Chase

Somebody's all grown up. When Chase transforms into a police car, blares his siren, and flashes his lights, he's the fastest thing on wheels - and a great partner for Chief Burns. He's loyal and brave and always wants to enforce rules to the letter, even if that means he wants to ticket folks for driving even one mile over the speed limit. Together, Chief Burns and Chase are an unstoppable team. Wow, a cop who thinks he's better than non-cops and wants to abuse his power, we sure do love fantasy worlds like Transformers, what a fun break from reality. Recognizing that the only way to keep Transformers alive as a brand was to cultivate new fans, Hasbro introduced a cartoon aimed at 3-to-5-year-olds, Transformers: Rescue Bots. It was apparently fairly successful, becoming the longest-running TF cartoon in history. Since the show was on The Hub, it was technically supposed to be in the same continuity as War for Cybertron and Transformers Prime, but come on: no it wasn't. But since Legacy United is meant to honor all 40 years of the brand's life, Rescue Bots is getting an homage in the line, in the form of Rescube Bot Chase. The head is a pure update of the Rescue Bots design, with a blue "hat" with a golden badge in the center of the forehead, a metallic visor, and a big lower jaw/chin. Like the original 2011 toy, he has police lights immediately behind his head, a car's roof as his chest, and headlights on his feet. There's a wide gap between the cartoony designs of a preschool show and a modern, mainline toy, but it's cool to see that all the features of the kiddie version have adapted so faithfully. Chase moves at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, elbows, biceps, shoulders, and head. There are hinges in the wrists that aren't used for converting him, but just move the hands to the inside in an awkward way. why would they do that instead of letting them turn? The bars the arms are mounted on don't click into place in any way, counting on friction to keep them up; not the best choice, especially since even a little variance in production can make them droop loosely. He has blasters that mount on his forearms - a smooth red one on the right, a blocky blue one on the left - and a three-piece, translucent blue, "capture claw" that references an accessory used by several of the 2010s toy versions. To convert Chase, raise the arms above the head, hinge the shins open and extend the legs, turn them to the back and press them together, tip the feet in and fold down the headlights, bend the robot in half at the waist, tuck the windshield under the hood, push the arms in to form the doors, and then use brute force to jam the little "wings" into place to finish the vehicle. Chase's altmode is, of course, a police car - aka, "a little piggy's squeal-mobile." It's mainly blue with white doors and translucent yellow windows, matching the original character. Unlike other cop cars we've gotten recently, his light bar is permanently attached. The "floodlights" from the robot mode can be plugged into the car's doors if you want, and the claw can be stored on the back. Getting an untooned Rescue Bots character as a "real" release in the Legacy United line is incredibly cool work on Hasbro's part. It's great to see things made for fans who weren't there for G1. But if they're really so dedicated to honoring every part of Transformers history, where's our Legacy BotBots homage? -- 09/17/24

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