Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 1,873: Tippet

TIPPET Ewok Princess, Ewok Pack
Discover the Force Toys R Us Exclusive
Item No.: Asst. A0790 No. A0791
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: Packaged with Flitchee, Nanta, Teebo, and Kneesaa figures
Action Feature: Swappable hoods, knife, spear
Retail: $39.99
Availability: August 2012
Appearances: Marvel comics

Bio: The Ewoks of Bright Tree Village join forces with the Rebels to battle Imperial troopers.  These diminutive natives of Endor are fierce fighters with an array of weapons to help defeat the troopers and immobilize Imperial walkers.  Armed with spears, clubs and weapons taken from overpowered troopers, the Ewoks do their part to free the galaxy.   (Taken from the figure's packaging.)

Image: Adam's photo hole.


Commentary: The 2012 Ewok Pack is something of an insane gift for the few people who really, really love Ewoks.  I immediately recognized Tippet from his appearance in the story "Small Wars," where we saw Ewoks as the angry, warmongering creatures who had an axe to grind with the Lahsbees, which were basically Care Bears crossed with the Incredible Hulk.   Anyway, in his first appearance, Tippet wore this creature's skull as a hat and was preparing for battle.  In his second appearance, he had a hood, which Hasbro replicated for this set.  Neither time did he really have a head that looks like Graak, nor were his ears particularly pointy, but it's not like Marvel was known for being on-design for its Star Wars characters and odds are few to none of you knew who Tippet was before I just told you.

Anyway, the figure is largely based on the original Graak body, specifically the Machook figure which added pointy ears.   Even though the character had two distinctive looks, each hat does make the figure look significantly different for your Bright Tree Village shelves.  The dark brown fur is very, very similar to Machook, so if you have a spare version of him you could probably just hand him the extra Tippet gear.   I wish Hasbro went with one of the faces showing gritted teeth-- the Flitchee head for example-- but we get what we get.  Tippet is here, and I have a tough time believing that we'd get one, let alone four Marvel-inspired Ewoks in this line.  The engineering is good, and with 9 points of articulation there's little I would ask for-- except maybe less articulation.  The hands pop out at the wrists quite easily, moreso than Kaink, Warok, and other recipients of this body.

Collector's Notes:  Since we had a reader ask for more Ewoks this week, well, here ya go!  We aim to please.   The set is still pretty new, and I have seen very few in the wild so far.  My guess is they'll be warming shelves by November, disappear in early Spring, and cost too dang much by this time next year.  Ewok fans should start coming out of the closet with this release, I'm not ashamed to admit I had more adventures with my Ewoks than my Cantina aliens as a kid and today they are some of the more consistently exciting releases in this line.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 1,873: August 17, 2012