Star Wars Action Figure No. 200: Mara Jade

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Photo Credit: JediBusiness.com

Five years after the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance has driven the evil Empire into a distant corner of the galaxy. But a new danger has arisen: the last of the Emperor's warlords has devised a battle plan that could destroy the New Republic. Before the death of Palpatine, Mara Jade was the Emperor's right hand assassin. Five years later and now a successful smuggler, the last thing Mara expected was to stumble upon her former arch-enemy - Luke Skywalker. - From the package blurb, Mara Jade.

In 1991, eight years after the theatrical run of Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and eight years before the premiere of Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Bantam Spectra published Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, the first volume of Timothy Zahn's best-selling Thrawn Trilogy cycle of novels.

Though a few authors had written several novels set in George Lucas's Star Wars galaxy during a seven-year-period close to the Classic Trilogy's theatrical run (in other words, between 1978-1985), what is now called the Expanded Universe really took off with the runaway success of Zahn's novels and many other Star Wars books from Kevin J. Anderson, Steve Perry, Kathy Tyers, Michael A. Stackpole and a platoon's worth of other writers.

One of the most popular Expanded Universe (EU) characters is Mara Jade, a young woman around the same age as Luke Skywalker who was "discovered" by Emperor Palpatine at an early age and groomed by the Sith Lord to become one of his most trusted operatives - the Emperor's Hand.

Trained in the ways of the Force by Palpatine and vested with almost as much authority as Darth Vader, the beautiful young woman not only carried out assassinations when her Master deemed it necessary, but she could give orders to stormtroopers and Imperial high commanders with equal ease.

She could also be an intelligence gatherer, saboteur, safecracker, skilled thief and computer slicer - all in the service of the Emperor.

In Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, though, Mara's life has been turned upside down by the Rebels' victory at the Battle of Endor and the death of the Emperor - supposedly at the hands of the Jedi known as Luke Skywalker. Because the Emperor's last Force-borne message relayed the command You must kill Luke Skywalker and implicated the young man from Tatooine for his undoing, Mara has grown to hate Luke and blames him for destroying the life she had at the height of the Empire's power.

Ironically, Mara finds herself in several situations during the Thrawn Crisis where she has to cooperate with the man she once hated so intensely, and in further novels the enemies-turned-allies develop a deep and meaningful relationship.

Since 1991, Mara Jade has been featured not only in novels and other literary versions of Star Wars, but also in video games, trading cards and, of course, action figures.

Star Wars: Expanded Universe: Mara Jade

Mara Jade, once the Emperor's assassin, becomes an ally of Luke Skywalker. -card biographical blurb

In 1998, Hasbro released Mara Jade, one of nine action figures based on characters from the Expanded Universe and one of three drawn from the novel/comic book version of Zahn's Heir to the Empire.

Based on the visual depiction of Zahn's creation as seen in the six-issue Dark Horse Comics adaptation of Heir to the Empire, Mara is clad in a black skin-tight outfit which consists of a sleeveless top, trousers, padded combat-climbing boots, a gun belt with holster, with a few white or light-colored items to break up the monochromatic scheme of her smuggler's togs (gloves, a set of goggles and scarf (molded on to Mara's neck) and a small backpack.

Mara also is one of the rare female Star Wars characters with long hair, so this feature has been depicted in the action figure with some success by Hasbro's sculpt-and-paint crew. As per Zahn's novels and the Dark Horse Comics adaptation, Mara sports her long, way-past-the-shoulder red-gold hair in a loose hair style. (Think of a young Lauren Bacall-type actress in a Star Wars outfit and you'll get a fairly good idea of Mara's overall "look.")

Her face reasonably captures Mara's strikingly good looks; she has nicely-rendered red-blonde eyebrows and piercing green eyes, and her lips look fairly sculpted and painted to give the figure a classic-1930s-style appearance. The only thing that mars the illusion of life-likeness is the somewhat graceless and toy-like neck, but it's probably hard to render human necks accurately in figures of the 3.75-inch scale intended for mass production.

To not make the figure look too toy-like, Hasbro decided not to add articulation points at Mara's elbows since her arms are bare and joints anywhere but the shoulders would definitely take away from the figure's visual appeal. Mara does have the expected articulation points at the neck, upper shoulders and hips, which are almost standard on Star Wars action figures.

Weapons and Accessories:

3-D Play Scene background
Lightsaber
Blaster

Hasbro not only included a wicked-looking blaster pistol and a blue-bladed, silver-handled lightsaber to equip the former Emperor's Hand, but the carded package is designed to be implemented as a "3-D Play Scene Background. There are dotted lines on the package which indicate where it should be carefully cut; if done right, the procedure should result in the creation of a backdrop/figure stand that resembles the artwork from the Heir to the Empire comics.

My Take: Though I have no fondness for the idea of destroying the package just to make a 3-D Play Scene background, all in all, I like the 200th Star Wars action figure (counting the ones made by Kenner, obviously) a great deal.

Sure, the figure does have limited poses; you can't have Mara sit naturally or get her to wear her headgear/goggles, and the figure can only hold one weapon at a time. However, with the exception of a few little flaws inherent in the figure's design and manufacturing, Mara Jade nicely depicts one of the most popular Star Wars Expanded Universe characters.

As with any Star Wars collectible, parents are cautioned that Mara Jade contains small parts that may be a choking hazard for very young children.

Recommended: Yes

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