General Information:
Release Year: April 2007
Retailer: Fun Publications Club Exclusive
Price: $42 (Member price), $82 (Non-member price)
Accessories: Missile

Images:

• Tech Specs
• Box (Front)
• Box (Angle view)
• Box (Back)
• Box (Interior)
• Vehicle Mode
• Vehicle Mode (Side)
• Vehicle Mode (Back)
• Vehicle Mode (Forward view)
• With Energon Slugslinger (Vehicle Modes)
• Robot Mode
• Robot Mode (Side)
• Robot Mode (Back)
• Robot Mode (Close up)
• Robot Mode (Close up, side)
• Robot Mode (Posed)
• Robot Mode (Aiming missile launcher)
• Robot Mode (with Beast Wars Airazor and Airazor redeco)
• With Energon Slugslinger (Robot Modes)

In the first season of the Beast Wars Transformers television show, one of the fallen Maximal Stasis Pods is activated and through a series of events, a new warrior rose up to join the battle: Airazor. As the Fun Publications crew got together to decide what the theme for Botcon 2006 would be, we ultimately decided to use the idea of a prequel to the Beast Wars story. The "hook" of the set was to show how some of these characters looked like before they took on beast forms. The inclusion of two key characters did warrant additional thought: Tigatron and Airazor. Both had shown being "born" on Earth during the Beast Wars, but the television show had acknowledged that Transformers could exist and be returned to a Protoform state as was the case with Protoform X. It was decided both characters would take part in the prequel adventure, but both suffer a trauma that would scramble their memories enough that they would not fully remember their lives before the Beast Wars. Thus was born the "give away" exclusive of Tigatron for the Botcon 2006 convention and this club exclusive.

Airazor is a redeco of the Energon Slugslinger figure. Check that review out to get a detailed look at this figure. This review will focus on the changes made to the figure for this release.

Vehicle Mode:
When searching for a potential vehicle mode for Airazor, we had to keep her beast form in mind. It had to be something that looked fast, sleek and most of all turned into a robot mode that could be interpreted as "femme" enough to evoke the look of her Beast Wars robot mode. Slugslinger's sculpt was very thin and lithe, allowing us the perfect opportunity to take a somewhat neglected sculpt at that point and use it for a new female Transformers toy (something still not seen every often in any Transformers line). Granted there is a dual cockpit instead of of just one, but the sleek look of the angled fins and armor panels on the top of the vehicle evoke the blades on the first Beast Wars Airazor's wings.

The plastic color swap is rather basic on this figure. The green and blue plastics have been replaced with a metallic brown color, coming very close to matching the first Beast Wars Airazor figure. The grey platstic on Slugslinger has been replaced with metallic orange and finally the translucent yellow on Slugslinger has been replaced with translucent green. The green makes perfect sense as it reflects the color of her eyes and the orange is of course based on the secondary color of the character. The metallic nature of the two primary plastic colors do a fantastic job of emphasizing the non-organic nature of this body for the character. They also make a very nicely put together color combination.

Silver, gold and black paint are used for details, largely following the patterns used on Slugslinger. The edges of the angled fins on top are silver along with the guns on the edges of each wing. On the top of the vehicle, towards the middle you will find most parts colored silver with smaller black details. The very center has an orange section painted metallic brown. Some details that were not painted on Slugslinger are painted here, in particular you'll find the triangles on each nosecone behind the cockpits are painted silver. The gold comes into play on the sections surrounding the cockpit covers and on the hoverfans sculpted into each wing. It wa a good choice to have two different metallic paint colors since it keeps the paint scheme from being monotonous.

You'll note that the "Spark Crystal" inside the center of this area has been replaced with a simple silver orb, a good substitute since we did not have a Maximal Spark crystal handy at the time (though they do exist, they were not part of this figures' tooling).

The missile for this figure is now cast in metallic orange with a translucent green tip, matching the rest of the figure. All the landing gear pieces work just fine as well.

Robot Mode:
With club exclusives it is standard practice now to include some retooled piece. In the case of this figure, a new head was required since Slugslinger's head design simply would not do to represent Airazor. We turned to artist Dan Khanna, a veteran of Transformers artwork to design the head. Based largely on her appearance in the "Dawn of Future's Past" comic book, the head design evokes her Beast Wars head but instead of feathers she has angled designs that are sectioned off at the ends evoking the appearance of feathers. On either side of her face are horn like protrusions at the ends of her "helmet" section. The eyes are oval shaped, just like the television show mdoel and her lips have been made fuller than the standard "line for lips" design to emphasize the feminine nature of the character. It's a fantastic design that looks as good in person as it did in the first sketch drawings it is based on.

Whereas the vehicle mode emphasizes the metallic brown color, the robot mode reveals more of the orange, giving it a balance. There are few newly revealed paint details here but they center on the newly revealed robot mode parts. Her head is cast in orange, with the top "fins" painted black, the eyes green, her mouth area silver and chin piece black. The shoulders use a different color pattern than Slugslinger, with the raised piece painted black, the middle armor section set in metallic brown and the outer most section painted silver. The triangles on the shoulders are paitned gold and on the left shoulder is a small, tampographed Maximal symbol. In this form you can see more of the black coloring the tubes on the torso and the fists which are colored metallic brown. The two lasers on the top of her forearm are colored silver.

Airazor's missile fires fine and the joints are just as tight as those on my Slugslinger.

Final Thoughts:
Airazor is an example of an exclusive where an available sculpt worked perfectly for an existing character. It's also cool to have a figure as a club exclusive that helps "complete" a Botcon boxed set. The head sculpt is fantastic and the toy is fun to begin with. The price tag pretty much makes this most worthwhile to purchase along with a membership to maximize your benefits. The price pretty much means this figure is for hardcore collectors or heavy duty Beast Wars fans. Recommended with the cost in mind.