GIJCC Exclusive Sea Adventurer w/ Mini-Sub

Most likely due to the tooling and construction of the mini-sub, the Adventure Team "Sea Adventurer" was the last member of the Adventure Team to be produced, and there was actually a question at one point as to whether or not he would ever appear. But apparently, pre-orders and sales were healthy enough to warrant production, and we ended up with a pretty cool (and essential) addition to the Adventure Team cast of characters.

Upon first look the Sea Adventurer bears very strong resemblance to the Real American Hero Shipwreck. The light blue shirt and dark blue "jean like" pants look very close to his color scheme, but are even more realistic. Where Shipwreck has a much more animated color scheme on his pants, the Adventure Team figure is a more subtle blue that bears a remarkable similarity to actual blue jeans. I love the Anniversary sculpting as well, taking the pant cuffs and actually sculpting them around the boots. Such a nice touch.

He uses the same tooling as the Adventure Team Commander and the Land Adventurer, and like the Land Adventurer, he has no belt around his waist. With the Land Adventurer, the elaborate camouflage pattern kind of conceals this, so the end result is that the Sea Adventurer looks more basic, and at least somewhat separated from the others. He wears the same Wild Bill vest, which works very nicely and creates a nice cohesive team look.

The Sea Adventurer has a very basic look to him, but he executes it amazingly well.

Like the other Adventure Team figures, the Sea Adventurer comes with the rifle, pistol, and battle stand. Like the Commander and the Land Adventurer, unfortunately the backpack barely fits due to the mis-aligned tooling of the torso and the vest.

I really love that magnum...it's such an iconic weapon of the era these Adventure Team guys are a part of...I do wish they had trigger finger hands, though, so they could hold it better.

Mini-Sub "Sea Wolf II"

While not referred to directly as the "Sea Wolf" on the box, the base design and execution of this mini-sub just screams "Sea Wolf" so that's what I'm dubbing it. Not to mention, it has "SW" call signs on the side of the sub, and during promotion of this item, the Collectors' Club labelled it as such as well. An image of the original Sea Wolf can be seen right here so you can compare. An especially neat tribute is the 6' depth meter near the nose of the sub.

Of course, everyone is used to the bright yellow shade of the Adventure Team vehicles, but making this a tribute to the very cool old school Sea Wolf was a great mov, and I just really dig all of the updates here. Granted, this is the second version of the Mantis/Sting Raider that I've reviewed within a week, so this feels a bit redundant, but there are enough changes color-wise, for this to really become its own thing.

I love the clean, white coloring of the sub body, and the paint decos (especially with the AT logos) is very, very cool. Love the wings extending to reveal the missile launchers, the opening claws...all very cool.

However, it's not perfect. The Sea Raider initially was a Cobra vehicle, and this version of the sub still retains a very strong Cobra feel. Also, the main purpose and theme of the Adventure Team has always been relatively non-conflict, and mostly exploratory, and the rocket launchers seem to betray that spirit a bit. Initially, at JoeCon a couple of years ago, the Club revealed their initial concept for the Sea Wolf II, which was actually a repainted Mantis (the other one). I LOVED that concept, and would have really enjoyed seeing that tooling used again. Apparently it was not to be.

Regardless of what tooling didn't get used, the end result here is a fun alpha-sized vehicle that's not terrific, but still enjoyable. Considering the Adventure Team and MARS Industries were apparently in direct conflict even back in the 70's, I could see the Adventure Team stealing a prototype of this vehicle before it got deployed widescale in modern times to the Cobra Navy.

In the end, while I'm not sure my heart would have been broken had the Sea Adventurer never been released, but it feels great to have a complete roster of the Adventure Team in 3 3/4" scale, especially now that the Club is writing them into Real American Hero history. The Sea Adventurer is certainly a worthy member of the roster.

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