I have very fond memories of the Christmas of 1989. It was the year I got my 8-bit NES and my first two games, Super Mario Bros. as well as Wizards & Warriors. It was also the first year I got into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and after watching the show for a while I decided to collect the action figures, so I ended up getting Krang and Baxter Stockman under the tree as well. And, finally, even though the Transformers toy line was slowly winding down, I was still a loyal fan, and I put a couple of the bigger toys on my wish list that year like Skystalker and Skyhopper. It was a fun holiday season, and I have vivid memories of munching on Reese's miniature cups while trying desperately to get Mario and Kuros to jump the way I wanted them to, mashing the Nintendo controller buttons until my thumbs hurt, and tensing my abdominal muscles with each jump until they were actually sore. Good times.

However, the reality was that Transformers toys with no media representation just weren't as much fun. Skystalker was one of the toys I ended up selling off as a young adult, when I was more worried about making that month's rent than clinging to non-media toys representing characters I had never come to truly love. I came to regret it, but it had sure seemed like a good idea at the time! (I kept Skyhopper, though. I'm not sure what that says about me, or either of the two toys in question.)

I started my journey to complete my G1 collection in 2020, and I don't really go in any kind of specific order. I maintain a list on my computer of what I'm still looking for, with approximate market prices, but I'll jump around randomly. (I'm kind of saving some of the heavy hitters for last, since it will be easier to justify to myself spending $200 on Roadbuster or even more than that on Targetmaster Scourge, if I rationalize that it's literally the last G1 toy I need to complete the entire set. Yes, I play these mental games with myself.)

Anyway, I've known for a while that Skystalker was going to be an expensive one. A complete, unbroken toy tends to sell for around $180-$200. I would presume that fewer consumers were buying the 1989 toys, and the production run was probably smaller, too. Also, he's almost Omega Supreme like in the way he breaks apart into many smaller parts. It's common to find Skystalker vehicles that are stripped down and missing pretty much everything. One further problem is that his right wing tends to break at the hinge. I don't know why it's the right wing and not the left, but you can find plenty of left wings on eBay but never the right wing. It's weird.

So I wasn't going after this toy specifically, but it had been a couple of years since I'd checked market prices so I was poking around looking at Skystalker auctions. I found one that was incomplete, with badly-applied stickers, with a top bid of something like $22. I knew it would end up selling for a little more than that, but I was hoping that the awful stickers would be a turn-off for some people. Also, he was missing his ramps, and his right wing did have some damage. I get the impression collectors will pay more for one-stop shopping, and they don't want to have to go chasing missing pieces and replacement broken parts to build a complete unit. Hell, sometimes I'll look at an auction for a toy I've never owned, like Countdown or somebody, and I'll have no idea what a complete toy even looks like. But, I'd owned Skystalker before, so I knew he had everything I needed except for a couple of ramps.

I punched in a top bid of something like $50, because ultimately I was buying a junker and I knew I'd be pouring a little more money into it than that.. Got him for $25.49. Just the Micromaster alone would have probably cost me that much! What a score. Eventually I feel like my luck is going to run out. So, when you guys give me crap for (eventually) spending $200 on Octopunch or Doubleheader, remember that there's a yin for every yang, okay?

So, I get the impression that every Transformers product year had an Autobot toy and a Decepticon toy that were intended as the leaders for that year. It wasn't always Optimus Prime and Megatron, of course, since they were killed off and replaced in 1986, and didn't come back until later. And, I'm not talking about toys like Bludgeon or Thunderwing, who I think were assumed Decepticon leader status by Marvel Comics, and not by Hasbro themselves.. My thinking is that the biggest toys were usually the leaders by default.. Fortress Maximus and Scorponok were probably intended to be the leaders for 1987. In 1988, we got Optimus Prime back, but I've always thought of Doubledealer as his counterpart, who was also a Powermaster and the biggest individual Decepticon for that year.

With that said, I think the leaders for 1989 might actually have been Countdown and Skystalker. Skystalker's tech specs give him a Rank of 9, and he's described as a power-hungry despot who can't wait for the day he's in charge of everything. So, I think he would have overthrown Scorponok or Doubledealer or whoever was in charge before he came along. But, we'll never know for sure.

So the Micromaster component of Skystalker (which is arguably erroneously named) is a unique mold, not available anywhere else within the toy line. As a vehicle, he's a bright orange Porsche 911, the same type of vehicle as Nightbeat, though the lines of his car mode are interrupted by the tremendous hinge on his hood, and the robot toes poking out of the top of the roof. Since the boxed Micromasters got stickers, he is adorned with an honest-to-gosh Decepticon symbol on his hood, as well as decorative grey stickers for his spoiler.

He transforms like Roadhandler or Stakeout, with the hood flipping behind his back and the back of the car unfolding to become the legs. As a robot, he's got a light purple body, black upper legs, and orange arms and feet, with a yellow-painted face and eyes. He's got what look like lasers or missile pods flanking either side of his head, and he's got a helmet with a dramatic head crest, reminiscent of Prowl or Galvatron. His arms are a bit on the short side, but he's a cool Micromaster, one of my favorites from G1.

It really bothers me that he's named after the vehicle he pilots, though, and that "Skystalker" does in no way, shape, or form describe the little car that he turns into. He's an itty bitty Porsche. He isn't stalking the sky, or doing anything else in the sky. (Many years ago, ATT poster Merytneith wrote some fun fan fiction about the Micromasters and actually came up with a good explanation as to why a car was calling himself Skystalker. That was the newsgroup back in its heyday! Good times. I hope Mery is doing well.)

The Skystalker vehicle is a fantasy design meant to evoke the NASA Space Shuttle in broad strokes, only with more futuristic styling. It would definitely not be mistaken for Sky Lynx or Astrotrain. It's actually two separate vehicles, with the larger of them mostly light grey with dark grey wings and a turquoise cockpit. It's got four guns, two mounted to the nose and two more underneath the main wings. The detachable shuttle pod, which connects to the top of the space shuttle, is mostly blue with grey wings, and a couple of non-removable grey guns mounted to the front. (Hmm, it's supposed to have a black dual-barreled aft cannon as well, but I didn't get that piece. So it was missing a little more than just the ramps, apparently.) A Micromaster figure can ride in either cockpit, though the small shuttle pod has no canopy glass to speak of.

The space shuttle transforms into an assault base, mostly accomplished by turnign the shutle upside-down and opening up various panels to turn it into an assymetrical station with a main ramp, a control panel, and an elevated platform. The main wings fold up, ostensibly to serve as battle shields, and guns plug into them in the same spot. The small shuttle pod flips upside-down and connects to the space shuttle nose to form a command tower with a gunner station, usng the dual lasers and attaching a couple more guns to the folded-up pod wings. (The small pod relies entirely upon the strength of two small black struts to support it. It's not a great design.)

The finished base could reasonably be manned by five Decepticon Micromasters, if one sat in the gunner station, another occupied the elevated platform, a couple were in the control station, and a final trooper stood upon the rear section as a lookout. The control station is interesting in that it includes a foot-peg for a Micromaster, and seems designed for a Decepticon to be partly hidden, as if it were a technological foxhole. There's a peg-hole for a weapon, but no dedicated gun, so it's likely they would have to borrow a gun from somewhere else on the base, or maybe get one on loan from Skyhopper or somebody. Aside from the main access ramp, there are also two side ramps to allow easy access for ground-based Decepticons. Also, the ramps will connect to any other Micromaster bases (whether they're Decepticons or, heaven forbid, Autobots).

Pretty much all the stickers used for the 1989 product year were total garbage. Doesn't matter whether it was Crossblades or Groundshaker or Pretender Bumblebee—the metallic foil would peel away freely from the paper backing almost immediately after application, even just from casual handling. So, I knew I was going to be replacing Skystalker's stickers, regardless. I've got some coming from Toyhax along with, if I remember right, stickers for my Pretender Grimlock and an extra unstickered G1 Jazz who lives on my computer desk. (Normally I feel like reproduction stickers are a tiny bit disingenuous, but in the case of the 1989 stickers I will make an exception, due to the incredibly poor quality of the Hasbro stickers.)

The base mode for Skystalker just isn't as cool as the one for Skyhopper, which is spread out majestically like Trypticon. Even in its unfolded state, the real estate isn't really utilized very effectively, though I do like the little foxhole. Also, the lack of canopy glass for the small shuttle pod feels a little cheap. The base feels incomplete on its own, and almost requires other Micromaster bases to fill it out. Maybe that was the intention!

At the time of this writing, I still need to get two of the grey ramps and, apparently, the black dual laser to complete my set. Eventually I'm going to have to replace the right wing as well, either by getting a junker with an intact wing or biting the bullet and just buying the wing on its own, which I expect might get expensive. But, we'll see how it goes. I guess for as little as I paid, I could even buy another incomplete Skystalker, perhaps broken in different places, and cobble the two togehter and still come out on top. (Now I know why there are all these eBay auctions with multiple Skystalker parts in assorted condition...)

Zob (also got my first blue Minispy, but we can talk about those weirdos a bit later)