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Mega Man Ruby Spears: Bro Bots Rant
Reviewed: 06/12/2022
Doctor Wily Is A Bad Bro Bot!
So, we continue season two of the blue dweeb's life with episode #24 (On the DVD, it's episode #19) as Proto Man supposedly switches sides and Dr. Wily plots to replace city officials with robots. Mega Man is wary of Proto Man and has him watched at all times. He then overhears Proto Man talking to Dr. Wily about his plot and stops the whole thing. How does this episode fare? Let's rant on shall we...?!
Bro Bots is written by Evelyn Gabai and was directed by Katsumi Minoguchi.
We begin this episode with a parade in a city with the most absurd pink mouse ever. Lots of pieces of color paper rain on the parade as there are anthro mascots running and a very tall man called Deacon, which is clearly someone in costume wearing lifts. There is also a car with his head as well. We head inside a building with Dr. Light, Roll, Rock and Rush as apparently, Deacon is a robot who is running for governor of New York, I think. I love how they then show a car and Deacon is just another mid level human in a suit, and he's not even wearing the suit that matches the tall robot Deacon earlier. I believe the mayor is in the front seat, along with someone from the police and fire department. Then we get a scene changer as the Deacon head gets destroyed and here comes Cut Man on a tank. Cut Man wants to make Deacon one sorry loser as the tank destroys the tall robot Deacon and makes it burst into flames. Swan float gets run over as the humans in the limo are shocked and appalled by this. Rock then cuts off Cut Man's reign of terror, see what I did there? It's not like Rock wasn't cutting promos on cutting him off at the pass. Denizens flee because Guts Man arrives on top of a tank. So, the robot masters surround the babyfaces and Rock is in a pickle....And then out of nowhere comes Proto Man and he kicks Guts Man and Cut Man's ass. No, seriously; that is what happened! I am NOT pulling your leg. Yup, this is the "heel pretends to be babyface to give heels advantage" angle, which I saw in Rescue Rangers with Desiree Allure. Personally, I thought the Rescue Rangers one was much more subtle than this one. Basically, Proto Man takes the ropes of the floats and Rock follows his lead to tie the heels to the tank. The balloons are used to lift the heels and tank high into the air as Cut Man cuts the best promo of the series, calling Proto Man a "turncoat tin can". Blues wants to celebrate this victory over Dr. Wily with some fireworks; so Blues uses the Blues Buster in a really creepy moment to destroy the tank with the heels on it, implying that Proto Man just murdered them. Rock is shocked and this should have been a clue that Proto Man was pretending to be a good guy because Blues is still a psychopath at this point. Cut to the workers cleaning up the messy road. Jump cut back into the building with Proto Man, Rock looking through the window, Rush, Dr. Light and Roll watching Deacon thanks everyone for protecting him from that homo sapien vampiris.
Deacon thanks Proto Man, Proto Man knew about this and decides to turn on Dr. Wily to help his little brother. Rock is so not buying this crap, judging by Rock's face. So, Deacon leaves via the white limo as Rock and Proto Man watch on. Rock demands answers to this outrage because Proto Man's behaviour is an outrage. Well, mostly for Dr. Wily anyway. Rock is suspious about Proto Man just deciding to join the babyfaces and that Dr. Wily is history. Dr. Light claims that Proto Man has the same ethical programming as Rock and it took a while to kick in. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Am I suppose to buy that bridge you are selling, Dr. Light?! Proto Man proclaims that he wants to be a better hero than Rock, so Proto Man isn't even trying to be humble here. This makes everyone on the babyface side look like dweebs. Dr. Light offers Proto Man to stay on a trial basis and Roll welcome Blues to the team. Rush and Proto have a bonding moment as Rock is the only one who isn't exactly buying this. When the blue dweeb isn't so trusting of Blues, Blues babyface routine is not geninue and trouble! Anyhow, we head to Skull Fortress RS and we repeat the footage of the tank exploding as Guts Man is protesting all this burying by Blues. Dr. Wily claims that he did it for realism because he wants everyone to think Blues is being a babyface, when it's just a ruse to do horrible things at a conveniently placed museum that Dr. Wily switches channels with the remote control. Elec Man is back again, along with the debuting Heat Man and Needle Man destroying a gate with more explosions. Heat Man and Needle Man look about as good as they did in the games; and yes, Heat Man is supposed to look like a cigarette lighter, why do you ask? Security bots bail as the animation of them shooting directly to the hard camera ensues. Needle Man shoots needles, Elec Man shoots electrical bolts and Heat Man shoots fireball from it's mouth. The heels shoot the museum and cause some light damage as Dr. Wily is expecting Proto Man and Rock to arrive to end phase one of the plan. The fact that Proto Man looks to the side shows that he's pretending and that Rock's hesitation is totally justified. Dr. Wily cackles as well as the animation just looks like an old 1970's cartoon. More explosions in the air as Rock and Rush knock Heat Man and Elec Man down on their asses on the ground. Needle Man shoots needles at Blues on the Sky Cycle.
Proto Man takes them and blows Needle Man off for being an idiot because Proto Man is pretending to be a babyface because Needle Man wants to be Dr. Wily's favorite bots. Well, both of them debutted in the same game, so I can understand the rivalry. Blues jumps down as he has to make the turn look good as he opens the red nose of Needle Man and rips out the electrical wires, killing Needle Man. Rock dodges more fire power as Rock tries to knock Heat Man into the fountain; but Proto Man cuts him off and Heat Man and Needle Man are somehow in the fountain with Elec Man. I like this angle, but the animation is horrible here. I couldn't tell if Blues threw Needle Man into Heat Man, or Rock threw Heat Man and then Blues threw Needle Man. It's so confusing. Rock and Blues head into the sky as Rock thanks Blues and Blues comes the closest to being humble here, which is to say, it wasn't much. Cut to the entrance to a forest with Wily Machine RS already on the ground as Dr. Wily is happy because Proto Man pretending to be a good guy is his plan. All the heels defeated from the previous scene are there, as well as Proto Man. You know, if you want to keep this a secret from Rock; have Blues talk to you via the radio transmitter like Rock does with Dr. Light. Anyhow, phase two of Dr. Wily's plan is to insert chips into Rock to make the job eaiser. Proto Man makes faces, but doesn't say anything. So, we head to a park as Rock, Blues and Rush are sitting down on a park bench. They are having a bonding moment, you see. Blues puts the chip that is now grey instead of black while sharing a half hug on Rock. Somehow, the chip disappears into the blue shell.
The bros insult each other and somehow not once did Blues call him a blue dweeb. The robots laugh in a contrived way, to tell the audience that no matter how much human emotion they show, they are still robotic. Rush licks Proto Man's face which Blues no sells completely, that was funny. Rock did a better job selling Rush's licking of his face, and this somehow made Rock act better. Also funny. Rock then suddenly has had enough and gets up, calling Blues sick and twisted. Blues protests this outrage and accuses Rock of being too good for Blues. Rock claims that Blues has it all wrong because Rock wants a real brother relationship with Blues and Blues is confused. Head into the sky with Rock on Rush Jet as we have more electric shocking on the western alleyway of Deacon's headquarters. Rock and Rush fly down and out comes....Bright Man?! So, we have FOUR guest robot masters for this episode! By the way, the animation is so lousy the denizen don't sell Bright Man's Bright Stopper at all here. Rock jumps down and advances to attack, when suddenly, the chip returns and causes Rock's brain to disable Rock to the ground. Rock cannot focus at all as Rock points his buster into the air and the electrical shocks causes Rock and Rush to be set on fire? Wait, WHAT?! Bright Man is loving life as Rock screams that he's overheating. You don't say?! More like ROCK AND RUSH ON FIRE~! That ends the segment six and a half minutes in. I kind of like this episode so far, but the whole subtley of Proto Man's babyface act is so obvious that Desiree was a stealth ninja in comparsion, and that's to speak nothing about Kit's fake heel turn to save his family.
After the commercial break, Rock's fireball on himself is even more obvious now as Proto Man is in the sewer (how apporos?!) shooting two pipes of water. Blues uses the pipes as the denizens finally sell Bright Man's solar attack; but the pipe of water gushes out and hits Bright Man and cools off Rock and Rush. Pillar of water is shown through the manhole as Proto Man jumps out and shoots at Bright Man's feet. Bright Man just bails stage right and that is that. Yeah, maybe if you were like this from the start, the fake turn wouldn't be so obvious so I could get behind this angle more. Proto Man cuts a lame promo as the denizens pop for Proto Man and we jump cut to Rock on a sleeping bag somewhere with Rush as Blues is nursing him back to health. Rock is so confused about his condition that Proto Man and Deacon decide to shake hands. The guise of this is that Deacon wants Proto Man to be the head of security for his election and assures Rock that everything will be fine and Dr. Wily will be rid of. Rock wants to back up Proto Man; but Blues blows that off because he's in no condition to fight right now. Even if this was a fake babyface turn, what Blues said made sense, so there you go. Blues smiles as we head back to Skull Fortress RS as Blues on the monitor in the lab is exchanging notes on the situation with Dr. Wily. Dr. Wily is loving life as it's time for phase three of the plan. Cut back to Dr. Light's lab as Rock is being scanned on the lab table. Dr. Light and Roll are looking at the monitor and there is a huge problem in both the readings and figuring out the source. Dr. Light proclaims that he needs to do a full body check, but Rock no sells because Mitchell Deacon needs backup. Rock also has a headache because the chip is still hurting him. Roll assures Rock that nothing will happen as Dr. Light opens the door and the other babyfaces decide to leave for Deacon's final election countdown. Rock twists an orange knob on the table, which apparently operates the monitor as he decides to watch the final countdown to the election on television. The announcer is doing his usual spiel as we see Cut Man and Guts Man in the background behind the denizens with signs in police officers. See, cops are bastards after all. Dr. Wily is in disguise behind them as well. Rock is not amused by this and we cut to the sky with Rock flying wearing a purple flight suit. The chip shocks Rock, Rock has a headache. It might as well be the JETPACK OF STUPIDITY from Bullethead Baloo.
Rock flies into a Bread Bread sign as they tease Rock going into the window of a resturant; but Rock flies up north to avoid that. Rock's promo is so hilariously bad. Seriously, Mega Meatloaf?! C'mon now! Head to Deacon's headquarters outside and then inside with the denizens cheering on their favorite corrupt future governor. Dr. Wily is behind the curtain, without the hat he wore earlier, cacking at normal volume and no one else can hear it. This always annoyed me in cartoons when they have to have everyone talk higher than the hum of a fridge without realizing that it makes them and everyone else look dumb when you are not suppose to blow your cover like that. We head backstage with Deacon, Proto Man, the officer of security that is human and Officer Bots. The human officer is asking if Cut Man and Guts Man have clearance, Proto Man says no as a tease to kick their ass; and then Proto Man finally turns on everyone and kicks the Officer Bots asses. The officer is kidnapped by Guts Man as Roll realizes that this was too good to be true. Roll could kick their asses, but remember that the human officer is kidnapped. Not a good idea to kick ass right now. Deacon demands answers to this outrage as Cut Man's promo and acting is so hilariously bad here that I was laughing my ass off here. Cut Man proclaims that Deacon should be used to cutbacks since he's a politician. That was funny.
Cut Man threatens to give Deacon a plasma shake if Roll doesn't power down and Roll proclaims that Rock was right from the start. Rock enters the hallway next to the door as Dr. Wily is taunting Deacon inside, so Dr. Wily was somehow written in by teleport. Guts Man is showing a coffin and now the human officer is written out by teleport. The coffin opens to reveal a robot version of Deacon as Dr. Wily's plan is to replace all officials with robots. One problem, if this is a democracy; if Deacon says anything to tip Dr. Wily's hand; then they'll just vote for someone else and that someone else will become the winner. Methinks Dr. Wily didn't think this one all the way through. Anyhow, the crowd in the theater continues to pop for Deacon as you can disregard what I said earlier, because the final countdown is in fact election day. Mitchell Deacon is the new governor of New York city and thus Dr. Wily can execute the plan without looking like an idiot. Robot Deacon comes out to wave to the crowd as everyone else backstage has their hands up. Dr. Wily orders them to go to the Robot Assembly Factory as Rock runs in and then gets a headache and falls to his knees to the ground. Proto Man says goodbye to him to end the fake babyface turn to end the segment 12 minutes in. Yeah, the third act is about 12 minutes long now. An okay episode so far, but the whole angle is shot now. Also: "MEGA! MEGA! RIGHT BACK! MESSAGES! WOO-WOO!".
After the commercial break, Rock still has a splitting headache as Blues comes over and Rock still manages to throw Blues down. Rock dodges and climbs the ladder while Blues continues to shoot. Blues shoots Rock down; but Rock puts on the jets and flies out the window while Blues continues to shoot. Dr. Wily puts his hand on Blues' shoulder to signal to stop shooting and Blues is not happy about that one. Dr. Wily assures him that Rock is screwed because of the scrambler chip in Rock's brain. So, we get a long sequence of the babyfaces bound and gagged inside the limo as the limo drives away from Deacon's headquarters. Rock is on top of the building sitting down as it's AFTER HAPPY HOUR (after dark) as Rock sees the limo truck and dives down screaming. Damn, stop yelling! You'll blow your cover that way. Rock flies over and lands smoothly on the roof of the truck as the heels don't suspect a thing, at least they don't act like they suspected a thing. Rock doesn't trust the suit anymore as we get a long sequence of the limo truck arriving at a factory and heading into the underground parking lot. Rock stands up and grabs onto a ceiling pillar to escape. Rock takes off the suit and wonders what Wily is up to. Remember that only Rock doesn't know what the plan is despite the other babyfaces knowing what the plan is. Rock practices the fine art of not being seen in a long steel hallway. I should note that the Deacon robot is perfect because Deacon himself has the same expressions as the robot. That was funny. Then, Dr. Light just appears out of nowhere, walking as if nothing had happened; a clear giveaway that this is a robot. Made more obvious by the fact that Dr. Light ignores Rock's commands. You would think that Dr. Wily would have given the robot orders to kill Rock if the robot heard Rock's voice; but I guess not. Rock follows Dr. Light into some storage chamber and I know this because Dr. Light heads to a coffin, opens the panel, walks in and closes the coffin. Rock pushes a button on the control panel and it shows the Dr. Light robot in plain sight. Rock opens the panels of all the coffins to reveal all the officials from earlier in the episode, as Rock now knows the plan and the heels walk into perfect timing to cut Rock off. The classic heels are on the left and Needle Man, Elec Man and Heat Man are on the right. What? No Bright Man?! Bright Man escaped unharmed earlier, so what?! The teleport writing is really annoying me now.
Rock is still a blue dweeb because the scrambler chip cuts Rock off at the pass once again. Proto Man then basically confesses that he planted the chip in Rock's brain and offers to remove it if Rock turns heel for real. Rock refuses of course, so Blues is like "if you insist" and shoots Rock. Rock is down on the ground, dead. Proto Man walks away behind Dr. Wily's back as Dr. Wily is continuing to love life. Dr. Wily bails to allow Elec Man to shoot electrical beams on Rock and make him scream badly. Then we get one of the stupidest things I have ever seen: the heels back up as Rock is sliding on the floor. That in itself isn't the problem; it's that there is red ooze on the floor out of nowhere and Elec Man has to slip and fall down. WHAT?! We NEVER saw any mess made until that moment. This makes no sense at all. Now there's molds for human bodies when everyone falls and Rock bails behind them. Needle Man manages to shoot through the mold with a needle and almost kills Rock with it; that was impressive. Heat Man shoots through the hole made by the needle cannon and Rock is forced to climb onto a pipe and this shakes the conveniently placed red metal encasement material of doom in a giant tank. The heels cannot bail, they cannot move; but they panic and realize how unfair life is and the liquid red metal encasing material falls on them and they are petrified basically. Oh, how I laughed. Rock jumps down and has a fun moment with them before deciding to find the babyfaces, who are over a lava metal lake inside a cage. Rock arrives and does the funniest face of all time, pretty much cementing his meme status right there. Rock cuts a lame promo about hanging around and gets onto the top of the chain of the cage. However, the scrambler chip hurts Rock again, Rock is forced into a rope around his body and falls down in front of Dr. Light. Rock then reveals the chip in his brain and Dr. Light removes it, causing Rock to be back to normal. Rock swings like crazy and does a dropkick where he comes dangerously close to kicking Dr. Light in the chest, shoots the cage chain off and the cage falls behind the metal lava vat and that is that. The cage completely breaks free as Roll handles Dr. Light and Deacon who at least got a different face, sort of. Rock does another drop kick move and then lands on the floor. Roll wonders what to do next and Rock wants to knock Dr. Wily out of politics more than people want to knock Donald Trump out of life in general.
So, we get more shots of the lab and then head inside the factory computer center with Dr. Wily, Guts Man, Cut Man, Blues, and Bright Man! Dr. Wily wants Guts Man to lure the officials to the power plant so they can be replaced with clones doing Dr. Wily's bidding. Guts Man suggests using Robot Deacon as the call man and then we hear laughing and the worst monkey noises of all time; and this pisses Dr. Wily off. HAHA! Heels go into the factory area and discover that all the robots are acting like the worst monkeys on the planet. Dr. Wily is confused as we see the real Dr. Light with the fire officer proclaiming that he reprogrammed the robots. He reprogrammed them by opening the chest panel and removing the chip. Wait, shouldn't that just render them into motionless bodies?! Sometimes going for a cheap laugh isn't worth it. Dr. Wily demands answers to this outrage as the babyfaces all come in. Dr. Wily is pissed and orders the robot masters to kill the robots. Cut Man, Guts Man and Bright Man all run in. Roll, Rush and Rock all run in. Rush headbutts Guts Man down, Roll gets miltary pressed slammed by Bright Man (after all the robot masters she crumbled to parts, yeah right!), Rock and Cut Man elbow each other with electrical sparks, Rush flies backwards to dodge a punch and then bites Guts Man's arm. You don't see that everyday with this mutt. Then Rush does the BITE OF ASS on Guts Man's ass; and Guts Man gets thrown into the mold of doom which somehow fits Guts Man despite being nowhere close to fitting him. Roll struggles to get free, but invokes the spatula of death and destroy the Dim Bulb of Bright Man. Danger Woman would be proud of that one. Sadly, she ruins it with a wink and a lame light pun. Cut Man calls Rock a mega dweeb and invokes the Rolling Cutter, Rock kicks it back, Cut Man ducks and the cutter hits the control panel on the shaking vat of liquid metal encasing material because we have to do this stupid spot a second time, despite not making any lick of sense whatsoever. Luckly, everyone bails before that including Guts Man showing that he can say Phillidephia. Yawn, whatever. The entire area is covered in metal liquid that looks like boiled blood now. We have two minutes left in the episode as it's time for the showdown on a circular vat between Blues and Rock. Blues wants no shooting this time as Rock accepts. Sadly, the vat turns over, forcing them to bail on chains, looking at each other.
This ultimately creates blocks for them to step on as the official fight begins. Blues tackles Rock down, Rock gets a leg scissors on Blues like Kit did to Mad Dog in It Came From Beneath The SeaDuck. Punches, double ax handles, flop down in danger of being dipped in liquid metal as Proto Man proclaims that he wishes Rock was never born, more or less. Rock wants Blues to be a whaffle iron and Blues still cuts better promos than Rock. Rock then pushes up and lets Blues go as Blues is surprised by this; but since Blues confessed about the scrambler chip, it is considered even in his eyes. Wily Machine RS arrives as Proto Man says next time and climbs up the chain to the glass ceiling which is not broken at all. Rock repeats the promo and watches Blues escape as the lava river is overheating and that is that. I suspected that they were teasing a permenent face turn for Proto Man in season three and beyond; but being episodic would have probably put the turn at the end of the series proper; which of course never happened. Blues breaks through the glass as shards comes down and miss Rock by a mile as we see a really bad image of Rock through the shards of glass in the liquid metal. This is a really good finish; but it would ultimately lead nowhere. So, we wrap this episode up outside with Deacon shaking Rock's hands as I realize that Deacon's voice is the same as Dr. Light's. Roll is sorry for falling for Blues' good guy routine as Rock calls Blues bad to the bone; but he's still his brother as Rush comes out and is insane because he swallowed a scrambler chip as Dr. Light has to restrain him. Rock giggles as Rush is his silly own dog to end the episode at 24:00 approx. This episode was not great, it was fine. The animation was a mess and the finish was great; but once they blew the subtley out of the window from the very start, it was just there. ** 3/4 (55%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well, I was looking forward to this episode and it disappointed me big time. The finish of the episode was good, but because the series ended so abruptly due to toy politics it ultimately led nowhere. The idea of Blues turning babyface but not actually doing it was a great idea on paper, but once the subtley was thrown out the window and everyone knew (and to a lesser extent, Rock; the one Blues was trying to fool) that Proto Man was still a heel, it made the whole episode look goofy. Proto Man's bonding moment with Rock was funny, Deacon's one face expression was funny, Dr. Wily's plan was fine and Needle Man and Heat Man were great for the time they were allowed. Again, animation problems and logic breaks did kill this episode off and it was ultimately a decent episode that could have been so much more if the writers didn't drive the point of Blues faking the babyface turn down into the ground. So....
Thumbs in the middle for this episode and I'll see you all next time.