 17cm Width: 16cm
The red and white theme fits in with the rest of the new Aerialbot team, and works for a heroic space cruiser. Afterburner's long fuselage is red and white, while the wings are at the back - the overall shape is a flying wedge with a long nose at the front. The wings are rather broken up, since the robot arms form the wing, and don't fold up seamlessly. The wingtips and tailfins are composed of a soft white plastic, which means it's harder for a kid to put their eye out, and it also makes it a lot harder to snap these pieces off, which is nice. There are also winglets on either side of the cabin composed of this soft plastic, but since the toy's base rigid red plastic is underneath, this plastic generally wont flex. On top of the cockpit is a moulded Autobot symbol, and the raised parts are painted red (over the white paint) which looks _really_ good. Not far behind this is a spark crystal, buried inside a red circle that hides it.
There's not really much play value here - the front wheel folds up underneath the cockpit, the rear wheels fold up under the wheels and there are hardpoints to the outsides of the tailfins. I don't expect much of a jet that also has to become the central piece of a gestalt, but the lack of a missile launcher (or any other ranged weapon) hurts here - Afterburner does not have any weaponry.
While the basic idea here is quite good, the rear of the jet is a little too broken up for me to heap praise on this space cruiser. That's not to say that it's a bad mode - but better wings and a ranged weapon could have turned a decent cruiser into a great one.
Height: 16cm Width: 8cm
Afterburner's torso is hollow, and there are gaps on all sides. The waist plates seem to serve no real purpose, since they fail to close the sides, although they do reduce the size of the holes. The cabin and nose on his chest work well, but there's a lot of jet shell kibble behind his shoulders and head, and the chestplate doesn't sit in place very firmly. The fists are sort of buried in his forearms which have too many gaps for my liking.
Of course, it's not all bad news. The legs themselves look good, the facial sculpt is decent and the Autobot symbol as a centrepiece works well. The spark crystal is now on his back but it's not really missed - Afterburner's robot mode doesn't want to be any busier anyway. It's also a pretty poseable robot mode.
The head turns, the shoulders rotate, the elbows are double hinges with rotators above and below them, the hips rotate on two planes, his knees bend and there are rotators above the hinges. The ankles and heelspurs can only fold up, but the long footprints make for a very stable toy, and with all that limb articulation you've got a lot of meaningful poseability here. It's just a shame he doesn't have his own weapon to give him while posing him.
While the basic idea is pretty good and the articulation very impressive, Afterburner still underwhelms. The colour scheme is unfocused although thankfully not a mess, and the disjointed torso really drags down the robot mode. And of course there's really no excuse for him not having any sort of weapon.