Brute Force

Brute Force (1990) #1-4

by Simon Furman, Roger Stern (Contributor), José Delbo (Artist)

Collects Brute Force #1-4 and Power Pachyderms #1.

Includes fun-packed wildlife fact sheets created by Disney's Animals, Science and Environment! Wreckless the bear! Soar the eagle! Surfstreak the dolphin! Hip Hop the kangaroo! And Lionheart the — you guessed it — lion! They're the cybernetically enhanced protectors of the environment, Brute Force! And they're fighting to save the Earth, whether you asked them to or not! But to claw their way to victory, Brute Force will have to battle their beastly rivals, Heavy Metal — a cyborg shark, rhino, gorilla, octopus and vulture! The anthropomorphic adventurers' escapades are collected alongside fun-packed wildlife fact sheets created by Disney's Animals, Science and Environment! Plus: If Brute Force isn't wild enough for you, check out more offbeat antics from Marvel's vaults: the crimefighting elephants known as the Power Pachyderms!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Marvel

152 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 14, 2018

About the author

Simon Christopher Francis Furman is a British comic book writer who is best known for his work on Hasbro/Tomy's Transformers franchise, starting with writing Marvel's initial comic book to promote the toyline worldwide, as well as foundations for both Dreamwave Production's and IDW Publishing's takes on the Generation 1 minifranchise.

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

Sometimes cited as one of the stupidest comics ever, this turns out to be a surprisingly prescient story of environmental Armageddon at the hands of insane tycoons, exacerbated by greenwashing and media manipulation. OK, yes, it was also intended to launch a toy line of battle-suited animals, which never happened - and even in the timeline where it was a success, you just know Hip Hop the wacky kangaroo would have been the one shops always had difficulty getting shot of, and for whom you had to feign gratitude when purchased by well-meaning relatives come Christmas. Seriously, how does he manage to be the first of them online, yet still the Poochie? But otherwise, you've got Simon Furman writing, and if there's one man who could turn an eighties toy tie-in comic into something unexpectedly weighty, his Transformers confirmed him as the one. As comics about mechanised animals going on the run after being betrayed by the organisation that built them go, I'm not going to claim this is on a par with We3, because I'm not (that) insane. But you could definitely consider it a progenitor. Although I may just be biased because I identify with the bear who, pretty much as soon as he attains the power of human speech, complains that he's too warm.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brute Force is like We3 meets Captain Planet. It's perfectly serviceable as a pro-environmentalist team of talking animals in mechanical armour. It doesn't offer you much more than that premise, but it doesn't give you less. The character designs look cool but aren't particularly memorable - except for the actual gimmick of them being animals in suits. The personalities of the characters are cliche. The action scenes are pretty simple and not exciting. It's fine as a standalone gimmick to read just to experience how kind of silly it is, but it's not that great.

And the "Power Pachyderms" one-shot had some fun parody material that went on for way too long and ended up being boring at best.

[ISMOTU · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wacky idea from the toy-etic 80's, Brute Force has animals in super powered armour that makes them more intelligent battling for the environment. This miniseries is fun and silly. The Power Pachyderms one-shot is a very different kind of silly, being an X-Men/TMNT spoof that has nothing to do with Brute Force aside from animal protagonists and probably coming out around the same time. This is a quirky collection of nigh-forgotten Marvel strangeness.

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very early-1990s sort of idea - a team of toyetic power-armored animals battle ecological threats - from the contemporary creative team on Marvel's Transformers comic (Simon Furman and José Delbo). Brute Force didn't last past this initial miniseries, but - while generally just serviceable - this does have its moments. Also included in this trade is the one-shot Power Pachyderms, an offbeat X-Men/Daredevil/Ninja Turtles parody which rates a little weaker than Brute Force... (B)

[Scott Waldie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a pretty entertaining premise in its day, and incredibly goofy, but reading through this so many years later I think the original character designs don't hold up all that well and the writing might be a fraction hefty for younger comic readers who the toys would have been marketed towards. But for sure this is something fun to have on your shelf, and I like a lot of these older, obscured Marvel books more than the comic runs of their major heroes for the last 15-20 years. I know these guys showed up later in Deadpool (at least) with improved looks too.

[Gary Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Marvel Readthrough, pt 168

I was expecting some sort of lost gem from late-80s Marvel, but this was just miniseries to test the waters for a planned cartoon show and toy line. Clearly, it wasn't a success.