Transformers Studio Series 86 Brawn review

Brawn is best-known for being the strong Minibot. Literally his name. He's a short guy who can tackle any big task, but let it be said that there's not much else that can be known for his character development. At the very least, Brawn was best known for getting shot near the shoulder, resulting in his sudden death. So much for being a strong Minibot. We had a few versions of Brawn that grew in size for past CHUG lines along much like with Beachcomber, so let's see if this guy follows suit as well.

Here we have Brawn in his vehicle mode, a somewhat chibified SUV that is a made-up model. Much like Beachcomber, the sculpted details are much simpler here than on the earlier WFC Trilogy and Legacy line. The necessities you'd expect are thr front grille, the bumper, and the windows being picked out in silver, yellow, and Allspark Blue, respectively. The rims are painted in silver, but the mushroom pegs ruin the consistency. The proportions are generally accurate, though maybe the sides jut out a little more than the G1 toy did.

The extra wheel is removable, and the gun can peg on top of it if you want to add some artillery. No, I haven't tested that this wheel can be swapped with the ones attached.

For a vehicle mode comparison, here he is along with Kingdom Huffer, Netflix Bumblebee, and Cloutworthy Cliffjumper. You can definitely see the approach Minibots are aiming towards with using no translucent plastic as much as possible, which I don't mind that much. The windows will look less consistent with one another, even between Brawn and CJ.

Transformation is a little more involved than what Inexpected from Brawn. It seemingly transforma the same from the old toy, but the arms are hidden from within the backpack until hinged out while the sides of the SUV sandwich together into much chunkier lower legs. The upper body's method of swiveling the hood away is cool. The robot mode is spot-on to the cartoon, and it matches his stocky, barrel-chested appearance better than past toys, but I would be lying if I liked how it turned out 100%. The arms hang down a bit lower from the rest of the upper body, and they weren't this low in the cartoon. The backpack looks like it could fold up a bit more, but it doesn't. The yellow is much more prominent here than in the vehicle mode, but I hope it doesn't chip off since it is painted. As a result of the leg transformation, I dig how the legs look from the back. But yeah he is like a Ninja Turtle overall.

His head sculpt is spot-on to the cartoon, from the dome head and the silver face. It's generally something the WFC Trilogy, Legacy, amd SS86 lines have done successfully compared to past lines. Especially when this Brawn is a Deluxe instead of a Legends figure. With his pistol in his hand, his articulation is standard for thr line, with a neck swivel that is a bit annoying to move, shoulders that are on ball joints, bicep swivels, elbow bends, waist swivel, hips that move front and back, in and out, thigh swivels, knee bends, and ankle pivots.

Brawn's legs can be mistransformed so he can stand taller and mimic the stilt legs of his old toy. The Hasbro Pulse people showed this on a livestream, too. Maybe he could have beaten the  Decepticons easily with that in the movie.

And here he is with his Minibot fellas once more in bot mode. Everyone looks on-model to the G1 cartoon, and all we need is Gears and Windcharger. The former is rumored to pop up in the next chapter of Legacy after getting scrapped in Kingdom, and I expect the latter to show up in SS86 just because he died in the movie. As for Brawn, he is alright for what he can offer. At this point it's a case of checking boxes while making the figures good enough for what they are. Brawn is not like Jazz or Hot Rod where he is a must-have, as he instead has no major requirements beyond being Brawn. I expect him to be in a 2-pack with Ratchet for the Buzzworthy line, but I'd like to see an Outback.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐