Transformers: Titans Return Highbrow

 Highbrow is the second use of the basic concept of the Scourge mold. The two share a general transformation pattern, although it is pretty hard to tell that just by looking at the two of them. The main similarities end up being the extending waist part and the general way the arms connect to the side of the body for transformation.

Aside from that, the two figures are pretty different, and that is good on some ends nad not so good on another. Let’s start with the good things.

Highbrow is a really great looking robot, cast in a nice, strong blue with grey arms and thighs. He has the same articulation as Scourge, but this time, rather than have arm movement hindered by the cape Scourge has, it’s slightly hampered by the large shoulder assemblies that stick straight up from the arms. The movement restriction is only minimal, so there isn’t even much worth discussing there, but they mostly impede outward movement, as the shoulder pylons would bump into the head. The helicopter cockpit forms a backpack, which Scourge didn’t have at all, but this is hardly a new thing for a Transformer to have. There are no stability issues to be had though, as Highbrow has big feet, and they allow the weight of the backpack to be distributed well. The body is well sculpted and detailed, and, as has been the case with all the figures thus far, looks like both the animation model and G1 toy well enough that I think almost everyone should be happy. 

Paint apps are fairly minimal, but are placed well. Some yellow and red on the arms, and a few well-placed blue patches on the waist help accent Highbrow in the right places, giving him a not truly exciting but not truly bland look. I don’t mean to say that he’s a middle of the road figure, but the use of colors makes him look better, but still isn’t an exciting look. Which is odd, because this is an exciting figure. It has a great vehicle mode, one that I was invested in from the first official images. Highbrow was the one Autobot Deluxe that I saw and felt my decision to only buy the Decepticons wavering. Yes Highbrow, it’s your fault. I saw the alt mode and just knew that I’d want to get it, because it is a cool futuristic helicopter, and it’s the kind of alt mode that just pushes all of my buttons. 

Highbrow has probably the best weapons of the Deluxes so far, aside from the thin rifle that comes with Blur and Chromedome and Brainstorm: a pair of big, World War I looking machine guns that plug in underneath the vehicle wings and peg together to form a dual machine gun. The weapons work out well because they do not make their primary function that of a seat for a Titanmaster, having only a small slot where it looks like the Titanmaster could stand. I tried this out, basically just out of curiosity and also because I had a spare minute waiting for my wife to get ready for work this morning. Essentially what happens is the guns plug together, and the Titanmaster sits on top of the place where they join. Its feet plug in to the open spot that is created, and a pair of protrusions on either side of the Titanmaster form what imagination could decide is a seat. It’s cool, but it does require some imagination to make it work. What I am interested in however, is that these weapons look good attached to vehicle mode and held by the robot, which is what matters to me. The weapons are painted a dark grey, but it is a metal-color grey, not like they’re plain black or white or light grey, or molded in the same color as the figure. It helps them jump out visually, and they look cool. So, a real win here. 

One issue that is apparently a mold-wide issues is the Titansmaster socket in seated too high, and so partner Xort is more of a bobblehead than any of the other Titanmasters I’ve experienced thus far. This is a common complaint with the line, sure, but Highbrow is just taking advantage of the situation. The socket is visible outside of the torso, and when Xort is inserted you can see some of his face, the tiny robot face, from the back of Highbrow, who then is essentially unable to hold his head up and steady. It’s like the socket being misplaced doesn’t provide enough pressure on the head/torso connection. Apparently there is no way to fix this, like opening the torso doesn’t mean you can reseat the socket or anything, so we kind of just have to put up with it, but apparently this issue effects all Highbrows. Something about that universality makes me feel better about it. The Titanmaster may be a little loose, but it doesn’t fall out or anything, and the ultimate effect is basically that Highbrow has more of a neck  than all the other figures. 

Alt mode is a fantastic futuristic double rotor helicopter, and viewed from the front and the side, it looks great. Looking at it from the top down however, and it becomes painfully clear that the helicopter is just a robot laying down. Since this is the Scourge mold, the transformation is the same, but Highbrow lacks the large folding shell that basically is Scourge’s alt mode, so there isn’t anything to dress up the vehicle. The legs form the rear half of the helicopter and even have a small tail rotor molded in, but the real sore thumb ends up being the arms. They just friction peg to the sides of the body, and are clearly separate parts with visible gaps. Scourge again avoided this because the cape folded around the sides of the vehicle, covering the gaps and arms. 

 

The vehicle mode is mostly blue with the light grey of the arms and rotors being the only real color relief, but the bright red cockpit piece is the real attention grabber, mainly just because it is the single vibrant color on the toy. The weapons attach beneath the wings, really making Highbrow look heavily armed, more like an attack craft, which is fitting with the overall blocky nature of the helicopter. It really is a plastic rectangle. 

The main problem with Highbrow, aside from the neck joint which again, appears to be an issue with every Highbrow, is that one of the rotor blades on mine is bent upwards, like the figure was packaged in such a way that it put pressure on the softer plastic of the blade, and then over time it warped. I have seen other people online saying that this has been the case with their figures as well, but I think it’s due to packaging, and that it is not an issue with the actual toy itself. There are ways to straighten out bent plastic like this, and I’m sure they will work on Highbrow as well.

The vehicle mode got me excited about this figure, and while it is a figure that has a few shortcomings, it is by no means a bad one. Scourge was a real surprisingly good and fun mold, and since Highbrow uses the same basic form, there is a sense of familiarity right out of the package that actually costs Highbrow a few points, mainly because something is missing. That something is the Scourge shell, which I think is the thing that really makes that figure. There is not any reason for Highbrow to have a shell like that, but without a big defining feature like that, the figure ends up being a robot that folds its legs together and puts its arms at its sides. There is no real big, defining feature for this toy, so it is a sum of its parts. They are all good parts, and interesting ones too, but I do feel a little let down from my hype level for this figure. The neck joint issue contributes to this as well, but at least this time there are legitimate things to point at and say “this is an issue,” unlike with the strangely dull Mindwipe. I really recommend Highbrow, but he did not excite me in person the way initial images of the figure online did.