McFarlane’s Halo Marine Infantry

Well, this is the section that things might get a bit ugly.  Remember when I said McFarlane puts sculpting as it’s #1 priority?  Articulation is apparently the area that is sacrificed, but after the beautifully articulated ONI Dare, this seems like laziness more than necessity.

The neck joint is made up of a double ball-jointed peg and offers better movement than the modern Joes most of us are familiar with.  Mr. Marine can look at his toes, spin his head all the way around, but can only look slightly upward.

The shoulder joints are like no figure I have owned and might be difficult to explain.  Attached to the torso is a dome-shaped piece that spins in place, providing the up and down movement of the arms.  Attached to the dome piece is the upper arm with a concave shape to fit over the dome.  Invisible to the eye must be a ball-joint because the upper arm swivels over the dome in any direction, as if the dome itself was the ball.  This joint looks great and functions fine, offering up, down, out and rotation, only limited by the armored plates on the shoulders.  Modern Joes are better in range of motion, but this is far more attractive.

The elbows are a different story.  All we get here is a simple hinge with peg and ZERO rotation.  This is what I don’t understand.  ONI Dare has the same hinged elbow, but above it her arm can swivel, allowing for two-handed weapon action.  In case you missed that, it is absolutely impossible for our Marine to two-hand a weapon because his arms cannot be rotated across his body.  He is lucky to scratch his belly.  The wrists do not help the situation, tossing the beautiful hinged design of ONI Dare out and going with a simple ball peg.  Granted, the wrist is still better than modern Joes.

The hips are another unfamiliar design to me.  The are built with a T-crotch style joint at the top, with another concave ball-joint vary similar to the shoulders.  Once again this joint is attractive and fairly functional, packing up, down, rotation and some outward flex, but our Marine will not be doing the splits.

The knees are standard ball-hinges, allowing motion in any direction and not limiting the poses. (why couldn’t the elbows be this way?)  The boots are a ball and peg design like the wrists, but used in a much more effective way this time.

Paint must be McFarlane’s #2 priority because it is executed nicely on their Marine Infantry figure.  The colors are simple as would be expected on a lowly Jarhead, with just enough painted details to liven him up.  All of the armor is painted a flat olive color with black straps, silver buckles and an effective blackwash to give the detail depth.  His radio pack is more of a forest green color with the LCD screen, buttons and handset painted is separate colors, also sporting a black wash.  The uniform seems to mimic our Marine’s current desert colors, but is just a two-toned blotch pattern and not the fancy pixilated pattern.  There is some noticeable““““““ slop and overlap, once again, a backwards step from ONI Dare.

Not much to say here since our Marine friend only comes with two weapons.  Weapon #1 is my favorite gun of all times, the trusty BR55HB SR Battle Rifle.  Unfortunately it is scaled to the massive Spartans and the inability of the Marine Infantry figure to two-hand a weapon makes it unusable.  Weapon #2 is the M6 pistol which pegs into his thigh and is removable.  Because of the one hand weapon limitation, I’ve given my Marine one of the bullpup guns from ROC.