no doubt the subject of this week's episode would find it outrageous that this series has been allowed to run this long without covering his storied history these are the basics on the autobot space shuttle who's convinced he's just playing better than everyone else skylinks the original skylinks toy was first released in 1986 like most of the transformers toy line up to that point the toy was a pre-existing design that hasbro had licensed from a japanese company in this case one called toybox however toybox had never actually released the figure themselves so its inclusion in the transformers line marked its first time on shelves definitely one of the most unusual figures in the original toy line skylinks was a single transformer who could divide himself into two components a space shuttle which transformed into a dinosaur-like bird monster and a crawler transporter on top of which the shuttle fitted which transformed into a robotic big cat though in practice transformers media tended to treat the transporter more like a sort of cargo pod that remained attached to the shuttle even while it was in flight the two beasts could combine into a dragon like super robot referred to by some sources as dino blast mode which would generally be presented as skylinks's standard robot mode the crawler component was motorized allowing the toy to roll forward in vehicle mode or march into action in beast mode now there's some evidence to suggest that skylinks might have originally been conceived as a decepticon character but this idea was dropped and he was instead characterized as the fearless and daring lieutenant commander of the autobots full of energy always ready to spring into action but also a boastful egotistical bot who believed himself superior to all those around him the commercial for the skylinks toy presented him as a rival for the decepticon combiner team the predacons and it was in this capacity that he was introduced into the transformers animated series debuting at the beginning of the show's third season to rescue autobot's blur and wheelie and human ally marissa fairborne after they were stranded on jupiter's moon io where he trounced the predacons in combat he went on to appear regularly throughout the season serving as space transport for the autobots and clashing with the predacons again constantly singing his own praises all the while much to the annoyance of his comrades save your ammunition autobots superior forces are taking over well well commander modesty's here some of his most famous adventures saw him lead an alliance of animal transformers against the energy being tornadron and aid one of the alien quintessons in bringing optimus prime back to life in the marvel comic book meanwhile skylinks was an old friend of wheeljax who came to earth at the request of his buddy to help the autobots depose their tyrannical new leader grimlock skylink's comic book adventures often landed him in trouble with aliens such as when he was forced into performing at the intergalactic traveling circus the cosmic carnival or when he was almost eaten by the metal-munching mccannibles now it seems like the comics creative team didn't really understand how skylinks's toy worked as the series incorrectly depicted him as sort of a triple changer who transformed from bird to cat instead of splitting in two after skylinks's toy was discontinued in 1988 he quietly faded from view and he wouldn't be heard from again until the 21st century when hasbro began reusing his name at random on a variety of new characters unrelated to the original as a way to keep their trademark on the name active strangely all the new bots to bear the skylink's name introduced during these years were evil ones including a minicon cargo plane from 2005's transformer cybertron a decepticon jet from the live-action movie universe featured in the transformers 3d battle card game in 2007 and most prominently a predacon released in the transformers prime toy line in 2013 a recolor of fellow predacon sky stalker from the same series this skylinks bore the most resemblance to the original being a winged dragon in white red and blue but that was about where the similarities ended though they shared a name with the original skylinks's old rivals the predacons of this series were also completely different characters they were clones of ancient cybertronian reptiles grown in a lab by decepticon scientist shockwave from fossilized remains as seen in the transformers prime animated series this skylinks was something of the straight man to his snickering fellow prada clone dark steel he served the decepticons until shockwave's first predacon clone the rebellious preda king defeated the pair in battle and made them swear loyalty to him then led them in helping the autobots defend cybertron against the dark god unicron prime's 2015 sequel series robots in disguise went on to detail how starscream later used the hidden arsenal of the decepticon fortress dark mount to destroy the two turncoats although he hadn't been on toy store shelves or tv screens the original skylinks hadn't been forgotten during these years with a handful of minor media appearances here and there including dreamweave productions comic books in which he was hijacked by the decepticons while in shuttle mode and idw publishings comics in which he was part of an earth-based autobot unit involved in a series of battles centered around the ancient cybertronian relic the enigma of combination besides the prime predacon his colours also inspired an exceptionally rare japanese exclusive recolor of the transformer cybertron scourge toy given away as a contest prize in tv magazine in 2005 but the original skylinks himself wouldn't get a new toy until 2016 when one was released as part of the combiner wars toy line this new figure didn't split into two components like the original transforming straight from shuttle to dino blast mode instead it could combine with any four compatible figures from the series to form the links headed super robot skyrim the toy line paired skylinks with hound smokescreen trail breaker and wheeljack but when the team was released in japan smokescreen was swapped out for ratchet an even more different combination would be seen when skyrian was briefly featured in idw's comics after galvatron succeeded in acquiring the enigma of combination and used its powers to temporarily enslave and fuse skylinks with cosmos thundercracker sunstreaker and slugslinger until they were freed by the aerial bots in 2020 another new skylinks toy was released in the transformers earthrise toy line this one a faithful update of the original complete with both combining components plus the transporter could now also transform into a launch base for the shuttle this new toy inspired skylinks's return to television in netflix's tie-in earthrise cartoon in early 2021 this series detailed how long ago before optimus prime became autobot leader skylink's ego was so great that he believed he should be the next bearer of the matrix of leadership and demanded that its guardian alpha trion bestow it upon him for his arrogance alphatryon banished skylinks to the void of nothingness known as the dead universe his exile in this realm taught skylink's humility and years later when a space bridge explosion transported a group of autobots and decepticons into his prison he put his new wisdom to use counseling a struggling optimus prime then sacrificed his life intercepting a decepticon attack to buy the autobots time to escape back to reality a big bot with a memorably weird look and a personality that ensures that even if you don't like him you won't forget him skylinks has also recently been appearing in the pages of idw's new rebooted comic book series with all his usual self-important bluster and while you're keeping yourself busy waiting for the next time he deions to show up and grace us with his peerless presence just remember the advice of the bot himself before you do anything ask yourself is this what skylinks would do in your position and you won't go far wrong and those are the basics on skylinks do you think he lives up to his own hype or is he a little bit too much for you share your opinion in the comments don't forget to subscribe for more transformers history and lore and you can support the series on patreon to get early access to new episodes [Music]
TRANSFORMERS: THE BASICS on SKY LYNX
