We already know a fair bit about Bayverse Brawl in spite of his short screentime in the 2007 movie, but what can be said about G1 Brawl beyond his role as a component of Bruticus? He's loud, but how loud depends on which fiction takes his tech spec bio to heart. I guess the appeal for seeing him in later iterations is the hulking tank appeal that his design has, and it's also why he was either loosely homaged in Energon with green tank component Kickback or had a RID 2001 Armorhide, who is a mostly unrelated character, show up with a more toy-accurate design compared to the made up nature of the Sunbow Combaticons. Regardless, I am excited to bring in yet another review as we get another fairly quick step towards completing AOTP Bruticus. Let's see how Brawl turned out.
Here we have Brawl in his tank mode, which is not exactly close to the Leopard 1A3 main battle tank of his old toy. While being a tank is standard for the character, I can't help but wonder if this one specifically is supposed to look gappy in certain areas. While a hole under the main barrel is standard for most other tank models, I don't know if most tanks are supposed to have that uneven front end where the area that will be the chest is different from the rest of the corners. I also find the back section raised up higher than the front section to be unusual. I can't say if this tank mode is faithful to whatever source it's using or not because it's more made up than the old toy and possibly Combiner Wars version. At least the turret rotates and the barrel moves up and down. The tiny wheels at the bottom are about as effective as in any other tank former.
For a vehicle mode size comparison, you may think this figure is the same class as his limbs, but no, he is in fact a Voyager. Apparently, that is because Hasbro wanted to make him more substantial for the leg mode than what the Aerialbots and Stunticon legs could offer. Neat idea, but we'll see if he's anywhere near as 'successful' at that compared to Scrapper and Mixmaster.
Transformation is fairly involved than prior versions of Brawl, no doubt as a commitment towards using that "budget" to make justify making him a Voyager. Each portion of the tank compacts itself better with additional hinges and panels to fill out a substantial robot. Granted, I wish the back panels could be flush with the rest of the legs while the barrel on his back is not hollowed out (even if this is done for structural reasons), but an attempt was made. The resulting robot mode is closer to the Sunbow design, which is the result of the character models deviating themselves from the toys substantially. Granted, the combiner toys that weren't limbs or the two torso components of Devastator suffer from having very basic and poorly defined bot modes, but in Brawl's case, they had to reduce his chest side and redesign the arms so he doesn't have alt mode chunks with holes for fist openings. One thing I like is that the Decepticon insignia has no misalignments on the forearm given one part of it is on a hinge to conceal the hand. A larger complaint I have would be the mismatching light gray treads and the gunmetal used on the thighs and forearms. Granted, it's possible parts of the toy are cast in unpaintable plastic, but surely it would be easy to cast those in a darker color, right? And a bit of a nitpick, but those arms stick out a bit more, huh?
His head sculpt is about as boxy as the Combaticon heads usually are, but at least he has some extra paintwork to make the gunmetal broken up with orange and magenta. The latter being used on the red is a bit out of place on a militaristic robot, accurate or not. Anyways, Brawl's articulation consists of a ball jointed neck, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, butterfly joints, bicep rotation, hinged elbows, waist rotation, universal hips, thigh rotation, hinged knees, and ankle rockers.
The weapon storage is at least able to give Brawl some additional firepower, but that puny pistol makes me wish he had a larger gun or more guns like on Bayverse Brawl. As for the leg mode, I can't wait to put him in the Bruticus frame, especially with how beefy it looks than the Combiner Wars version. That being said, remember when I said he is supposed to be a Voyager to have more in his engineering than Vortex and Blast Off? Where's? All? The god? Damned? Ratcheting?!
And here we have him with the other Combaticons so-far with the same photo I used last time I reviewed Blast Off. Despite being a Voyager, Brawl is the height of a Deluxe to better scale with the other characters as the cartoon depicted them. I guess there is a height advantage with the cannon that is on his back, but then again, so does the propellor blades on Vortex. I feel like I'm in the same position with SS86 Windcharger where I find the budget used on the figure ill-fitting for the price; granted, Brawl has a bit more to him than WC does, what with being a combiner, but we have to consider not only the lack of a ratchet joint compared to Mixmaster and Scrapper, but the price for Voyagers increased nearly TEN FUCKING DOLLARS!!! Once again, we can bring up the mention of the economy (despite prices going up for years) and the mention of tariffs, but when Voyagers get the highest price increase compared to Deluxes and Leaders, what in God's name is Hasbro smoking? Are they the safe-bet purchases for the current TF market these days? That can't even help them out because they got a worse price hike than anyone else. Overall, he is a decent figure, yet his weird altmode design elements and the lack of a ratchet joint knock points off of him. That even hurts with the price increase. God, he is so close to inching a 50% or less score...I need to retire collecting...
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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