Ride - Deluxe Evac

"Evac is used to dodging laser fire. His entire life, Decepticons have gotten in his way, and tried to stop him. They've never succeeded. No matter how overwhelming their attack, Evac knows that with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee covering him, nothing will stop him from delivering his passengers safely."

Name: Evac

Faction: Autobot

Continuity: Live Action Movies (I think)

Toy Line: Universal Studios - The Ride

Size Class: Deluxe

Strength: 6

Intelligence: 5

Speed: 9

Endurance: 4

Rank: 5

Courage: 9

Fireblast: 5

Skill: 8

Robot Mode

Evac's robot mode is mostly grey with some silver, black and blue. His visible vehicle mode parts form blue armour plates for him on his chest, shoulders and backpack. His body-type is quite a common one for a car-based Transformer, in that his hood is now his chest, his wheels are found in his shoulders and legs and a large chunk of the vehicle is now on his back.

His torso section's most prominent feature is his vehicle mode hood forming the chest, and his abdominal area featuring a faux-part of his rear thruster (the real thruster is under his head). The rest of the abdominal area is made up of sculpted vehicle parts. An interesting part of this area is his abdominal blasters, which can be folded up/down manually to give him some sort of weapon (since his gun from the prototype has been removed).

The only other thing really to note about his torso section is his backpack, which can be folded out (as shown in my pictures) to give him a sort of cloak or wings.

His head is connected to the top of the torso by a ball joint from what was his vehcile mode thruster that allows the head all sorts of rotational points. The head is silver with a blue helmet and yellow eyes and rear of the head. The face is sculpted with details like a nose, mouth, chin and some definition marks (like on most Movie-based figures).

His upper arms are connected to the tops of the torso by ball joint connectors, leading to his shoulders (which include his rear wheels). The shoulder parts are connected to the main upper arm by a pivoting joint. leading to a hinge-based embow. The rest of the lower arm features no further articulation, but the hands are sculpted to feature a standard sized peg hole, so you can give him someone else's gun if you want to arm the poor fella. Saying that, his arms do feature some arm-mounted lasers (or blow torches or something), but they're just for decoration really. His arms also feature some C-Joints on his mounted cannon-thing and shoulders.

His legs are connected to the torso by his groin area with ball joint connector again, giving it just as much articulation as the arms. His legs should have a pivoting joint just below the tops of them, but due to the placement of the wheels, they cannot actually move. His knees are made up on a hinge joint, leading to his lower legs. His feet are also on a hinge joint of sorts, but i'm not really sure why, it doesn't help with articulation, posing or in his vehicle mode either...it's just there.

The bottoms of his lower legs feature a panel from his vehicle mode on each side, which gives him a winged-foot appearance (ala Hermes from Greek Mythology) possibly giving the impression that he's fast.

Vehicle Mode

Evac turns into (according to his card back) a Supercar, based on the car used in the Universal Studios Ride. This mode is mostly blue with green patterns along the sides, and a silver Autobot insignia on either side. Under his black, translucent canopy, you can see a set of four seats (for his passengers to sit in), which has some nice sculpted details in it, but sadly is inaccessible, as it's pinned shut. The rest of the car mode is mostly sculpted details, like paneling, side mirrors etc. This mode also features a set of four working wheels, which, as to be expected in this age of toy making, are fully able to roll along a smooth surface.

Items of note in this mode's sculpting include his front grill's small gun (helpful for shooting Decepticon's in the shins), his rear thruster (for quick escapes), and a set of small (non-working) lights on his hood, painted with some yellow paint (yet the main headlights are left unpainted, next to them).

One interesting point in this mode, is that Evac still features a small hole on the top of his canopy where his gun (seen in the prototype images) would have gone.

My Final Thoughts

People who know me, know I've been after this figure for some time now, I found him at Auto Assembly this year for £30 and I of course picked him up, and I have not been disappointed so far! He's basically a more advanced version of his Legion class toy (as you'd expect of course) but with some more features and details.

As mentioned a couple of times in my actual review, Evac was supposed to come with a gun originally, but it was removed, most likely at the last minute for some reason as the toy still features the peg hole for it in vehicle mode, and his profile image on the front of the toy's packaging still shows the gun over his shoulder as well. Despite this apparent last minute change, the figure still doesn't disappoint me :)

Something of note about this figure that I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice, is that he looks quite a lot like G1 Skids, as such, if Skids was not about to receive a new Generations toy soon anyway, I;d have said you could just put him on your Generations G1 shelf as him as well!

All in all, I think this toy is great, he was well worth the wait in the end, and sits happily on my shelf with the rest of my "favourites". The one problem with the figure really is that he's so hard to get, the only "legitimate" way is to get it from the Ride's store at Universal Studios, which of course for me would be too expensive, so I'd probably suggest that everyone just buy him the same way I did, on the aftermarket for a much lower price (you know, compared to buying a plane ticket, ticket into the park, paying the store's prices etc)

X is for X-Brawn

COMING SOON



The Winning Toy

"X-Brawn loves extremes and is at his best in disastrous and brutal climates such as dry deserts and snowstorms. He doesn't waste tme on long-winded speeches and can be counted on to say it all in just a few words. He's very reliable and has fearsome strength. He is a martial arts master with an especially powerful left arm. His "Southpaw Lariat" is invincible."

Toyline: Robots in Disguise US

Generation: Robots in Disguise

Size Class: Deluxe

Faction: Autobot

Function: Strong-Armed Fighter

Quote: "Strength wins!"

Strength: 10

Intelligence: 8

Speed: 8

Endurance: 9

Rank: 9

Courage: 7

Firepower: 6

Skill: 6


Robot Mode



X-Brawn's robot mode is mostly silver and green with some red detailings and has a humanoid shape, except for the large car hood on his left arm.

X-Brawn's torso is sculpted with several car detailings, like a small engine in the center. His head is able to rotate to either side and bend backwards to his ball joint/hinge connector. The head is sculpted with a moth plate, forehead decorations and two golden eyes. He features a pair of holes on his back pack that can be used to store his two weapons (I only have one pictured, as I only own the gun/blaster, the other weapons resembles a blade/sword.

His upper arms are connected to the torso by a ball joint each that gives them articulation as long as there's no obstructions. The right lower arm is connected to the upper arm by a ball joint. The end of that arm leads to a set of sculpted fingers and a projectile slot where you can slot the weapons into to act as a gun or a sword. His left arm is connected to the upper arm by a pivot/hinge joint, and the lower arm is simply his vehicle mode hood. X-Brawn's hand is connected to that by a hinge and ball joint combination that allows it to move as far as you desire. His fingers are sculpted, and his thumb is able to move on a hinge-joint, which allows you to slot the silver bars on the weapons from his back, or the silver bumper from his vehicle mode as weapons

X-Brawn's upper legs are connected to his groin area by a pair of ball joints that allow them to move as freely as needed. his lower legs are connected by a pair of hinges on both legs that give him a knee and a second lower knee in you want him to (it's really just for his transformation sequence). His feet are made of of his spare wheel being split in half. The wheel becomes his heels and the guard for the wheel becomes the front section of the foot.


Alternate Mode



X-Brawn's vehicle mode is a silver SUV with green trim and a large Autobot insignia on the tip of the hood ("Robots in Disguise" my ass...<<)

X-Brawn features a few details like headlights, front grill, a hood that covers an engine, treaded tires on working wheels with silver hubcaps, and a sculpted spare tire on the very back with a guard around it.

X-Brawn's windows are transparent and allow you to see inside his vehicle mode, which whilst being good, so it looks realistic...is also bad since you can see his robot head and right arm folded inside..yeah...so much for a good disguise there X-Brawn...although quite shockingly, this small fault was actually featured in an episode of the Robots in Disguise cartoon, where the human Kelly was driving X-Brawn and then suddenly noticed his head right next to her in the passenger's seat, prompting a swift freak out of course.

X-Brawn's two main weapons are held in his undercarriage and act as extra support struts and steps etc, and the small silver piece that can be clipped in at the front as a front bumper.


Legacy

X-Brawn was a new character created for the Robots in Disguise series and acted as the eldest of the "Autobot Brothers" sub-group, made up of Side Burn, Prowl and himself. He appeared in most of the episodes and even gained an upgraded form when Ultra Magnus accidentally gave him and his brothers a power boost (making him look like a rally race car)

X-Brawn's toy was repainted a few times as alternate versions of himself (ie a clear version in Japan, his upgraded form, and some of the light differences between him and his Car Robots counterpart Wild Ride). He was also repainted as the Autobot Ratchet from the 2003 Universe line. He also had a smaller Spychanger sized toy made for the Robots in Disguise line based on his Deluxe toy as well.

X-Brawn's name and basic characteristics (ie very strong, SUV) are references to Brawn, whom he almost shares a name with. It's likely that X-Brawn is actually meant to be an alternate version of Brawn (like with Prowl) but since there have been other Brawns made in recent years, with the name Brawn still intact, it just makes sense to treat X-Brawn as a totally separate character.

X-Brawn is the only one of the Autobot Brothers whom have not had a recent G1 style update toy. Side Burn had one from the Collector's Club, Prowl's is the Universe 2.0 toy, but none for X-Brawn so far (here's hoping!)


Is he Cool?

Honestly? Yes, he is cool, though there are many toys who are better in both terms of character, looks and features, and I did only chose him because he was the only X in my collection, but he is still cool.

The Robots in Disguise franchise altogether is one of the most popular due to it being a mostly vehicle based series after a few years of mostly beasts (with only the Predacon being beasts in this one). This of course appealed to the G1 purists as it was like they were getting their own way, but also appealed to others due to it's new mold toys having great articulation, detail and characterizations, as well as most of the characters acting as updated versions of the older characters that the masses had loved over the years, whilst also bringing in new characters.

I personally feel that if you see this toy or any of his repaints, then he's well worth getting, especially if you can also get his brothers as well (and even more so since he's the only one to not have a Classics style toy yet as well)