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The *ERROR;; packet overflow* One

It's hard to quantify Sky Lynx. He wasn't in the movie, instead introduced with season 3 of the cartoon, he wasn't designed by Hasbro or Takara, he doesn't have a robot mode, and he doesn't have a personality that can be summed up in a single word like the others. Sky Lynx is an oddity. Oh wait, that was a single word summary. Uh, moving on.

It's equally odd that he got so much prominence in season 3. Not the role he took, essentially being the Autobots' answer to Astrotrain, but that he was a tough sell, both as a character and a toy. A space shuttle that unfolded into a sort of bird thing and a slab that unfolded into a slab with legs and a head. You see the problem here, it's not actually all that cool. Buuuut, just like with G1 Springer's toy, being a bit naff doesn't mean something can't be enjoyed, and Sky Lynx's portrayal in the cartoon pretty much gets there. As an absolute egotist, he managed to stay just on the right side of utterly insufferable, in many appearances throughout the show. Unlike, say, Sunstreaker, Sky Lynx actively encourages his comrades to be as awesome as he is. There's something charming there, to be generous with your ego.

Let's be honest, there wasn't much of a chance that Sky Lynx was ever going to get into Generations without a major redesign and a boring robot mode. The design is just too out there, too un-Takara to ever really be practical. So to show up in Combiner Wars as the ultimate wildcard is actually a pretty sharp and sensible move on Hasbro's part, and proves that despite everything else, they still have the capacity to surprise.

And when you get him in hand, you start to see why this was never a great idea. Sky Lynx doesn't so much transform as he just folds up a bit. Going from beast mode into shuttle mode isn't a particularly exciting time as there's nothing new to see. All the shuttle parts were on display as beast parts already, only now they're a little bit more boring. Presumably he needs to be in this mode for proper space flight, and stretches his legs out during his downtime so he can pose dramatically in front of the others. Seems about right.

But since the slab bit and the shuttle bit are now eternally fused together, there's no chance of bird/lynx duocon shenanigans. I can live with that. There's not a whole lot they can do in separate parts that they can't do together, so why bother? Well, the fun of deploying the cargo brick from flight like a badass, actually. That would be cool, but it's not really worth it. Not when the lynx makes a surprise cameo as....

....now that's a combiner. What a curveball. What an absolute swerve to the batshit bonkers side of the tracks. Everything about Sky Reign (for so it is named) is a special kind of crazy. No robot head - those are for losers - instead having a golden lion face with an insane popped collar. The blue takes over as the primary colour, and the rocket engine swings down to become a stonking great chest crest. The only downside is that the shoulders don't have anywhere to properly lock in, so you have to hold them in place when rotating the arms. Annoying to be sure, but compared to Menasor's propensity for every tab to pop apart when you try and move anything, it's still an improvement. Not only that but the hip joints have way more detents in the ratchets, making the legs a hell of a lot easier to pose.

Sure, Sky Lynx was kinda-sorta-maybe associated with the second lot of classic Autobot repaints in CW, but come on. You don't need to be told what to do. Sky Reign is like Galvatronus, Tsarscream and Elita-1 for being a place to take the spare combiner bots you don't have any other place for and give them a good home. Rook, Alpha Bravo, Ricochet, whoever you like. Be creative! Or be like me and use him as a surrogate kitty parent for the dinobots you stubbornly didn't buy the Grimlock for. They make a remarkably coherent whole once you accent them with the HFGs from G2 Menasor.

This is pretty much the last word on Sky Lynx from Hasbro. It's pretty much impossible they'll ever revisit this weirdo again, as he just doesn't fit any regular Transformers aesthetic. Get any thoughts of commander or leader-class versions out of your heads, he's not nearly a popular enough character to pull that off. We were genuinely lucky to even get a voyager-class rendition as deluxes are always guaranteed to sell better. And to have it as an absolutely mental combiner with a cat head, that's meowgnificent.