Jetstorm (BW)

Jetstorm is a Predacon from the Beast Era portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

"Tell HQ that I've just run out of juice—and before all the girls start wondering what the point of living is anymore, tell them I just meant petrol! WOOF!"

There's always something vile coming out of Jetstorm's mouth. An elitist snob, Jetstorm prefers to stay above the battle at all times, disgusted by those squabbling on the ground below. Sometimes he'll hover far above a battlefield and just watch Maximals suffer because it amuses him. Somewhere in his spark Jetstorm feels a kind of twisted pity for those poor Cybertronians without wings, and likes to bring up the "inferiority" of those around him. If he wasn't such a good scout, his Predacon teammates probably would have ditched him long ago.

The appearance of Jetstorm's eye-catching dragonfly mode captivates enemies... and distracts them long enough for him to bring his destructive weapons to bear. Jetstorm's onboard chemical blender creates explosive toxins, which spew forth from his mouth at any enemy in his way. Air-to-air missiles give him supreme sky superiority, which he absolutely revels in.

In other words, he's butt-ugly, but functionally butt-ugly.

Fiction

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

Magmatron traveled to prehistoric Earth to turn the Axalon's protoforms into a new Predacon army. Transquito witnessed Jetstorm's successful conversion. The Gathering #1 Magmatron ordered Jetstorm and the rest of his new forces to seek out the double-agent Razorbeast and his crew of Maximals. The Gathering #2

Later, under the leadership of the reactivated Ravage, Jetstorm joined the other flyers, Lazorbeak, Sky Shadow, Injector, and Buzz Saw, in hunting down the Maximals. The Gathering #3

While he was nowhere to be seen during the first attack on the Maximals, Jetstorm was present during another battle a few weeks later. The Ascending #1 He spat his toxins at Torca's head, though this didn't seem to cause much damage to the giant Maximal. The Ascending #2

When the Blendtrons showed up and attacked everyone, Jetstorm favored direct action against them! The Ascending #4

2021 Beast Wars comic

The Cybertronian who would become Jetstorm was one of the many Maximal protoforms aboard the Axalon. To eliminate the Maximals and Predacons, Tarantulas and the Vok brought every crashed stasis pod they could find online and reprogrammed the protoforms within into loyal "Children of the Vok". Together, they attacked the crashed Darksyde in an attempt to take out the Maximal-Predacon alliance. In the ensuing battle, Nyx successfully shot down Jetstorm before Airazor tackled the Maximal flier out of the sky.

Eventually, however, when the Maximals and Predacons destroyed the Vok themselves, their remaining followers agreed to a truce and left to live peacefully in the wilderness. The End

Toys

Beast Wars

• Jetstorm (Deluxe, 1997)

• Accessories: 2 "air-to-air missiles"
• Known designers: Takio Ejima (TakaraTomy)

Part of the first wave of second-year Beast Wars Deluxes, Jetstorm transforms into an organic dragonfly. His beast mode's inner head (which is also his robot mode head) features a "toxic venom" water-squirting gimmick with an internal bellows located in his tail. His dragonfly tail conceals a pair of spring-out spring-loaded "air-to-air missile" launchers that swing forward at the push of a button. These launchers are available in robot mode as well, but due to their construction fire mostly upwards.

This toy was released in Japan as an import in Hasbro packaging with a Takara-applied sticker. This mold was also redecoed to make Beast Wars II Tonbot.

• More information on Jetstorm at TFU.info

Notes

• Packaging prototypes have revealed that Jetstorm was at first to be named Dragonfire. Three different designs show Jetstorm as either a Maximal (twice) or Predacon (once), but these conflicting faction symbols were most likely to demonstrate the difference between Maximal and Predacon packaging. In addition to showing the different factions, the three different card designs also illustrated different "Beast Wars" logos and different "beast eye" designs, with the most notable difference being the beast eye showing robotic detailing, versus the final design which showed none.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Jetstorm (ジェットストーム Jettosutōmu)
• French: L'Orageux (Canada, "The Stormy")
• Italian: Libellula
• Spanish: Alguacil ("Sheriff")