Looking back, I’ve only showcased a handful of Transformers here on FFZ this year, which is pretty indicative of how little attention I’ve been paying the line these days. There are still one or two figures that I’d like to review before the end of the year, but for the most part Hasbro and I have parted ways on their magnificent line of convertorobots. Even the reveals of their new line this past week has left me cold. And that’s fine. It’s an amicable breakup and I’ve got a ton of great figures on my shelf. But I would be remiss if I let the year expire without giving Studio Series Brawn his due!

Brawn has got to be one of the standout OG Autobots that has gotten the least amount of love from Hasbro over the years. We got a live action movie version of him based on his cameo in the Bumblebee flick, but the closest thing to a mainstream release was the Legends Class figure from Titans Return. I liked that figure well enough, but even back then I was still jonesing for a proper Deluxe Class update, and here we go. It’s kind of ironic that when we finally do get this figure, it’s based on his appearance in the 1986 movie that he is only in long enough to get unceremoniously murdered by Starscream using Megatron as a gun. Eh, I’m OK with that. The cartoon version of Brawn always struck me as a bully and a jerk, so I didn’t shed any tears when he got sent to The Great Scrapheap in the Sky. Let’s start with his vehicle mode…

Brawn’s auto mode is a 4×4 off-road jeepy kind of thing. It’s kind of ugly, but that sort of lends itself well to the rugged and utilitarian design. It’s definitely a decent looking update for the original toy and cartoon versions. The bulk of the vehicle is cast in olive green plastic with painted aqua blue windows, which give it a bit of an animated vibe. I like the satin silver finish on the grill, headlamps, and the bit of orange down near the bumper. There’s an Autobot insignia on the hood, a spare tire up on the roof and lots and lots of exposed seams and hinges all over the place. I’ll confess I had a bit of trouble getting everything to close up in this mode and found that whenever I got everything packed up on one side, something would pop out on the other. Still, all in all, this alt mode works for me.

You do get the option to weaponize Brawn’s jeep mode by plugging his hand gun into the spare tire. Plugging weapons into the car modes doesn’t always work so well, but here’s a case where I think it looks pretty good. I could even imagine the gun popping out of the top like this in the cartoon, although I don’t think it ever actually did.

Transforming Brawn into robot mode is fairly easy and there are some cool things going on with the engineering. And it’s hard to argue with the resulting robot mode, because it looks really good and pretty damn faithful to the cartoon look. Just like his G1 design, the figure wears the bulk of the jeep on his back, with a wall extending up past the back of his head. He’s got an appropriately bold and boxy chest and an overall pretty clean look. The way the sides of the jeep fold into his lower legs is pretty neat, and I dig the way the two sets of wheels wind up together on each of the backs of his legs. You also get some really nice coloring on this figure with the olive green of the jeep landing mostly on his limbs and back and the bright orange on his chest, pelvis and behind the head. The silver paint on the arms looks sharp, and you get a bold Autobot insignia on his chest.

The head sculpt is a direct hit and a dead ringer for the Sunbow animated portrait, which gave him a lot more personality than the generic robotic face on the original toy. The dome-shaped helmet is painted in gray and the face is painted in a metallic silver with the eyes in blue. Very nice!

Brawn comes with a black handgun, which we already saw stuck into his auto mode. The figure can hold it in either hand… yes HANDS! Another gift Sunbow gave poor G1 Brawn was actual hands and not just robotic hooks like the toy had. The gun looks great and Brawn sports some excellent articulation making him just a joy to pose and play around with.

Brawn was one of the last G1 updates on my want list, so I’m especially glad to get him now that Hasbro seems to be turning its attention away from Generation One and onto other things. I wouldn’t say no to an Outback repaint, but I’m not really hoping for it either. Indeed, the only one of the Class of 84 Autobots I’d still like to see updated is Hound. We got a decent version of him about six years back in Siege but I’d still like a Studio Series style version of him with his Earth alt mode, because he remains one of my all-time favorite Autobots. In the meantime, I still have Dinobot Snarl to look at and a smattering of other change-o-bots that I picked up a while back and never featured here, like Sky Lynx and Skyfire, so even if I drift away from collecting these wonderful toys, the Spark shall live on with more future reviews on the way!