It’s probably a pretty good indicator of my feelings about current Star Wars that I’ve regressed to working on filling out my vintage Kenner collection. And while that mostly involves hunting down the last Kenner figures I need, it also has me looking into some of the wonderful customs out there. And you can’t talk about wonderful Kenner Star Wars customs without mention of Stan Solo. I own a handful of his figures so far, but the only toy of his I’ve looked at here on FFZ so far was his Ubrikkian 9000 Speeder Pod. But he’s got a couple of new releases out, including a more screen accurate Greedo, and the focus of today’s review, the Rebel Fleet Trooper!

I’ve got no packaged shot, unless you want to see bubblewrap and a mailer box. This figure is offered as a spiffy carded release, but I went for the loose 4-pack. And now that these are in hand, they are so polished and refined, I have to say it’s hard to believe these are customs. The detail really walks that narrow line between something that is totally convincing as an unproduced vintage Kenner figure and something that’s just almost too good to be an unproduced vintage Kenner figure. And I mean that as the highest of compliments. The feel of the figure from the plastic to the joints is all dead on. There are some lovely touches in the sculpt here, like the rumples in the clothing and the way the vest hangs open. The matte blue and gray finish for the uniform feels perfect, and the boots and vest have a high gloss polish that looks super snappy.

The head is particularly well done, as the printing for the eyes and eyebrows look exactly like the Kenner style. The rest of the facial details are appropriately soft, and I love that he’s got that little kid friendly smirk, despite the fact that he’s about to be gunned down by Stormtroopers and all his friends will be dead. The chin strap on the helmet is painted very well and you even get the black strap painted underneath the white chin cup as it runs through.

And if all that weren’t’ cool enough, you even get a brand new sculpted gun, which is a Kennerized version of the DH-17. And oh man, is this fantastic! Sure, maybe if Kenner released this figure early in the line he would have just been packed with the Stormtrooper’s E-11, but we got a fair bit of new gun sculpts as the line progressed and I think this looks like a pretty credible example of what a Kenner Rebel blaster would have looked like.

It’s hard to articulate just how happy I am with these new additions to my Kenner Star Wars case. I know some collectors out there like to keep their displays 100% pure and vintage, but I just love the whole “what could have been” charm of releases like this. Especially when they’re executed so professionally. Of course, as customs they don’t come cheap and you’re looking at $37 for a loose single figure or $124 for a squad of four. I had a coupon which pushed me into the 4-pack for $114. You also have the custom carded option at $50, which looks absolutely amazing, but I talked myself out of because my Kenner Star Wars collection is strictly loose figures. All these options are still available at Stan Solo’s ETSY shop at the time I’m publishing this review.