Combiner Wars legends-class Blackjack is minor player from the G1 line that has recently been drafted in the IDW Combiner Wars comic book by Starscream to join the Stunticons in an attempt to help control Menasor’s mind. Blackjack transforms into a sports coupe reminiscent of an Acura NSX, and can be used as a chest plate for Menasor. Blackjack comes with an ax weapon.  Read on for the full review and photos.
Packaged: Blackjack comes on the new, narrower Combiner Wars legends-class card that has a very character-centric style. The cardback features 4-language text. The package includes a collector card with character art on it.
Vehicle Mode: Blackjack is a mid-engine sports coupe that seems to borrow its look from the ’90s Acura NSX, although like most main-line Transformers sports cars it’s taller and narrower. Despite good ground clearance, the snap-in wheels don’t roll that smoothly. The ax weapon can be plugged onto the back as a large spoiler. Sculpting is adequate for the scale, and the car holds together well.
Robot Mode: Transformation is a bit more interesting than most legends-class car transformers, with the sides folding down and then the whole top end wrapping around the underside; watch for the front end clipped into the slot on the underside when transforming back to car, it’s easy to miss. In packaging, he comes transformed hunched forward, but the full transformation slides his head back further.
Robot mode is pretty decent with some nice sculpting in the middle with simpler lines on the arms and legs, and very Decepticon coloring that calls back to the G1 figure. Unlike that Micromaster however, this Combiner Wars Blackjack has a very different head, one that has a visor and a mouthplate, as is represented in the current IDW comics. His right shoulder sports a ridiculously small faction logo, while the one from vehicle mode ends up on his back. The shoulders are attached somewhat low on a hinge that floats away from the chest slightly.
Articulation is decent for a legends figure, the head rotates on a swivel, and the rest are ball shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees; the backpack is on a hinge. The flat feet have narrow heels but do allow for one-legged poses with patience. The figure is mostly solid, but the chest/head/back can de-transform a little. The ax is on a 5-mm peg that fits in either hand, and has tabs to let it store sideways on the backpack.
Combiner Component: G1 Menasor’s chest had the roller car accessory for a chestplate, so for Combiner Wars the roller car gets ditched in place of Blackjack in car mode plugging onto a pair of pegs on the combiner chest, with the ax tabbed to the top of the car as a crest. It’s pretty lame on its own, but fails miserably in practice because the pegs on Menasor’s chest, rather than a real peg, are a terrible tri-blade design that are ever so slightly too small and have a stop to further keep it from securing. So between that and one of the peg holes on Blackjack being formed by leg halves that have a little extra play, the car rarely stays on the chest at all. The ax also doesn’t like tabbing into the slots on Blackjack, and needs to be forced on and off.
Overall: On his own, Blackjack is surprisingly satisfying of a legends-class figure, he looks nice and is quite poseable. As a combiner element however, he’s just stuck with a problem inherited from Menasor on top of an underwhelming use. That said, he’s still a pretty welcome inclusion to the Combiner Wars and if you’ve got the rest of Menasor you might find satisfying alternative transformations as a chestplate or even modify the pegs to accept the existing chest mode. Or you could just have him beat up Swerve for serving watered-down engex.
Review sample supplied by Hasbro