It is the nature of the "something that exists" series that I use it to talk about my latest purchases without pretext of it being a review. Often much, much later. I am not timely enough, nor enough of a completionist, for my reviews to especially useful. So I do a rambling essay format instead, where the toy is often just a pretext to talk about something, or to grind an axe. Case in point: Transformers Generation 2. We're doing rather well for G2 remakes currently, with the likes of Jhiaxus, the troopers and the Toxitron repaint collection. The latter is however where I feel that G2 is repeatedly stereotyped and disrespected. G2 featured a lot of aggressively bright repaints, yes. G2 toys could resemble the aftermath of a child breakfasting on crayons and red bull, that's a fair observation. And yes, G2 has been used as yet another vector for repaints of over-exposed moulds, stuff that alternates between deep discount and eye-watering after-market prices with little in between. You know what G2 also did? The singularly-wonderful Cyberjets. Yes, we’re doing a retro review today!
To give an idea of how high a regard I have for the Cyberjets, I invite you to consider the following hypothetical. You are a toy designer, and you have been given the task of making a tiny jetformer. Good for you, you're living the dream. Like a good designer, you put together a mood board or something, a collection of references for you to draw inspiration from. Pride of place is given to a picture of the Cyberjets, along such greats as the VF-1J from Macross, an obvious influence on the team. Because leaving them out would be doing it wrong. Generation 2 popularised a number of innovations and quality of life improvements, so the moulds that were purpose built for the line do hold up very well. That's why so many G2 toys went on to have comebacks and late blooming recolours circa 2003ish; not only were these good, they were good in a way that mainline toys often weren't just then, and a lot of people had missed out on them first time around. The Cyberjets were one such group, with light-piped visors, balljoints and pressure launched missiles. And, to bring things finally to today's subject, Hooligan was probably the best of them. He's also the most G2 of the bunch having an orange tiger stripe deco.
The 2021 Kingdom Starscream Toy
Hooligan's jet mode mixes collector-pleasing touches and actual fun. It's based off a proposed variant of the F22-Raptor, a variable geometry or "swing wing" design, with the addition of a toyetic missile launcher in the tail-fin area. The wings go forward and back, inviting air-plane noises and bombing runs. It's colours defy realism, but the mould takes more care of the underside than most, having a very clean undercarriage and foldable landing gear. How does that modern core class seeker mould handle such things? That being this toy's rough modern equivalent, if with more subdued colours? Oh right, faux kibble, arms under the wings and his head sticking out where his landing gear should be. Hooligan utterly beats this. The core class gets it's arse handed to it by a toy a quarter of a century old and the colour palette of a callippo ice lolly, because they were more interested in the look of the robot mode than the jet mode. Back to Hooligan: there's even provisions to store another missile on the underside, my example lacking one. Of course, the counter-argument to that is how the missile just sits on top, but that's not exactly a bug, that's a feature. Seriously, pick any jetformer in roughly the same weight class, and Hooligan will match them. Hell, there's deluxes and voyagers with less basic cleanliness than this. So it does everything it needs to, and a few things that didn’t need to, and it does all of it well. Then we get to the other mode.
Transformation to robot mode is is similarly pleasing. It's another area clearly by influenced by the VF-1J, although asymmetrical with respects to the arms. The process is simple, intuitive, and hassle-free. Hand candy, in other words. Hooligan's robot mode ends up with an odd mix of distinctiveness and anonymity. The Cyberjets don't really have faces so much as visors, while the whole "cockpit becomes body, engines become legs" body plan is pretty typical of jetformers. It's perhaps not a surprise that these moulds ended up on both sides. This is of course balanced out by the colours and the weapon arm, so a Cyberjet has its own identity, especially Hooligan. Posability is an undeniable highlight as every single joint he has is a balljoint, although he would have benefited a bit from better feet. This is the only thing I consider to be an avoidable flaw while staying within the pricepoint; he’s walking around on his thrusters and there’s no heel spurs, so he’s a bit tippy-toe. On the plus side: he can also take his missile and use it like a club.
My point? Only that Generation 2 Hooligan is absolutely great for what it is. The platonic ideal of tiny jetformers. A perfect example of how to simply but elegantly devise a transforming robot toy, without compromising either mode. And its aged like a fine wine. Seriously, if the designers scaled this up to a deluxe, and added ankle tilts, and put it out as part of Legacy, we’d be calling it a toy of the year contender. If you can find him, get yourself a Hooligan. Or one of the repaints, or another Cyberjet, they're all pretty good.
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