2005 Zarana
I didn’t plan on writing about a Zarana figure again anytime soon, after all, I just wrote about ‘86 Zarana not all that long ago, and that post still reflects my feelings really well, both on the character and her sculpt. This Zarana however, is a comic-pack figure, and those are melting so fast, I wanted to take at least of few extra photos of mine while she still looks okay.
V1 Zarana has always been relatively cheap and common, and this figure’s updated head sculpt arguably looks worse than the original’s. Relative to your other options, I don’t mind it very much, but it doesn’t look great. In the 3-pack, the main appeal was Cobra Commander and Zartan, while Zarana was just kind of a toss-in. Still, this wasn’t a terrible comic-pack, in fact, it was a pretty good one overall. Besides the ugly head, Zarana’s main flaw is just that she wasn’t really as needed as a new Zartan and Battle Armor Cobra Commander. Despite that, this sculpt still seems a lot more fresh than most of what they put out with the comic-packs.
Overall, the colors are a lot more desaturated and toned-down compared to early comic-packs. Zarana’s pink shirt and bluejeans look really dull now, but that’s not horrible, just different. Bright colors seem more suited to Zarana since she’s really a terrorist punk, but not a commando, so dulling her down is mildly counterintuitive. The duller colors used on these Dreadnoks would’ve translated better onto some of the prior comic-pack releases such as the First 13 guys, but like with many lines of GI Joe toys, Hasbro learned about a year too late.
Fortunately for me my figure seems to be aging well, though I know for others she’s discoloring badly. I recently audited my comic-pack figures and found myself to be lucky that not so many of my figures are discoloring or developing torso-cracks. Of course, it’s probably just a matter of time before she turns; my Thrasher looked okay until maybe just a year or two ago, but now he’s quickly joined the ranks of Scrap Iron and the JvC Alley Vipers.
Something I do find to hate about this Zarana though, is her loose grip in her right hand. She’s packaged holding her cutter by it’s stock, so virtually every copy of this figure has a really loose grip on her right hand. I tried fixing it a little with hot water, but that’s fiddly and it didn’t improve much after my first attempt. I find myself endlessly irritated that the figure was negatively impacted by packaging I immediately threw away.
She comes with both of ‘86 Zarana’s parts, a backpack and her cutter, so that’s really nice. Both parts are also rendered in nice black plastic, which I like a lot. Not because black is the best color, but because Zarana has a fairly nice and seldom seen backpack. In red, it doesn’t look swell with too many other figures, but this black one could go well with quite a few. Also, it’s nice they brought her cutter back, but it still sucks and I never use it.
A mint complete ‘05 Zarana seems to run around $20. Sealed in her 3-pack, you can get one around $60. Back when the whole set barely ran $15, there really wasn’t a lot to lose, but for that much money these figures are a waste of time. Looking around, I don’t see too many Zarana’s discoloring badly, but they have the possibility of doing so at any time. She was okay as a pack-in, especially if you normally didn’t feel inclined to bother with a V1 Zarana and her crappy glued torso. For $20, there’s a lot of better figures you could get, especially ones that aren’t made of sus plastic.
The Viper Pit 