Human Alliance Skids & Arcee

OK, by this point, I am reasonably certain that this is actually the last - the very last - Revenge of the Fallen figure in my collection, at least until Studio Series adds something worthwhile from that film. As with Mudflap, this toy had been languishing, largely forgotten, in a box for years. The photos I had taken have been awaiting upload from my computer for more than ten years.

Skids and Mudflap were referred to in RotF as 'the twins', but their Deluxe Class toys were surprisingly different, given the limitations of the size class. They had broadly similar Mech Alive gimmicks, but the specifics of their operation were quite different. Their transformations had similar aspects, but their weapon features were wholly unique. The craziest thing about the Human Alliance versions is that they're even more similar in terms of their underlying engineering, despite the (marginally) larger size versus the Deluxe class toys.

So, let's take a look at this much-maligned character, and see how he fares in this underutilised format.

Vehicle Mode:

Given that Human Alliance Skids really isn't much bigger than his Deluxe class toy, it's no surprise that he has similar placement for his transformation seams... though, curiously, this version has fewer of them. That's often a bad sign, suggesting that the robot mode is going to end up with half the car's shell on his back, which was certainly the case with HA Mudflap.

Still, vehicle mode looks as good as a toy Chevy Beat can look... and it's certainly not as ugly as the Trax. Still, as small cars go, it's fairly nondescript except for the rather violent green colouring of the plastic and its faint pearlescent shimmer. In terms of sculpted detail, there's really not much to choose between this and the Deluxe. As far as I can see, the only unique detail on this version is the 'BEAT' logo sculpted onto the rear hatch, to the left of the Chevy logo. One thing the Deluxe has that is not present on this larger version is a pair of panel lines tracking up from the numberplate's recess to the rear window.

The paint job here is rather more complete than on the Deluxe class toy, obviously, though the differences are quite subtle. Black paint has been applied over the rear wheel well on each side, and is extended along the bottom edge to meet the black plastic part below the doors. The lights embedded in the bumper are picked out with silver paint and their mountings have a dash of black in the corner. The main lights, front and rear, are translucent blue plastic and, while the inner parts of the rear lights are unpainted - they just have blobs of red paint on the outside to represent the brake lights - the headlights are backed with silver paint and each features a couple of stripes of orange for the indicators. Neither the numberplate nor the Chevrolet logo on the back are painted, but the embossed text of the numberplate is highlighted in black, and the logo in the front is rimmed with silver paint. The frame of his main grille at the front and the rims of each wheel are painted silver, while the design painted on each side is naturally more intricate than the version on the Deluxe.

The doors are a little tricky to open - they're a very snug fit - but they open into an interior that's remarkably similar to that of HA Mudflap, just that the weaponised seat is on the passenger side. The simple dashboard and steering wheel appear to be basically identical to Mudflap's, and he even has the same miniature Gatling folded down in the middle.

So, overall, functionally on a par with Mudflap, but slightly prettier and, while Skids' feet also hang out below the rear bumper, they don't look as out of place and obvious because they're smaller, simpler and molded in grey plastic - almost like chunky exhaust pipes.

Robot Mode:

Skids' vehicle mode may be marginally prettier than Mudflap's, but their robot modes are unmistakably alike, except in colour and in the details mostly carried over from vehicle mode. Unlike the Deluxe, the grille on his chest is fake detail, covered over in vehicle mode by the real grille. With the exception of the egregious backpack, his proportions are much better than the Deluxe, but using much the same engineering as his brother means that his car doors become wings, which the Deluxe class toy manage to avoid. Strange - though almost certainly not unprecedented - for a larger-scale toy to be the less accurate one... Still, if folded straight back, the doors become less obtrusive... but they do extend back further than his sizeable backpack.

But while his proportions may be better than the Deluxe, they're still not quite right. The legs seem a touch too long, or at least far too slender in the thigh, and the arms look as awkward as ever. The head seems rather small on the body and, as with Mudflap, it's positioned quite far forward on the upper body, exacerbating the hunchbacked, forward-leaning appearance. The feet appear to be based on the same (outdated) artwork as the Deluxe class toy, as the design of the 'toe' part is quite similar, and neither match the look of the CGI. Surprisingly, the sculpt of his shin and upper thigh is unique, rather than duplicating Mudflap's parts, though the parts that make up the knee joint appear to be identical. Similarly, his pelvis has a completely different and simpler design, while the hinged panels that make up the inner part of his torso from the waist to the neck are the same apart from the Beat's unique grille design. There's also an obvious glitch in the colouration toward the shoulders: since the bonnet is black plastic, the flaring collar parts are black, while the CGI had them miraculously turn green.

Although the engineering of the arms is largely the same between the twins, the precise details are different for two reasons: the main play gimmick is attached to his right arm, while Mudflap's was on his left, and Skids' shoulders are chunkier because they play host to his vehicle mode wheels. The right arm, while bulkier, features the same hollowness on the inside, but the car seat is arranged such that one of the human figures can actually be sat operating his spring-loaded missile launcher, where Mudflap's ended up facing backward, up his arm.

The spring-loaded missile launcher has a simple, nondescript sculpt and a large trigger button sitting in line with his thumb, roughly where a human figure's left shin would end up, if seated on that arm. Even for the time, it's a surprisingly powerful spring, capable of propelling the missle a good few feet. Between the two, I think I prefer Skids' spring-loaded launcher to Mudflap's rather disappointing grappling hook... though his other arm doesn't even feature a sculpted weapon in the back of the seat. What he does have is another feature carried over from Mudflap: the gatling gun that can flip up behind the head. This can be operated by one of the human figures, which can peg onto a platform concealed in his backpack, and grasp the handles on the sides of the gun. I think it would have been nice for Skids to have a unique overhead weapon, but I guess Hasbro felt that his spring-loaded launcher should be enough for most fans.

When I wrote about Mudflap, I said his was the ugliest head design in Bayverse but, let's face it, there's not much to choose between him and Skids. They both look like Gremlins made out of scrap metal, and Skids is lumbered with a bug-eye and a pair of protruding front teeth. Given his colouring, the closest analogy these days would be "if baby Yoda was addicted to crystal meth". He has touches of green paint in all the right places, but his 'ears' are only painted on the fronts. His gold tooth is painted, but the other is the bare grey plastic of the rest of the head. As with Mudflap, he also has the mouth-movement gimmick, whereby pressing down on his tufts of metallic hair causes his lower jaw to open. Unlike Mudflap, his eyes are not painted over, and the light piping is active, albeit sorely limited by having the mouth-flapping gimmick run through the middle of the transparent blue plastic part embedded in the head.

Unlike the Deluxes, HA Skids' transformation is functionally identical to Mudflap, with the only differences being in the chest, where Skids is far tidier, doesn't have thin sections from above the wheel wells getting in the way of his arms, and doesn't have the absolute headache of manoeuvring his front wheels inside his body. Instead, the small section between the wheel well and the wing mirrors gets folded down on top of the shoulder, which carries the front wheels. Both have the outer edges of the bonnet popped up at an angle around the collar, both have the shell of the car collapsed down into a pouch on their backs, into which the human figures can be inserted, and all the limbs transform out in much the same way, though the weaponised arm on Skids is his right, rather than his left.

Since the engineering on this toy is virtually the same as Mudflap's, Skids' articulation is basically the same as well. Obviously the arms don't have to navigate around thin strips of car panelling, so they have a freer 360° rotation around the shoulder, but the increased mass of his shoulders reduces their outward range without the use of the transformation joints. The arms are jointed the same, albeit mirrored, so his right hand has pinned fingers and thumb for articulation, and the bicep and elbow joints are easily up to the task of having him point his wrist-mounted, spring-loaded missile launcher. Waist articulation is hindered by the same piece of internal framework as Mudflap, but he has the same range of movement in his hips (mostly unhindered to the front and sides, but they bash up against his backpack fairly quickly when moved backward), the same double-jointed knees, and the same articulation of his 'toes' and 'heels'... though I'm fairly sure that his heels are more cooperative than those on his brother's HA toy, and I've had much less difficulty getting him into interesting poses as a result.

Arcee:

As mentioned in my write-up of HA Mudflap, the miniature Chromia toy basically crumbled in my hands when I finally got round to the write-up. Thankfully, Arcee - who's actually using an interpretation of Chromia's design, in a curious, washed-out orangy-red plastic for the most part - has held up far better... though that's possibly because she has fewer ball joints. The design is much simplified, and her head sculpt is completely inaccurate - resembling Nightbird from the G1 cartoon rather than anything out of the movies.

Bike mode looks decent enough, though it sorely lacking in paintwork - the exhaust pipes are covered with gunmetal paint, but everything else is bare plastic, with grey and black supplementing the base colour. At least the sculpted detail is excellent, albeit slightly muddled by the robot's arms sticking out a bit just in front of the rear wheel. There's a touch of gunmetal paint on her face, but that's the extent of it.

Her transformation is incredibly simple - she basically just breaks apart and unfurls at the middle, via the grey hinge on each side, once the arms are unpegged. She stands fairly well in robot mode thanks to an oversized mudguard on the front wheel, which swings underneath it to act as a stable 'foot'. This does means she's stuck standing up straight, as the body has no real poseability in its joints, but the arms do fairly well... even if the left arm itself is stuck at a weird angle due to the way it transforms.

Mikaela Banes:

The human figures included with the Human Alliance series are very variable in quality. Sam Witwicky and Agent Simmons had a reasonable likeness to their actors, while Epps and Lennox were pretty terrible... and, sadly, Mikaela is in the latter group. Her sculpt is based on her costume from the end of the movie, but the pink pattern on her jacket has been simplified to a consistent, but super-pale pink colouring of the part that wraps around her torso, while her sleeves are stark white. Everything from the waist down to the boots is painted white, giving her trousers a peculiar sheen.

The face sculpt is utterly nondescript, with very sloppy painting of the face (bleeding over into her hair) and the eyes (making her look very cartoonish), and the designers went a bit overboard on her makeup. She's not the worst HA figure, but she certainly looks nothing like Megan Fox.

There's something incredibly sad about looking back at the Human Alliance toyline at a point when the TransFormers Collaborative line is producing analogous GI Joe crossovers, all of which so far have been absolute crap, and overpriced with it. I never picked up any of the smaller HA figures, most of which were more combat-oriented, but even they were better designed than the likes of HISS Tank Megatron, Thunder Machine Soundwave and AWE Striker Bumblebee.

All the more sad is the fact that the Human Alliance line made decent toys out of two of the most hated Bayverse characters. It says something about the strength of the toyline that that was even possible. Skids is definitely better than Mudflap overall, mostly because he's far less fiddly, but both of them are surprisingly good toys, and great examples of the Human Alliance concept in practice. While I'm not a GI Joe fan, as such, I'd be much more inclined to look favourably upon those TF Collaborative figures if they'd been engineered even half as well as Human Alliance.

Given the way engineering has been simplified and plastic quality has deteriorated over the last couple of years, I'm far less optimistic now about Hasbro revisiting this concept in future than I was when I wrote about Mudflap last year... and, even if they did, I suspect the toys would end up with miserly paintjobs, at a ridiculously inflated pricepoint, while being more prone to falling apart. It really does suggest that the TransFormers brand reached its apogee in the mid-to-late 2000s, and that we'll never see its like again... at least under the current management.