So, it's the moment none of you were waiting for (judging by the lack of comments on the last several figures, anyway), the beginning of my second wave of Metroid custom figures! The theme of this wave is "Military, Metroids, and Minor Characters." We'll start off with a fairly standard piece, a Galactic Federation Marine!

The Federation Marines made their first appearance as dead bodies, archive video footage, and possessed corpses in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. They later reappeared in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in upgraded PED armor. This figure is the version featured in the former game.

I'm not the first person to post a custom space marine on this site, but I am apparently the only one who was aiming for game accuracy. Contrary to some folks opinion, these marines DO have a set design. It took me some time to find a figure that would make a suitable Fed Marine. Conventional wisdom would suggest a Halo figure, but they don't make them in the proper scale. Iron Man figures would be a logical choice, but Stark's regular armors tend to be a bit more form-fitting and streamlined than the armor seen in Echoes. The Ultimate Marvel design, however, provided a suitably clunky, mechanical appearance while still being small enough to be man-portable. Don't want him to look like a mech, after all. I used the Marvel Legends Ultimate War Machine figure because, frankly, I didn't give a rat's rear about the character (figure wasn't even comic accurate).

Feel free to Google Image Search the original figure. Any differences you see were hand-sculpted out of Loctite Epoxy Putty. The shoulder pads, breastplate, thighs, collar plates, knees, most of the gun, all of it was made by hand. I removed the chest armor of the original figure and glued it onto the back, along with the arm guns, to make a sort-of jetpack/power unit on the figure's back. The gun is a heavily modified grappling hook launcher from a Batman Returns Catwoman figure. I resculpted the end of the missile to look like the missile ammo Samus picks up in the Metroid Prime games. Viola! Another figure with an action feature, a firing missile launcher!

They don't talk much, they don't have much personality, and they're mostly expendable, but it's characters like the Federation Marines that add depth and realism to the Metroid game world. Without "the other guys" to compare her to, Samus wouldn't seem so impressive or dangerous. So no Metroid collection can be complete without an armored marine hanging around, awaiting orders.

See you next mission!