DC fans, don’t hate me, but DC Friday is being bumped this week in favor of The Star Warses. I’m working my way through the first four Rogue One figures in the Star Wars Black 6-inch series and here comes the one  that I intentionally saved for last, because I thought he was going to be the coolest of the bunch… and I was right! It’s the reprogrammed Imperial Security Droid, K-2SO!

I’ve got nothing new to say about the packaging, but heeeey, did you see the new Rogue One trailer? I’ll be honest, I’ve been excited about this movie since that first teaser, but each trailer is getting me more excited. It feels like we’re going to get to see a lot more of the Star Wars Universe in this one, along with some genuinely cool new characters. And one of them happens to be this deadpan warrior droid, HK-47… Whooops, I mean K-2SO!

Let me start out by saying how much I love this droid’s design. What’s the first thing I think of when I see him? He’s wearing General Veers’ chest armor! Yeah that piece is very evocative of the AT-AT Commander uniform. It’s kind of a random design to borrow from, but it works because one look and I know that this is an Imperial droid. Well, that and the familiar “O II” Stormtrooper pattern on his backpack… and maybe those Imperial insignia printed on his shoulders give it away too. The other thing I love about this design is that it’s a robot that looks like a robot and not a guy in a robot suit. Despite having a really powerful looking upper body, the rest of K-2SO is comprised of spindly limbs, which reinforces that idea that he’s a droid and not a guy in a costume. It’s kind of like 2-1B in The Empire Strikes Back. He had the transparent mid-section and the super thin arms and it just looks so convincing. Sure, that was an animatronic puppet and this is CG, but the end result was the same. But enough rambling. How does the figure pull off this great design?

Pretty damn well! There are some lovely sculpted details on this guy and while the deco is mostly a dark gray, some paint flourishes include the orange rings around his shoulder and hip sockets and the a little silver, red, and blue here and there. There’s also a lot of weathering on K-2SO’s chassis, from splotches of silver where the paint has worn off to just general abrasions. Even the Imperial insignia on his shoulders look like they’re partially scraped off. The eyes are painted bright white to simulate illumination, which looks pretty good. I wonder how light piping might have worked here, but that would have left a transparent plug in the back of his head, so maybe it wouldn’t have been a good idea.

What’s really amazing about this figure is how solid it is and how much articulation is here. The shoulders and wrists are rotating hinges, and the elbows are hinged and have swivels above and below the hinge! The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the ankles, and the knees mirror the elbows with hinges and swivels above and below. There’s a ball joint in the torso and the neck is ball jointed at the top and bottom to give him some pretty expressive head movements. I really dig how the pins in his elbows, knees, and ankles are clear plastic.

K-2SO doesn’t come with any accessories, but his claws are capable of holding a gun and Captain Andor just happens to have an extra!

As I said going into this review, I suspected K-2SO was going to be a favorite and he certainly is that. He’s both a great new design for the Star Wars Universe and a great action figure too! And overall, I’d say that this entire first assortment from Rogue One has been pretty solid. Yes, I had some issues with the lack of likeness in Jyn and Cassian’s head sculpts, but everything else about these figures has been great. You’ll notice that I passed for now on the unmasked Kylo Ren and the re-issue of Rey that shipped with this assortment. I still may pick those up at some point down the road, but these four were my priorities. And with the 6-inch line covered, I’ll be moving into the 3 3/4-inch figures next week, probably on Tuesday or Wednesday. Meanwhile, I’ve got one more bit of Star Wars content to serve up tomorrow.

I told you I might be back tonight and here I am with a look at the Star Wars Black 6-inch Cassian Andor, another one of those Rebel Scum from the upcoming Rogue One flick. Alas, I spent the better part of my evening getting liquored up at the corner Pub, so this is going to have to be a quickie.

Here’s a look at the packaging and there’s really nothing new to say about it. It tells us that this version of the character’s outfit is from Eadu, a planet which I presume is more than a little chilly. The short blurb on the back of the box doesn’t really say a lot and I feel like I’m even more in the dark about who this person is than I was with Jyn. We do know that he’s part of Jyn’s mission and that he might have been attached to the unit to try to keep her in check, so there may be a good character dynamic between the two.

So, is there seriously anyone out there who isn’t instantly getting a Hoth Han Solo vibe off of this guy? I’m sure that’s on purpose, because as Lucas once said, Star Wars is like poetry. It rhymes. These new movies seem like they are going to be big on the fan-wanks to the originals and I think we’re seeing more of that here. Then again, sometimes a snow outfit is just a snow outfit. Either way, I think this outfit gave Hasbro a little more to work with than Jyn’s did and they’re getting mighty good at infusing these sculpts with some wonderful detail.

Cassian comes all bundled up in a blue belted parka, which hopefully will look somewhat brown in the film and cause a whole new clothing color controversy. You get the ribbed stripes on the sleeve, which seems to be big in the Rebellion fashion world. There’s also some nice texturing on the gloves and belt. His belt has various sculpted pouches and pieces of equipment, and from the back you can get a good look at the fur-lined hood that rests behind his head. The paint here is pretty solid on the costume and includes silver paint on the buckles and fixtures of his belt and gear, as well as his boots.

The belt also features a working holster for his blaster pistol, which is always a huge plus in my book.

The figure comes with a hat and goggles that’s very reminiscent of what we saw Rebel troops and officers wearing on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. And yes, it is removable.

Like Jyn, we have another ambiguous head sculpt here. Taken on its own, it isn’t bad, but does it really look like the actor, Diego Luna? Nah, not really. There just isn’t enough detail in the sculpt and the paint isn’t really up to the task either. Once again, this head looks like it would have been more acceptable on a smaller scaled figure. It’s a shame, but not enough to ruin the figure for me thanks to my diminished expectations of this line.

The articulation here is pretty much identical to what we saw with Jyn. And yes, that means that Cassian is lacking swivels in the biceps. I am, however, pleased that they still worked a ball joint into his chest, despite the puffy jacket sculpt. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, but not the boots. The knees are double hinged, and the ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. The neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

Captain Andor comes with two weapons. You get the blaster pistol, which fits into his holster and you get a larger weapon that looks a lot like the Rebel Blasters from The Original Trilogy.

I feel like I know next to nothing about Captain Andor and that’s certainly tempering my excitement for this figure. On the other hand, it is a really well done figure, once I get past the fact that there’s very little resemblance in the likeness. Hasbro put a lot of work into the detail in the outfit and gear and he looks really good standing beside Jyn or even mingling with the Hoth versions of Han and Luke. If nothing else, he’ll be a welcome addition to my Hoth rebels until I finally get to see the movie and learn what he’s all about.

On another note, I’ve decided to scrap the usual scheduled features for the remainder of the week and just go full on Star Wars. Transformers Thursday, DC Friday, and Anime Saturday will all return next week as normal. In the meantime, I’m going to spend the next three days wrapping up my look at the 6-inch Black Rogue One figures and whatever else I can squeeze in!

It’s been over a week since Force Friday, a night where I was happily willing to forgo late night shopping in favor of my comfy chair, a tall Jameson, and a couple clicks on the Internet to get my figures shipped to me. Sure, it meant I wasn’t the first kid on the block to get the figures, but I’m perfectly fine with that. The distribution this time around seems a lot better, and I was able to pick up almost all the initial assortments of 6-inch and 3 3/4-inch figures from Rogue One, with the one exception being TRU’s Exclusive Hovertank Pilot. Today I’m checking out Jyn Erso and there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be back later tonight to look at Captain Cassian Andor.

There isn’t much new I can say about the packaging. It’s the same black and red style window box that we saw with The Force Awakens. You get some illustrated character art on the front and the right panel has the figure’s name and number. The window offers a great look at the figure inside and everything is collector friendly. You also get little blurbs on the back panels about each character, but this is still a case where a lot about these characters remains a mystery. In this case, we’re also dealing with versions of the characters tied to specific locations in the movie, this one being from the planet Jedha. It’s one of the two outfits we see Jyn wearing in the trailer, and all I can say is bring on the Imperial uniform Jyn!

And what’s this? Another female lead protagonist in a Star Wars film? How dare they!!! Of course, I’m kidding. I’m not very familiar with Felicity Jones, outside a one off appearance she had in Doctor Who, but she seems like she’s going to be a fine addition to the Star Wars Universe. She looks small and scrappy and capable, in other words the perfect personification of the Rebel Alliance.

Jyn’s outfit is simple, but a suitably Star Wars-y bit of fashion that also gives her a little bit of a smuggler flavor from her finger-less gloves right down to her boots. She has an olive green jacket, done up in the usual sculpted vest-style with the arms sculpted to look like sleeves and she’s wearing a smaller sculpted brown vest over the jacket. I like the detail work on the vest and the sculpted sleeves for the jacket feature both sculpt and paint for the striping. You also get some nice texturing on the pants. The back of the vest has a quilted look and Jyn is wearing a low slung pistol belt is certainly reminiscent of a certain scoundrel I know. The proportions here seem pretty good for the actress and all in all I’d say from the neck down this is one great looking figure.

I am, however, really torn on the portrait here. Does it look like Felicity Jones? Ehhhhhh… maybe? Maybe an animated version of her? Truth be told, there isn’t really enough detail in this sculpt to make it work as an accurate likeness. This head feels like it would be right at home on a 3 3/4-inch figure and certainly passable in that scale. And yet I don’t hate the head sculpt. It’s cute like the actress, and the paint is pretty clean, it’s just the likeness that isn’t there. With just the head to go on, I wouldn’t know who it was supposed to be, but in the context of the outfit, yeah it works alright for me. I guess my expectations have been tempered by the hit-and-miss nature of this line.

Jyn comes out of the package with a head-wrap, which obviously can be removed, since I started this review without it. It fits the figure pretty well and it can be removed without popping the head. In fact, I’m not sure whether the head can be popped off at all. My figure’s head is on there pretty good. It’s cool that they included this piece of the costume, but I’m not a big fan of the way it looks on the figure and I feel it’s destined to get pitched into The Tote of Forgotten Accessories, or perhaps re-purposed for another figure.

Articulation here is fairly solid. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed, have double hinged knees, and swivels in the thighs and again at the boots. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers. There’s a ball joint in the torso and the neck has both a ball joint and a hinge. The lack of swivels in the biceps is a little vexing. I would have rather had swivels there then at the boots. Why, Hasbro? Why don’t you like giving bicep swivels to the ladies? The knees on my figure are a little mushy, but overall not too bad.

Besides the head-wrap, Jyn comes with a blaster pistol. It’s a decent sculpt and actually features some silver paint. It’s so nice to see Hasbro doing paint operations on their 6-inch scale guns for a change. The pistol fits perfectly into the hip holster and there’s a strap that pegs in to hold in place. It’s a great little gun, but I’ll likely be robbing one of my Stormies and giving her an E-11 Blaster.

I was a little apprehensive about getting this figure in hand, as she’s received some mixed reviews among collectors. Now that she’s in hand, I’m actually surprised how much I like her. Yes, like a lot of this Black Series, she feels more like a blown up 3 3/4-inch figure than a twenty dollar 6-inch collectors figure, but that seems to be par for the course. Truth be told, I’ve had her on my desk for a couple days now and I find myself having a lot of fun with her battling it out against Imperial thugs. And in perfect marketing form, this is making me even more excited to see this movie.