Highbrow (TF 2010)

The name or term "Highbrow" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Highbrow (disambiguation).

Highbrow is an Autobot from the live-action film series continuity family (via the 2010 Transformers toyline).

With age comes experience, and in Highbrow's case, that's a lot of combat experience. He has ended up fighting many seemingly unwinnable battles in his lifetime, but nobody has managed to take him out just yet. Highbrow may be old, but he's far from frail.

Fiction

Toy bios

He and Ratchet once teamed up to take on The Fallen. Highbrow certainly knows that they probably won't win, but at least they get to show The Fallen just how determined the Autobots are to stopping him.

He's also pretty resourceful, as he can easily show Ratchet at least twenty ways the medic could use that laser scalpel of his to weaken and cripple even the most powerful of Decepticons. Rescue Ratchet (2010)

Unite for the Universe

Oh, hey, there's the last plane out of Saigon!

When Starscream used the Unite process to power himself up and challenge Megatron's leadership, Ratchet was dispatched with a weapon that would fry the Unite components and neutralize the threat. Highbrow and Tomahawk flew escort for the NEST plane carrying Ratchet to the battle zone. The Strongest Weapon

Toys

Transformers (2010)

"Incinerator ain't got nothing on me!"

• Highbrow (Voyager Class, 2010/2011)
  • Japanese ID number: AA-11
  • Accessories: 2 gatling guns

Highbrow transforms into a World War II-era fighter resembling a P-38 Lightning. In robot mode he features a flip-down battle mask and is armed with two removable non-firing gatling guns on 5mm pegs and propellers on his forearms, which are geared to spin if you press down the engines. Highbrow's battle mask resembles the goggles and headgear of a WWII American fighter pilot. The lenses of the goggles are made of a clear plastic, allowing one to see Highbrow's eyes when the mask is down, as well as allowing the light-piping to shine through as lowering the mask reveals much more of the clear plastic on the back of his head.

With the cockpit shell halves splitting open and forming the wings, at the same time revealing the thruster attached underneath the "main" cockpit body, which is then flipped down, the cockpit kibble on his back actually turns into a jet-pack.

His robot-to-vehicle instructions completely forget the "fold cockpit back into place" step (which would go between steps 14 and 15), but fortunately it's pretty obvious. Strangely, he does not have a faction symbol in either mode, something of a rarity among modern Transformers.

Notes

• Bill Rawley explained at BotCon 2010 that Highbrow's tailfin symbol is a pretzel with tarantula legs. This was meant as an oblique reference to Jared Wade's father-in-law, who flew a P-38 Lightning, and whose callsign had something to do with pretzels and/or spiders.