shamone wrote:And jetfire never died in the animated series
Ah, turns out you're correct. Probably forgot he was revived since I haven't seen G1 in over a decade. Quoting the Transformers wiki.
Note: He was known as "Skyfire" back then.
Millions of years later, in 1984, the Decepticons excavated the frozen Skyfire while draining heat energy from the Earth's core and reactivated him. Reunited with his old friend, Starscream, Skyfire joined the Decepticon ranks. When the Autobots arrived, Skyfire engaged in battle with them, but then saved the Autobots' human allies Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky when they became stranded on an ice floe. Naively, he took the two to Megatron under the impression that he and the other Decepticons were good, but when Megatron took them as prisoners, Skyfire started to question his allegiance. When Starscream ordered him to destroy the captured Autobot search party, he refused, and Starscream turned his weapons on him, leaving him heavily damaged. Repaired by Ratchet, he joined the Autobot side and engaged in a dogfight with Starscream which ended when he sacrificed himself to stop the core drain, burying himself in ice once again in the process.
A short time later, however, Skyfire was recovered by Wheeljack and Sideswipe, and immediately participated in an attack on the Decepticons in Peru, where the antagonists were once again attempting to use the Earth's core energy for their own means. Skyfire was almost permitted to destroy the villains' new weapon by Thundercracker, but was then blasted by Starscream and repaired with some difficulty by Spike.
While I'll give you Jetfire not dieing, his combining with Optimus is a homage to the Unicron trilogy. That much can't be argued with.