"What's a litter of runts doing in my starport?"
As Skeleton Crew debuted on Disney+ in December 2024, Hasbro put a full wave of Skeleton Crew figures into immediate stock. The six-figure wave consisted of the four main protagonists, Jude Law’s mysterious character, and the impressive Captain Brutus.
Pirate Captain Brutus is named specifically as per his appearance on Port Borgo although this costume did not change in any great detail through the following appearances. The Skeleton Crew Galaxy Collection has been given a rich Yellow accent colour which is used on the character name and the side artwork with Brutus numbered as the 6th figure in the Skeleton Crew collection. His side artwork concludes the initial montage of Skeleton Crew's side art connecting to KB who proceeds him in the run. The rear of the box carries a repeat of this artwork and a short synopsis of the series rather than the character - avoiding any specific spoilers. The backing cards of each of the newer boxes are also now aligned to the same accent colour scheme and feature a background. For Brutus, this artwork is a simple planet scape that doesn’t quite line up with his appearances which have been limited to Port Borgo and his ships.
Brutus is the first Shistavanen in the Black Series and is decked out in an impressive set of layers as seen on screen. The base of Brutus is a brown cast set of trousers and a simple tunic. Over the tunic is a leather effect vest that also incorporates a bandoleer of blaster holsters and some level of shoulder armour with a furred effect. The captain’s coat is engineered by way of sculpted arms with yellow and grey trims and a softer plastic skirt piece that feeds out from a belt to create the coattails. This long coat is similarly coloured to the torso with a lighter grey weathering effect added to represent a dishevelled look. The belt includes both a standard belt with painted buckle and detailing and a lower-slung gunslinger belt with holsters sitting at either side of the Captain’s hips. The costume is finished off with a simple pair of dark boots with a lighter brown trim.
The Shistavanen head sculpt is an excellent likeness to the prosthetics seen in the series, with sculpted fur, ears and the wolf-like snout with the mouth exposed in a snarl with off-white teeth and a hint of red gum visible at the edges. Red is also reflected in Brutus’ eyes with the face itself a grey skin tone contrasting slightly with the darker brown ‘beard’ and hair.
Brutus comes with all five of his blasters as seen on Skeleton Crew. These are all different varying from a trio of weapons that look like flintlock pistols alongside a pair of more modern-looking blasters. Each blaster features at least one, sometimes two colour schemes with gunmetal silver used on the newer blasters. The flintlock blasters also come with brown wood look grips, and a selection of trims including more dulled metallic grey and on one of them a bronze trim.
There are five holsters across the figure, each sized to a specific blaster. If you use the box art as a guide it is reasonably simple to figure out which fits where. All five blasters can fit into either of Brutus’ hands which are both fitted with an independent trigger finger.
Brutus has 17 points of pinless articulation and while the outfit restricts some movement around the legs in particular, there is sufficient range in the upper torso and arms - extended by well-hidden butterfly shoulders - to pose Brutus in firing positions, holding his blasters, or simply threatening his crew. The head too, despite the fur, is quite expressive on a dual joint neck post and can be turned and tilted to add expression to Brutus as posed.
All in all this is an impressive re-creation of the practical effects used to bring Brutus to life on Skeleton Crew and a figure that has a broad range of accessories and paint applications that we have perhaps not quite seen for some time outside of the Deluxe releases. Brutus also continues Hasbro’s long line of impressive Alien species released in the Black Series and perhaps opens up the door slightly for Lak Sivrak. What is now needed are some supporting Pirate Crew for Brutus to display with and I hope that Skeleton Crew has sufficient support to see some more of Brutus's crew to make it into the six-inch figure format
Keep Track of all the Star Wars Black Series figures from Hasbro at our comprehensive
If you are reading this via a 3rd party website that is importing our newsfeed, please come and visit us directly and give us a follow on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Check out our direct news feed for more action figure news, reviews, and store reports
About Me : As a child of the 70's and 80's I grew up in a golden age for action figures and in my youth bought and sold myself through collections of Star Wars, G.I. Joe (Action Force) and M.A.S.K. while also dabbling in He-Man, Transformers and Ghostbusters. Roll forward and I am now reliving that Youth with the action figures of today and am a collector and fan of the larger 6-8 inch figures from my favourite movie and TV licences - including the ones mentioned above, but also the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Who and the Aliens. I launched The Mephitsu Archives in 2015 with a view of creating a UK focused site or these figures where fans can pick up the latest action figure news, read reviews and get information on where to buy their figures and what is currently on store shelves. I hope I am delivering that to you guys...
Comments