Name: Talon
Series: "European" Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Advance Fighter
Alternate Mode: F-15 Eagle Fighter Jet
JET MODE
Height: 4.5cm Length: 12.5cm Width: 9.5cm
A menthol green F-15 with crimson missiles moulded underneath his wings, a transparent yellow canopy and purple stripe stickers on his wings, which incorporate Decepticon stickers. You have to wonder why a green fighter jet needs crimson missiles, and with the purple and yellow thrown into the mix Talon's one confused jet. The colours aren't any worse than his Predator teammates, mind you.
This is a fairly low detail jet, and while there are a few moulded seams, the shape isn't quite right - he's not as long as he should be. To be honest, Talon has the hardest job amongst the Predator jets since the far more accurate Seekers mean that the F-15 is probably the most familiar jet design to Transformers fans. The air intakes are poorly defined and there aren't any thrusters on the back - the robot toes hang out the back in fact.
There are lime green missiles which can clip underneath the wingtips, and while they look far more realistic that the crimson missiles moulded onto the toy itself the addition of lime green doesn't do much aesthetically. You also have the option of swinging down a grey front wheel from underneath the nose of the plane.
Like all the Predator jets, there's a grey panel underneath that you can fold out. When you clip him into Skyquake or Stalker you can look through their viewfinders to see a schematic of Thunderclash. It's not the best gimmick ever, but it's certainly novel, which is nice.
A pretty bad F-15 to be honest, with awkward colours and bad proportions, making Talon's jet mode forgetable. Talon has high standards to live up to mind you, with the G1 Seekers being quite realistic. While he's no worse than some of the other Predator jets, they're a fairly low quality group.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Extend the rear to form the legs, pull out the feet and flip up. Stow the wheel and fold the nose down onto his chest. Give Talon his gold missile launcher, load a missile.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 10.5cm Width: 9.5cm
While green is still the most prominent colour, the bulk of his torso is painted a graphite colour, with only the central stripe (ie the nose) being green. His arms, feet and head are black while the face is bronze with transparent yellow eyes. Talon doesn't have a lightpipe at all, since the head is nestled into the torso. The air intakes sit on either side of his head in a fairly obvious tribute to the Seekers, while the now hollow crimson missiletips sit above the shoulders. The colours are slightly better here, only because the black and graphite are muted colours.
The wings hang behind the arms like a cape, the tailwings sit on his ankles. While these are well positioned kibble, the hollow crimson missiletips look downright awful. The head sits a fair way back compared to the canopy on the top of his chest, which protrudes a fair distance.
The arms can lift up 90°, which is all we get in the way of poseability. The missile launcher, which Talon can hold in either hand, fires quite well and this represents most of the play value now that the picture of Thunderclash is nestled within his torso. The missiles can clip onto the sides of his wings, although they don't look that great there.
While the robot mode looks a little better, I wouldn't say it's Talon's better mode. The colours work better but play value isn't great, so I'd say his two modes are about equal.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
Talon is no better or worse than the other Predator jets, with awkward bright colours holding both modes back. The missile launcher works fairly well and the sight gimmick is pretty cool, but since the F-15 is clearly inferior to the Seeker jet modes, I can't help but be disappointed by Talon. If you don't have any Predator jets I'd say there's enough here to grab Talon, but if you have another, he's not worth hunting down - 4.5/10
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