Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 2,988: Death Watch Mandalorian (The Black Series)

DEATH WATCH MANDALORIAN Build Those Armies
The Black Series 2020 Line Look Orange The Mandalorian Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F4350
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #21 - The Mandalorian
Includes: 2 blasters
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $24.99
Availability: May 2022
Appearances: The Mandalorian

Bio: An extremist clan that attempted to take over Mandalore during the Clone Wars, Death Watch Mandalorians are tenacious warriors embracing ancient traditions of their people (Taken from the packaging.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at Entertainment Earth now!

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: After a smaller figure, a 6-inch Death Watch Mandalorian just makes sense. Although, apparently, it didn't sell great - you can find this surprisingly excellent figure on markdown online, or at least you could earlier this month. The mold shares parts with Axe Woves, and I'm pretty sure so does the costume - it makes sense to reuse trooper parts whenever possible and both Hasbro and Lucasfilm are on board. The problem is that it results in action figure lines that are increasingly samey, despite being things people want. A pretty excellent generic Mandalorian trooper is exciting stuff - so why didn't people show up in droves for it?

This is a good figure. When Hasbro started charging more money, the quality of the figures didn't generally improve - but here, you can see some improvements. Hasbro could probably do it for less, but you can see where the money is going. A lot of the figure is molded in color, and what little paint there is matches the molded colors quite nicely. You get white armor markings, a little bit of silver battle damage, a glossy black visor, and some nice metallic highlights on the gauntlets. The boots are nice and dark, the belt has a painted buckle, and there's a flap of armor over his lower back tramp stamp region. No complaints.

Articulation is the new normal - good, but not amazing. Which is funny to say - he's got just shy of 30 points of articulation, but it's hard to get excited about consistency. Joints are smooth and hold well, with a good - but not incredible - range of motion. The elbow doesn't bend as much as I would like and the knees could go a little further. I do love the jointed rangefinder, which has a hint of a HUD screen underneath. The neck articulation is also excellent with multiple moving bits.

Sculpting is good, but again, not incredible. It's funny and sad to get to a point where you can look at armor textures that look ralistic, cloth textures that look almost like material, great metallic elements, and so much that's spot-on that it's normal. If you had this figure in the 1990s - a super-articulated 6-inch Clone Wars-era Mandalorian supercommando of your dreams - you'd flip out. There would be people lined up outside the store trying to get them. But today? It's just a normal, generic figure. He's got articulated jets on his backpack, and it's de riugeur. This is a good figure and I have no notes to improve it, but a 6-inch, $25 figure needs to be excellent just to be worth the asking price. And I would say this one is worth the asking price, but poke around for deals.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from Entertainment Earth.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 2,988: December 22, 2022