Transformers Generations Collaborative: G.I. Joe Mash-Up – Megatron H.I.S.S. Tank included a Baroness figure as the gunner. There are two things about this.
The black on black makes Baroness visually disappear. The Cobra Commander v1 figure makes a much better gunner, with his light blue color contrast.
Then, when this was released, I thought there was a paint app error on Baroness' figure. The skin coloring within her glasses was slightly lighter.
But I realized, no. This was a design choice quirk; it's a deliberate visual cue to simulate the presence of lenses without using actual transparent plastic.
That gave this Baroness figure a wonderful "Marcie effect."
Baroness wasn't an outright Cobra disciple. She wouldn't lap up Cobra Commander speeches like his followers in the "Coil." Baroness was Cobra's manipulator through the influence she had on Cobra Commander and Destro.
Baroness grew up with access, status, and comfort, but none of it scratched the itch.
Elite society felt hollow, performative, lacking edge. The Baroness rejected privilege not out of a moral awakening, but because it bored her.
Cobra scratched an itch in Baroness' mind, tapping into her true self, coming from a self-serving "me generation." Baroness is not a pure ideologue like Destro. She's vain, self-absorbed, and certainly ambitious, so her allegiance to Cobra was more aesthetic and opportunistic in nature.
Cobra allowed the Baroness to be feared, desired, and dominate people. It became a "lifestyle choice" in a way.
So, an emotionally detached, ambitious, and image-driven woman; the Baroness' only real "belief" was that she hated established world governments, believing them to be ruled by military machines.
Baroness wanted status, and being only loyal to herself, she became the most dangerous operative within Cobra, serving Cobra only because she felt it was in her best interest to do so.
I like how she got the upper hand on Duke in the first episode.
ReplyDeleteHer goals come from a desire to rule and seeing the normies as inferior beings who should be her slaves. We also see she has a man-hating misandry complex in the spell of the siren episode. She really gets into it with Zartan in the Funhouse. I forget what She said to Zartan, but his reply was something like "Watch your tongue or I´ll pull it out through your nostrils!"
Comic made her an psychotic angry revenge driven bitch.
Zartan spends that episode encouraging Cobra Commander and his antics, while Baroness keeps saying kill the Joes, but when things turn, she says, "Now what do you have to say, Zartan?" That's when he gives her that response.
DeleteI'm not a fan of the redeemed/redeemable femme fatale trope. I like my Catwoman evil. Baroness made her choice, if she had one due her warped personality, a long time ago, to be "evil."
ReplyDeleteHama originally envisioned Baroness as a radicalized left wing student type, a Baader-Meinhoff Gang (Red Army Faction) inspired take. "Baroness" was a nickname/handle. Given they were "anti-fascist" Marxists, I'm not sure how well that works with Cobra's fascist trappings. But it's a character type, not a direct reference.
Later Hama changed that, or did Hasbro? She literally was a Baroness. And her comic origin sucked. I can accept an incident that led her down the path to terrorism, but it had to involve Snake-Eyes and a misunderstanding. Bah. I prefer to think she was always a rotten egg, like Buck McCann. Leatherneck couldn't turn him into a good marine because Buck is a bad person to his core.
I stick with the belief that the comic peaked with the Cobra Civil War, and having Fred VII 'win' was a mistake. It was all downhill the moment Serpentor got hit with that arrow. Hama already pushed the Snake Eyes narrative as far as it could go, so now he had to rap Baroness up in it. its a mini-version of the Marvel comics problem with Wolverine being involved in all sorts of other people's back stories.
Deletere: bad egg, yep. I stick with my feeling that she had a bit of Veruca Salt in her as a little girl and wasn't going to spend her life just being rich, doing whatever rich people do.
Hama should have watched the movie.
ReplyDeleteAt least have some respect for the cartoon franchise.