Transformers Titans Return Perceptor and Brainstorm

Hello! Schala here for a guest review. It's been a while since I've done one of these but these are some special circumstances. Long story short - I finally took the plunge and let Transformers eat a part of my soul, mainly via the IDW comics and specifically More Than Meets The Eye/Lost Light as Orin mentioned in their recent Cyclonus review. So I've only been in the fandom for a few months, but I've been pretty voracious in my consumption and the TF Wiki helps a lot with catching me up.

And being who I am as a person, I couldn't make my way through without picking up at least one ship and since I was already fond of these fragging nerds individually, it should surprise no one that I became a Brainstorm/Perceptor Shipper. (AKA "Simpatico Shipper" based off their way of referring to their connection.)

Anyway, I just started buying figures since I already enjoy figures and part of Transformers is To Sell Toys. I did put together a truncated review of Studio Series Perceptor over on "Stupid Toy Pictures." However, since I managed to get my hands on two figures in the same line, I decided to write up a joint review of Titans Review Brainstorm and Perceptor.

So here they are, both bought "in box." Note that I specifically bought Perceptor with a damaged card to get him at below the going second-hand price. Additionally, this Brainstorm is nicknamed "Walgreens Brainstorm" since he was originally the very first Walgreens exclusive figure. No, I don't understand it either.

You'll also notice two names on the boxes - "Convex & Perceptor" and "Arcana Autobot Teslor & Brainstorm" - and the artwork which gives a big clue into the gimmick of this line. That's right - Everyone is now a Headmaster!

Please note, I am new to the whole Transformers fandom. I have absolutely zero nostalgia for Headmasters as a gimmick. In fact, they creep me right out! While I understand that it gives further options for the transformation sequences, I plain don't like popping heads off my figures and I find the weird lil guys they turn into disturbing. But, whatever, the things we do for shipping.

The back of the cards gives some basic information on the weird relationship between the bots and their headmasters (Convex assisting Perceptor with mass displacement and Teslor assisting Brainstorm with his inventions) as well as advertising the additional gimmick of this set - Swappable heads! This will become relevant later.

Before we get into the figures, we also receive these stat cards with the copies of the box art on the front. You can tell here that these two are parts of different waves of the same set, with Perceptor being from a later wave compared to Brainstorm. Again, the art creeps me out, but I do think that the presentation is much better on Perceptor.

And the back of the cards with the actual stats. Again, you can see the design differences between waves. I'm also just deeply curious about how these stats are scaled. Like, these are two of our resident "Genius" characters and they both only rank at 15 and that's with their little headmaster buddies. I very much want to know who is a genius level 20 in this line.

Anyway, here they are, freed from their plastic prisons. Both figures take cues from their IDW incarnations, but we'll get into that on their individual notes. They are both "Deluxe" class figures so they share the same scale and do reflect the in-universe height and build differences of the characters. So a taller, lankier Brainstorm contrasted with a shorter, bulkier Perceptor which is a nice fit.

So, Brainstorm is a retool of Blurr from Wave 1 of this set which limits the customization for his figure. (Blurr was used as the base for several other figures with variations between.) In addition to sharing the same base torso and limbs, his nosecone is now a "shield" rather than being a large built-in piece of kibble and his winglets are now bolted to his shoulders. And while the photos cast him in teal, he has more of a green tone in person.

Here is an additional close-up of his robot mode. It does give away that his eyes and facemask are painted over plastic and for some reason his eyes are blue rather than the standard gold. His Autobot symbol is also included inside the cockpit and the edges of the cockpit are trimmed in a fairly thick paint. (Which can scuff even with light play as I learned.)

Here is an additional shot of the details on his wings, which follow after the original figures. The TF Wiki notes that these are tampographs, but they look way more like stickers to me…

In contrast to Brainstorm, Perceptor seems to be a unique mold, as to be expected with his unique alt mode. Thus, he shows more IDW influence, specifically Guido Guidi and Nick Roche's artwork which cemented his 'Sexy, Sniper Glow-Up.' The inclusion of the sniper rifle is a particularly nice touch for comic fans.

In a fun bit of recursion, the character designs used in the 2019 "Transformers" comic series also by IDW took major cues from existing figures and you can really see this Perceptor's incarnation in those books.

And a closer look at Perceptor. Again, the unique design allows for some nice additional details throughout his chest plate. I also really like the silver paint used for his face, even if I want to know why he has gold eyes in this line. (The Legends re-release of this figure goes back to blue eyes.)

In terms of printed details, I feel that Perceptor works out better with these leg designs. Though, there is a bit of feathering along the edges that I'm not fond of.

A special note about Perceptor's scope - it attaches to a support bracket that can be adjusted in place via a metal rail. It also has one additional feature - the scope length can be slightly adjusted via the accompanying dial. It does nothing to let you see through the scope, but it is a nice touch.

Anyway, let's take a break from the robot modes and have a little Alt Mode Party! I'll be talking about each one of these in turn as I did with the robots.

We will start with Brainstorm, which as stated earlier, is a Retool of a car-based alt mode bot and it really shows in his alt-mode. The biggest compromise made is the reduction in the number of visible wings from four to three and having a wing placed in the center of his fuselage, to replace the booster that Blurr sports. He does at least retain his distinct nosecone silhouette since it is a separately molded piece.

Just because this detail upsets Orin in particular, here is a shot of Brainstorm's jet mode from the side to illustrate how his canopy doesn't quite cover the full span of the cockpit. But no one really cares if Autobot Teslor can survive his super sonic flights or anything.

Especially since there isn't any floor in the cockpit! I'm not entirely sure how this design flaw comes about, but it certainly is a thing.

As is having an alternate option to place Autobot Teslor inside the nose cone and make it into a gun… sled… thing…. It is terribly unstable and even getting this shot took an unreasonable amount of patience.

So let's talk about Perceptor's Alt Mode. I will say that Brainstorm at least has some reassuring snaps to keep him in place, whereas Preceptor is far more precarious. Especially since his scope is raised up via a pull tab in his chest and doesn't really have true structural support from his arms. Also, Convex just… kinda chills there?

Though I guess that you can also let him chill on Perceptor's stage? There is a way to shift into the "mobile observation mode" or whatever, but those instructions are actually not included in the included guide and I didn't want to try to figure them out by sight.

Scopehead Perceptor cannot hurt you.

(Flashbacks to the Functionalist Council for comic book fans.)

Now, do you remember the back of the cards that we saw earlier? And how they talked about being able to swap heads between figures? So, I thought to myself, "Oh, it would be fun to swap their heads around for my photos! That's a major feature of the line after all!"

Gentle Reader Fellow Weird-Ass Toy Gremlin, try as I might, I could not get Brainstorm's head to fit on Perceptor's body. And it was only after trying for five solid minutes that I looked back at the packaging and realized that, NO, you can only swap heads with select figures in the same wave! Which is kinda ridiculous given that the package would lead one to believe that the heads can be freely swapped.

Like, honestly, I am an Old and I made this mistake. I cannot imagine how many younger fans got really frustrated and confused by not being able to mix and match heads as they pleased.

I was able to put Perceptor's head on Brainstorm's body so I did manage some head-swapping success, but at what cost?

Weapons are far easier to swap between figures, however the weird nosecone shield does not play well with Perceptor (it actually wrenched his hand loose) so it was omitted from the shot.

And since this is Fuck The Box, we have to have some ass shots. The weirdest aspects here are probably the hand cover kibble and the nose cone holder piece. But otherwise, no ass at all.

However, if you do attach the nosecone to the holder, it can only be pointed downward. Which ends up going against the character design and kinda defeats the purpose in my opinion.

Peceptor's turn now. The most… prominent feature is the clear stabilizing piece in the middle of his ass. I don't know why it is clear - black absolutely would've drawn less attention to it - but I do know that it spins which made me laugh really, really hard. Also, the lack of leg covers makes the back shot pretty entertaining.

You can technically attach the rifle to Perceptor's back, but it will not look cool and sexy like the comics so that makes it a fail in my book.

But you can do weird stuff like mount the rifle to the scope which kinda makes up for it.

As part of the wrap up for this review, I wanted to put my existing figures side by side for a little one-on-one comparison. So here is the Generations Brainstorm next to the Titans Return figure. (Orin wrote up a great review of this figure and I managed to get lucky and snag it at a great price.)

While scale is the most obvious difference between the figures, the Generations version just overall has a better quality and attention to detail. The only drawback is that you can have a figure with a finicky head (like I do.) Also, I did my best to adjust the colors in the shot to capture the actual ones in real life, but Generations Brainstorm is absolutely more teal than he appears here.

And now we have Titans Return Perceptor compared against the more recent Studio Series version. These two are the same scale which leads to a better one to one comparison. While I personally prefer the aesthetics of the Titans Return Perceptor, I have to say that the Studio Series has a much better overall feel and quality. I have no particular interest in actual G1 figures, but I do appreciate the Studio Series 86 line for capturing the look of the cartoons.

One last parting shot of the two together, because what is the point of buying figures of your ship if you don't put them in shippy poses? I hope you can all imagine Brainstorm's delighted, "Percy!" here.

So final thoughts - Knowing that these figures were originally released at around $17 a pop ten years ago does sway my opinion. I think that if I had paid that much for them, I would be satisfied with having "Good enough" figures. Obviously, time and the second-hand collector market has warped their perceived value, which I feel does not do them any favors.

Honestly, in a more perfect world, I would love to have many, many things, but for the purpose of this current discussion, I would just like it if there was simply a Voyager-scale comic-inspired Perceptor to pair with Generations Brainstorm. Honestly, to just have that particular combo of figures would suit me perfectly as a figure collector. As it is, I'm willing to compromise in order to have matching figures of my silly scientist bots. Such is the way of the shipper.