The elbows are hinges covered in a rubber sleeve with limited movement. The hips are the ever-popular 80s T-crotch before descending into some decent points like thigh & ankle swivels, double-hinge knees, and single-hinge ankles. Despite having all this articulation, the legs don’t do a whole lot. The “knee” is very low on the leg and limited by how far you willing to stretch the soft plastic wiring on his legs.
I don’t want to get as annoyed fiddling with it as I do. I want to think his joints are approximately where they are in the fiction and that if I just try hard enough I can get some great poses. I haven’t had a lot of luck yet, but there’s still time. The paint work is fine. He’s mostly gunmetal with some shading and airbrushing here and there. It works.
Technically, IG-88 has four accessories if you count his bandolier. The accessories are one of the best parts of the figure as they took his weirdness into account. The bandolier pegs into his shoulder and has a spot to hold his blade and his pistol securely. His hands have tiny little delicate pegs sprouting up that correspond with holes in the guns to allow those strange pincer like arms to still hold his gear and let him be as deadly as his namesake.
Overall, I want to like him more than I do. He’s a funny novelty in Star Wars, both in canon and behind the scenes, and they did seem like they tried with the figure, but he’s just a let down in a lot of ways. Am I expecting too much? Probably. But his articulation kinda drives me bonkers and makes me want to leave him just standing there. Which would be fine if that’s all ever he did, but now I know he has a puppeteer…
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See, I think IG-88 was more cool in my ‘head canon’ before they started giving backstories to EVERY SINGLE THING SEEN ON FILM.
When Empire came out in 1980, the general assumption in fandom was that Droids were kinda rare, and basically slaves. The more humanoid, the more valuable. Blah blah. Pretty much ‘old technology’, maybe not even made anymore. Being slaves, Droids naturally weren’t allowed weapons. They may even have some version of the Three Laws in their programming.
When we saw IG-88, everyone I knew figured him to be someone’s ‘caddy’. A droid to cart blasters and stuff, maybe use their sensors to help track, identify and record captures and kills. Doesn’t that make sense? After all, we saw Probots looking for rebels and there was a familiar style to that and IG-88.
(but Probots had guns and shot at people. So that shows how REALLY bad the Empire is, right? 🙂 )
But all that is erased because IG-88 is a person and he did stuff.
I dunno. I think it’s more fun to think part of his job was to wrap Dengar’s bandages, or trim Bossk’s toenails.
or polish Boba’s helmet?
…I’l show myself out.
*snrk* No, see, I just knew IG-88 wasn’t Boba’s droid, because Vader admonished him about no disintegrations.
But of course SOME fans figured that Boba Fett was secretly helping the rebellion, and his record of disintegrating bounties was a cover for him to help people escape, ‘coz iffin’ you’re ‘dead’, nobody looks for ya. 🙂
(well, heck, SOME fans were sure Boba Fett was actually Luke’s mother in disguise, foretelling the Leia as Bossh masquerade. Fandom was weird back in the pre-internet. 🙂 )
(And yes, Brainlock, I see what you did there. Dayraven would be proud. 🙂 )
Great review and pics, hilarious comics!
I’m similarly afflicted by Iggy. I want to like him more, but aside from the aforementioned articulation, he also looks a bit short, and on mine, some of the joints (ankles especially) are a bit too loose.
Having said that, the ribbed coaming over his elbows was a pretty neat idea, even if it didn’t quite work as hoped.
Bugger. I meant to put an “end italics” tag after “want” in that above post. Sorry!
I haven’t seen IG-88 in person yet (and who knows if I ever will) but I really do want him. My biggest goal for the Black Series is to have the 6 ESB Bounty Hunters and Admiral Ackbar. Everything else is just icing on the cake (granted, I’m not buying every figure in the line).
If you want IG-88 to stay cool in your head, don’t read the Tales of the Bounty Hunters story where he uploads his consciousness into the Imperial computer network and becomes the “brain” of all the probe droids and ultimately the second Death Star, because…no. Just no.
Honestly, aside from the Thrawn trilogy, the first 4 X-Wing books, and Shadows of the Empire, the EU was mostly garbage when you look back and think about it. Unfortunately, judging by that sample of Aftermath they released, the new continuity EU doesn’t look to be much better…
Don’t know what this has to do with the figure, but there you go.
I’d heard not great things but I found him for retail at a Walgreens and I know I”ll either have or want the rest of the Executioner line-up so I grabbed him.
He’s good for standing still with his arms at his sides or maybe aiming the pistol but that’s about it. I realize a lot of this is just due to the nature of the design. The elbows are an unending source of frustration because the ribbing limits them so.
I was lucky enough to come across IG-88 at Target and despite some of the limited leg articulation, he’s one of my favorite figures from the line. I don’t know… maybe it’s where I grew up on the vintage figure, and then the PotF2 one, but I love the details and everything about the figure. The fact that he can hold his weapons while not compromising the look of his pincer hands is great. If you have one of the older ones, compare them to this one. It’s night and day, and I was a big fan of the older ones. He looks amazing with all the other bounty hunters, as well! And I really like what they did with the elbows. It gives me hope that when Hasbro gets around to making the Battle Droids, they’ll be cool, too.
You ever see that old Bugs Bunny cartoon, where the plane’s going to crash, so Bugs turns on the “Automatic Pilot,” which is a Gyro Gearloose-looking robot…who takes the last parachute and bails out. I figured IG-88 was something like that: whatever he was originally built or programmed for, yeah, he’s not doing that.
Man, with all the new Star Wars stuff coming, I hope I can find IGgy.
Holy cow, that’s right! That robot looked a lot like IG-88!
I have a real love affair with those bounty hunters. When Empire came out, and you saw those guys, you just KNEW. You knew these were the biggest badasses in the galaxy, and one of them was a man-hunting killer robot. It really did add something to the mythology. And the original toy was great, really added some big diversity to an already diverse crowd.
It’s a shame the new one’s hips are the same as the old ones, and that those knees are so heavily ratcheted that there’s only 3 positions they go in, because the upper part is pretty great. I still like this toy a lot because I love his character and his design, and there are a lot of great details an fun stuff in his sculpt and construction, but like yourself, I have a hell of a time finding a cool pose for him.
My biggest gripe with IG-88 is that the figure is made out of Silly Putty. Every time I stand it up, the legs warp under the weight of the figure and it falls over.