Skids (G1)


 * Skids is an Autobot from the Generation One continuity family.



Skids is a theoretician. This is appropriate, as some would say his existence is merely theoretical; everyone forgets who he is or that he was there. But if they got to know him, they'd learn that he likes to daydream, get built into furniture, and pick up cowboy chicks.

French-Canadian name: Platon Italian name: Furetto Hungarian name: Szán

Marvel Comics continuity
(Note: events from the Marvel UK comic are in italics.) In the event that the Ark's mission would require more manpower, Optimus Prime had several Autobots encode copies of their personalities as light patterns within crystals, including Skids. When a large number of Prime's troops were then injured during the opening volleys of the war on Earth, Prime arranged for the construction of new bodies, which the personalities were then programmed into, bringing Skids and the others to life "for a second time." Now in a new body that transformed into a blue van, Skids' first mission was to aid in preventing Shockwave from stealing sonic energy from a Brick Springstern concert, and he immediately took a liking to the music of Earth and the possibilities of what could be learned from interacting with mankind.

On the way to raid the Decepticon base, Skids accidentally clipped the car of hot-tempered Jake Dalrymple, who pursued the Autobots on their mission and distracted Skids just enough for Ravage to blast him off a cliff. Lying crippled and unable to transform, Skids was shortly discovered by register girl Charlene, who, thinking he was an ordinary van, had him fixed up with the intent of keeping him for herself. Skids was open to the idea at first, preferring to live a peaceful life to that of a warrior, but after another bout of road rage with Dalrymple, the unearthly stunts he performed left him no option but to reveal his true nature of Charlene. A somewhat unusual relationship ensued between the two, but more trouble soon came Skids's way in the form of Donny Finkleberg, who was being hunted down by Ravage. Fleeing from the Decepticon with Charlene and Donny, Skids hid out at an abandoned mining town, but yet again, the raging Dalrymple tracked him down and shattered his windshield, knocking him unconscious and into a dream where he died through his refusal to attack Megatron and save Charlene. Reawakening, he engaged Ravage in battle again, finally finding the strength to act, and causing his foe to tumble down a mineshaft. Skids then parted ways with Charlene, having come to the realisation that their two roles in life were too different for their relationship to work out. Skids returned to the Ark with Finkleberg, and later embarked on a mission with him to track down a group of missing Autobots who had been captured by the Rapid Anti-robot Assault Team. Unfortunately, money still governed Finkleberg's actions, and he promptly sold out Skids to RAAT's leader Walter Barnett when Skids was deactivated for the night. Skids was disassembled for study, but when the Decepticons Runabout and Runamuck appeared on Earth and began defacing landmarks, RAAT operative Circuit Breaker was forced to enter into a deal with the Autobots to stop them. Skids and the other Autobots' components were combined to form a jury-rigged robot that Circuit Breaker used to stop the Battlechargers, but in return for their co-operation, Skids and the Autobots were allowed to go free. . ''On the return trip to the Ark, however, Skids was abruptly torn from reality when the future Decepticon Galvatron traveled back in time from 2006, shunting Skids into limbo to maintain temporal balance. Skids remained in limbo for two years while Galvatron ran amok on Earth, his mind steadily succumbing to the dream-illusions created by the monstrous creatures native to the realm.''

(Skids was removed from the active Autobots in the UK stories, but not the US ones. Hence, in the US comics he showed up to watch Blaster and Grimlock fight for Autobot leadership on the Moon, some time after Optimus Prime's death (which he was also around for). The UK printings of these stories tended to redraw Skids into a not-Skids robot, or black him out entirely.)

''With Galvatron's eventual destruction during the Time Wars, Skids was finally returned to Earth, but the limbo-creatures had succeeded in shaping a reality from his dreams, and the nightmarish monsters that he had imagined materialised on Earth with him. Fleeing from the beasts, who desired to merge with Skids so that they might become more powerful, Skids lured them into a nuclear power plant which he had planned to detonate, wiping out the monsters and himself, but the remnants of the Autobot Wreckers and Catilla and Carnivac of the Decepticon Mayhem Attack Squad arrived to aid him, defeating the monsters. Skids joined with this group of Transformers, forming the Survivors.''

(Other limbo-displaced beings didn't bring the creatures home with them, but Skids did. This may be because he had spent so long there -- as opposed to the short stays of Optimus Prime and other Transformers -- they had solidified, grown around him, and -- as Optimus Prime theorised whilst in Limbo -- "fashioned a reality from the illusion". Alternatively, it may be due to the unconventional way Galvatron left the twentieth century.)

Grimlock traveled to Hydrus Four to use Nucleon to revive the Dinobots. Returning to the Ark, he also pumped Nucleon into the med bays, reviving Skids and several others and headed towards Cybertron. Grimlock used the Ark as a blunt instrument across Unicron's head, forcing Skids and the others to evacuate and join the battle against the Chaos Bringer.

Animated continuity

 * Voice actors: Michael Chain, Dan Gilvezan (US), Keiichi Nanba (Japan)

Like many of the Autobots who first appeared in 1985, the exact circumstances behind Skids joining the original group of Earth-based Autobots remain unknown. Skids first appeared as part of a strike force that was sent to stop the Insecticons from ravaging a human farm, only to meet with failure. Apparently injured in the battle, Skids underwent some repairs by Hoist upon return to Autobot Headquarters, where he responded incredulously to Bumblebee's report that he had retrieved robotic insecticide from the planet Floron 3 to deal with the Insecticon threat.

Skids's second and final appearance saw him as part of a team sent to investigate bombs that were raining down on the city from a football stadium (the work of the Triple Changer Blitzwing). Blitzwing, however, had the stadium surrounded by a massive maze built by the Constructicons, and while attempting to traverse it, Skids crashed into Prowl and was driven over by tank-mode Blitzwing. Skids and the other Autobots' remains were then gathered by Scrapper who built a throne for himself out of them, but they were soon rescued and quickly rebuilt, and participated in the crises that ensued as Blitzwing, Astrotrain, Megatron and Devastator vied for Decepticon leadership. Following that skirmish, Prowl opined that Optimus Prime was the greatest leader in the universe, which prompted himself, Skids, Bluestreak and Tracks to form themselves into a throne for Prime; Prime refused to sit, saying that thrones were for Decepticons - he'd rather roll.

Universe: Featuring the Wreckers
Skids was among the senior scientists (including Perceptor, Quickmix, and Rad) who questioned Rodimus Prime's plan to send out the best of the remaining Autobot science and research members to establish deep-space reconnaissance posts.

Dreamwave comics continuity
8.2 million years ago, Skids was in the Chamber of Ancients, observing the ceremony in which Optronix was given the Matrix of Leadership and transformed into Optimus Prime. Immediately, three Decepticon assassins attacked, and though Skids acted to protect the new Prime, his arm was cut off by Umbra.

Skids was repaired and he returned to his post at the Decagon. While Prime was absent, Skids picked up radar of incoming Decepticon invaders and a transmission from the force's field commander, Shockwave. Skids manned auto-defenses from inside the Decagon until they and their Omega Sentinel units were destroyed. Picking up their personal weaponry, Skids and the other Autobots were all that was left to defend Iacon, but defend it they did and Shockwave's forces were driven back.

During the Dark Ages, Skids served with Prowl's faction of Autobots.

Skids was not among the Autobots who traveled to Earth aboard the Ark, remaining behind on Cybertron as the planet slipped into the deactivated state known as the Great Shutdown. When Shockwave began reactivating the planet and successfully unified the Autobot and Decepticon factions, Skids was a member of the council of Autobots who served to represent their faction in the alliance. Few of the council members were actually suited for leadership, however, and slowly found themselves giving more and more control to Shockwave. Eventually, the example shown by the Ark's returning crew and several homegrown Autobot insurgency cells tore the blinders from the council's optics, and Skids gathered his fellow councilmen in taking to the streets and ousting the Decepticons from power. Several council members would then accompany Prowl and the former Autobots of Earth back to that planet to construct Autobot City, and Skids may have been among them.

Binaltech
Skids was the first of the Binaltech Autobots created simply with the intent of upgrading an existing, healthy Transformer, rather than in the name of repairing one that had been injured. Outfitted with self-repairing nanomechanical antibodies, Skids's body can, barring heavy damage in battle, theoretically function for thousands of years without maintenance. In both his original and new body, Skids dedicated time to studying the chronal warp on Dinobot Island, which gave rise to the Autobot strategy known as "Operation: Distant Thunder," a last-ditch scheme should the Decepticons tamper with the fabric of space-time. That horror occurred when Ravage used the Kronosphere to alter the timeline, and Skids prepared to initiate the plan and send Wheeljack's memory data back in time to avert the catastrophe.

The data probe was launched, but as the timeline was righting itself a Black Optimus Prime arrived, and manipulated the temporal wave to preserve the Binaltech timeline separate from the original continuity. Possessed by the Spark of the Protector, hailing from some future point in time, Black Optimus informed Skids and the others that their timeline was destined to produce great warriors capable of safeguarding the entire multiverse, and therefore must continue on its new course.

Generation 1

 * Skids (1985)


 * Skids' toy transformed into a blue Honda City Turbo with a red stripe. His robot mode is similar to other hood-chest Autobot transformers, but is unusual in that his rear wheels fold into his feet, aiding in stability. Also unusually for Transformers figures, his two hand weapons actually attach onto his forearms rather than being held in his fists. He is also armed with a spring-loaded rocket launcher.


 * This mold was retooled to make Crosscut.


 * VS-Z Skids
 * released with Buzzsaw and Sunstreaker.


 * Skids was released along with Buzzsaw and Sunstreaker in a special Versus pack. This boxset was only released in Japan and remains a considerable rarity on the secondary market.


 * Transformer Collection Skids (2004)
 * Japanese ID number: 96, TFC-03


 * Skids was reissued by both Takara and Hasbro in 2004. The Hasbro release has a disabled launching mechanism for his rocket launcher.

Alternators

 * Autobot Skids (2005)
 * Alternator ID number: 17
 * Japanese ID number: BT-16


 * Skids transforms into a blue Toyota Scion xB. His robot mode is very reminiscent of his G1 toy, with his head sculpt based off his animation model with G1 toy details. His engine unfolds to become his gun.




 * The US Alternators release differs from the japanese Binaltech release in that it has a much darker shade of blue, tinted windows, and various Scion-type tampographed flame decals. The Japanese release naturally has die cast metal parts, is painted a lighter shade of blue, has different paint decos and includes a sheet of stickers, including flames resembling the ones printed on the Alternators version, as well as some G1-style red stripes, and most humorously a Japanese "New Driver" badge.

Trivia

 * Skids' animation model head appears to be based on early Diaclone promotional concept art. The toy's head would be different.
 * Skids is noteworthy for his almost complete absence from the original television series. He had but two lines in two different episodes by two different voice actors.
 * His bad luck doesn't stop there. Though Skids had an issue all to himself in the Marvel Comics, he spent upwards of 100 (UK) issues abandoned and forgotten in limbo while parasites ate his brain.
 * Though Skids' toy turned into a Honda City Turbo, his car mode was often misinterpreted in Transformers fiction as one of the then-new minivans, despite the fact that a Honda City Turbo is a subcompact car, and as such, could theoretically be stowed in the back seat of an actual minivan.  This is likely because most Americans in 1985 wouldn't know what a subcompact car is.
 * In the Survivors story, Skids was suddenly drawn with Crosscut's head. "Survivors"' artist, Dan Reed, previously drew him with his real head, so it'd be interesting to learn why and how this change happened. (He would later mysteriously regain his own face.)
 * In recent years, toys sporting the name "Skids" require an additional "Autobot" prefix for trademark reasons, hence making the official name "Autobot Skids".