G.I. Joe Convention 2013 - Nocturnal Fire Night Force Freestyle

For a long time we've heard from Hasbro that female figures don't sell to mass market retailers, so in their continuing quest to appeal to a collector demographic, the Collectors' Club shoved aside that misconception and dove right in for this year's set, giving us not one...not two... but three female figures in one convention, and with two of those female characters being brand spanking new characters.

Freestyle was a character who was revealed a little bit early when a Facebook user leaked his art portfolio that apparently contained drawings he had done for the Collectors' Club and this year's set. It was tough to tell exactly what parts made up the female pilot, though. All that could be discerned was that she wore Pilot Scarlett's flight vest, and was assumed to be a Night Boomer pilot.

That last bit was true, and she is the Night Boomer pilot, but she comes in a 2 pack with Chuckles instead of with the jet fighter itself. That's actually perfectly fine with me, as I'm much more of a figure collector myself, and I'm happy to be able to get Freestyle there than have to buy a $145 Skystriker repaint to acquire her.

Figure construction for Freestyle is simply a creative combination of existing parts. Her head is from Pilot Scarlett, with her torso and arms from the later 5-Pack Lady Jaye. Her lower legs are from Ace, I'm honestly not sure about the upper legs. The end result, though, is a pretty good, straight-forward flight suit, even though her legs are a little bit on the long side.

Paint applications are good with a very nice green colored uniform with black boots and gloves, and some great deco work on the shoulders. She has a flag on one shoulder and "N.Y.C." on the other one, very nice touches to the figure. I was a bit surprised that the American Flag was not reversed, though, as is customary on soldiers. The character is Dominican based on her filecard and the fact that she sports a Dominican Republic flag on her helmet, which adds a very cool sense of diversity to the G.I. Joe roster. One issue I have with her paint job kind of goes in line with other figures in the set, too, in that her eyes are painted a bit too high in the face. It almost looks like she's rolling her eyes a bit, which is too bad, as the rest of the paint job on the face looks excellent.

ACCESSORIES

For being essentially a vehicle driver, Freestyle comes with a great allotment of gear. She has the aforementioned Pilot Scarlett flight vest, as well as a great pistol and submachine gun. She has the flight helmet from G.I. Joe: Renegades Ripcord as well as the one from...well, I'll be damned if I can't remember where that other flight helmet is from. Regardless, both helmets are very cool, and can both be used for different purposes, and I love their additions.

One thing I can't quite figure out is the weapons. Where most of the figures in these sets come with the familiar Collectors' Club gray weapons, both Freestyle and Lady Jaye have gold ones. Is it an homage to the "Night Force" orange weapons concept? I'm not entirely sure. I don't mind it really, but they do kind of stick out when most of the included guns are gray.

Freestyle is a new character who has some great personality, some diversity, and pilots a killer Night Force fighter jet. Where can you go wrong? I will admit, with her parts being pulled from the 25th Anniversary line, the fit and articulation is a bit lackluster compared to some newer items. The knees don't really mesh with the leg halves that well, resulting in a somewhat wonky stance, and her proportions are a little bit off. The elbows bend nicely, but you have to work at it a bit. She's not a bad figure by any stretch, but I hope that more up to date female tooling becomes available going forward.

GRADE: