Do you like your peanut butter in your chocolate? Some do, some don’t, but whatever your preference, the G.I. Joe and Transformers Collectors Clubs have taken steps to offer exclusives linking together the universes of G.I. Joe and Transformers, and their first entry into that world is Marissa Faireborn w/ Afterbreaker.
Actually released earlier last year, I only got the opportunity to pick this figure up a month or so ago, and am now getting around to the review. You can check out the review on the G.I. Joe Collectors Club review page, or the direct link below.
Along with the Old Snake/Stealth B.A.T.s 3-Pack, the Collectors Club sparks that G.I. Joe and Transformers connection with Marissa Faireborn, member of Earth Defense Command, and daughter of Flint and Lady Jaye. Pulled from her Transformers Season 3 animated appearance, this figure takes some great queues from that old school Sunbow look and brings in Afterbreaker (formerly Afterburner) member of the Technobots and her partner during some of her Season 3 adventures.
Along with Old Snake, Marissa Faireborn and the Earth Defense Command made that tenuous connection between the G.I. Joe and Transformers universes much less tenuous in the Sunbow days. As the daughter of Lady Jaye and Flint, Marissa was a direct correlation between the G.I. Joe universe of the 80s and the Transformers universe of the post-2005 third Season of the animated series.
As a pseudo futuristic story (taking place after the events in Transformers: The Movie) Season 3 had the opportunity to sort of continue that Sunbow universe that was started in years previous. As you can see from the video above, too, Marissa Faireborn was a pretty important character throughout much of the third season of the animated series, appearing in several separate episodes.
Like Old Snake, Marissa Fairborne uses purely existing parts, with the Cover Girl/Sparta head, Resolute Scarlett/FSS Jinx torso and arms, and Rise of COBRA Cover Girl legs. These are relatively modern parts and as such the articulation and sculpting look good, although like FSS Jinx, the neck does seem a little longer than correct human proportions might dictate. Also, my figure did have a little smudge of worn off paint on the nose, which is a bit disappointing, but not a huge deal.
Her paint scheme is pretty appealing, actually, leveraging the white and blue color scheme from her original appearance. She’s got a very neat and well applied EFD logo on her right shoulder as well. You don’t see many white figures these days, so the color really does stand out nicely.
Accessories
Looking at accessories, she comes with the JUMP jetpack in silver, with an ammunition hose connected to Arctic Destro’s freeze gun. The weapon looks fantastic as a more futuristic “laser” gun, I like that quite a bit. Unfortunately due to the long, sweeping hair, the jetpack and head position combination can be challenging, and if you want to move her head, you kind of have to reposition the jetpack to do it, which can be a bit of a pain. Marissa Faireborn also comes with a small laser pistol, a silver repaint of the Iron Grenadier laser pistol, too, finishing off her somewhat future oriented arsenal.
When doing some research on Marissa Faireborn, I was pretty surprised (and impressed) to see just how many times she appeared throughout the third season of Transformers. I hadn’t realized what a key player she was, and I’m glad to see her in action figure form. She most closely resembles her look from “The Killing Jar” I believe, eschewing the skirted look from Five Faces of Darkness.
Not knowing much about the Transformers angle on this particular set, I wasn’t sure where Afterbreaker fit in, but apparently the character (previously known as Afterburner) accompanied Marissa Faireborn on a hunt for reknowned smuggler Dirk Manus during the episode “Money is Everything” during the third season of the Transformers series.. As one of the Technobots, he was a gestalt combiner in the original toyline, but for obvious reasons is presented here as a non-transforming version of the character colored as a futuristic orange motorcycle, which fits the original toy and animation model pretty nicely.
Unfortunately, the motorcycle itself leaves a little to be desired. Based off the G.I. Joe: Retaliation motorcycle that Firefly came with, the vehicle is more or less a thick block of plastic with a launching third wheel. It’s a sturdy and playable toy that has some nice detailing in places, but is far from the high standard that G.I. Joe vehicles have achieved in recent years. That being said, to fall within the price point that the Club wanted to offer, I’m not sure if there were many alternatives here.
The variable orange color scheme looks pretty nice, and is relatively reminiscent of Afterburner (Breaker’s) vintage styling. I know there have been some vocal complaints out there regarding the lack of a transforming companion for Faireborn, but considering how much that would have likely raised the price, I can see where the Club was coming from here. There are options for transforming motorcycles out there, but not many of them are really in the G.I. Joe scale.
While Afterbreaker himself isn’t necessarily a highlight of the set, the combination of the two is cool enough, and I like the tie in to the Sunbow continuity. Marissa Faireborn herself has a great 80s aesthetic, and her animation consistent accessories (she flew a jetpack in the Five Faces of Darkness episode) are a really nice touch.
I wasn’t anticipating being a huge fan of this set, but I’m happy to say I was pleasantly surprised. Ultimately I prefer the Old Snake pack, but this one has its own fun elements as well.
Marissa Faireborn w/ Afterbreaker
Marissa Faireborn Character
Marissa Faireborn Sculpt
Marissa Faireborn Articulation
Marissa Faireborn Paint Deco
Marissa Faireborn Accessories
Vehicle Design
Vehicle Paint Deco
Vehicle Play Features
2.7
Summary
I was surprised to see just how prevalent Marissa Faireborn was in Season 3 of the Transformers series, and in a few of those episodes, her animated depiction is pretty close to what we see here. Figure construction is pretty good and while I’m not a huge fan of the G.I. Joe: Retaliation motorcycle, it makes for a decent futuristic bike to represent the Technobot Afterbreaker (AKA Afterburner). It’s a fun set with some neat accessories and cool paint deco and a great introduction to this shared G.I. Joe/Transformers universe.
This Kickstarter fueled by the folks at The Fwoosh took the G.I. Joe community by storm a few months ago, especially with a few figures here bearing a passing resemblance to some of our favorite classic G.I. Joe ninja characters.
Well, if you didn’t have a chance to capitalize on the Kickstarter, you still have the opportunity to add some pretty cool looking 6″ ninja figures to your display shelves, as the Articulated Icons Feudal Series figures are up for pre-order now.
These are some pretty terrific looking figures, I have to admit, though I haven’t taken the plunge on any of them personally. I’ll be very interested to see how this all turns out, and look forward to seeing some in hand impressions so I can make an educated decision.
The new year brings big news for Articulated Icons! If you missed out on our successful Kickstarter Campaign, you won’t want to miss this!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Los Angeles, CA: January 14, 2016 – Following the highly successful Kickstarter Campaign, Articulated Icons: The Feudal Series is now available for PRE-ORDER! What that means is, if you missed out on our Kickstarter campaign, or if you have decided you want to bolster your ranks even more, now you can!
All of our figures (save for the KS-exclusive Smokey Grey Ninja), can now be ordered through our store page, located HERE.
If you are a backer or have been monitoring the Kickstarter campaign, you will notice that while this pre-order will be a part of our FIRST production run, these will be shipping AFTER all Kickstarter orders are fulfilled and shipped. Please note that this is NOT subject to change, so there will likely be a difference of a few of weeks between the end of the KS shipping and the start of the pre-order shipping. We will, of course, have better information about that as we get closer to fulfillment.
So, if you missed out on the Kickstarter, now is the time to order the Feudal Series! We will keep pre-orders open for as long as we can into the production cycle, but we advise that you do not delay in placing an order — we will not have a lot of lead time to announce when pre-orders will end, so it might be abrupt to stay with the production timeline. Don’t miss out again!
Here are a few specific details about the pre-order structure and process:
All pre-orders will be charged within 24 hours of the order being placed
The base shipping fee for US is $10, everywhere else is $30. Individual figures shipping prices are listed with the figure and are added to the base shipping fee
Pre-orders will be closed for each figure as they are sold out for our initial run (we will be holding some stock for conventions, etc.)
If you are an existing Kickstarter backer and want to buy more, you can do so but it will be at the new pricing structure
So, we hope you had great holidays and are ready to build up your armies! We will be back with more regular updates now that we are in the new year, so look for more soon! Thanks for your continued support!
During the Kickstarter for the Marauder Task Force Valkyries figures, we were all pleasantly surprised by the appearance of more deco choices for the existing Marauder Task Force figures. Many folks took advantage of the Kickstarter to buy these new colors, and now those new colors are available in the Marauder store!
The following email communication comes from the folks at Marauder “Gun Runners”:
Hey 814 Valtaskers!
The remaining Orange Hazard Ops, Brown Terra Ops, Yellow Shock Ops, Gray Tech Ops and Yellow/Green Strike Ops figures and accessories are NOW live on www.marauderinc.com We received several questions about when the new deco figures and new colored gear would be available…so wanted to let you all know!
