WWE Legends Series 19 Brother Love review

Brother Love was certainly a time capsule of a fixed moment of 80s pop culture. A riff on TV evangelists, Brother Love ended up being the host of the WWF’s most infamous segments after the end of Piper’s Pit. His weekly interview segment riled up fan favorites and fans while he gleefully exhorted a message of “loooooove” particularly to the heels.

For a time, Brother Love was tremendous in terms of showcasing heels and being used as a setup piece for angles. He’s been a longtime obvious inclusion to Mattel’s WWE Legends line since Bruce Pritchard has been a fixture behind the scenes for decades now. It took longer than expected, but now we get Brother Love from Mattel.

Let’s see if Brother Love deserves the love or if he deserves getting the good book thrown at him.

Packaging:  The Legends line is still my favorite of the various lines I collect. I really dig the gold, brown and yellow color combination along with an actual iconic portrait of the character. It makes for a nice, classy presentation.

Then there’s the excellent bio, which does a perfect job of explaining the character and his shtick.

Likeness: Mattel hasn’t really stumbled with head sculpts for a while. That wasn’t a setup to say they struggled to nail this one. Brother Love’s head sculpt is fantastic.

He’s got that wholly insincere grin with the big double chin and slicked back hair. The glasses are exceptionally scaled — not too big or too small.

I’m really not a fan when companies go against the standard look simply because there’s no pieces in the library for it. Brother Love rarely, if ever, wore his suit buttoned up. Mattel does have open suit jacket molds, so it was very weird they opted for their regular buttoned up look.

It takes a very special effort for Jakks to get something right with a figure that Mattel botched, but here we go. Maybe the Jakks Brother Love jacket would work here? Scratch that idea.

Mattel did include all of Brother Love’s gaudy rings — one for each finger save the thumbs and right middle finger. Most impressive is they’re all different sculpted rings and not just the same basic mold repeated on each finger. That’s pretty cool.

He is missing his signature rose on his lapel and red handkerchief. Mattel is normally good about including those kinds of details in figures so this was disappointing. At least the box art included them…

Scale:  Brother Love was 6’1 so he wasn’t short so he’s the same height as Randy Savage and Shawn Michaels while actually being taller than the 6′ Rowdy Roddy Piper. He does match up pretty well height wise.

Paint:  Here’s another section where Mattel didn’t quite get it right. Brother Love had a rosy fake tan that looked somewhat sunburned. It was extra, but still subtle enough to not be cartoony. Mattel went for an extremely bright pink that is distracting without any variations to the skin tone — check the package art for reference.

The hair could also stand having some highlights in it. Brother Love didn’t keep it a consistent dark brown and in a flip from the norm, his blonde roots showed through the edges.

And weirdly his red shirt is just painted up to the midway portion of the tie. Underneath it’s white meaning even if you just cut the jacket, you’d still need to paint the shirt red.

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Articulation:  Brother Love did zero wrestling. His main function was a mic holder and a little pompous preening. The newer suit mold allows for that with no trouble though. All he’d realistically need to do is wave his arms out and lean into the camera uncomfortably close.

 

Brother Love has:

• neck
• bicep
• ball-jointed shoulders
• elbows (double-jointed)
• wrists
• wrist hinge
• torso
• waist
• hips
• thighs
• knees (double-jointed)
• ankles

Accessories: Brother Love comes with a set of swappable open hands for his sweeping, welcoming gesture to his congregants. They’ve got the gaudy rings as well. It’s simple, but all that’s needed.

He also comes with his white microphone. This could probably be thinner as it looks a little off without the silver microphone top.

Finally, he’s got his Good Book. I would have loved if Mattel threw in the podium used with the Hall of Fame Bruno Sammartino.

Worth it?  WWE figures are now $22.99, but you almost have to work these days to have to pay full price for a Legends figure. I grabbed Brother Love during a 50% off sale so I was able to get him for $11.49, but he later went on clearance, so I got him at a final price of $6.49. That’s a terrific price for a figure that hasn’t made it to Ross or Ollie’s.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Brother Love is a niche character, but he starred in the talk show segment for the late 80s in the WWF. There’s enough memorable moments from those segments that we definitely needed him to have a comprehensive collection. Now hopefully we can get a Brother Love stage set too.

Where to get it?  Brother Love Legends Series 19 is now long sold out of at Target stores, but you can still find this wave at should be available at all Targets now so keep an eye out for the wave. Secondary sellers have him available now on Amazon. Even better they have him for a reasonable $18.

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