Human Alliance Skids

Skids came today!

What's funny is that I ordered him after Target exclusive Fallen (who will probably be here tomorrow).

Skids here is a bit unfortunate. Oh, he's a great toy and transformer - in fact, I think I like him better than HA Bumblebee, whose praises I (briefly) sang late this summer. Skids is unfortunate because, even though I really like him, he doesn't have that whole "hey I'm the first of a revolutionary great line" thing going on that HA Bumblebee did. But again, out of the three HA releases, Skids really is the best.

First off, he just looks great. His green is a unique color among Autobot cars (and transformers in general) and really makes him "pop" and stand out in a display, especially next to the all-silver/grey Sideswipe. The level of detail shown here is really nice as well - this look slike a living machine. So even if you don't like the Twins' design (particularly their faces), HA Skids is actually quite nice to look at.

Second is the transformation. It's very fun, even if it cheats a bit. Having the seats become the forearm armor is a nice trick. Yes, he's left with a huge backpack, but unlike the deluxe version's, it's very solid and isn't moving around anywhere. Of course, it also has a funciotn - it can support the Mikaela figure so she can man the gatling cannon above Skids's head (which looks just fine deployed with out a human figure as well).

Third - I don't really feel cheated witht this toy even though I shoudl - he's still pretty much deluxe sized (if a bit more massive than most deluxes). This is due to his car mode being so small in comparison to Bumblebee and Sideswipe. To compensate, Skids comes with a small Human Alliance Arcee, who's something between the legends and scout size classes, even though she's as tall as a deluxe in robot mode. This very simple (asn very off-model) toy is a fun inclusion.