Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,024: ARC Commander Havoc (The Vintage Collection)

ARC COMMANDER HAVOC (ARCtastic)
The Vintage Collection 3 3/4-Inch Deluxe Walmart Exclusive Action Figure
Item No.: No. F8058
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: 2 rifles, 2 pistols, helmet, pauldron
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $16.97
Availability: April 2023
Appearances: The Clone Wars
Bio: Clone trooper Havoc proved himself as a soldier and was rewarded with a promotion to ARC trooper. He served in Rancor Battalion with Commander Colt and oversaw clone cadets' training on the world Kamino. (Taken from marketing copy. There is no bio.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

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

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: There's a clone trooper named Havoc and there's also ARC Trooper Havoc - and I believe they're supposed to be separate people. According to the main shot on Wookieepedia, regular Clone Havoc has an unhelmeted head that looks exactly like the one on this ARC Trooper Havoc figure - it's possible the designers mashed it up and didn't do their homework. This sort of thing happens a bunch in toy lines, where a good unofficial Wiki resource gets taken as gospel despite the fact a color could be wrong in a toy photo or an error just happened. I will leave that to someone who has the time to deep-dive this stuff, because as far as I know there may not be the absolute greatest of consistency when it comes to this sort of thing.

So assuming ARC Havoc has regular Clone Havoc's unmasked head, and they're the same, it's a good figure. This same body has now been used for multiple ARC Troopers, and truth be told troopers in general are getting kind of dull given that Star Wars used to be loaded with interesting aliens, robots, and cyborgs. I'd actually be pretty happy if they cut Clones down to 1 or 2 per year. The important thing, though, is that he's pretty good. The same body was used for Echo, Fives, and Jesse, and the color scheme is so close you might be asking yourself "Don't I already have this figure?" In many respects, you basically do - it's white armor with blue and gray upgrades, again. There were cartoon figures that looked like this too.

The figure still uses the old legs, which are hard to pose at the hips thanks to the kama blocking access to them. Other than that, articulation is good with rocker ankles, bend and swivel wrists, elbows with a fairly decent cut to bend, and so on and so forth. The figure will most likely spend all his time standing around, so the fact that this is a repaint of a mold that's a little old probably won't impact most fans - especially carded ones. The helmet fits like a glove, and has an articulated rangefinder too.

Hasbro continues to use the armored bib - which is a little floppy, and connected to the pauldrons - rather than tool a new torso. The wrist lights aren't painted, but other than that he does a good job looking like the character's costume as he appeared in "ARC Troopers." The blue stripes and squares are all there, and while you don't get any weathering you do get some subtle shin yellow boxes. The glossy black visor looks good, the silver details on the helmet all look fantastic, and Hasbro did a pretty good job here. But for a $17 repaint exclusive, it's a little painful - Hasbro long made back their tooling investment, and repaints used to mean lower cost exclusive trooper sets, 2-packs or other similar offerings. I can't honestly say this is a good price, but given the other ones are no longer on the market it may be your best price if you just want a blue ARC Trooper.

They probably couldn't have done a better job given the repaint mandate. If you've already got a bunch of these I'd say it's for completists only, and while it's a nice figure it's not like modern collectors have vehicles for him in any stores, nor are there figures for him to fight. It doesn't feel like part of something so much as an afterthought - but at least it's sensible, and the right mold was used.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from Walmart. The bubble was popping off the card before I opened the bubble mailer. As far as I know it hasn't shipped to actual stores.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,024: April 27, 2023