I haven’t looked at a lot of Hasbro’s Vintage Collection Star Wars figures here, mainly because I can’t find any of the ones I want on the pegs and I’m not prepared to buy a whole case of them online. The pegs around my parts are clogged with the Prequel figures and while I was happy to get General Grievous carded this way as a curiosity, I don’t have a lot of interest in many of the other Prequel figures. Nonetheless, a good friend of mine knowing I was fond of the Zam Wesell character (or at least what she looked like), sent me along the loose figure, so I thought I’d check her out here.
It’s true I really liked the design of this character, although I like to forget that she was some kind of shapeshifting lizard. Besides the fact that she was one of the few chick bounty hunters in Star Wars, I liked the way she looked a bit like she was plucked out of a Sergio Leone film. The long duster and the rifle definitely have that Old West vibe going on. I’ve owned two of the previous incarnations (Preview and Saga), both of which were really well sculpted, but both suffered from some annoying pre-posing and poor articulation. I’m happy to say that this Vintage Collection version makes up for all the past sins and offers up what is likely to be the definitive figure of this character, at least as far as I’m concerned. Like I said, I don’t have the packaging, but chances are you won’t have a problem seeing what her card looks like if the Prequel figures are selling as poorly in your area as they are in mine. Just go down to Target or Walmart and check it out!
Zam’s articulation includes a ball jointed neck, ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles and regular rotating hip joints. She also has that universal joint in her torso. Yeah, we’ve seen better articulation in this scale, but only by a few points so Zam has nothing to be ashamed of in this department and you can certainly get some great poses out of her.
Zam comes with a nice little selection of weapons and accessories. Her weapons include a blaster pistol that fits into her holster and her sniper rifle. The paintwork on the rifle is particularly impressive for such a thin and fragile accessory. Her helmet is removable and works with the other three accessories. You get the visor thingy, the face mask that goes across her face and another sculpted version of it that just hangs off of one side. All of these pieces just peg right into the holes on either side of her helmet and stay in place pretty well.
I think Zam is a fair enough argument for putting some Prequel figures out in the Vintage Collection. The fake retconned packaging doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, but in this case the figure inside is fantastic, so who am I to argue with the packaging. You can take it or leave it, and at $7.99, it’s not like we’re really paying extra for the packaging anyway. Plus, I don’t feel compelled to buy two of her and keep one carded like I’ve been doing with most of the Original Trilogy figures in this line.
