Zarana (2003)
Did I mention before that the original Zarana figure was fugly beyond belief? Maybe that was intentional but probably not, since the card art portrayed a more attractive face. I suppose she just ended up with one of those ugly 80’s female action figure heads. Zartan’s little sis was subject to the same issues years later with this figure.
When Zarana showed up in the 2000’s line, her look had naturally changed. I don’t think anyone would have expected to see a modern figure done up in the sort of pseudo-punk and new wave combo she wore in the 80’s. This is Zarana more as biker chick, a look that I think suits her. The design may be solid, but the figure is big in the shoulders. I didn’t mind this common occurrence of the time when it came to the male figures, but the ladies really suffered for it.
Zarana’s personality in the Marvel comic was so rough that it almost belied her constantly dressing in pink. Black suits her attitude much better, I think. Some old elements were held over, like the gloves, hair color and the weapon. Here, her crazy rifle looks a bit more ridiculous, thanks to the less detailed mold. The original looked like an odd, yet sharp and deadly cutting instrument. This one looks like she stuck a pinwheel on the end of her rifle. Modern safety requirements strike again.
I think this is one of the prettier figures in the Spy Troops line, and to date, I think this, along with the Valor Vs. Venom Baroness, Bombstrike, Jinx, and Scarlett, along with the DTC Cover Girl, have the prettiest sculpts of the New Sculpt era.
I really like this version of Zarana. It’s just such a shame she came out in the era of the two-packs. I was so underwhelmed by the Gung-Ho (and I think in my area it was also the blonde one, which just really drove me nuts) that I passed on her. I didn’t have that much tie to the character, but liking the look of it couldn’t overcome my antipathy partly caused by the lack of ties to it and partly caused by a lame Gung-Ho.
Zarana is one of my favorite characters. I had Larry Hama draw a sketch of her for me at a con this past fall. Check it out on my blog if you like… http://mikescollection.wordpress.com/?s=scarface I quite liked this figure when it first came out. it’s far prettier than the original but i still have a soft spot for that first one. I think the SDCC ones from a couple years ago made for a great update of the character.
She earned her spot on the scrap heap of joe history. Terrible figure from a bad era.
Mike, those are some cool sketches you got from Larry. Neat looking blog as well.
In my view, the big shoulder joint took a lot away from many of these figures. If those shoulders were more refined, this would be a pretty slick figure.
Not up on biker fashion, but those pants and yellow shoes don’t look very biker. Not biker-biker, maybe more crotch-rocket Yamaha biker, maybe. It’s not a bad look, but it’s also not memorable. Such can be said about many figures from that era, though.
ARGH!
Thanks clutch. It was pretty rad getting to meet him.
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“Did I mention before that the original Zarana figure was fugly beyond belief? Maybe that was intentional but probably not, since the card art portrayed a more attractive face. I suppose she just ended up with one of those ugly 80′s female action figure heads. Zartan’s little sis was subject to the same issues years later with this figure.”
What? How can anyone say that about Zarana v2 after seeing Spy Troops Lady Jaye or Valor vs Venom Baroness? The latter looked straight-up like Woody Allen.
What you’ve wrote really makes no sense grammatically. What ‘blonde one’?
I believe he was referring to the blonde goatee version of Gung Ho that was packed with this Zarana.
Such a long time ago I looked at my collection from this era I now understand what you mean.