Wednesday 20 July 2016

Titans Return Skytread


Skytread

Like Clobber, Skytread is another character who is known better by a different name, in this case the Duocon Flywheels. Now for a long while I've had this theory that Flywheels and Battletrap are named the wrong way round as there's no moving wheels on Flywheels while there is on Battletrap, who's name would more suit a tank & fighter jet than a van & helicopter. Flywheels is also "due"! Battletrap got a new version at Botcon 2015, a repaint of Generations Springer and at the time many felt that Springer's case mate Blitzwing would make a good new Flywheels, but that never materialised.

Although Flywheels, like wave mates Clobber/Grimlock and Brawn, wasn't initially a Headmaster he was sold in 1988 alongside the Headmasters so if anyone was going to get made a Headmaster, the Duocons, Monsterbots & Clones are prime targets and, if rumours are to be believed, the later two groups also have representatives coming in Titanmasters.

Skytread is a direct colour swap with Terribull: blue becomes a pale brown and grey becomes a raspberry pink. Gone is the paint app on the tank turret, replaced by an all over raspberry pink coating on the jet nose, mimicking Flywheel's red jet. In many ways the tank/jet makes much more sense for Flywheels than Terribull and, like Clobber/Grimlock, I'm guessing this was the original intended use for the toy.

The same colour swaps apply to the Titanmaster, they're not mixing and matching yet like they did with the repaint Powercore Commanders & Minicons yet but I can see that happening later down the line. Like Clobber again Skytread has a new face which has all the major features of Flywheel's face yet somehow looks a little different from the original.

I can see this being the shelf warmer in wave 2: it's not a new mould and it's not a big character like Grimlock. But if you're a fan of the 88 era toys pick it up: the mould is still fun and, as I said, it makes much more sense as Flywheels than Terribull.

1 comment:

  1. I think this will be a good alternate head for BlitzWing.

    ReplyDelete