Slaughter's Marauders Mercenary

So here's Mercer. I've got to be quite honest, this guy would not have cracked my top 10 most likely to be produced ation figures, and yet here he is. I have to give full credit to Hasbro designers, who must be at least somewhat familiar with the G.I. Joe mythology. When the whole Sgt. Slaughter fiasco happened with SDCC a couple of years ago, Hasbro had mentioned that they wanted to try and get Slaughter out at retail for folks who couldn't get their hands on the San Diego version. Well, contract issues couldn't be worked out, but Hasbro put a Slaughter themed set out anyway, electing to go a slightly different direction.

The dipped partly into the Marauder waters, but then I think surprised everyone when they brought in the original Renegades. I was extremely surprised...and pleasantly surprised at that. I've been a long time fan of the Renegades, openly cheering when the G.I. Joe Collectors Club released them a number of years ago, and integrating them into my dio-story universe as well.

Now, Hasbro went a little bit outside of the box for these Renegades updates, but by and large I like them... Mercer... errr... Mercenary being right up on top of the list. He is awesome.

Like both Bull and Red Dog, Mercenary got a new head sculpt, which almost seems to be pulled straight from the Sunbow animation of 1987. He's got the same cocky face, the same high-top hair cut, and the earings all intact. He does not look like a friendly guy.

The base figure itself is the exact same figure as the Pursuit of Cobra Viper, only Mercenary has only the swivel wrists instead of the added articulation. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but figured I'd put it out there. These body parts make sense considering Mercenary was a Cobra Viper at one point before defecting and deciding to help out the other side.

This tooling gives him great range of motion and a nice muscular build, both of which add great elements to the character.

His paint applications actually cover two bases. The orange undershirt and blue pants both tie very closely to his color scheme back in 1987, which is a great touch, and the blue also doubles as a tie-in to the Marauders paint schemes of the other figures packaged in this set. Pretty much everything about this figure hits the high points.

Like the other figures in the set, he doesn't go overboard with the accessories, but what he comes with is pretty spot on. He has a Viper rifle, which he obviously appropriated from the Cobra side when he left, and he has an Alley-Viper vest that could be attributed to the same thing. The cool thing about the vest is they maintain almost the exact same color pallet as the PoC Alley-Viper, so it really looks like he just stole it and is using it. The colors are a tad brighter, but by and large it's the same overall look, which is cool. It comes intact with a removable knife as well. The last accessory is an obvious throwback to his humongous silenced pistol, which he came packed with in '87 as well. This pistol is much smaller and more managable, which is a good thing.

While I really did like the Red Dog and Taurus/Bull updates from this boxed set, each of them had some minor detractions. Mercenary does not suffer the same fate. I love everything about this figure. The design, the new head sculpt, the range of motion and color scheme are all spot on for what I would want to see. Excellent job on this one, and easily the best figure in the Marauder's boxed set. A hell of a lot better than a gold-masked Cobra Viper with a General Hawk head, that's for damn sure.

GRADE:

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