I haven’t been too obsessed with the Black Series lately, so I was surprised that I ended up being really excited about most of the Black Series releases that Hasbro showed off at Pulse Con 2024.
I’ve been experiencing massive Clone Trooper fatigue with this line lately, so I’m a little surprised I wanted this! Maybe it’s because he pairs up with the recent excellent Ki-Adi Mundi figure, or maybe it’s because his design is slightly different. The other members of his squad have a neat maroon style Snow Trooper, which I don’t mind either. Give me the Chiadi Suicide Squad!
Dagan Gera is from a Star Wars game that I haven’t played, but he’s a unique-looking Jedi wearing High Republic-style Jedi gear, and I really enjoyed reading the comics. It’s a shame he only has one arm, otherwise he would make great customization fodder. I really wish they would have added a pushing hand for him, because his hand holding up the C-grip looks a little silly. As much as I wish Joss could use his fists for punching, more Jedi need power pushers. With his flashy lightsaber and shiny gold trim, this guy looks snazzy. One day I will buy a PS5 and finally be able to play this game.
It’s been a long time since we got Luke from the original Star Wars, and the character could definitely use some modern improvements. I have the Figuarts ANH Luke and this one actually feels very close in terms of sculpting quality. What falls a little short for me is the portraits. Not so much the face, but the hair is a little too bland and brown for ANH Luke, for my taste. Nonetheless, I think he can definitely replace the old Black Series ANH Luke on my shelf.
The portrait and face print of Leia really appeals to me, it’s a definite improvement over the Black Series figures I own and I think I’ll buy this too to replace the Black Series Leia textiles on my shelf. I also like the way the hood hangs. Between these two improved figures, I’d like to see them redo ANH Han as well. It’s one of my favorite characters of all time, but it’s really showing its age.
From the moment the battle droid commandos first appeared in the first Clone Wars season, I immediately fell in love with their design, and they’re one of my favorite games to play in Battlefront II One, so they’ve been high on my want list for a long time. The fact that a new Star Wars game features a commando droid probably helped make this guy since they could easily reuse the droid. Looks like they did a good job articulating the double ball joints on the shoulders. I also like some weathering from some of the chip damage they did on some surfaces. I ordered several of these.
I read the original Shadows of the Empire books and comics and bought all the toys when they first came out and frankly I didn’t like it except for some of the Swoop Gang and Bounty Hunter designs, so I was a little surprised how excited I was to see Xizor (or Skeezor, since I always think of him as he tried to seduce Leia with weird pheromones). I don’t know, maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder, or maybe it was a long time ago that I’ve grown nostalgic for something that I don’t really like, but this looks awesome to me. I was blown away by the details of his costume, his haughty expression, and his nasty scaly spine. I think it’s just a good looking figure, so that’s probably all. As a bonus, his solicitation confirmed more Shadows of the Empire characters, including Dash Rendal (!), Luke, and Leia. Shadows of the Renaissance Empire. Maybe I can get a Spiker or Furlag model out of it!
The Xizor, Bacara and Commando robots went up for pre-order yesterday, with the remaining robots set to be released in the spring next week on September 18th at 1pm ET.
