DSC_3790
The Transformers: War for Cybertron has been fantastic at bringing back classic characters, giving them a glow up, and unleashing them upon the current generation as well as us old timers. It's especially great when it's a character that REALLY has been out of the spotlight for a while - such is the case of the Autobot Lieutenant Commander, Skylynx.
This figure retails for $119.99 CAD (or if you're Toys R Us, $129.99 CAD) and is a major pain in the ass to find at this time. Making it harder to find is the fact they seem to only be showing up at Toys R Us stores two units per irregular shipment, and Toys R Us stores seem to have 20 percent off sales every month.. so needless to say I'm quite happy my search actually paid off.
Skylynx has always been an interesting character and toy. As a character, if you asked an 80s kid to name the most irritating Transformer ever, there's a pretty good chance that Skylynx would be the answer. He's effectively a pompous know-it-all, and the best part of it is they (Sunbow) got an actor with a snooty English accent, which further cemented Skylynx's rep as a douche.
As a toy, Skylynx is one of those release that clearly wasn't designed by Hasbro or Takara because of wildly different it was. For those who are not in the know, Skylynx is technically a combiner, though not a Gestalt (which has five components). He's made up of two components - a Space Shuttle and a Carrier for any characters needing to hitch a ride. So rather than Transform into humanoid robots, the combined Skylynx transforms into what I would describe as a giant winged dinosaur.
Here's where things get weirder. The Shuttle can detach from the Carrier, and then each of these vehicles can turn into robotic animals. The Shuttle turns into a flying dinosaur bird thing and from what I can dig up and recall, is technically still Skylynx. The Carrier turns into a cat named Lynx, and is it's own character with a voice and everything, but he never says anything when they're combined.
The name Skylynx has been reused a handful of times through the years, but never really for a toy that operates as described above - even the Combiner Wars version was really just the combined Shuttle/Carrier form, so up until now the only "real" Skylynx was the G1 toy or the Encore reissue.
With that said, welcome to 2020.
Earthrise Skylynx is like classic Skylynx in that it is two vehicles with the aforementioned animal forms that combine together to form one large flying form. Contents include the Shuttle, the Carrier, two gun pods, and some fire blast/flame effect parts.
I have to say that for a mainline release of a figure that is probably never going to ever see a repaint or remould, Hasbro and Takara put a lot of love into making this. I actually own the Encore version, but need to dig it out for pictorial side-by-side stuff, so for now you'll have to take my word for this.
The Space Shuttle itself is about the same length as the original toy, but slimmer. Gone are the brilliant gold foil stickers and gold chromed parts, replaced with gold paint - a pity, but not the end of the world. Interesting to note is that this time, the Shuttle seems to be sponsored by NASA, even being given the name "Magnificent".
It's hard to make out, but the Shuttle is not pure while, but rather, there are areas of a light grey, which does cut the blandness of a pure white deco. Other than paint, you also get Autobot sigils on the wings. Mechanical detailing on the various panels of the Shuttle are beautiful, and I particularly love the re-entry heat shielding on the bottom of the vehicle mode. Plastic quality is at the higher quality as I expect from the Earthrise line as compared to the Cyberverse Arcee I popped open on the weekend.
Transformation into winged mode is pretty straight forward even if you've never played with this toys back in the day, with the only real trick is figuring out how to position the wings. The new wing design gives Skylynx greater breadth than before, and really works well in combined mode. The neck has been reworked so there's no Shuttle parts dangling from it, which results in a cleaner look. It's also longer than back in the day.
Speaking of the neck, this new neck has actual articulation, including a ball joint at the base of the head, and several ratcheting joints that allow for excellent posing.
The tail itself is much more articulated than back in the G1 days, but alas has lost much of it's presence as it's much, much thinner, though I can imagine this was done due to space limitations caused by the longer neck.
Perhaps the only one thing that was changed that I wish had stayed the same are the Shuttle's animal robot feet. The old legs were some what stiff due to significant fewer joints, but I seem to recall they held up the body much better than these scrawny new legs. I do appreciate the additional posing options, but I have to say I had a very hard to finding that position that allowed for display of the Shuttle Skylynx without it toppling over.
The Carrier generally resembles what it did back in the 80s... this kind of ambiguous box thing with tank treads. Transformation into Lynx is straight forward, again, even if you've never played with the original toy. Gone is the chrome as well as the motorized walking function.
Having said that, the redesign of Lynx is glorious, significantly improving the ability for this component to pose by having multi jointed legs, which include much needed ankle pivots and heel joints, along with functional needs. I also love how designers gave the front legs extra joints to make Lynx (and combined mode) broader at the front. As with the Shuttle, there's a mind boggling number of panel lines and other mechanical details.
Colours are significantly darker than the G1 vewrsion, but I'm pretty sure there's actually more paint on this version of Lynx than the G1 version, including actual paint on the tank treads
Combination of the two parts is as simple as ever, really two points (front and back) with a release lever at the front. Combined mode looks great due to its large size, as well as being cleaner as the front end of the Carrier and point where the neck comes out of the Shuttle actually line up, which was somewhat of a sore point on the original toy.
Lastly, due to its size, Earthrise Skylynx has a base mode to interlink with other figures, forming little communities or whatnot. Unlike other Leader class figures that have "base modes" because someone said so, the mode for Skylynx isn't as bad. Sure, it's still somewhat of random limb display, but the gun pods help and, more importantly, it's really just Lynx that turns into a base - Skylynx the Shuttle is left unaltered, causing the base to be more of a launching pad for the Shuttle than some generic outpost.
So in conclusion, a very worthy successor to the Skylynx name, and a fantastic improvement on the original toy while keeping the aspects of that original toy that made it fun. Base mode is harmless, and to me, is more fun than the other ones I've seen. If you know anything about Skylynx and like the character, this is one upgrade you don't want to miss.
DSC_3790
The Transformers: War for Cybertron has been fantastic at bringing back classic characters, giving them a glow up, and unleashing them upon the current generation as well as us old timers. It's especially great when it's a character that REALLY has been out of the spotlight for a while - such is the case of the Autobot Lieutenant Commander, Skylynx.
This figure retails for $119.99 CAD (or if you're Toys R Us, $129.99 CAD) and is a major pain in the ass to find at this time. Making it harder to find is the fact they seem to only be showing up at Toys R Us stores two units per irregular shipment, and Toys R Us stores seem to have 20 percent off sales every month.. so needless to say I'm quite happy my search actually paid off.
Skylynx has always been an interesting character and toy. As a character, if you asked an 80s kid to name the most irritating Transformer ever, there's a pretty good chance that Skylynx would be the answer. He's effectively a pompous know-it-all, and the best part of it is they (Sunbow) got an actor with a snooty English accent, which further cemented Skylynx's rep as a douche.
As a toy, Skylynx is one of those release that clearly wasn't designed by Hasbro or Takara because of wildly different it was. For those who are not in the know, Skylynx is technically a combiner, though not a Gestalt (which has five components). He's made up of two components - a Space Shuttle and a Carrier for any characters needing to hitch a ride. So rather than Transform into humanoid robots, the combined Skylynx transforms into what I would describe as a giant winged dinosaur.
Here's where things get weirder. The Shuttle can detach from the Carrier, and then each of these vehicles can turn into robotic animals. The Shuttle turns into a flying dinosaur bird thing and from what I can dig up and recall, is technically still Skylynx. The Carrier turns into a cat named Lynx, and is it's own character with a voice and everything, but he never says anything when they're combined.
The name Skylynx has been reused a handful of times through the years, but never really for a toy that operates as described above - even the Combiner Wars version was really just the combined Shuttle/Carrier form, so up until now the only "real" Skylynx was the G1 toy or the Encore reissue.
With that said, welcome to 2020.
Earthrise Skylynx is like classic Skylynx in that it is two vehicles with the aforementioned animal forms that combine together to form one large flying form. Contents include the Shuttle, the Carrier, two gun pods, and some fire blast/flame effect parts.
I have to say that for a mainline release of a figure that is probably never going to ever see a repaint or remould, Hasbro and Takara put a lot of love into making this. I actually own the Encore version, but need to dig it out for pictorial side-by-side stuff, so for now you'll have to take my word for this.
The Space Shuttle itself is about the same length as the original toy, but slimmer. Gone are the brilliant gold foil stickers and gold chromed parts, replaced with gold paint - a pity, but not the end of the world. Interesting to note is that this time, the Shuttle seems to be sponsored by NASA, even being given the name "Magnificent".
It's hard to make out, but the Shuttle is not pure while, but rather, there are areas of a light grey, which does cut the blandness of a pure white deco. Other than paint, you also get Autobot sigils on the wings. Mechanical detailing on the various panels of the Shuttle are beautiful, and I particularly love the re-entry heat shielding on the bottom of the vehicle mode. Plastic quality is at the higher quality as I expect from the Earthrise line as compared to the Cyberverse Arcee I popped open on the weekend.
Transformation into winged mode is pretty straight forward even if you've never played with this toys back in the day, with the only real trick is figuring out how to position the wings. The new wing design gives Skylynx greater breadth than before, and really works well in combined mode. The neck has been reworked so there's no Shuttle parts dangling from it, which results in a cleaner look. It's also longer than back in the day.
Speaking of the neck, this new neck has actual articulation, including a ball joint at the base of the head, and several ratcheting joints that allow for excellent posing.
The tail itself is much more articulated than back in the G1 days, but alas has lost much of it's presence as it's much, much thinner, though I can imagine this was done due to space limitations caused by the longer neck.
Perhaps the only one thing that was changed that I wish had stayed the same are the Shuttle's animal robot feet. The old legs were some what stiff due to significant fewer joints, but I seem to recall they held up the body much better than these scrawny new legs. I do appreciate the additional posing options, but I have to say I had a very hard to finding that position that allowed for display of the Shuttle Skylynx without it toppling over.
The Carrier generally resembles what it did back in the 80s... this kind of ambiguous box thing with tank treads. Transformation into Lynx is straight forward, again, even if you've never played with the original toy. Gone is the chrome as well as the motorized walking function.
Having said that, the redesign of Lynx is glorious, significantly improving the ability for this component to pose by having multi jointed legs, which include much needed ankle pivots and heel joints, along with functional needs. I also love how designers gave the front legs extra joints to make Lynx (and combined mode) broader at the front. As with the Shuttle, there's a mind boggling number of panel lines and other mechanical details.
Colours are significantly darker than the G1 vewrsion, but I'm pretty sure there's actually more paint on this version of Lynx than the G1 version, including actual paint on the tank treads
Combination of the two parts is as simple as ever, really two points (front and back) with a release lever at the front. Combined mode looks great due to its large size, as well as being cleaner as the front end of the Carrier and point where the neck comes out of the Shuttle actually line up, which was somewhat of a sore point on the original toy.
Lastly, due to its size, Earthrise Skylynx has a base mode to interlink with other figures, forming little communities or whatnot. Unlike other Leader class figures that have "base modes" because someone said so, the mode for Skylynx isn't as bad. Sure, it's still somewhat of random limb display, but the gun pods help and, more importantly, it's really just Lynx that turns into a base - Skylynx the Shuttle is left unaltered, causing the base to be more of a launching pad for the Shuttle than some generic outpost.
So in conclusion, a very worthy successor to the Skylynx name, and a fantastic improvement on the original toy while keeping the aspects of that original toy that made it fun. Base mode is harmless, and to me, is more fun than the other ones I've seen. If you know anything about Skylynx and like the character, this is one upgrade you don't want to miss.