Brawn Brawn the pre-Brawn Brawn Transformers Generations Titans Return Titan Masters Item No.: Asst. B4697 No. B8355 Manufacturer: Hasbro Includes: Tiny head robot, small "Jeep" Action Feature: Transforms from head to robot Retail: $4.99 Availability: June 2016 Other: Nifty tiny and blue in Japan
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I like the Titans Return line, but the biggest complaint I've had is when a toy comes out of a character I like, but it's not in the format I want. Brawn was like this - good toy, nice execution, but I was wanting a larger one to fit in with my Legends-scale Minibots collection. Well we're getting one it seems - so now I can just admire this figure on its own merits.

This 1.5-inch robot is, as always, decent. There's no paint on the front of it, which is a bit of a shock to the system. His green face is largely similar to the face/helmet/head under the hood of the original minibot toy, and he's got five points of articulation. The green and yellow robot looks neat, but only vaguely like the original Brawn - who had awkward chrome hook hands, a weird transformation, and one of the stranger heads of that price point. I appreciate what they tried to do here though, and I assume with paint it would be nothing short of amazing. As is it's just perfectly nice as a new thing unto itself, which is the best way to take these figures.

The Brawn head mode is basically the 1980s cartoon model - give or take 60% of the head. The face plate has gorgeous blue eyes set in a silver face, surrounded by a metallic dark grey helmet. The angry face sculpt looks fantastic, and the head is so good it probably would make you mad there's no complete body to go with it. It really is wonderful, and looks great on other larger figures like Hardhead.

The vehicle mode is a Jeep-ish vehicle. Its grille looks like the familiar adventure vehicle, but the wheels were replaced by triangular tank treads - a clear departure from the norm. The tiny Brawn robot folds up and becomes the vehicle's roof, which is a bit of a departure from many of the other Titan Masters vehicles - they tend to allow the figure to pilot the vehicle instead. It's nifty, it works fairly well, I like that it's different from real vehicles I've seen, or toy vehicles, but it lacks color and the only real decoration are its wheels. Some color on the windshield would have been nice.

Transformation to the gun bike mode is criminally simple - things unfold easily, although the alt mode isn't exactly inspiring. You need to know what it's supposed to look like, which is usually not the direction one prefers.

The jet bike is neither great nor awful - it looks fine, it fits the figure well, and the colors are nice. It serves no real purpose, and it's basically the same as the weapon mode. I like that it's another mode, but nothing here will make you particularly glad to have had access to transformation features. If it just stayed its tank Jeep self, you'd be happy.

Weapon mode is the jet bike, but with the back folded in and a peg extended. It works as a weapon, no doubt - it's not fabulous, but most of these aren't. It's fun enough that it's probably the second best of the three modes of this bulk vehicle accessory.

This toy is reasonably fun if you can get beyond the fact it's not the Brawn toy you probably wanted - it's different, cheaper, and more fun than what one would have expected. Should Hasbro recolor it for the US market, you'll probably like it a lot on its own merits. It may be an iffy Brawn, but it's a fun little micro toy in and of itself with four decent modes out of five. For the money, you can't beat it. Well, maybe you can, but there are a lot of good Titan Masters out there now.

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