When a new $80 "Commander" size class for Transformers was announced last year , just so that a Jetfire toy would be at cartoon scale, the amount of eye-rolling in my reaction was non-zero.  I mean, sweet, new size class, yes, and yeah actually I do like scale, and the Jetfire it produced was actually surprisingly good, but... what else could this new avenue bring us?

Well, David of the past, nuts to you, because this year's Commander Sky Lynx is glorious, actually.  And it's largely due to his size.  He's just... an enviable chonk of Sky Lynx.  He's a big dude!  Well, two big dudes that combine into one bigger dude.  ...fine, one bigger dude that separates into two smaller dudes.  You know what I mean.  He's a lynx.  He's a bird.  He combines into a dragon.  The dragon transforms into a shuttle on a transport.  The shuttle can detach from the transport.  There's a lot going on here!

There's apparently a lot of budget room to work with on an $80 Transformers toy.  Jetfire spent its moolah on a lot of smaller things like hands that disappeared their 5mm ports when the palm opened and little handholds for smaller Transformers to hold onto while Jetfire airdrops them into battle.  There aren't many things exactly like that on Sky Lynx, but he feels like he has a robust budget all the same.  His poseable neck and tail, the ankle rockers on all six of his limbs (the bird has two), the myriad of ways you can pose his wings... Sky Lynx is just impressive.

Because he's a large Earthrise toy, he's got a new base mode.  You unfold the lynx into a shuttle launch pad with multiple ramps!  The ramps each have connectors to attach to other EarthRise base modes.  There's two broad white cannons  you can awkwardly attach to the lynx feet in this mode, helping you pretend these are towers and not, you know, feet.  This is probably the weakest aspect of the whole arrangement.  In lynx or dragon modes, you can attach these cannons to his hips.

One of the biggest joys of Sky Lynx is standing other guys next to him and getting this sense of scale.  Again, he's a big guy, and it's neat to see Optimus Prime small next to him.  Plus, like, huge winged dinosaur thing.  And, yes, his face is just a shuttle cockpit with a jaw, but it still possesses this shocking charisma.  

EarthRise SkyLynx's altmode is actually licensed by NASA.   Like, it's got the NASA logo on there, and on purpose, and he transforms into a very accurate 80's style space shuttle.    His shuttle name is the Magnificence.  Later this summer, there's a pair of Micromasters that transform together into a shuttle which also have the NASA logo printed on them, so Hasbro went for broke this year, NASA-wise.

I'm just always delighted to see this thing on my desk.  I need to eventually put him away where he needs to end up in my display shelves, but he's just gonna be mostly hidden behind so many other guys, and I'll be sad.  I put him there once just to make sure he fit (he did, amazingly), but had to yank him out soon enough so I could love him more.  

Though it's also possible I'm just going mad from being inside for 4 months, I dunno.

Sky Lynx!  When we were kids, my little brother really really wanted Sky Lynx.  Like, he had an incalculable yearning.  I mean, think about it: Sky Lynx was a shuttle that split into a lynx and a bird, and the lynx and the bird combined into a dragon.  Oh, and it could walk.  You put in batteries and the damned thing walked by itself.  You can see the appeal, right?

So then I got Sky Lynx for my birthday from our grandparents.  I opened the thing up in front of my poor brother.  Back then, my grandparents liked to get a smaller present for the Other Sibling (our sister was not born yet or was too young to care) on the other's birthday so they wouldn't feel completely left out because that's the kind of spoiling-riffic stuff you can do as a grandparent, and so there is this amazing photo of my brother limply pointing to his also-ran BraveStarr toy he opened up that day, a very visible inner brokenness deepset within his face.

Decades later, I'd buy him the Japanese reissue.  It was the least I could do.

But this Sky Lynx is mine!  His shuttle mode no longer splits up into lynx and bird modes, instead going straight to dino-dragon, and obviously he doesn't self-walk anymore.  He does, however, become a torso for Combiner Wars limbs to connect to and become Sky Reign.  Not a terrible trade-off.  

Space shuttles -- at least the ones we sent up into space for years -- aren't a thing anymore, being all retired and whatnot, and so probably relatedly Sky Lynx is a very liberal interpretation of one.  He's got little forward-swept wings on his back end.  He's got a weird pattern of windows and little tiny wing horns near the cockpit.  The crawler-transporter is still there, and since Sky Lynx is no longer a proper real-life shuttle, I guess it's actually now just a part of his generic space shuttle mode.  As mentioned above, it does not detach.  It's not even all connected down there in the middle, so even if you tried disassembling the toy you'd have a scattering of disjointed blue parts.

Though in dragon mode Sky Lynx no longer walks, he does have a little more articulation than before.  His forelegs (not the back) can splay outwards.  He's got bicep and thigh swivels, and you can move them yourself without breaking the toy, like you were liable to in the 80s.  I swear, that old plastic was made from crusty old cheese.  The original toy had a few joints in his neck (necessary for transformation), but I don't think it could look to and fro, so that's new.  Out the back, just barely, is a tiny version of his original tailfin-ended tail.  It's barely visible from most angles, but I'd say it's vestigial.  Attach the two sword weapons to it, and you get a properly-lengthed tail.  The original tail is probably there just for purists.

The torso mode is where you find this toy's only real deficiency.  Unlike the other torsos in Combiner Wars, Sky Lynx's shoulders do not seem to secure in any way, and so you have to hold them in place while you articulate his arms or else the shoulders move with them.  But this mode is where his lynx head ended up, so you kind of forget this annoyance when you behold his splendor.  

The two swords combine into a longer sword, because of course they do.