Universe 2.0 Bruticus Maximus

Adding this to my collection as soon as it hits target stores! when it comes to combination I prefer the helicoptors as the arms, and tanks as legs.

with the tank limb for an arm, if you detatch the sides of the tank treads you can give him elbows due to the location of the hips for the individual robot mode

so this should be out in like December? with all the other recent items like blurr and safegaurd 2 pack coming out at the same time hopefully anyway

Nice review. Out of curiosity, if you play around with un-transforming the arms a little, can you use the leg joints of Vortex to act as sort of a makeshift elbow? Dilazirk did something similar with Classics Devastator to achieve some excellent elbow articulation. I figured out a way to do it with the Combaticon tanks when they're used as arms by disconnecting the legs from the treads and bringing them completely down. This lets me use the figure's legs as Bruticus's arm instead. Then the tank treads and turret work pretty well as a large shoulder pad with shoulder turrets. I'm wondering if something similar could be done with the helicopters as arms because I was never able to find them for my Energon Bruticus Maximus. I had to resort to using Aerialbots instead. If they can work as elbows, I may just pick up the Universe set afterall.

Although it would have been much nicer if Hasbro had made a couple new molds for the Classics/Universe combiners. It would have been so much better. But if they're released as store exclusives, it doesn't surprise me.

This set looks better and better everytime I see more pics. Thanks for the great review!

The one off-color energon piece makes no sense. They're just asking to be repainted.

As I've said in other threads, I'd have been happy if they just used a couple of the existing combiner molds from the other Energon combiners, so that all five molds were unique. Perhaps a airplane for Blast Off and one of the construction vehicles for Swindle?

It at least wouldn't be any MORE inappropriate that what those two got here, and THEN we'd have something a bit different. I still don't understand why Hasbro hasn't mixed-and-matched more with these repaints. So far, only the club combiner seems to have even noticed it's possible.

I really don't care for the colors on this one, especially the one-off orange Energon piece. just looks too messy to me.

"all the slammin' shorties in the house say "yeah!""
—Optimus Prime

I haven't had one of these gestalts in hand yet, but so far my only complaint is the lack of elbows.

I am definitely picking up both of the combiner packages.

Thanks for all the picks zephon!

Great review, thanks for posting that (incidentally, I love your "hanger-bay-style" backdrops... are those homemade, or purchased somewhere?).

Anyhow, not having owned the Energon Barricade figure before, I didn't realize Bruticus' ears folded back like that. That's great, I think I'll be going that route when I get this guy... it's such a simple difference, but it makes him look significantly more like his G1 namesake.

While the duplicate molds are still a bummer in these Energon combiners, I think the names were at least re-assigned intelligently in this case. Blast-off is a better name for a tank than it is for a helicopter, and I don't lament the loss of a space shuttle mold. Having a space shuttle as a member of a military-machine team never made a lick of sense.

Somehow Swindle as a helicopter works... almost better than a jeep. Maybe because I think of helicopters as cargo vehicles, so in this form Swindle could lug around his black-market merchandise. And a flying mode would make it easier for him to flee when the deals go sour.

I actually wish Onslaught had been left out of the mix altogether and that the core-figure had been the one named Blast-Off. Weird, I know, but hear me out... Blast-off suits a missile truck even better than it does a tank, and we already have a Universe Onslaught. They could have played it as if Onslaught had broken from the team, and one of the other members had been promoted in his stead. Then the remaining tank mold could have been a newly-joined member, and given the name of some other G1 Decepticon tank like Quake or Killbison. Anyway, this is neither here nor there (and I know it would not have made sense from a marketing perspective), just thinking aloud.