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STARSCREAM feels pretty good about this one.  SMOKESCREEN might be one of the most famous AUTOBOTS for his abilities as a tactician, but he can’t fly, and the DECEPTICON air warrior thinks that gives him an advantage.  Unfortunately for STARSCREAM, he’s about to find out exactly why SMOKESCREEN is so famous.

In this week’s installment of Gotta Have It! Figure Edition, we take another peek into the ongoing battle between Autobots and Decepticons with this Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen-Legends Class: Smokescreen & Starscream two-pack from Hasbro!

Product Line: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Legends Class
Company: Hasbro
Release Date: February 2010
Packaging: Blister Card Packaging
Where to Buy: Target.  The black Starscream is a Target Exclusive.
Price: US $6.99
Points of Articulation: Smokescreen- 6.  Starscream- 6.
Difficulty Level: 2: Quick Conversion
Height: 3 inches each, as robots.  The size of Hot Wheels cars, as a car and jet.

Paint Job: Smokescreen is made of red plastic and painted blue, black, and white with a little bit of yellow for headlights and a silver face.  The numbers painted on the sides for his race car mode and his Autobot logo are painted white, perfectly with no bleeding.  There are not any color bleeds at all for Smokescreen.

Starscream starts out with black plastic, and is not painted too much except for some silver on his chest, some kind of funky, silverish-blue on his wings, and a royal blue for his Decepticon logo and the hatch over the cockpit.  There is no color bleeding with him, either.  Last, but not least, Starscream has red eyes.  That’s how you can tell if they are bad guys…they have red eyes!

Durability: Both Transformers are made of lightweight plastic with no hollow parts.  They both have metal pins at the hinges and have ball-joints at the arms and legs.  Some parts on each figure are screwed together with tiny metal screws.

Poseability: As with the previously reviewed Decepticon Sideways, they each have limited poseability as robots.  That’s nothing new for the actual transforming Transformers action figures.  In robot form, Smokescreen has excellent balance on flat surfaces and does well at maintaining his balance even with his arms straight out in front of him.  Transforming Smokescreen into his generic race car mode is fairly simple.  The instructions for transforming both robots are on the back of the package, so you may want to keep it for future reference.  His limbs fold under, the spoiler flips back to the rear of the car and the legs also lock together at the rear of the car.  Transforming him back into a robot is much easier, as his legs don’t require fingernail prying like Sideways does.  The spoiler lifts up exposing a nice groove you can get your fingers into.  His wheels move freely so he can roll with the best of your Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars!

Starscream is a little more difficult to stand up and hold his balance, as he has some pretty skinny leg and arm action going on.  It takes great skill and patience to get him to stand without his lanky arms causing him to be top heavy.  Starscream is a little bit more difficult to transform into a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.  In my opinion, the directions aren’t as clear for him, as I’m still not sure where the hell to put his arms in jet mode.  I am almost positive that I didn’t have him in jet form correctly for the pictures, but since it is all tucked underneath him, it masks well.

What’s Awesome: Though these things are not as awesome as Transformers: War for Cybertron, they’re still pretty damn awesome!  They are not big, bulky, and clunky, and they are fairly easy to transform, unlike their bigger counterparts that require a college degree just to even look at!  Like I’ve said before, these Legends Class are Go-Bots 2010 and they are the bee’s knees!

What Sucks: The fact that Starscream is a little bit on the difficult side to transform into jet mode, and he’s made too skinny and lanky to stand up  too well, really bring this two-pack down as a whole.

Overall: 3 out of 5.  I give this Legends Class two-pack three thumbs up.  Starscream could have been made just a little bit better.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Legends Class: Smokescreen and Starscream…gotta have it?  Duh!  They are already affordable on their own ($4.97 seen at Wal-Mart), so a two-pack at $6.99 is a friggin’ steal!  Snatch ’em up!  Build armies!  Play out the war on your living room floor!

Aron White
aron@comicattack.net