Things have been a little quiet on the Storm Collectibles Golden Axe front lately. My last review for this line was back in late 2022 with Gilius Thunderhead. I’ve picked up a few figures since, but mostly variants that I haven’t placed on high priority to get reviewed. But late last year a couple brand new figures hit and I’m finally getting around to checking them out now! It’s the nefarious bosses known as The Bad Brothers and they’re here to double-team you, knock you down, and steal your precious quarters!

Of course, in the game, the Bad Brothers show up in pairs, but Storm Collectibles released three single versions. Green is the standard release with Red and Blue being Exclusives, but I’m not sure what each of those is exclusive to as they seem to have been available at a number of retailers. I definitely wanted a pair of these guys, and even though you fight them in same colored pairs, I decided to go with a Green and a Red. I probably would have picked up the Blue too, because I’m insane, but I didn’t even know it was an option until the pre-orders had sold out, and that’s probably for the best. The figures come in the exact same boxes, depicting the green version on the artwork, and these are identical sculpts with only the color of the armor setting them apart. As a result, I’m going to focus on the standard Green release and then we’ll bring in Red at the end for a quick look.

This big bruiser comes out of the box looking menacing as all hell and ready to squish some players and boy is he a hefty fella! A lot of that weight is girth, but he does stand a full head taller than Ax Battler, the biggest of the heroes. His massive rotund body is covered with a semi-squishy rubber-like skin, which includes seamless joints in the elbows. You get some nice muscle definition in his arms and legs and some sculpted veins running through both. The shoulder armor has kind of a scalloped design, coming to upswept points and are held on by straps under his shoulders and crisscrossing his chest, so the whole rig is actually worn by the figure. The belt has two soft plastic segmented hip guards, while his lower legs and feet are protected by boots that are split at the ankles. Finally, you get a pair of removable arm bracers with silver painted studs.

The Bad Brother comes with two different heads: One looking mildly displeased and the other expressing full on battle glee. They’re both excellent, but the second one is so unique and expressive. He doesn’t look angry, he just looks like he’s going to have so much fun beating the piss out of you. There’s some wonderfully subtle texture to the skin, he’s got his Fu Manchu-style mustache, and the more expressive head shows intricate detail in the teeth.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in under that body with articulation, but he’s pretty fun and poseable. It took me a little bit to find the knee joints, but the knees along with the elbows have really strong hinges, while the hips, shoulders, and ankles appear to have rotating hinges. You even get hinges in the feet! There’s a twist and a crunch hidden up inside that bulbous belly. The wrists are hinged pegs, allowing you to swap out the assortment of hands, which include fists, relaxed hands, graspy hands, and accessory holding hands. When it comes to articulation, the only thing that bugs me a little is the gap in the ankles where you can see his skin showing through where the boot is split, since it’s probably supposed to be all one boot. They probably should have just painted that green to keep the illusion going.

The Bad Brother comes with his massive hammer, and this is a beautiful accessory! The handle is sculpted with a woodgrain texture and painted a rich brown, while the head is cast to look like a solid piece of stone. He has hands to wield it on the left or right arm and while it’s a heavy accessory his shoulder and elbow joints are up to the challenge!

Everything I said about the Green Bad Brother applies to his Red counterpart, with the color swap from green to red all found in his costume pieces and in the head of his hammer. The red hammer head was a nice choice, especially since Green’s isn’t actually painted green, but it still adds a bit of variety to the accessory, rather than just making it a straight repack. I also love having the two head sculpts, as I can display a different one on each figure.

Wow, I still l can’t believe we have such amazing figures like this based on Golden Axe. Getting all the three player characters and the beasts and skeletons and Death Adder was all unbelievable enough, but the fact that Storm keeps going deeper makes me so damn happy. These are fun and fantastic figures that really add a lot to the Golden Axe collection display. The Green version is still available at most online retailers at $114, which sure ain’t bad considering how much bigger he is than a lot of Storm figures that retail at around that price point. The extra head, passel of hands and huge accessory certainly add to the value there. The variants, on the other hand, both sold out pretty quickly. I have to admit, if the green Bad Brother goes on sale, I may pick up another so I have a matched set. Meanwhile, the Heninger & Long Moan two-pack are due to ship soon, so it’ll be great to have some more baddies to add to the shelf and outnumber our stalwart heroes! Hopefully the Zuburoka Amazon Warriors aren’t far behind!