Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in. Yes, as a former die-hard Star Wars collector who had moved on to super-articulated 6-inch scale figures, this line has filled me with anticipation, hope, and a certain amount of dread. Did I really want to get back into the Star Wars collecting game? Well, after a minute with these new figures, the answer is an emphatic “yes.” So let’s take a look at the new Luke Skywalker figure in his X-Wing gear.

Packaging

I have to apologize that I have no packaged pics — I had to open this figure up and play with him at the con (bad, toy reviewer, bad!) and it got pretty beat up in my backpack as I walked the floor.

Accessories

Luke comes with the classic DL-44 blaster, a removable helmet, and a lightsaber with removable blade. The helmet is cast in the clear, yellow, soft plastic you see for the visor with the rest of the details painted over that. Removable helmets are pretty tricky, as the head can come out too small or the helmet too large, but this one looks and works great. It’s easily removable and doesn’t rub off any paint, and it looks to my eye (hey, I’m not comparing screen grabs here) to be accurately sized.

The blaster is a nicely detailed chunk of plastic with a couple of choice paint apps to designate the different materials of the hilt and muzzle. It’s not flashy, but does the job. The lightsaber is actually made of a lot softer plastic than I expected. It holds its form fine, but is more flexible than I remember lightsabers being. My guess is that this helps facilitate the blade popping functionality. The blade hilt has a loop at the end that can be hung from a clip on Luke’s belt. That’s a nice feature and adds to the detailed look of the figure.

Sculpt

The sculpt is fantastic — bar none. The likeness to Luke is slightly soft, but I totally see Mark Hamill there. I love that his shag cut flyaway curls get well represented here. All the straps and clothing have some great texture and cloth folds and the life support gear on his chest is all perfect hard lines.

Articulation

This is where the fun begins… Luke is loaded with excellent and functional articulation, including:

Ball-jointed head and torso

Hinged neck

Swivel/Hinged shoulders, elbows, ankles, hips, and wrists

Swivel thighs and boot cuts

Double hinged knees

The wrists are interesting in that they swivel on different axes. The right wrist goes up and down and the left moves right to left. The combination actually works well for lightsaber-holding poses for the most part. I forgot how much I love this neck-articulation design. It allows for great looking up and down movements, but also subtle movements like cocking your head to the side quizically. The double knees allow for cool crouches, and the excellent ankle design allows for wide stances and great balance. I’m also really impressed with the amount of good movement in the torso ball joint.

The only articulation quibble I have is that he cannot do the splits very wide. Initially I thought it was due to the design of the straps, but there appears to be an occlusion inside the hips that doesn’t not allow outward movement beyond a wide stance. It’s only a slight issue because I couldn’t really not get a pose I wanted to get while playing with this figure, it’s just something I noticed.

Paint

Paint on this guy is crisp and clean. I’m not seeing any bleed or mistakes here. The drybrush effect on the hair is nice and there is a subtle dirty wash on the clothing to soften the effect of all that orange plastic on the main body of the figure. It does appear that the forearms are actually cast in black plastic, but the orange paint matches well with the orange plastic elsewhere on the figure. I do have one big problem on my figure related to paint. Some of the tampos on the helmet’s left side are completely missing.

Final Thoughts

I think this figure perfectly illustrates why I like 6-inch action figures. You get a little more articulation, and you can see all the details much more clearly than the smaller figures, but you can still buy and store a ton of the things. Walking by them at the con, it was impossible not to stop and take a look. After years of collecting the 3.75 figures, these look and feel gigantic. It’s definitely hand candy.

Series one is available for preorder on Amazon and we have received reports of it hitting Targets and TRU. Good hunting!

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