Maris Brood - TAC - Basic (08 11)

Maris Brood is a Padawan who escaped Order 66 and has been in hiding with Jedi Master Shaak Ti on Felucia. When she is violently separated from her Master, her impetuous and angry nature leaves her vulnerable to the influence of the dark side.

The Star Wars universe has some unique chronic behavior. Once established character/species rise to the forefront of fandom, new characters are created based on them in the hopes that they will have comparable popularity. For example, Darth Maul introduced us all to the Zabrak species and it was inevitable that we would see this breed throughout the Star Wars universe. Enter Maris Brood. Although Maris Brood is certainly not the 'second' Zabrak character we have seen throughout the Star Wars saga, but she may be the second most popular one since the coolness of her species has been paired with a sexy look. (This is a combination guaranteed to brew success in Expanded Universe sources and is adored by the biggest geeks around.) Maris Brood introduced us to a weaker version of the Zabrak species. Her character jumped sides a few times and ultimately survived only through pleading. So while she isn't a strong character physically and emotionally, she is a Star Wars character that is adored by association (Shaak Ti's padawan) and coolness (a great body and a sexy look). And Maris Brood is an enigma. You almost never knew where her true loyalties laid.

If you're not familiar with The Force Unleashed, Maris Brood comes across as a Sith apprentice or lord. And this is mostly true from a certain point of view, but it is important to know that she started off as Shaak Ti's apprentice. She unfortunately was easily lured back and forth and eventually permanently to the dark side of the Force. It's a fitting role for Brood since her distant relative Darth Maul was probably one of the coolest Sith lords we have ever seen, but her noncommittal relationship with both the Jedi and Sith makes her a bit of an unstable character. Interestingly, this instability followed her to the action figure as well. While Maris is a pretty good action figure, she fails in a few aspects. Coming with only 11 points of articulation, the choices Hasbro made for her joints perplexes us a little bit. She comes with knee and waist joints, but yet has ankle joints and three joints on each arm. This is a very unbalanced figure in the articulation department and a waist joint and two knee joints would have been much more beneficial that what she was given instead. Her hips are cocked to her right and while we sense the attitude of the sculpt, we think that this pose without hip movement is not the most ideal approach for this figure.

Her likeness is pretty good, but we think the video game character has a prettier face. She has a bit too much of a squinty look on her face. Perhaps this was designed in this way to show her anger and aggression, but we think it is lacking a little bit. When the figure was first released, she was cast in a very beige skin tone. Fans immediately noticed that this wasn't an accurate color for her. Hasbro noticed too and quickly made a running change where her skin tone was cast in a light gray or ashy skin tone color. It goes without saying that this improvement made her much more authentic to the character seen in the video game. She comes with her own action figure stand, but due to her ankle joints, the peg holes are not deep and the peg on the stand is rendered nearly useless. You just have to do your best to balance her on the stand. This is of course is a bit frustrating. The peg plugs [on the stands] are too tall for many action figures today since so many of them are coming with ball-jointed ankles now. Her Sith weapons, two lightaber tonfas do fit nicely in her hands and since she is loaded with arm articulation, the posing capabilities are endless. Maris Brood is a great addition to the growing The Force Unleashed line. Fans tend to love the pairing of two female Jedi characters as Jedi Knight and Jedi apprentice. But it is truly a shame that this partnership was torn apart by the death of Shaak Ti. Maris Brood may not be the best figure of The Force Unleashed wave, but she certainly can hold her own, just like her video game counterpart.