Now these five dudes are the Revenge of the Fallen Combaticons, and what a bad bunch of dudes they are! You know me, I want to keep it brief this time like Thew since I have a backlog that needs to be reduced greatly for the Age of the Primes and other 2025 items coming soon. Thankfully, we have the previously mentioned 2 pairs of repaints in this set. Bargain.
I think we'll start with the Brawl Off duo. Yes, that Blast Off-colored tank dude IS him and not a shuttle. Anyways, the tank mold's an homage to G1 Brawl, who we do have here, though they now have orange on their weapons and Energon stars rather than having it on their faces. The robot mode is sweet; it's all weapons and attitude, and it even gets away with having these daft kibble wings and ski feet. They also have hand-held weapons, but they don't need them! They got built-in arm cannons!
Transformation's pretty easy...to get wrong if you get the cannons facing the wrong way or falling off. I do love the tank mode, it's muscular and compact like corn beef. You can slap the silly weapons on top if you want to, but you don't need them! YOU DON'T NEED EM, BRAWL-OFF!
MOVING ON! These two are Swindle and Vortex. Yes, we have another helicopter. Anyways, the latter is blue and grey but don't confuse him for Blackout. Did you know that Movie Blackout was going to be called Vortex, which would make some think that all Decepticon helicopters the same character. Thankfully, it's not the case with the Swindlechopper. Luckily, his name won't be easy to get wrong. Overall, the robot modes are dorky but the transformation's really satisfying.
Check that! That is a sweet altmode! I would say I don't mind having two of these and leaving out Blast Off since while having a shuttle in a team is problematic, but he's a ground vehicle while Swindle is an aerial vehicle. The dollar sign is nice, but I swear Swindle was a little more yellow than that.
Rounding off the team then is Onslaught. He's the big guy. The leader guy. The main guy. The gray guy. We also have Energon Barricade, who is the same only he is blue instead of gray. Still, I'd totally believed if they called him Onslaught if not for the-EARMUFFS...and the total lack of weapons. What is that about? Surely, this mold deserved a big rifle or something.
But as I mentioned, Brawl and Blast Off come with their Energon weapons. They don't need them, so Onslaught gets to use them. Which is how things work in my house. The only thing that winds me up with the robot mode is the backpack he ends up with. It's enormous and unsightly, but I can deal with that. Who cares about someone's back anyway?
Now check this vehicle mode! It's bitchin'! We even get a fully rotatable ratcheted missile launcher! Sweet as it is, the head could be seen from the side. Honestly, what's going on there? But again, I like it enough to overlook that.
Anyways, guess what's about to happen?
So here he is: Bruticus Maximus! bruticus.adj. Brutal, dude, frigg'n brutal. Also massive.
maximus.adv.To tha freakin' MAX, yo. Totally 110%, sir. Unlike 2009 Thew, I go for the Leader Class figures we got at the time and the current day Commanders and Titans. This means that Bruticus is by no means the biggest, but if you cheat and include the rotor blades like Thew once did, you can add 4 or 5 centimeters and he's definitely up there. Going back to the limbs, the tanks have you use two swivels to have the turrets shift upwards while the weapons slap on the front there to make either a hand or a foot. That's a pretty weird hand, though. That's why I use the tanks as legs...which is even more interesting if you remember the original Energon deco. Transforming the helicopters into limbs can be tricky, though it's because it's more involved and I thankfully never got it wrong. I prefer them as arms because the guns are blatantly big hands, and if you use them as feet they always, ALWAYS fall off...which is a real pain in the ass...
Breaking script for a moment, the head sculpt is definitely the closest to resembling the G1 version of Bruticus, especially compared to the more Bionicle-mask design on Constructicon and the normal face on Superion without the visor or mouthplate. But check it out, he's got loads of articulation for a 2004 combiner. His arms move this way, and they move that way. His waist works, too. And his head. His knees, work, too. He's got a shiny Decepticon logo on his chest. Thew doesn't know the name of it, but it's the Energon Star port...same spot found on the limbs, my British brother in Christ...anyways, it doesn't work on Barricade since it's on his back in robot mode, and upside down in vehicle mode. Having it exclusively for the combined mode is kind of nice. Oh and you can sort of do the rock horns with the helicopter hands, though the fingers are so rigid they look more like the shadow puppet of a goat.
Not only am I going to stick with both helicopters as arms and both tanks as legs, but I briefly want to show how Bruticus Maximus looks with the more colorful Barricade looks. There aren't many things I don't like about this, but there are a couple. Thankfully, the hands and feet aren't baby blue, but they are transparent a la the gauntlets for Legacy Blitzwing nearly 2 decades later. Since the helicopters suck as legs, you have to use the tanks, but no ankle pivots mean he doesn't stand straight unless the kibble is folded away. Something Thew forgot was that the Maximus Combiners had FINGERNAIL LASERS in the series, but I wouldn't blame him for not watching the series since Energon was pretty bad. He suggested that the shin cannons could be used, but I agree that a rifle would be appreciated. Also, unlike with my copy on Energon Barricade, the panel holding the head on Bruticus pops off, which is kind of irritating. I suppose I could have a good ol' gripe about the repaints, but how different were the Aerialbots, really?
Back to breaking script, let's cover variants in a more detailed manner than I usually do, On the left is the Takara Superlink version while the right showcases the Hasbro Energon Destruction Team. Takara sold them as a set while Hasbro sold them individually, though two of the members were impossible to find given their status as tail-enders. We have already showcased Barricade in the review since I got him first, but the other members, using the Takara image in clockwise order, include Blast Off/Blackout, Brawl/Kickback, Swindle/Vorter, and Swindle/Blight (what a great name!).
Remember two of the Air Team repaints I talked about in Superion Maximus's review? Anyways, here are three more members worth discussing. This is Heatwave, a retool of Barricade with clear plastic and has a unique red and purple color scheme. Yes, we got a version of Heatwave before the Rescue Bots series even existed. The head mode is retooled and represents Nexus Prime. Don't call him Nexus Maximus, and don't even think about looking it up if you're afraid of NSFW toys.
This is Landquake, who is almost as patriotically colored as a firecracker on the 4th of July. All of the red is clear plastic, though the blue and grey almost looks a bit knockoff-esque.
And this is Topspin, whose name may be more literal than any other Topspin we've had. The purple on this figure is translucent while most of the red stays opaque apart from the light-piped parts. I think if Landquake had purple a la Topspin, he would look as good as Topspin.
Two canceled repaints were intended for the Movie line, with the helicopter mold being Reverb and the latter being Gunbarrel. They still had their Energon Stars and weapons, though it's doubtful that there would be any other Maximus torsos or limbs to go with these. Neither saw release in any market, but they would have been Target-exclusives like with all the other figures in the same size class at the time. (The 2007 movie toyline reused Energon and Cybertron figures before we'd eventually see new molds for the ROTF and HFTD lines in additional stores like Walmart, Kmart, and Toys R Us).
One more thing worth mentioning: Third party OGs FansProject made two new figures that come with various accessories to further improve Bruticus's look for a more G1 appearance, with the figures being the Crossfire subline's Explorer (Blast Off) and Munitioner (Swindle). Not only do they have even more articulation than the Energon Basic toys, but they contain new weapons to replace the clear plastic weapons in addition to altering the gestalt's design. More info can be found on the TFSource video from a decade made nearly 15 years ago. BTW TFSource, where reupload your Buster Prime and third party Frumble videos.
Despite all the minor complaints I could have, I still love this guy to bits. He is my big buddy, and he is brutal to the max. In all seriousness, this is the best out of the three Maximus combiners we got in Energon, and while there are issues I do have with it, the figure still manages to feel better executed even without the Crossfire sets. I may get those someday, but I'll leave this figure in my Unicron Trilogy display while Age of the Primes shall give me a more definitive Bruticus after Superion is done.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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