The Green Maverick

Matchbox Robotech produced a plethora of Japanese Manga inspired characters, which famously dispensed with the male-dominated concepts and themes, instead, creating an equally balanced gender mix that featured the green-haired villain-turned-heroine, Lt Miriya (micronised), hot-shot Veritech Fighter Pilot.  Miriya was formerly plying her trade for the evil Zentraedi enemy, 'micronising' to infiltrate the Robotech Defence Force.  But, as the back story goes (you can read about it on the backing card), Miriya fell for the blue-haired geek Max Sterling, and switched her allegiances, thus becoming the ire of Zentraedi Master and his warriors, notably Dolza and Khyron.  I hope you caught all of that, there's a quiz later on.  

Miriya is a brightly painted she-wolf of the skyways, with a neck-length bob of neon green locks, and the steely blue-eyed gaze of a determined young woman whose ambition knows no gender boundaries.  While it's not atypical to action figures, her back story certainly challenges the common stigma associated with women in a male dominated industry (like inter-planetary defence for instance).  You can imagine she's fit, feisty and brimming with confidence, just the type of character to lure the girls from their reliable old Barbies and My Little Ponies, over to the dark side of action figures, formerly an exclusively male domain.  Her colour scheme also lends itself to a candy cane likeness, so she'll hang nicely on the Christmas tree too (a highly versatile figure).

Matchbox (and latterly Harmony Gold who briefly revived the series in the early 90's) deserve applause for bringing these characters to life and challenging the status quo.  The articulation on these Matchbox designs is GI-Joe (1983 onward) standard, and while the facial features are necessarily distorted given their Anime source material (i.e. graphic novels and animation as opposed to live actors), the only disappointing aspect to this line is the quality control of some accessories.  Miriya might have a helmet, but don't try and put it on her head - you may never get it off, or you'll scrape that trademark green mane doing so and potentially ruin a mint figure.  A blur of over-spray is also evident particularly on the helmet, but aside from some relatively minor construction flaws (that may vary from figure to figure), she's otherwise a standout in the line.

And while her character's story is a good yarn, it remains something of a mystery to me how she became so enamoured by the blue-rinse nerd, looking like Todd Rundgren with 1970's-era Elton John face furniture, but I guess her character (and Robotech generally) is against-type, and so the partnership fits the underlying narrative appropriately.  There's no accounting for taste, except when it comes to the classy crimson candy cane, Miriya (micronised).

Miriya (micronised) | 1985 | Matchbox | Robotech