Name: Deftwing
Series: "European" G1
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Tactician
Alternate Mode: Harrier Jump Jet
JET MODE
Height: 5.5cm (7cm with the weapon attached) Length: 14.5cm Width: 10cm
A powder blue Harrier Jump Jet with dull brown on the sides and tail section, Deftwing has a transparent fluorescent pink canopy and some hot pink stickers on the wings, along with various other stickers here and there. Needless to say, these colours are wildly unrealistic, although lighter blues and transparent pinks were common in this era, so his colours aren't that much worse than many contemporaries. The weapon, which can be mounted on top is yellow with some navy blue at the front and black at the back and some more transparent pink for good measure. The right side of the weapon features a gold Gatling gun, and while at a glance this may suggest Gold Plastic Syndrome, I'm happy to report that it's not the usual shade. This is a small victory because these colours are, frankly, awful.
I recommend leaving the weapon aside, not only to reduce the roll call of colours but also because it's so big that it ruins the illusion of Deftwing ever getting of the ground, VTOL or otherwise. The plane shape isn't that good here, but he's recognisable as a Harrier (think Slingshot). He lies pretty much on his (plane) belly, although there are blue wheels which fold down from under the cockpit and behind the wingtips. Sadly the wing transformation - while innovative - tends to prevent the wings from clipping into his fuselage properly, so his fuselage will likely look disjointed.
The weapon, which is two cylinders side by side, has a built in gimmick. If you rotate the right side dial at the back, the gold Gatling gun will rotate - in the opposite direction! The left side dial is actually a eyepiece, if you look though you'll twin pink laser blasts firing. It's a decent gimmick - both aspects works as intended, even if the giant box that houses it does not belong on his jet mode.
A poor jet mode with awful colours, really Deftwing's best feature here is the gimmick, but you're better off detaching that anyway, so sit the plane down on the table and just play with his weapon.T he jet isn't well sculpted, nor too accurate, but what really ruins things are colours. The powder blue could work if it wasn't flanked by pinks, and while the weapon is fun, adding the yellow to the mix just makes things worse.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Pull the arms out from underneath his wings, which will also lift the wings up. Pull the legs out from underneath, pivot the cockpit to form his chest, folding the tail away as a backpack. Rotate the arms and stand him up. It's an innovative transformation, if not a terribly successful one.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 12cm Width: 7.5cm
A powder blue robot with brown boots and hips, gold forearms, navy thighs, shoulders, hands and head, Deftwing has a silver face and pink eyes with a lightpipe (as on all toys of this period). The wings form shoulder-mounted armour. The pink canopy now sits awkwardly on his groin - it stands out far more than I'd like there, especially since his groin is pointy anyway. The colour scheme adds some navy, and I do appreciate the addition of a darker colour, but it's not really enough to make this colour scheme work as such.
Deftwing's bodyshape is pretty bad here, even if the wings as armour is nice idea. His hips sit on the outsides of his groin - lizard hips, basically. There are no feet (or heelspurs), and while he stands fine, he looks very awkward. The arms are smallish and a little gimpy, mainly because they have huge wings hanging off at the shoulder.
His poseability is pretty straightforward - you can swing his arms up, allowing Deftwing to grasp the handles on his weapon. There's a brown stand which folds out from underneath the weapon, you'll need it, too, thanks to Deftwing's lack of feet. Even then, it doesn't quite reach the table as it should, he'll lean into it slightly.
A pretty simple and unimpressive robot mode, but I do like the fact that the designer tried something different. Sure, it didn't work and he looks silly, but this sort of innovation in plane Transformers is uncommon. The colours are bad - not that good ones would really save Deftwing, but they're better than the plane mode's colours, at least.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
A rather underwhelming toy, Deftwing's colours really work against him. While the colours used are fairly standard for the "European" G1 era, they end up hurting him a lot more than many others toys from that period. The jet mode is weak, although it's easy to pick as a Harrier, at the very least. His robot mode is also weak, lacking even feet, but I do appreciate the fairly innovative transformation. It's a shame that his engineering is so awkward, because the unusual arm transformation shouldn't be the only high point of a figure - 2/10
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