Slaughter's Marauders Spirit

Spirit was one of those characters who I thought was much better than his figure. I always really loved how he was portrayed in the Marvel Comics, and even the Sunbow cartoon pairing him up against Storm Shadow was an interesting twist. I love the idea of a Native American tracker being a pointman and military operative, however his weird baby blue uniform and pigtails really didn't make me love the figure back in the day.

Along with that, I found Spirit's thumbs to be unusually brittle, which relegated most of the classic versions inoperable after only a little bit of use. Part of me did love the Air Commandos update, especially the International Mail Away repaint.

Then we get to the modern era...and well, the initial 25th Anniversary release suffered the same issues as the original. Well, not so much the broken thumbs, but the weird design aesthetic and the brutally nasty head sculpt killed any desire I had to use that figure as well. But, was we've gotten used to in these last couple of years, the Pursuit of Cobra line took the character and reinvented it in the best way possible. Using Billy from the Predator film as an inspiration, the Hasbro designers gave him a much better head sculpt and much more military design.

Using the Billy version as an inspiration, this Marauders repaints reinvents the Spirit design even further, making him a more minimalist figure, with just a bare tatooed chest and the familiar jungle operations webgear. But to me, the best part of this figure is using the City Strike/Resolute Snake Eyes legs which are really cool. They have a military style, but unorthodox enough to work within the scope of this figure.

For the paint apps, they use the familiar Marauders blue on his headband and arms and give us the excellently detailed camouflage pattern on the legs. I absolutely love the shades of color used in the camouflage patterns on these figures. Very covert, very interesting and the black kneepads and boots only make it better.

One thing that I'm not wild about with this figure is his primary weapon. I really dig the webgear, and I love the included knife (from the removable sheath) but that dartgun is not my favorite by a long shot. Considering the "behind enemy lines" status of the Marauders team, I'm surprised that he is saddled with only a dart gun instead of a nice silenced machine gun of some kind.

I love the base figure design, I love the webgear and knife, and by and large this is a great figure. I do wish he had a better weapon, but besides that, this is a great addition, and I much prefer this new design aesthetic over the past Marauders color schemes.

GRADE:

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