New Star Wars Black
Images from Hasbro!

NoisyDvL5

I’m not as in love with Star Wars Black as when it started, but the figures are still interesting to me. Hasbro kept the embers warm with the announcement of a couple of Hoth packs featuring Han & a Tauntaun as well as Luke and a Wampa. I can see myself coming home with the Wampa for sure (though where’d the paint on the horns go?). Also now shown in package is the Han Solo as Stormtrooper an Bossk!

Huge Pics get huger if you click ‘on em.










40 thoughts on “New Star Wars Black
Images from Hasbro!”

  1. Some people go apeshit over the bounty hunters, but Bossk is probably the least interesting reveal here for me. The Hoth variants are awesome and iconic renditions of those characters, as are the Stormtrooper disguises (where’s Luke?). While I know this was probably the way to get us the Wampa, I could have gone for a Tauntaun each for Luke and Han.

    Of course, I’m still a little behind on this line. I need to get at least one or two Speeder Bikes, and I wouldn’t mind the Shadow Speeder set that Target currently has. Space and money have been an issue, though the new apartment I’m moving into in a few weeks and the new job I started a month ago should be helping with both those issues. But, with the holiday season fast upon us, buying stuff for myself might have to wait until the new year.

    1. Fun Fact: Bossk’s uniform is re-used from a Doctor Who serial a decade before.

      I hope they cleaned it.

      2. That would have made it either late 1st Doctor or early Second. I can’t find any pics from then that has the look of Bossk’s suit.

        Unless maybe it was the first Cyberman’s suit, under the GIANT chest device? Man those early Cybermen were crap… 🙂

        any hint? Point me, I’ve got 30-some years of Doctor Who books waiting to be referenced. 🙂

        (see,the publishing didn’t get really serious until the Tom Baker years, then there was a flood.)

        1. IIRC, the one that ended up on Bossk was either Jamie or Zoe’s suit from Wheel in Space. Though Windak pressure suits were used in a lot of stuff at the time – also appearing in The Tenth Planet, for example.

  3. While I am one of those Bounty Hunter-fanboys that JamesLynch mentioned, I’m most excited for the Hoth reveals. Packing the figures with their corresponding beast is pretty brilliant.

  4. If they really loved us they’d pack in an alternate head for Luke’s Tauntaun so people could have both Luke and Han’s. But they only love us enough to give us a repack with Hoth Luke and his Tauntaun later.

    1. Wouldn’t you still have to buy two packs either way to get both? And if there was just the one pack with alternate heads, that would leave you with a pair of random heads just lying around.

      (Although it would be quite fun to stick the heads into a snowdrift display with a teeny-tiny box of crunchy nut cornflakes just out of reach.)

  5. Meh, the only thing here that does anything for me is the Han Stormtrooper, but since I already have the regular Stormie, as well as the faxt that it’s a foregone conclusion the head sculpt will be terrible as Harrison Ford is just impossible to do, it’ll be an easy pass.

    Besides, after how terribly they failed at Darth Vader, of all people, I’m done with this line unless they release a single Scout Trooper (would love the speeder bike but have neither the money nor space).

    Well, that is until The Force Awakens comes out. Then all bets are off.

    1. “…after how terribly they failed at Darth Vader…” Did we buy the same figure? I thought the thing was flawless. My only complaint was the incomplete inner part of the helmet, but since it’s covered up by the outer piece, it doesn’t bother me. They got the likeness spot on, the entire figure is covered with detail, it has excellent articulation, and even the soft goods look fantastic on mine. Personally, he’s my favorite figure from the line so far.

      1. The helmet doesn’t even fit on his head properly, there’s a gap between the bottom of the faceplate and the collar that I have yet to find a workaround for.

        The proportions on the helmet sculpt are way off. The cheeks are too puffy and the eyes are the wrong shape, making it look like he has a sad face.

        Even though it’s supposed to be ROTJ Vader he has the brown eye lenses from ANH.

        The Anakin face sculpt is not anywhere near good, but would be passable…except that the paint on the whole head looks like a blob of melted ice cream. And the wounds have no coloring.

        The cape and tunic are both too long, which makes them bunch up when you stand him. Honestly, how hard is it to measure? And it’s attached to the shoulders in the wrong place which makes it look like he has a high collar.

        The control box on his chest is too big and painted incredibly sloppily.

        His right hand can barely hold his lightsaber. And the left hand is completely USELESS. It can’t hold the saber, it’s not in a force choke/I am your father position, it’s just relaxed and open and pisses me right off.

        Basically I have to hide him in the background of my display to make it even look passable. Darth. Vader. UNACCEPTABLE.

        1. The only point of yours that I agree with is that the soft goods are too long, and attached in the wrong place. But those are minor issues that are easy to work around. Mine has great paint apps all around, the control box looks fine size wise, to me, and the helmet fits perfectly on mine. And it’s just labeled as Darth Vader. The bio on the back was just chosen to go with it because of the removable mask. To me, Vader is Vader,it doesn’t matter which movie (of the original trilogy) the figure is from. I very much enjoy mine. I’m sorry that you got a bad paint sample, but they far from failed.

          1. I love the long, flowing cape. It’s not 100% accurate, but it looks fantastic.

            Maybe if I got out some calipers and did some measuring, I might find some faults with the sculpt, but just looking at it with the naked eye, it looks great.

            The helmet on mine fits perfect. Maybe Alex just got a lemon?

            1. I amend one statement upon reinspection. The control box is not too big, it looks a bit too far down into his stomach, because the collar armor is a bit too big. It’s also flattened and thrust forward at the shoulders too much which adds to that.

              Maybe I did get a lemon, but the helmet on mine absolutely does not fit. The dome holds really snug to the faceplate, which is nice, but the faceplate is ridiculously loose on the head and does not sit flush to the collar at all no matter what I do.

              Likewise, the paint may just be messed up on my individual figure, but good lord is it a hot mess. The paint for the Anakin head wasn’t even mixed right, it’s an off-white base with a few other colors swirling and streaking through it, all applied uniformly to the entire head. There is no extra coloring for the wounds. And it’s applied so heavily that what little detail there is in the head sculpt is near impossible to discern. It literally looks like someone dumped a big bowl of melted ice cream on his head. It looks just awful.

              So yeah, all that may just be on the individual figure I got. But the rest of the faults surely are not. Chief among those is the helmet. It is just wrong. The cheekbone parts are too big, pushed too far forward, and are flattened out too much, to the point that it looks more Dark Helmet than Darth Vader. The eyes are too big (which is better than too small like all the figures they did from 1995-98, yes, but still). They are also the wrong shape, they slope out and downward too much and it makes him look like he’s sad. Ridiculous. The bottom half of the dome is also slightly off, it should flare out around the face at a bit of a wider angle. I’m sure a casual observer will not notice any of this, but it all sticks out to me.

              And yes, the brown eyes are a problem. Because it is absolutely the Return of the Jedi version of Vader – it has the removable helmet, the silver stripes in the shoulder/collar armor, the tunic is under said armor, and I’m pretty sure there’s one more detail but I can’t think of it at the moment. But then he has the eyes from the first movie. So it ends up being a mish mash of elements from different films that never existed together and it is just wrong. And I’m sorry, but saying “hey it doesn’t matter it’s all Darth Vader” does not excuse the fact that it is wrong. For comparison, the head on ghe X-Wing Luke is an absolutely bang-on likeness of 1977 Mark Hammil, the best there’s ever been. But if they put that head on the Jedi Luke figure it would be wrong, because it doesn’t go with that version of the character. Or if they put the hair buns on the Slave Leia figure. That piece does not go with that costume, and saying that it’s just Leia does not make it right. The incongruity is more subtle than that on Vader, yes, but that does not make it any less incorrect.

              Then there’s the disproportionately large shoulder/chest armor, crotch piece, and soft goods. And the right hand that can barely hold the saber. And the left hand that is just terrible. Those are not specific to my figure alone.

              Admittedly all of these things are minor details, yes. But putting them all together, it ends up not looking like Darth Vader, but rather like someone cosplaying as him. I’m sure to the casual observer it looks fine, but I am a die-hard fan. You know, one of the croud this line is supposed to be geared toward. And after how utterly flawless Boba Fett and the Stormtroopers are, this figure just does not cut it. Were my expectations too high? Possibly. But if they nailed those other characters so completely, there was no reason to think they wouldn’t follow through with the central character of the saga.

              I desperately wanted to love it, I still do, but I just can’t.

              1. I have to agree with you on the Vader head sculpt. It is very wrong. I could forgive the brown eyes but the proportions are very wrong and it just doesn’t look right. For me ROTJ is the film I grew up with and I want my Vader toys to look the way he did in ROTJ.
                There are only a few of the 3.75″ figures that did his head sculpt any justice.
                Frankly aside from not having much interest in collecting any more, the head sculpts on a lot of the figures have been very poor.

              2. I agree with you completely on Vader. I don’t see how anyone can defend it outside of a desperate need for the character in the 6″ scale. I’ve only picked up a few of these figures at a discount anyway, but when the main villain of the movies looks that bad it does make the line feel kind of pointless.

                1. “I don’t see how anyone can defend it outside of a desperate need for the character in the 6″ scale.”

                  No, it’s because it’s an awesome figure, and you people are putting it under an electron microscope and complaining because it doesn’t have the proportionately correct amount of molecules.

                  1. I have just always been particular about Darth Vader head sculpts as the original wasn’t great, then the awful 95 versions.

              3. “And the right hand that can barely hold the saber. And the left hand that is just terrible. Those are not specific to my figure alone.”

                last thing I’m going to say is Mine has no problem holding his Lightsaber. He holds it quite tightly, at that. The left hand is absolutely a force choke or “No, I am your father” pose.

                I’m not going into the minute details that 90% of the people who also consider themselves die hard fans would not notice. I actually sat with my figure looking at many various photos of his head from the movie and you’re seeing things with the shapes of his face, or it is, in fact a badly molded sample and that’s why your mask doesn’t fit.

                Either way, I feel like you’re taking it way too far here and have unrealistic expectations for a figure that most people consider the crowning jewel of the line, so far. I’ll just have to enjoy it enough for the both of us. Which, I do.

                1. Well suffice it to say, then, that yes, you clearly did buy a different figure than I, others here, and every online reviewer who’ve I’ve seen do a piece on this figure did.

                  I wish I could post pictures to illustrate, but this figure is just fundamentally off on so many details. I would forgive everything else, even the anachronistic brown eyes, if they had gotten the helmet sculpt right (and it actually fit properly), but they really missed the mark there. From a distance it looks ok, but up close it is just way off. And that is inexcusable.

                  Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t go in trying to pick it apart and find flaws. I desperately wanted to love this figure. I still do. It’s Darth Vader, in 6″ scale, with fantastic articulation, and a two-part removable helmet. By all rights it should be my favorite figure that I own, period. But it ended up being a massive disappointment. Yes, it could be worse – that revoltech Vader looks hideous, for example – but it should have been so much better.

                  Were my expectations too high? Quite possibly. But not, I think, unjustifiably so. Boba Fett, all the Stormtroopers, X-Wing Pilot Luke, Greedo, etc have all been breathtakingly, stunningly flawless. It was not unreasonable to expect their rendition of Darth Friggin’ Vader, of all people, to follow suit. Nor is it unreasonable to be quite upset when they fell markedly short of the benchmark they set for themselves. If this had been the first figure in the line, I would not be so disappointed. But after doing so many other characters so, so right, Vader should have been perfect.

                  Because if they’re going to do a nigh-perfect figure of Greedo – bloody Greedo, for God’s sake – it is absolutely inexcusable for them to mess up so many things on THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THE WHOLE SAGA.

                  Hence, I am now done with this line until we see what happens when Episode VII vomes out.

                  And even if I weren’t, that Wampa still looks bad :p.

  6. I like reptiles and bounty hunters, so Bossk is a must-get for me. Everything else? Meh. The wampa is especially disappointing, considering it’s one of my favourite creatures from the series. Its horns aren’t even painted, and it looks like it’s made up of layers of meringue that someone has dragged his beard through.

  8. Dat Wampa… These all look ridiculously awesome, and am I wrong, or is that the third new/different mold for Luke’s first lightsaber? They’re putting a serious amount of money and effort into this line, and it really shows in their willingness to go out of their way to do things like this.

    1. I don’t see how making new versions of the same weapon is a benefit. That’s something that actually bugs me in figure lines. If it’s supposed to be the exact same weapon, why does it look slightly different from figure to figure? It might seem like a minor detail, but it’s the sort of thing I notice on the shelf.

      1. I wondered that myself, but when you realize it’s because the props had to be remade between movies, and even sometimes between shooting different scenes, and Hasbro is paying that much attention to detail to get it screen accurate, it makes me appreciate the effort they’re putting into the line. Like Obi-Wan and Jedi Luke’s lightsabers. Most people would have been fine with a reissue of Obi-wan’s with a green blade. Most people probabmy wouldn’t have noticed (aside from the different belt mount). But because there were different details, they completely redid it so that it would be accurate. I’m blown away by that level of attention to detail.

  9. I don’t see how you can be so blah about this line. All the OG trilogy goodness they are giving us is awesome. I am drinking the kool-aid and loving it.

    1. I think part of it’s burnout. I’ve been collecting Star Wars since 1983. Oh, look, more of the same stuff I already have, only it’s way more expensive and takes up even more room! Great!

      Nah, I think I’ll get the Bounty Hunters from the 6″ Black series (and Amanaman, if they get around to him), a few missing background characters from the 4″ series, finish off MOTUC, and I’m pretty much done with collecting. It’s been a couple of years of slow building (or fading), but collecting just doesn’t bring me enjoyment anymore.

    2. My only problems with this line are availability and release scheduling. I seriously went at 9-10 months without seeing anything new, and then three waves hit right on top of one another. It took me almost a year to find a Boba Fett (in a refresh slot, and then I only saw the one), and I’ve only been able to find one each of the Clone and Storm Troopers (I managed two Sand Troopers, and if I wanted one of the new ones with the black pauldron, I don’t think I’d have any trouble finding one). I never even saw enough Anakins to really compare paint before buying.

      Meanwhile, if I wanted Slave Leia, Han, Bespin Luke, or Obi-Wan, I couldn’t miss them with a swing of a dead cat.

      2. The availability problems and scalper prices have made quitting collecting very easy. The only 6″ Black figures around here are still Leia and Greedo at £20 each.

  10. But the single most important question…

    Cut belly on the Taun-Taun for “I thought they smelled bad on the outside” play, or will that be a SDCC exclusive next year or some such? Can’t see an obvious opening.

    Not too sure about that Wampa. Would that be considered the ‘post Special Editions’ look? And does his arm come off?

    Geeze, ESB was a nasty, violent movie… 🙂

  11. I would much rather have a swivel/hinge shoulder on that wampa over the ability to remove the arm. Oh well, this line isn’t for me anyway. I’m picking up a few figures here and there (Vader, Stormtrooper, Chewie, Boba Fett) but they’re too expensive for me to fully commit.

    1. You can have the swivel/hinge joint and still make the arm removable. Mattel had done it with Trap-Jaw. Its just a matter of making the inside of the joint look all bloody while being covered by the shoulder so you don’t see it when the arm is attached.

      1. I’m all for the removable arm, but it looks like Hasbro only gave him a swivel joint on that shoulder. Giving him a proper shoulder, then a stump that could plug into its place would have been keen.

  12. I’m surprised they have blood detailing on the Wampa’s mouth. (Think of the children!) Honestly, I’m torn with this line. I want to like it, but I then see there are figures being made in japan now that look even better. Heck, they have a poseable Luke and Han coming that look EXACLY like Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford.

  13. Wow, I’m amazed how much people bash a $20 figure in this scale.

    I just switched from the large scale Secret Wars page to this one… just take a look at how far sculpting has come since we were kids.

    People complain about the soft sculpts or the paint apps or this is too small or this is too big. This is a mass market toy, and while it’s aimed at collectors, they gotta pump out thousands of these things.

    It’s not a $300 Hot Toy. It’s a $20 action figure that, from what I can, is 100% completely new sculpt. Compare that to Marvel Legends or Mattel figures that re-use so much.

    I’m extremely excited by Vader. And judging by him never being for sale on Amazon, I’m guessing he’s a pretty popular figure. I had to resort buying him second hand for $30 Australian (if he ever hits here, he’ll retail for $35 so it’s not too bad) because Amazon decided not to ship toys internationally for a two week period which I discovered when he finally came on their website. He should arrive for me next week, so stoked to have him.

    And we’ll likely get another version of him, I’m sure (we’re up to what now, 3 Lukes?)

    As for these releases… they look good but I’ll pass unless I can grab them cheap. I hope they don’t go too hard too fast and be left with lacklustre sales. I’m down for most of the iconic OT line (you can keep the bounty hunters, never interested me), but not keen on most of the variants so far. Might get Bespin Luke at some point but waiting for Farmboy.

    What I’m really hanging out for is C3PO and a decent Leia (Ep IV). C’mon, Hasbro, I’m blue ballin’ here.

    1. Just noting that I got my Vader yesterday and was surprised that he wasn’t even out of the package. I understand the nitpicks, but seriously, the entire line has it’s flaws. But for $20 figures, I am much much more impressed in person than from net pics. The soft goods actually look really nice, allowing the cape to flow around him. Maybe I’m not one who’s overly concerned about minute details on Star Wars garb and maybe it infuriates those who are, but damn he looks good. Not a fan of the Anakin head sculpt but like hell he’s gonna be seen like that anyway.

      As for the overall line, I think the sculpting is beautiful for the majority of the line. Slave Leia is the biggest disappointment and easily the worst figure in the line. But the plastic used is my concern. Is it more rubbery than what we’re used to? Joints really don’t pose well and I’m hoping the plastic doesn’t degrade over time.

      Still, Vader is a thing of beauty in my eyes. Along with Chewie, probably the best 2 figures in the line for mine.

  14. Agreed. SLAVE Leia is horrible. It would have been nice if the mold was more like a Marvel Legends female mold.
    Aside from that I am very happy with the rest of the line. I even got 3rd party Jedi/Sith cloth robes on evil-bay for them.

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