Bloody hell, another white retool article got pushed back. Who'd have thunk it? Hang on, I've been sitting on this for at least four months... OK, lets call it a bonus article. Here we go folks!
The 2016 Playskool Heroes RescueBots Medix the Doc-Bot toy
OK, so Medix is a bit of an odd duck. He might be called a canon immigrant or a transplanted character, in that he's a G1 version of a transformer from a different continuity. Medix hails from the RescueBots sub-brand, which is not something I'm knowledgeable of, but can be summarised as "Transformers for the very young". This toy is however not the Medix; Legacy is/w not getting the actual RescueBots characters until 2024 with United, still in the future at time of writing. Rather, this is the version of Medix you could make at a Botcon 2016 custom class from the Combiner Wars First Aid mould, being one of several colour scheme variants availible. Incidentally, I was there, I made a Ratchet and got paint on the floor. Anyways, this places Medix as part of a wider Legacy trend of having exclusives referencing other, often rather obscure, exclusives, but hey, at least they aren't doing dumb shit like making popular characters hard to find. Earthrise, I'm looking at you. So, Medix is, like so many of the toys I've written about, a blank slate whose conceptual history and obscura of the toys is more interesting than the actual character. So, why did I get this then? And not discounted either? Well...
There is something so delightfully transgressive about taking a character whom is not merely a healer by definition but a healer in a show for the preschool audience, and then giving him enough weaponry to satisfy an Ork. And the daft thing is that it didn't have to be that way. What seems to have happened here is that they wanted to have a lightbar for the vehicle mode, which only makes sense, but instead of making a new one, they went to the Elita-1/Minerva mould and decided to throw in the guns from that as well. Perhaps the particulars of the accessories mould itself prevented them from just using the light bar, who knows? As a result Medix is toting a total of 4 handguns and two shoulder cannons. This guy officially a Protectobot, but I wonder if he tried out for the Wreckers only to be turned down because they thought he was too keen.
This frankly excessive amount of dakka can be stored in the vehicle mode, although this is where the eccentricities of the toy begin to be felt. It's primarily based on Crankcase, a toy I haven't got around to handling yet, whom was a "reshell" retool of the Skids mould. This changed the almode extensively, and introduced a new play feature in the removable grill/gun while shifting round the 5mm ports a bit. As such, the vehicle form is even more boxy and has been equipped for off-road work. That's a good fit for a paramedic or first responder vehicle. The colours and decals look good too, if a bit messy around the spare wheel. Unfortunately, the use of the battlemask style head from the other version of the mould leaves an unslightly gap and sunken area on the hood. It doesn't help that the front wheels are have that unfortunate clip design where the plastic colours don't match, and things generally don't seem fit together as well as I would like. It rolls, fulfils the visual brief well, and you can do silly things like peg multiple guns into the light bar at once. Ultimately though, it's an altmode that works best from a distance, like some otherwise attractive individual whom had to put on a lot of concealer this morning.
The robot mode does a bit better. Generally speaking, a Legacy mould with a nice paint job and a lot of guns makes for a good time. From a design perspective though, it's interesting where you can see the push and pull of retooling. So, the original version of this mould sought to replicate the forearm guns of the original Skids toy, while adding a minor combination feature for the accessories. The ports remain for this, but only one of the accessories, a pistol that looks awkward by itself. What Crankcase added in its place was a removable chestplate affair, with the frontend of the car coming off to become a gun. This reveals a chest design closer to his 80's toy, while some regrettably small shoulder cannons lurk in the back kibble. As gimmicks go, it's a bit Top Gear, you know, ambitious, but rubbish. I'm not a huge fan of the modern habit of designers to have panels come off as alleged accessories, although I will give it credit for not being a shield. On the subject of accessories, the 5mm ports have been remixed a bit. The somewhat bulkier upper arms on the outside, which is more useful, if moving the ports on the lower legs to the calf area. This is an inversion of the original, and I dunno, feels like a two steps forward, one step back situation. To make a further comparison with the original, there's the matter of the backpack. The retooling results in a larger backpack, but to facilitate the whole triggercon tribute it locks in two places, so between that and the grill gun, you've got options for the visuals. So you got a nice chunky robot with some nice paintwork and lots of guns, although the colour choices do highlight hollowness and such in the mould.
My point? Only that Medix is something that exists. And while a notable distance from being bad, and definately on the good side of average, this is more a curiosity than a must-have.
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