Sep 21 2008
The Story Of Poor, Misunderstood Bruticus
At the last Botcon, Hasbro announced a whole slew of new homage figures to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Transformers, to be released under the Universe moniker. Not only would more G1 characters be receiving new, updated designs (as in the Classics series), but characters from all Transformers lines would also be getting updates. The fan base was very excited. Recently, a new repaint for the Universe line was announced: Hasbro would be repainting Cyberton Scourge (”Flame Convoy”, in Japan) as “Robots In Disguise” Bruticus.
“Predacon Bruticus” seems like an odd choice of characters to pay homage to, since that figure wasn’t very well received by fans or collectors. At the time, Takara had just thrown Transformers fans a colossal bone with the return of realistic vehicular alternative modes: “Car Robots” featured robots that turned into models of real-life cars, as opposed to animals. The Beast Machines series was trying to introduce vehicles, in the way of “Vehicons“, but there was little fan support for these futuristic styles (I’m one of the few that liked them).
Bruticus was meant to be an addition to the eclectic Maximal lineup on Beast Machines, but the series died before he could be released. However, Hasbro managed to shoe-horn him into the next line, “Robots in Disguise” (RiD), which was basically the Car Robots line from Japan repackaged into English packages. Bruticus didn’t appear on the television show and had a strange form in both modes. Worse, he used up a name from Generation 1, so the actual repaint of G1 Bruticus for the RiD line was instead named “Ruination”.
As for the new paint scheme, I’m not sure if I like it. Was RiD Bruticus originally supposed to have a similar paint application? He was styled in red, yellow and black, after the original G1 Predacon combiners (orange and gold would have been a given, but blue works). He may have actually had more paint on him in pre-production stages, but those were probably nixed for cost reasons (in order to retain the complexity of the mold). To be honest, RiD Bruticus would have looked great with some gold and dark blue highlights on him, as one of the biggest complaints leveled against him was a lack of paint applications.
I really liked RiD Bruticus though. What’s not to like? He’s an armored, three-headed dog with bat wings on his head. He’s got spikes and saw blades everywhere. And he’s mysterious. I mean, why do his back legs turn into a second pair of arms, complete with flip-up weapons? Why does he have a broken chain on his leg? Why does his robot mode have three faces? What was supposed to go under the flip-up panel on his chest? It’s clear that this figure never quite reached his potential, but I’d like to know what was the original plan for this guy.
There was a recurring mystical theme with the Maximals in the Beast Machines line. There was a unicorn, a griffon, a dragon, and even a lion. The inclusion of Cerberus would have been natural. Toss in a personality conflict, one persona for each beast head, which would correspond in turn to each robot face, and you’ve got an interesting story. Maybe he was supposed to be a quadruple-changer, with each robot face having a slightly different robot mode? This would explain the extra set of arms. We’ll never know, I guess.
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