Anyone Have Problems With Fans Toys Omega Supreme Back Not Tabbing in

Well, this figure came out quite awhile ago, and he's pretty much sold out everywhere (I lucked out and bought one from a guy who decided that it was too big for his shelf space).  So, you either probably already have it or can't get it if you don't.  Nevertheless, this is Phoenix, FansToys' version of a Masterpiece Skyfire/Jetfire.

Phoenix is a big fella, for sure.  From what I can tell, he's a full head taller than DaCa Toys' Kronos, the only other arguably MP Skyfire.  He utterly dwarfs the only other 3P Skyfire I have, Mechaform's Sky Guardian, who himself is a little taller to the head than MP-10.  He is roughly eye-to-eye with TFC's Poseidon, and just a tad shorter than GT's Gravity Builder, and those guys are combiners.  Now, how you feel about Phoenix's size probably depends on which episodes you're remembering.  Personally, I'd have liked if he were a little shorter, like about the size Kronos was.  I mean, I remember him big, but Optimus to the red line above his cockpit is closer to what I remember (and what a lot of screenshots from a quick Google search show) than Optimus to the top of the notch at the bottom of his cockpit.  That said, if you go by the Sunbow scale chart (especially if you believe the chart supersedes the wildly-inconsistent animation) then Phoenix is about the correct size.

Regardless of his size, FansToys definitely did a great job capturing Skyfire's look from the cartoon.  Pretty much all the detail in the cartoon, like the squares on his toes, the lines on his ankles, the trapezoidal bits on his shins, the triangles on his hips, and some of the little mechanical bits on his chest are all present and accounted for, although FT has a tendency to paint some of the details were simply white in the cartoon.  Then again, if they didn't, we'd be looking at a very plain, very white robot.  The headsculpt is perfect, with sharply-defined cheeks and a gunmetal color outlining his face.  Unlike pretty much every other toy meant to be Skyfire/Jetfire Phoenix's wings don't even protrude too far out from his back, and he's even got the pointy bits on his forearms just below his elbows.  Honestly, I think the worst thing I can say about him aesthetically is that he maybe lookstooheroic.  On the animation mode the vents on his torso were almost the whole way down to his hips, but on Phoenix they're part of his chest, with segmented lats between them and his hips.  I can't honestly say that bothers me, though.

Phoenix doesn't come with much in the way of accessories.  You've got a cartoon-accurate double-barreled rifle.  In the little baggie are light-piped eyes, in case you prefer light piping to the gorgeous metallic blue painted eyes (and if you do you're a monster), as well as a replacement chest piece.  The idea there seems to be that you can put an Autobot emblem on one and a Decepticon emblem on the other, in case you want to re-enact the scene where he switches sides in episode "Fire in the Sky."  Lastly, he comes with part of a stand, which seems like an incredibly cheap move for a toy that carried a $220 price tag at US retailers.  According to the instructions, the piece of a stand can be used with the stand that comes with Sovereign, whom I just happen to have.  You have to remove the screws (marked above with arrows), pull the top part that clips around Sovereign's crotch out, pop the part the comes with Phoenix in, then screw it all back together.

For a $220 Masterpiece-style toy from a company with FansToys' reputation I've gotta be honest, Phoenix's articulation is fairly limited.  His head is on a hinged swivel so he can turn it, look down a little, and look up maybe 30 degrees.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and he can move them laterally about 90 degrees on another ratchet.  His biceps swivel.  His elbow is a single hinge but it does curl all the way around to about 180 degrees, and the pointy bit on the front of his forearm cleverly folds into his forearm as you do so, and it pops back out when you straighten his elbow.  His wrists are actually on ball joints, so not only do they swivel but they can actually bend upward.  As for his fingers, each finger is individually-articulated, and KFC/XTB should pay attention to how FansToys does it.  The base of the thumb is a ball joint, so it can rotate as well as fold over the palm.  The thumb has two additional pinned knuckle hinges.  Each finger has a pin hinge at the base, middle, and finger tip knuckles.  Plus, each finger has pinned hinge just in front of the base knuckle, but going through top-to-bottom instead of side-to-side.  This additional hinge allows the fingers to splay a bit.  The result is that his fingers have all have a very natural, very complete range of motion but no loose, flimsy ball joints or finger segments that pop off.

Unfortunately, things start to go downhill at the waist.  As designed, with everything tabbed in properly, he doesn't have a waist swivel.  If you untab the hips like you're about to transform them you do unlock a little bit of waist swivel, but his backpack still stops you from doing more than turning maybe 5 degrees, so I'm not inclined to count it.  Speaking of hips, even with the skid of his hip armor hinging out the side he can still only get about 60 degrees laterally on some squeaky friction joints.  Forward and backward motion is ratcheted, but to only about 45 degrees forward and 30 backward.  His hips can swivel about 30 degrees at the top of the thigh, but if you need more there's another (squeaky) swivel below the knee.  The knees themselves are ratcheted and bend 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up just a little and down a good deal on a soft ratchet, and his ankles can pivot but only slightly.  That last bit's a shame because the pivot joint is capable of a lot more, but the armor around his ankle hinders it.  All FansToys had to do was put a hinge in the armor so it could bend out and he'd have a lot more useful pivot.

Phoenix's gun has tabs on the handle that, like most MP-style figures, fit into slots on his palms.  What's nice, though, is that Phoenix has the finger articulation to properly wrap his fingers and thumb around the handle while slipping his index finger up into the trigger guard.  The gun stays in his hand pretty securely, so no complaints there.

Phoenix transforms from a big robot to a huge jet.  Without a ruler or measuring tap handy I'd venture that his wing span is probably about the same as his length from nose to rear.  And if you set Phoenix so he's standing on his rear (something he does with no problem) a Gigapower dinobot like Graviter will only come up to the panel for the faction symbol.  As big as he is, though, MP Soundwave is too big to lay on his nose, and you won't be posing MP Ratchet on his wing.

I have to give FansToys some serious kudos, too, because Phoenix uses a lot of simple yet clever engineering.  His thrusters get longer, his backpack gets wider, his wings get longer (both side-to-side and front-to-back).  The resulting jet is more solid, more cohesive, and more cartoon-accurate than either Kronos or Sky Guardian, yet the transformation is fairly easy, intuitive, and fun... pretty much the exact opposite of all FT's subsequent releases.  Pretty much the only negative I can come up with is that the indented section on the front of his backpack isn't screen-accurate and that his nose is a little too long, but both of those things are pretty small potatoes.  I'd have also maybe liked some paint for the intakes on the side of his nose, but given that's the underside of his wrists in robot mode I can't fault FT for erring on the side of robot mode accuracy.

Due to transformation the wings are variable; in all my pictures they're swept back as far as they go, but you can just as easily have them straight out to the sides or even sweep them forward.  A little yellow paint on the tips marks his position lights (although technically the one on his left wing should be red and the one in the above picture on his right wing should be green).  The cockpit can open, and there are two molded chrome seats inside (the second canopy on his backpack doesn't open).  He's got working landing gear, complete with rolling wheels.

You can peg Phoenix's gun to the inside of his right leg while he's in jet mode.  It's not symmetrical, and the barrels jut out the back instead of pointing forward like a VF-1's gunpod.  It kind of feels like an afterthought, but at least there is some sort of weapon storage for alt mode.

One thing I find curious is that his thrusters are on his backpack and that his feet fold up tight.  This is, I believe, cartoon-accurate.  However, he has thrusters in his heels.  These thrusters are apparently just a nice little detail for robot mode.

In jet mode, a diecast bar unfolds from the nose and tabs into the top of his robot crotch.  This diecast bar has a slit in it.  If you swapped out the top of the stand that comes with Sovereign with the part that comes with Phoenix, the fin on to top fits into the slit on the diecast bar, allowing Phoenix to set securely on the stand.  This only works with jet mode, though; if there's a way to put him on the stand in robot mode I haven't found it.

At this point you can probably figure out that I don't think Phoenix is a perfect figure.  His articulation is fairly limited, I think FansToys was cheap to only give you part of a stand instead of a whole stand, and this is the least paint I've seen on a FansToys figure since Tesla.  That said, Skyfire is a big scientist with a big backpack in the cartoon, so I'd argue that more dynamic poses aren't necessarily in character, and expressive hands kind of make up for it the lack of articulation from the waist down.  And I do happen to own Sovereign, whom I think needs a stand a lot less than Phoenix does.  As for the lack of paint, well, he's mostly made of white plastic, but it's not like his colors are wrong.

And then we have to consider his positives.  Paint or not, he's got excellent aesthetics in both modes.  The materials are good, and the joint tolerances are perfect (even if some of the friction joints are a little squeaky).  The engineering is smart and effective yet simple and intuitive, so transforming him is easy and fun.  After buying figures like Rouge and Spindrift (and passing of stuff like Koot and Apache) I give FansToys a hard time, accusing them of using a ton of paint and diecast to create a premium feel that masks the fact that they're often over-engineered and not particularly fun to mess with.  I was seriously wondering why so many people seem to hold FansToys up as the gold standard for 3P toys.  Even Sovereign, whom I think nails Galvatron's robot look in a brick of a figure with gorgeous purple paint and has enough articulation for some really fantastic poses is still a chore to transform.  Now, I imagine when people are talking about how great FansToys is they're probably thinking of toys like Phoenix.  Now, I don't own every FansToys release- in fact, without Quakewave or their Dinobots a case could probably be made that I've skipped some of their best releases.  However, of the FT figures that I do have (Phoenix, the Insecticons, Spindrift, Tesla, Sovereign, Lupus, and Rouge) I think Phoenix is unequivocally the best.  Highly recommended.

Anyone Have Problems With Fans Toys Omega Supreme Back Not Tabbing in

Source: https://macrossworld.com/mwf/topic/36937-the-unlicensed-third-party-transformers-thread/page/137/

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