Zob's Thoughts on Combiner Wars First Aid, Blades, Streetwise, and Rook

[Zobovor]

I wasn't actually expecting to find any souveniers to take home with me from vacation. My tastes are so specific that we can go shopping at 20 different stores and I won't find a single thing that piques my interest (especially when the strip mall we did most of our shopping at basically consisted almost entirely of apparel shops). There was a discount store that had the Construct-Bots versions of Shockwave and Drag Strip and Smokescreen, which I've never seen before. I pondered the idea of getting Shockwave. On our last day of vacation, on a whim, we stopped into a local Walmart and I was greeted by some new toys with familiar faces. They must have recently put out an entire case, because there were two of each character on the pegs. No sign of Groove or Hot Spot, but one step at a time, right?

In comparing these new toys to my G1 Protectobots, it's easy to forget just how tiny the Protectobots used to be! Back then, these tiny three-inch toys were considered legitimate representations of characters from the show. Nowadays, I'd be more likely to go, "Okay, the Legends toy is cute and all, but when are we going to get a Deluxe toy?" Bigger toys also allow for more complexity, not to mention much bigger combined modes--two things which I'm all in favor of!

FIRST AID

I do believe First Aid was my first Protectobot, back in 1986. He's easily one of my favorite Autobot characters--a devout pacifist (not unlike Lifeline from G.I. Joe) so strong in his convictions that he actually left the Autobot team for a while, leaving poor Defensor without an arm. (Maybe that's why Rook was annexed to the team... as a conteingency against possible future abandonment from First Aid!)

I never bought the Offroad toy (it's bad enough that I got suckered into getting Alpha Bravo; I wasn't about to buy a second pointless toy that never needed to exist). First Aid is actually a fairly substantial reworking of the toy--sporting not just a new head sculpt but some differing robot-mode details in addition to the entirely reworked vehicle mode. Where G1 First Aid was a boxy ambulance, like G1 Ratchet, the new First Aid is closer to the shape of movie Ratchet from the live-action films. (Apparently, Ratchet is the trendsetter and First Aid is the follower, no matter the iteration.) As a G1 purist, I would of course have preferred something closer to the Toyota Onebox Vanette, but I recognize the need to modernize the look of some characters (you really never see ambulances like that in real life nowadays) and it's not a wholly disingenuous look for the character. He's white with red trim and cerulean blue windows, and the off-set Autobot symbol on the hood evokes the Autobot symbol on the roof of the G1 toy. You can even mount the Defensor fist/foot module on the roof of the vehicle, using a small rectangular tab that nestles neatly between two of Defensor's fingers, to mirror the dual-barreled decrystalizer cannon of the G1 toy.

The robot mode configuration suits the character, as G1 First Aid didn't have any specific design elements that would truly make or break his look if they were present or absent. Even the way the roof of the vehicle mode folds up on his back parallels the way the front flap of the box-shaped ambulance hung off the back of the G1 toy (even though this piece wasn't drawn on the character at all in the cartoon). The head sculpt is great, and I can totally hear Michael Bell's voice characterization coming from that face (which, really, is the true test of whether a head sculpt captures the character). The only problem I have is that his color mapping seems to be backwards. His torso is a bright, vibrant red while the center of his chest and his upper arms and legs are a deeper beet red; if anything, it should be the other way around. I almost wonder if this was the result of some internal Hasbro miscommunication, since this seems like a really obvious mistake to make.

It does bug me a little that this pacifist doctor is armed with an axe (the profile on the back of his pack-in comic book calls it a "cyber cleaver), though I can certainly think of circumstances when he might need to use one (cutting into an Earth vehicle to free some human passengers, for example). The axe has a secondary peg on the side of the handle, so he can carry it like a firearm, with the axe handle serving as the barrel of the gun. This is how I choose to arm my toy. He comes with a fist/foot module that's the same mold as Offroad (black with a red thumb connector, this time).
Amusingly, the back of First Aid's packaging suggests that he turns into Defensor's lower leg and upper leg (the section of the leg that is part of Hot Spot is also highlighted when showing which component First Aid can form).

My thinking here is that, even though Offroad was released first, I think the toy was developed with the intention of using it for First Aid and Ironhide, and possibly Swindle. The vehicle configuration could be believably passed off as a military vehicle (without the roof lights, of course). I get the feeling that the Ironhide release will have the upper chest panels colored light blue, like a windshield, though the presence of the Combiner Wars peg in the center of his chest will spoil the effect somewhat. With the right color scheme, though, it won't make a completely horrible Ironhide. I feel strongly the toy is also going to be reused as Combiner Wars Swindle. I would actually prefer a new toy designed specifically to resemble the character, but I think they could pull it off with the right colors. Once again, the chest panels would need to be colored like a windshield, though once again the Combiner Wars peg would get in the way (assuming they go for a cartoon-based look, instead of trying to slavishly mimic the G1 toy).

The date code stamped on my First Aid toy is 50681, which means he was manufactured on March 9th, 2015.

BLADES

I would describe Blades overall as a slightly less faithful update than First Aid. When Alpha Bravo was first released, I immediately recognized the potential to reuse the toy as Vortex. As far as I'm concerned, the head sculpt is perfect for Vortex and won't require any additional remolding. Reusing the toy as Blades seemed slightly less obvious to me--though I recognize that the Combiner Wars toy line recycles molds whenever possible, so it makes sense to use the same helicopter toy to represent the two canonical G1 helicopter characters. There was no re-shelling this time; Blades is identical to Alpha Bravo except for the head sculpt.

As a helicopter, Blades is red with white trim, black canopy windows, and grey helicopter blades, so at least he evokes the general color mapping of the G1 character. G1 Blades is much cuter, though, with a stubby nose and cute little wheeled landing skids. Also, G1 Blades was predominantly white with a red nose and tail, so the new toy doesn't quite capture that look. I would have preferred to see the missile pods on the sides painted white to match the smart-rocket launchers on the G1 toy. Combiner Wars Blades is notable for having some of the absolute tiniest, near-microscopic tampographing on any toy I've ever seen. His tail fins have the word "RESCUE" emblazoned on them, with a small Autobot symbol on each side, and then "AUTOBOT COASTAL RESCUE" encircling each Autobot symbol. In extremely tiny print, above and below the Autobot symbols, however, are the words "SEMPER REFEREMUS," which in Latin means something like "always return" or "always answer." I had to break out the magnifying glass to read the fine print--that's how tiny it is.

In robot mode, Blades looks a lot more like himself, with a red body, lower legs, and forearms; his head, Combiner Wars connector peg, and upper legs are white. As per the cartoon, his face is painted light blue while his eyes are a darker blue. He looks a little angry, but I guess it suits the character well enough. He's got the same weapons as Alpha Bravo, and there's absolutely no discernible difference between their handheld guns. His Defensor fist/foot component is black with a white thumb connector, rather than the grey on Alpha Bravo's. He kind of suffers from the same problem as the G1 toy--namely, that he's described as a warrior who uses his helicopter blades to fight Decepticons, despite the fact that they're not available for use when he's in robot mode.

The date code on my toy is 50681, the same as First Aid, making his birthday March 9th, 2015.

STREETWISE

They're actually adding the "Protectobot" prefix to the name of every character now, so he's officially Protectobot Streetwise. A made-up name that Hasbro invented with a common dictionary-found word tacked onto it is technically different than using the dictionary word alone, which is why Hasbro was able to recoup his original name instead of calling him Streetsmart like the BotCon toy.

I give the original Groove toy a lot of flak, because it truly is a horrible toy, but the 1986 version of Streetwise was pretty terrible, too. Aside from the block of plastic that served as his legs (a design element endemic to many G1 toys), he also got saddled with the entire front half of his car mode for his robot torso. Transformers are supposed to transform on some level, and the configuration of his robot design just didn't break up the vehicle elements enough. His Sunbow animation model didn't even try to copy the toy, and was basically a conventionally-shaped robot mode with some wheels tacked onto the arms and legs. So, in that respect, I have absolutely no problem with the Combiner Wars toy not following the design of the G1 toy very faithfully.

This toy has already been used for Dead End and Brake-Neck, but I don't really feel like I've been buying the same exact toy three times in a row. The vehicle mode has been completely re-shelled; while the basic transformation was retained, the look of the car mode has been completely redone. Streetwise shares a pelvis and upper leg mold with Dead End, but just about everything else has been resculpted. (I would have liked to see this toy's design used for Brake-Neck, sans the roof lights. It's extremely probable that we'll see this specific iteration of the toy again as Combiner Wars Prowl, certainly with a different head sculpt and hopefully with some additional remolding as well.)

In robot mode, his color scheme evokes G1 Streetwise surprisingly well. The chest plate, which folds down to cover most of the Combiner Wars connector peg, is painted entirely black (with a tampographed Autobot symbol) and nicely evokes the windshield on the G1 toy. The chest armor is actually sculpted to mirror the design of his vehicle-mode hood, as though the hood "really" shrank down to form the chest. The toy is predominantly very light grey, and the use of dark red for the forearms, pelvis, connector peg, and kneecaps is not entirely out of place. I would have liked to see the robot toes painted red as well, to evoke the police light bar that served as the feet on the G1 toy, but that's a minor quibble. Of particular note is the dynamite head sculpt, which really captures the look of the character. On some redeco toys, I have to just kind of begrudgingly accept them. When I look at this toy, though, I don't see Dead End with a Streetwise head... I see Streetwise, period.

Streetwise comes equipped with a three-barreled rifle, rather than the exhaust pipe gun that came with Dead End/Brake-Neck, though his Defensor fist/foot component is the same design as those two Stunticons (black with a red thumb connector). Either the rifle or the fist/foot combo can mount to the roof of his car mode, right behind the roof lights; the rifle can also attach to either of the peg-holes on the sides of the car. The police car mode itself does not strongly evoke G1 Streetwise, specifically, due to the blue paint deco that dominates the front of the car mode. He lacks the star-shaped insignia on either side of his doors (black on the G1 toy, yellow in the cartoon). However, I have faith that this was done deliberately, in order to help visually distinguish him from Prowl. If that's the case, though, Streetwise really should have been a somewhat darker color of grey. He's an off-white, quite a bit lighter than the G1 toy, and unless there are some radically different paint operations or some really dramatic remolding, I can't envision him looking much different than Prowl when he's finally released.

Like the packaging for First Aid, the packaging for Streetwise seems to be suggesting that he can not only transform into Defensor's leg, but part of Hot Spot's leg as well.

Streetwise is also stamped 50681, so this entire batch of toys was produced on the same day. I blame the dock worker strike for the toys taking three months to make it to stores rather than the expected six weeks, which was at one time the industry standard.

ROOK

I recognize the need to invent a new Protectobot in order to save Groove from the ignomity of being a gigantic ambulance-sized motorcycle (again), but quite frankly, fans are not buying the Combiner Wars toys because they hated G1. Transformers has never really had a proper sense of scale, and in some ways there's absolutely no way around that. (I mean, we all know that Blast Off, whatever form he may eventually take, is going to be a horribly out-of-scale space shuttle.) It's my fervent hope that eventually Hasbro will offer the Unite Warriors edition of Groove that Takara is developing for the Japanese market. In the meantime, Rook is interesting to me as a potential sneak preview of what we can expect from Brawl, when he's eventually released.
To Hasbro's credit, the biography on the back of the pack-in comic does describe Rook as a newcomer and a recent addition to the Protectobot team, so at least they're acknowledging the fact that they just invented the character.

In robot mode, he's got a big and beefy physique, with predominantly white limbs, a black body and head, and blue upper legs, elbows, and toes. This shade of deep blue isn't really a traditional Protectobot color, so he doesn't really look like he belongs with the rest of the team. The more traditional white-and-red look might have made the team too homogenous, though. He does have a square-shaped head, so you can tell the attempt was made to design him as if he'd been based on a Scramble City toy (with his head serving as a connector peg), though he also has an Autobot symbol on his forehead, and they never, ever did this during G1, so he loses points for that. He's got this weird bar that covers part of his face, which reminds me of the alien Benzites from Star Trek more than anything else. All told, he's got 18 points of articulation, including feet that can pivot to the side and shoulder assemblies that, due to the way the toy transforms, can move in a front-to-back motion in addition to the standard ball-and-socket joints.

He comes with this weird claw-grabby thing in addition to his Defensor fist/foot module. The toy doesn't have peg-holes in his fists; rather, he's got Combiner Wars Bombshell style holes at the ends of his arms. He's got sculpted fists, but the peg-hole mounts interrupt the physical space where his hands should be, which kind of bothers me. In a way, this hearkens back to the days where toys didn't have hands at all, just peg-mounts at the ends of the arms and the vague suggestion of a fist carved into the side of the sculpt. So, the claw-grabby thingy plugs into his knuckles, not his hand. This also means he can't really carry the Defensor fist/foot module as a weapon (unless you want him to carry a gigantic Defensor hand), though it can mount to either of his shoulders or on his back.

To transform him, the legs collapse, the arms swing behind his back, and his generous shellformery backpack flips down to complete the vehicle mode. He's a six-wheeled, compact armored vehicle with "SWAT" emblazoned on each side. The weapon-mounting peg-holes that were on his back and shoulders all ended up on the top of the vehicle; the claw-grabby thing can attach to any of these. The Defensor fist/foot combo (black with a black thumb-connector) can also attach to any of these peg holes, but the toy also has a large peg protruding from the center, and the fist/foot module seems to make the most sense here. It's got a peg-hole of its own, a design element not shared with other toys. The instructions don't say anything about attaching the weapon here, and I think it was omitted for the same reason that Breakdown's instructions don't say anything about using his Menasor fist/foot component as a Sunstreaker-style backpack. It's not meant for this toy; it's meant for the later redeco.

So, it's become clear to me now that this is going to be the Brawl toy. I wasn't sure before, but now that I've actually handled the toy, it seems like the obvious move. If you attach the fist/foot module to the top of the vehicle, it can sorta-kinda pass for a tank turret, which is why, I think, it was designed this way (and why you're not supposed to transform Rook this way). I think I would prefer to see Brawl with a single-barreled fist/foot component rather than a dual-barreled one, but past experience suggests Brawl will get the same one that Rook's got.

The robot configuration won't be absolutely terrible as Brawl... the wheels embedded in the chest vaguely evoke tank treads, and pushing the Combiner Wars connector peg deeper into the chest helps the center of the chest to match the rest of it, making it look a little closer to the way the chest jutted out on the G1 toy. (It's probably too late to say this, since Brawl is likely already in production, but I'm going to say it anyway: Hey, Hasbro! Grey head, dark red mask, and orange eyes. Thank you.)

Rook's date stamp is 50331, meaning he was produced on February 2nd, 2015, a month before the other Protectobots. I imagine his production schedule may have been different so as to free up the production molds for Brawl, though that's just a guess.

Some general thoughts on the inevitable Combaticons: The toy that's going to be used for Vortex seems mind-bogglingly obvious. If I'm right about Swindle and Brawl, then that means Blast Off is the only true enigma remaining. I hope that he gets an actual space shuttle toy rather than just being some random Aerialbot redeco. Or, at the absolute very least, I hope he's a properly re-shelled Aerialbot. I guess we'll see soon enough!


Zob (always comes back from vacation more exhausted than refreshed)

[Zobovor]

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 5:56:03 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

<snip>

Does anybody want me to type up the back-of-package bios and the back-of-the-comic bios?


Zob (not like I need something else to do, but...)