That’s an alright title, right? The figure is just called “Imperial
Stormtrooper,” so my title should be ok, yeah? Sorry, it’s one of those kinds
of mornings here at the Coffin, as the five day Thanksgiving Break enters its
final day and we begin to steel ourselves for the last ten days of the Fall
semester. Over the last few days I’ve been able to get some more stuff
photographed, and thought I’d take advantage of the time between laundry to get
something looked at quickly.
And believe me, this will not take long.
The collapse of Toys R Us thanks to vulture capitalism left
a number of store exclusive releases in an odd and short lived limbo, as most
things were picked up elsewhere almost immediately, whether by etailers or
other brick and mortar establishments. Kind of makes some sense that the Disney
Store would get some of them, seeing as Disney is the owner of both Star Wars
and Marvel. Disney Stores got ownership of three Black Series releases, two of them repaints and one of them Zuckuss.
This Stormtrooper here is the first of the Disney Store exclusive Black Series figures the Coffin will
investigate.
At this point in time, the Coffin’s affinity for the OT
Stormtrooper and many relevant thoughts are well covered in reviews of previous
releases of the figure, and you can check that out if you scroll through the
articles linked here. So, we know what we’re getting with this release,
figure-wise. This version is another great example of a store exclusive, as it
is not something that would be necessary to a number of Black Series collectors, and honestly it doesn’t offer much as a figure
at all.
The figure is painted up with what is supposed to be battle
damage, or blaster marks, but the paint that was used for this damage is brown.
Brown. If you want an example of an excellently done battle damaged
Stormtrooper, you need to scroll back to the early days of the Coffin and look
at the great one that came in the first Amazon exclusive four pack. This newest
version does not look like it’s sustained battle damage; it looks, as my wife
pointed out, like someone smeared shit on it. This is not a battle damaged
Stormtrooper, it’s the Custodian Trooper who had an Imperial toilet explode on
it.
That is not intended to be juvenile or edgy. It’s true. The
Stormtrooper looks like something brown was wiped on its armor, a paint job
that recalls the general failure of the recent Walmart exclusive Mimban Stormtrooper. On both of these figures, the efforts made to paint them into
some kind of different Trooper are pedestrian at best, and in the case of what
I’ve taken to calling the “Blastin’ Stormtrooper” here, lazy and bad. Just bad.
And very sparsely applies, too. A single smudge on the chest and helmet, with
what amounts to be splatter on one shoulder pad, is the extent of the “damage”
this Trooper has incurred, and the splash part on the shoulder really does make
it look like someone just threw crap at this guy, and it splashed.
But the parts that make this Stormtrooper worthwhile are the
effects parts. Packaged with two semi translucent orange explosions and a
blaster effect part, this feces-smeared Stormtrooper is not playing by the
rules of a crap-flinging session, instead responding with blaster fire. The
effects piece that fits on the muzzle of the blaster is pretty neat, but it
does not fit securely, so bumping the figure will cause it to fall off. And, it’s
a small piece, so it could be worrisome for those of us with pets, were it to
fall off and entice them to eat it. The large explosion effects are pretty
cool, and could be used to create scenes or spice up a display, but there’s not
anything so special about them that would make them superior to comparable effects
parts made by any other company. Finally, the Trooper comes with a stand,
reading “Star Wars” on one side and with a grate-type pattern on the reverse,
and it looks like multiple of these could hook together. If there is one thing
that Black Series figures REALLY
need, it would be some kind of stable and reliable stand. Sadly, this one is
not that, as the pegs are not long enough to really grab inside the hole on the
heel, and while there are two pegs, the legs don’t spread wide enough to employ
them both. I think the idea is that two figures could be placed on this one,
long stand, and that’s cool. But still, the pegs don’t hold the figure well
enough.
Man, this line really, really needs to invest in stands. I
bought some off of an Etsy seller last year that turned out to be some real
junk, and NECA has put out some that work a lot better, but are $10 for a hard
to find at retail ten pack. 4” Star Wars figures came with stands for years,
why can’t Black Series figures?
So basically, what we have here is a store exclusive, and
thus slightly more pricey, figure that really doesn’t do anything well. It is
completely non-essential in any collection. Online images of it made it look a
lot better than the final product, and as has been stated a million times
before, I am an Imperial collector, so this was pretty much bound to end up in
my house regardless. But what a dud figure. There’s nothing here that couldn’t
be done better or hasn’t been done better already, and that is really
unpleasant. If your collection is starving for a battle damaged Stormtrooper,
the one that came in the Amazon set a few years back is an infinitely better
option, as would be buying a Stormtrooper and customizing one yourself.
Absolutely avoid this.
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