The paintwork on Luke was pretty nice overall. There was some slopply lines on the helmet and one eye appears to be slightly smaller than the other (don’t look, you can’t “unsee” it), but it’s still on the well done side for this scale. A light wash on the uniform might really bring out the detail, but I love the orangey goodness as is. (Maybe that’s why I bought X-Wing Luke, there just aren’t enough good figures clad in orange). The only real knock on the paint is the face & hair contributing to Luke having an animated look.
Articulation is again the highlight of the figure, though I wanted a little more. Here’s the good: ball-joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists (two different angles, great for posing!), hips, and the inverted ball-joints in the ankles that I so love. There are also swivels at the neck, thighs, and boot cuts, double-hinged knees, and a great mid-torso joint with some amazing range.
The only thing I’d like to see more of is my usual lament: bicep swivels and a waist swivel. The torso joint and the ball-jointed elbows just don’t quite pull off the movement the same as the aforementioned joints. I could probably live without the waist swivel, but I really want those bicep swivels (the Sandtrooper got ‘em!). There is some blockage due to the pilot gear around his legs, but to end on a good note, Luke can definitely sit in a vehicle… should there ever be any…
Luke included three accessories: a helmet, his blaster, and a lightsaber. The helmet is the most complicated of all three. It’s cast in clear yellow and heavily painted and tampoed to match the prop. The helmet fits great and doesn’t look bulky on the figure, but he’s more fun to pose with it under his arm or holding the chin strap since he’s unable to hang out in his ride. As I mentioned above, the helmet is a source of much more sloppy paint the figure with some wave lines and missed tampos. Like the Sandtrooper, it gets away with some sloppiness based on use & wear since it’s also painted to be a bit dingy, but it ends up clashing with the uniform a bit as a result.
The other accessories fantastic. I prefer to hook up Luke with his blaster since this is less a jedi costume and more that of a soldier. Plus his right hand is molded to be used on a trigger and because the pilot’s uniform doesn’t feature a spot for a sidearm. It is a little gummy like the Sandtrooper’s gear, but not as bad due to the compact size and it looks great thanks to a detailed sculpt and the silver paint getting clean lines.
Finally, the signature accessory of the line: a lightsaber. This is another nice piece; it looks accurate and has decent paint applications. While the articulation is fantastic for dual-handed lightsaber poses, I tend to skip all that. Hasbro smartly made it so that the beam can be removed (they’ve been making lightsaber accessories for a few years) and the saber can be hung from his belt. That was a nice touch and it also means that, if you give Luke his blaster to hold, everything but the beam* can store on the figure. I love that!
* – I suppose you could let it dangle there turned on, but that might be dangerous for future Skywalkers…
Looking back across this review, I’m not sure where I’m coming down on it. I think I like it a lot more than I would normally because the good sculpt and articulation really helps make it a fun figure. It’s just a fun figure of something I might not normally buy. And that’s dangerous if I’m going to skip being a completist on Star Wars Black (Carbonite Han aside, right?). NECA has got me to buy multiple Dutch figures and while Luke might not be as a good a figure as Dutch, I think Hasbro has got the right stuff to make buy a few more Lukes (or Hans & Leias) than I expected to at the outset of this little exercise.
For more Star Wars Black reviews, check out our
Star Wars Black Collector’s Guide.
You are going to become as obsessed with this line as you are with MOTUC. Calling it now.
O.o
Greedo will be my first true test… lol
haha, poe called it! and he’s almost, virtually never wrong.
Just Say No to Greedo!
. . . which’ll leave more for me for custom fodder when they go on clearance. Yippee!
thats already happened to me POE
I must resist urge to buy SWB toys… Though R2 is tempting… It’s a good thing I hate the X-Wing Pilot look for him, so I can Skip him.
I think if you’re looking iconic OT, this is a pretty easy wave to skip. Just grab an R2 and hold right!
LOL at the pic with both gonk droids. I’m trying to resist this line……..
…….
I had to get Mama Gonk in the review somewhere!
Once again, Office Space references rule. Still gotta make a red stapler for the upcoming Mantenna . . . .
You’re on to something about the likeness from different angles, and I’d extend that to different figures. I’ve looked at various Lukes at different stores, and I swear the paint and sculpt vary from “kinda Hamill” to “damn near Hamill”.
Darth Maul has been a different frustration, finding one with well-painted eyes has been difficult. I found one with no pupils and almost all the other ones had wall eyes or crossed ones.
I really want to see the untainted sculpt on Luke because I bet the skin tone paint is thick!
And my Maul… Yeah, he’s not quite right on the face. Not bad, but there’s a lot going on. I don’t want to go all Star Wars week, but I need to get the last two churned out soon.
I’m very much like you with this line. I’m glad they look great, but I don’t feel the need to complete the whole SWB series. Maybe it’s because I was a completionist with all of the different Clone Troopers in the 3.75″ scale (SO MANY CLONES…). Maybe I’m a bit burned out on SW figs.
Of this wave, I picked up Maul and R2, and I’m super impressed with them both. Maul has a beautiful headsulpt, and R2 has so much detail that it really surprised me. Based on the two that I’ve had in hand, I’m going to try and get all of the Bounty Hunters. I’d love to be able to have that scene from Empire on my desk. A lineup of super detailed Bossk, Dengar, IG-88, Boba, etc would really make my workday go by more quickly. Maybe I’d make Boba Fett duke it out with Iron Man. That might be fun…
Bounty Hunters would make a cool subset!
Too bad I’ve got that No Greedo thing going on up above…
These are amazing, and are still proving difficult to find…despite being $20. I stood in the store and agonized for a minute over paying TWENTY BUCKS for the R2…until I got him home, that is.
Why is it that having the two magic words “Star” and “Wars” justifies marking up an item five bucks over other lines? Don’t answer that…because we will pay it, is the answer.
I just figure $20 & 6″ go together these days. At least they get all the accessories they need!
I’ve still not sen them all in the wild, so thank you BBTS!
to be fair, you are getting the best overall r2 i think has ever been offered, at least in terms of accessories. that certainly helps justify the price tag to me
My grail for this set is a Dash Rendar. I played the hell out of Shadows of the Empire and bought the figure (never got the Outrider for it). I know it won’t happen, but if it did…
You never know, right? I’m not sure who I really need… other than a Gonk of course.
I did buy the Outrider–figured I had to, I crashed the damn thing so many times…
Really, really want this now.
Great review, pics, and comics as always!
Still limiting myself to Greedoes and Amanamen (if they get made).
I am actually scared of this line because I really think i am going to want to pick them all up! I avoided the smaller line (except for a few clone wars animated) because I always hoped Hasbro would take the ML/DCUC plunge and now that they have this will be pricey! Ad the troop building…my godness the troop building. I know there is some fan out there clearing his basement for a bunch of 6 inch scale dioramas….
I usually stay away from movie figures because the likeness isn’t always quite right and they tend to not fit in with the comic figures as well. Maybe it’s because for me these actors are so closely associated with the characters (whereas Bale is just dressing up as Batman, for example), but I broke down in this case. So now I have my first four star wars figures in probably ten years, and it makes me happy.
Also, today I used Prince Adam’s head to make a big-head Luke. It was great. 🙂
Like I said in the other review, I mainly bought Luke to use as a base for a custom 6″ GI Joe “Ace”. then I found another one today. both have the same minor problem: too thin paint app on the forearm behind the glove. I noticed this didn’t seem to be a problem on yours? hunter linked me to PixelDan’s video review and he also makes note of it, and it’s worse than mine.
Something to watch out, for I guess? I found mine at Targets, but in two completely different locations.
the likeness is good enough for me, altho now that Copper has mentioned “Big Head Luke”, I want to see someone use this head to make a custom figure of Mark in JSBSB: “C*ckknocker”!
(wonders which box that DCD Plastic Man is in….)
With this new buck, Hasbro could end up doing Bill Lumbergh in X-Wing Pilot gear and the fans would cheer.
Aside from the different classic looks on the lead characters, (Luke, Han, Leia, Ben, Lando) I can only imagine how the various sub groups will thrill folks: You’ve got your Imperial and Rebel army builders, troopers, pilots, officers, droids, assorted alien races, cantina regulars, skiff guards, and of course, bounty hunters.
This line is gonna be pure plastic crack for most collectors.
I think availability is the only thing that could go wrong and keep this from being a surefire win. It looks to be a bright future.
My Luke is great excepting that when he looks up at the sky for his as of yet non-existent 6″ scale X-Wing, I see a bit of orange!