Skids (G1)
| The name or term "Skids" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Skids (disambiguation). |
Skids is an Autobot from the Generation One universe.
Skids is a theoretician. He likes to daydream, get built into furniture, and pick up cowboy chicks.
He is noteworthy for his almost complete absence from the original television series.
Italian name: Furetto
Fiction
Marvel Generation 1 Comics
(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 bodys, 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's first mission was to aid in preventing Shockwave from steailng 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 life 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 refual 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 travelled 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. 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 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.
Generation 1 Cartoon
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 responding with some degree of disbelief to Bumblebee's report that he had retrieved robotic insecticide 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 Triplechanger Blitzwing). Blitzwing had, however, had the stadium surrounded by a massive maze built by the Construticons, 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 opioned 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.
Dreamwave Generation 1 Comics
Skids was not among the Autobots who travelled 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.
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.
Toys
Generation 1
- Skids
Skids' toy transformed into a blue Honda City Turbo with a red stripe. It did not look at all like a Tylenol. Nor did it look like many cars available at the time in the United States. Perhaps due to this, his car mode was often misinterpreted as one of the then-new minivans in Transformers fiction, 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.
- VS-Z Skids
- released with Buzzsaw and Sunstreaker.
- Transformer Collection Skids
- Japanese ID number: 96, TFC-03
Alternators
- Skids
- Japanese ID number: BT-16
External Links
