Good day, my liege! Shall we Siege?
So yes, Transformers Generations colon War for Cybertron trilogy colon Siege is well
underway and seems to be mostly keepin' it mainstream by rollin' out the biggest faces
from the highest places. It does feel like an odd choice then for the only Deluxe Decepticon
in the entire first two waves to be Skytread, some largely forgotten Z-list zeroface formerly
known as Flywheels and best remembered for that one time he died immediately. That is,
it WOULD have felt like an odd move, had his botmode bisection bro Battletrap not just
made his commanding comeback and blown all our butts off not ten months past!
So what do you say we double down on the Duocon redo-o-con with a full-on Flywheels family feedbag!
Yes indeed, time for some Treaducation!
So we begin as we always seem to these days with a close-in on the 1987 Transformers catalogue
and a slow zoom on the Duocons, which I really don't feel like explaining again. But for
me Flywheels was very much the Andrew Ridgely of the group, like he never quite made it
out of Battletrap's shadow, blendin' into the background like so much brown smoke with
his pooier colours and stodgier silhouette, formed from a drab little plain-jane jetplane
and a bummed-out battle tank.
But y'know chaboy can't resist that
And while he is definitely a naff one, he's an affable kind of naff.
Like check it out, he's packin'
a host of classically Decepticony hallmarks! The head straight-up kicks ass with its rad
Blitzwingy visor, I'm feelin' that semi-Seekery chest chunk, and he even gets one over on
Battletrap by actually having arms! He's also good for a giggle or two, like, his humongous
mono-wedge pointy feet have got no rhythm and honestly I'm deeply uncomfortable around
that lewd little groingun. So, y'know what, Flywheels is just as beguiling as any of the
mid-to-late-G1 dorkatrons I'm always bangin' on about. I just couldn't see it 'cos all
these years he's been cloaked away behind this impenetrable colour miasma of pure boring.
We could have been so good together.
And that was your lot for Flywheels for a decade or three! I mean it's not like he's the kinda
guy with the staying power to show up in Alternators or get reissued, or... y'know, the same thing
I said about Battletrap. And Pounce & Wingspan. And Punch-Counterpunch. It's one of those.
We've been here before, is what I'm saying. Welcome to the show.
But he did pop his head out the one time in the relatively recent Titans Return, when
this little Titanmaster tankjet jitterbugged into my heart! Yes indeed, Flywheels put in
a surprise pocket-sized Prime Wars cameo under the fresh and somewhat more fitting name of Skytread!
So the skyguy himself is yer typical Titanmaster teenygeezer. Just the tiniest guy who ever did fly,
in a slightly livelier version of the traditional Flywheels colour blend. I
I call it
And he crumples up into a mildly marvellous portable Generations
version of his own face, which you can happily wham onto any one of the Titan bods, but his
creamy chocolate styles only seem to work on select ones, like the ones that are already
brown, or the ones that look good with everything anyway. He also doesn't seem super on board
with the flight mode. Like, because of that cheeky helmet hump he can't seem to quite
settle into it like Terri-Bull does. Still though, he does look super sweet as a tiny version
of himself driving his own tank mode, and at the time this felt like properly crucial!
This was the only mainline Duocon character representation since actual G1!
Could you believe it?
Anyway, then Battletrap happened and then Siege kicked off and then it was now. Let's do this!
So yeah, it was up to Skytread to awkwardly open the show on Siege as the first Deluxe
Decepticon in the whole War For Cybertron Trilogy, like some oblivious toddler who blundered
out into the spotlight before the curtain lifted on the actual stars. But come on, he's
trying! And he does kinda bring that bad guy baditude as a fierce fresh figure that definitely
delivers a satisfyingly straight-forward Generationisation of his dusty old Duobod., packin' all his
military motifs and trademark touches, right down to his daft pointy feet and obnoxious
popped collar! It is kinda heartwarming in a weird way to see old Tready Roosevelt so
rigorously redone with such sincerity! And I love that with such an intense level of
detail and action figure legitimacy he somehow still doesn't look badass! You just don't
expect a Decepticon robotank warplane deathtrooper to be so non-threatening. Like, he is definitely
crushin' the look with his broad beefy bod and hefty cardboard box shins, but it just
all gets cancelled out by his giant vulnerable visor and clumsy demeanour.
Anyway, posin's just shy of the full package, like he can move when he needs to, but I feel
like those massive galoshes could have used a bit of sideways ankle action, and the waist
joint keeps getting' coccyx-blocked by his ass-mounted kibble fish. Colours are a problem,
'cos it's maroon and it's brown and it's grey and I am nodding off! And yes, that's what
Flywheels is supposed to look like, but "G1 Accurate" is not always a compliment.
But anyway, as a Siege lad, lil Judge Tread's boastin' a brace of burgundy blasters, and
check it out, you can bang the baby one in the big bastard's bum-end to build this badass
behemoth boomstick! He's also well up on all the Siege business, like he can Cog it up
good with his hefty quota of full-body weapon ports - I call them
Definitely half-arsed it on the damage detail though, barely bringin' in some silver scrapes around
the ankles. Come on, either do it or don't!
But on the whole, lil Tready Vedder's roboboy mode really is way cooler than it has any
right to be! It just nails the Flywheels feels and shows us what a Duocon can really do-o-con!
And yeah, next to the other Siege superstars I guess he's not the coolest robot around,
but come on, what a glow-up!
[MURDEROUS SLUDGY DJENT GROOVE]
Transformation's all pretty basic but it feels pretty cool to see how they've made ol' Tread
Flintstone work with a manual transformation, like there's no sproingy automorph bollocks
on the go so you gotta get in there and make it happen!
And check it out, he transforms into his own little battle squad! They're both kinda cute
I guess, with adorable demi-deluxe proportions and some pretty wild sculptin' on the go,
but neither's really got a lot goin' on.
Like check out the plane portion, it's definitely a feisty little one! Just a funky lil no-frills
jetplane japester with some appreciably sharp styles and this comically tiny tailfin . Colours
are actually pretty kickass now they've dialled down the brown! Like the crimson looks killer
with these swish silver spots and the big blue bug-eye's just bangin! But he really
ain't slick with his massive stupid arms tucked underneath like a dumbass.
Slightly sloppier sitch with the trouser tank I'm afraid. I mean it definitely does look
like Flywheels's bum end, but it's just all a bit of a shambles! I do love the lumpen
shape of it, and the treads look pretty heavy, but like, the chunky bit doesn't seem to want
to line up super tight, the gun doesn't always wanna snug in there right, and like, I dunno
about you but I prefer it when a tank does the twisty turret thing.
I guess what do you want from half a Deluxe?
So they do both feel a smidge undersold and, real talk, they're very little more than a
G1 re-do for the sake of a G1 re-do, but that's where Siege comes in! Check it out, they can
both get their warface on in spectacular style and rack up laser guns and whatever until
they basically become accessories for Cog, which honestly is probably more to Cog's credit,
but I'm still countin' it! So yeah, there's actually a decent amount of fun to be squozen
out of this plucky lil one-man gang! You just gotta get creative!
And, y'know. Buy most of the toyline.
So I guess lil Tready Mercury was always gonna be something of a wild card! He's precisely
the charming little crowd-filling chump I wanted him to be.
And like, how great is it to have both Duocon bros revamped and back in the game after thirty-somethin'
years! As if this even happened! And if anything, Tready Krueger even seems to have come out
of the whole thing a bit better! Like the robot just makes more sense, he's got the
right colour arms, and his chunkier waistline just looks healthier. He kinda makes Battletrap
look like some failed bodybuilder who just discovered Photoshop. But it is kinda confounding
that Skytread didn't get to do the two-dudes thing. I dunno if I'd say it's disappointing,
but it's just way less fun, y'know? I mean the best he can do is swap out his khakis
for Battletrap's jeans or like, do a solo trousers post-DJD mode.
But in the end I'm all right with it, cos they both have A Thing now! Like they're not
just "same gimmick, different style". It gives Battletrap the distinction of being the guy
who got turned into two guys and makes that even more special, while Skytread gets the
absolute honour of being the one true Generations Duocon who kept it real and stuck to his roots,
who stayed committed and gave the Duocon dynasty a decidedly dynamite upgrade!
And if you ask me, that's pretty fly for a shite guy.
Whay! Big thanks to Chris Winburn for sendin' Siege Skytread my
way, and serious cheers to Atticus Tsai-McCarthy for his longtime patronage! Peace!
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Robocentric vocabugasm.