Dave's Rescue Bots Rant: Energize Wave 2 Blades the Copter-Bot & Dr. Morocco Boulder the Construction-Bot & Doc Green Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/123/RBBasic4 Rescue Bots is faring a little better than Kre-O in terms of retaining shelf space, but turnover is very slow in the little kids aisle by comparison to regular action figures, so it's hard to find anything new (and the Beam Box Skylander-ripoff stuff is dominating what little space there is for new Rescue Bots content). The human partners here are a bit weird. Graham came with Bumblebee, so naturally Boulder would have a different partner. But Y U NO MAKE DANI BURNS, HASBRO? Sigh. I mean, I like that there's a Dr. Morocco toy, but why couldn't it have come with a Mor-Bot? CAPSULES Blades & Dr. Morocco: Sigh, no Dani. Still, it's cool to have a toy of one of the few actual villains in the series, and a Tim Curry character no less. Boulder & Doc Green: Boulder works well in this style, and Doc Green's mold definitely fits the character. If you only want to get one of these Energize minifigure sets, get this one. RANTS Packaging: Same as the previous wave, and the co-sells are all wave 1 toys. Because of the conventions of the package art, Blades has a smiling Dr. Morocco on the card front looking like he's best buddies with Blades. o_O Also, the art is mirror-flipped, so the monocle is on the wrong side of Morocco's face. Nowhere on Blades's package is Dr. Morocco even explained. So a kid who missed the relevant eps might think Doc Green and Dr. Morocco are buddies. RESCUE BOT: BLADES THE COPTER-BOT Partner: Dr. Morocco Energize Gear: Grapple Hook Plastic Colors: The head, arms, and hands (including the energize gear hook) are made of bright orange plastic, the torso, legs and rotor are made of off-white. The rotors are sufficiently soft plastic that while they don't move, they'll bend out of the way of the shoulder bars if needed. Morocco is made of pale caucasian fleshtone plastic. Paint Apps: The orange paint on his pelvis and feet is a decent match with the plastic, if a tiny bit darker. The right hand, the arm railing pieces, chest conduits, neck, and waist are medium gloss gray. The face is painted silver, and the lightbars on the shoulders are yellow. His goggles and energize gear are bright blue, and a bright blue Rescue Bot symbol outline is printed on the center of his chest. Energize Gear: Yarrr. Replace the entire forearm with a winch hook, although it can't extend on a cable. And yes, Dr. Morocco can be held in the hook-hand and shaken until he tells Blades where he's keeping Dani. Partner: Well, at least the people who made the mold realized this is a badguy. Unlike all the other partners, he's not smiling. His mouth is in a neutral expression, and his right eyebrow is arched over the top of his purple monocle. There's some minor overspray issues, but generally it looks nice and dapper. I think the person who did the paint masking mistook the jewel at his collar for a tie, though. Overall: If they had the guts to put Dani with Blades, I'd be strongly recommending this set. As it stands, it's a decent kiddie-level toy and does have a the collector-appeal of a toy for Dr. Morocco. RESCUE BOT: BOULDER THE CONSTRUCTION-BOT Partner: Doc Green Energize Gear: Power Drill Plastic Colors: Everything seems to be made of constructicon green plastic, although I can't tell for sure if the drill is, since it's entirely painted over. As usual, a mix of rigid and soft plastic. Doc Green is light brown plastic. Paint Apps: The tread arms are painted a nearly black color that has a faint teal shading to it. There's silver on the face, helmet ribs, collar and abdomen pipes, right hand fingers, smokestack, and legs. The eyes are yellow, there's a black and yellow hazard stripe on the chest. The drill and part of the forearm are painted bright blue, and a bright blue Rescue Bots logo outline is printed on the right side of the chest. Energize Gear: It's a drill bit that can be rotated, although the tip isn't on the axis of rotation, so it wobbles. There's a shallow 5mm peg hole on one side, and it can hold a 5mm peg that has a flat enough end (I tried it out with DotM Starscream's sword, I keep it around for testing peg holes). Oddly, the right hand can't hold a 5mm peg, the plastic is too rigid to open up and grab them. The smokestack is a little on the small side, but can act as a 5mm peg too. Why am I spending so much space in the Energize Gear section on other stuff? Because there's really not much to say about a drill-hand with no mechanism to make it spin. ;) Partner: I expect that if the toy line was given a bit more respect at Hasbro, Doc Green and Frankie would come with a laboratory playset (and Bumblebee would have been partnered with the mayor or something, so Graham could be with Boulder). Doc's paint job is pretty good, although there's a few bits of overspray around the hair and the pen in his pocket is underpainted. They definitely captured the Absent-Minded Scientist tropes in the sculpt, though. His pants cuff is tucked into his left boot but outside his right boot, and his shirt tails are uneven, suggesting he misaligned the buttons and buttonholes. Add in his toothy grin, and he's a definite contrast with the dapper but sinister Dr. Morocco. Overall: Boulder is one of those characters who translates well to a minimal-articulation chunky toy. If you only get one of the six Energize Basics, get this one. Dave Van Domelen, had a month pass between finding Boulder and finding Blades.