Thrilling 30 Skids

Robot Mode: Generations Skids is, of course, a homage to G1 Skids, but is explicitly based on Alex Milne’s design of Skids for IDW’s More than Meets the Eye series. His basic design is the same as about 90 percent of all Autobots, having his car mode’s hood as a chest, the car’s rear end becomes the legs, and he has the car doors as wings. Yeah, we have seen that design a few times before, haven’t we?

Skids does more than simply make that extremely familiar design look cool, though. He packs a whole arsenal of weaponry into that frame as well. Apart from the two guns he comes with – the “nudge gun” from the comic and his original toy rifle – which can also combine into one, he has tons more weapons hidden on his body. The exhaust pipes on his lower arms flip up into guns, his shoulders unveil missile launchers, and he can flip up two double-barrelled guns from his back into his shoulders as well. He might well be the most heavily armed Deluxe Transformers figure ever.

In terms of articulation I was very much prepared to condemn Skids as a failure because of his hip. His legs are ball-jointed, so he’s very articulate in theory, but in practice he can’t move his legs forward at the hip at all due to the sculpting. Shortly afterwards I realized, though, that this wasn’t a problem with the design, but rather with the assembly. One quick-fix later (see below) and Skids can pose with the best of them. The only slight downside are his big shoulders, which hinder his arm movements a bit, but not much. So no point deduction here, either.

Finally, I’d like to mention the head sculpt. Skids has a truly gorgeous face. Just want to put that out there. So bottom line: a great robot mode. Just make sure to fix him up after taking him out of the packaging.

Alternate Mode: Skids transforms into a rather nondescript blue car. It looks a tad boring at first, but it does feature quite a few nice details such as painted hubcaps, lots of detailing on the front, and no visible robot parts at all. Only downside is the back, which could have used a bit more detailing as well. Skids two hand weapons can be mounted on the sides of the car, either together or separately. Not much more I can write here. A good car mode, no real complaints.

Modification: As mentioned above, Skids comes misassembled, which prevents him from bending his legs forward at the hips. The solutions is simple: remove both legs from the hip, take the uppermost part of each leg and remove that as well, switch the removed parts around so that they are on opposite sides as before with the sides that previously faced forward now facing backwards, put the legs back on and presto, a fully posable Skids.

Remarks: For a long time Skids was among the more underused of Generation 1 characters. He merely had a few background appearances in the cartoon and in the comics he was best-known for picking up Cowgirls and vanishing to make room for a time-displaced Galvatron. Then, though, he joined the main cast of IDW’s highly successful More Than Meets the Eye comic series and was fleshed out as a secret agent type Autobot suffering from amnesia, the recovery of his memories being a major plot point in the series’ first two years. And thus this new figure was created, specifically portraying the IDW version of Skids.

And I have to say: that’s a pretty great figure. Yeah, it’s a standard car Autobot on first glace, but with a great face sculpt, the hidden weapons, and a pretty cool look overall, he’s well worth the money. Just one downside apart from the misassembled hip: the comic book included with this figure is labelled Transformers: Skids. It’s actually issue 22 of the MTMTE ongoing series, which... includes Skids, yes, but not very prominently. The unveiling of his past in issue 20 would have made more sense, I think, or maybe his first appearance in issue 2. Apart from that, though: a top notch figure. And essential to assembling your full MTMTE crew cast.

Rating: A-

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Update 2014-12-21: I've now outfitted Skids with Reprolabels. See the last six pictures in the gallery.