IMPERIAL ROYAL GUARD (Halloween Edition)
The Black Series 2025 Window Box Line Look Halloween Packaging, Target Exclusive
Item No.: No. G2780
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: Bogling as the Mothman, blaster, pike
Action Feature: Glows in the dark!
Retail: $24.99
Availability: August 2025
Appearances: n/a
Bio: Celebrate the season with specially designed
Star Wars figures from The Black Series! (Taken from the box packaging.)
Image: Adam's photo lab.
Availability: Click here to buy it at eBay now!
Commentary: Holiday figures, like Standor of Eternia, exist as a sort of souvenir or a way to celebrate a thing that exists outside continuity. Some fans like it. Hardcore fans usually don't. Hasbro has made numerous Halloween and Christmas figures to the tune of hundreds of dollars, which you either loved or decided "not for me." While the entire 6-inch line slowly got to "not for me," we have a rare exception in this
Imperial Royal Guard (Halloween Edition) that's a glow in the dark ghost. And this proves Hasbro's point - there are ways to sell people
Star Wars who don't collect the line. I bought this figure to go with my other glowing toys - I have no real interest in Halloween or 6-inch figures. But a big guy made completely of glow in the dark bony green plastic? OK, you got my number.
Hasbro has generally stayed away from glow in the dark toys. Way back when, I asked Hasbro employee Andy Espenshade about some never-released
Jurassic Park The Lost World Chaos Effect dinosaurs. The "Night Attack" line had a goofy glow-in-the-dark premise, and I non-ironically wanted them. I was told - this is not an exact quote, just a fuzzy memory from 25 summers ago - "usually when you see glow-in-the-dark, that means we're out of ideas." The line's star was fading, and that wasn't something people seemed
too sad to see not get made. Glow figures were a staple in Kenner's 1990s toys, but in the 2000s they were decidedly less common. Other than some Toys R Us exclusive
The Amazing Spider-Man kid figures and a quartet of
Ghostbusters Plasma Series "slimed" figures, Hasbro has been super reluctant to do glow-in-the-dark items in recent years. 2025 has been a great year for glow, though.
The Real Ghostbusters got a fully-glowing
Ecto-Glow Ecto-1 and rereleases of the rare
Ecto-Glow Heroes.
Star Wars got this figure. And
Transformers got a Target-exclusive
Transformers EarthSpark Cyberglow Megatron. I've been asking for this kind of thing for years, so I'm kind of surprised we're getting a bunch all at once. It's a great time to collect glowing toys, if that's your thing. I assume this is a massive waste of a SKU for
Star Wars fans.
And that's just the rambling prologue!
The figure itself is at least the fifth use of the mold, as Hasbro will absolutely milk its collector tooling for all its worth. The plain red Royal Guard has been done in Black, Blue (with new helmet), Carbonized, and Kir Kanos colors (in a Carnor Jax box, in one of the line's few nomenclature errors.) The mold is unchanged, and this is probably Hasbro's least-costly figure in the line thanks to deco. Specifically, the lack of deco. The glow plastic absorbs a lot of the sculpted detail, and it's molded all in a single color. Everything is pretty shiny and it looks just as good as the previous releases of the mold. If the mold is showing signs of wear, it's not obvious - glow plastic tends to do a good job of hiding imperfections. The figure has a holster under his cape for a blaster, but it's a little loose. I recommend having him hold the Biker Scout pistol in his hand.
The pike or staff is also cast in glow, which eats the visual details to my eyes. But this is what I want out of a glow figure - all glow plastic. No notes. Hasbro got it right.
The figure's only paint app is on the face. The visor on the head is painted black and augmented by a hint of a skull, that uses the glowing negative space under the eyes to make a pretty good "ghostly" pattern on the helmet. It's simple, and it's perfect. I would buy other Hasbro troopers that do some sort of glow spooky mask thing.
The only real change to the figure's physical being is the cape. The new pattern is more ghostly, very thin, and looks like any of a number of cheesecloth ghost crafting projects. It's great. I'm glad Hasbro made a new cape pattern for this one.
The Bogling has been released several times too. One came with the Werewolf Wookiee, another one came with a Holiday Sweater Mandalorian Warrior, one came with Kal Kestis in a multi-pack, another came in a creature set. This one is green with red eyes, white fangs, and a colorway no doubt inspired by the Mothman. (Cryptozoology fans, you know what's up.) It's a sturdy little sidekick figure and a nice bonus with decent sculpting that will most likely hang out on your desk during Spooky Season.
If I weren't into glowing toys, I would not have bought this set. If all you want are guys from the movies, games, and TV, you should not buy this. If you have a lot of Halloween decorations or just love things that glow, this is a must-buy figure. Hasbro did a nice job, and priced it well. I find it to be worth the asking price, mostly because I've paid about this for indie figures that aren't as fancy.
Glow Notes: Hasbro's glow plastic in 2025 is quite good. It's slower to charge than the Glyos/Onell Design glow, but it does glow brightly. If charged by the Sun it's easily one of the brightest figures I've picked up in quite some time. If you collect glow-in-the-dark toys and want something impressive, and don't care about the characters, you should buy this.
Collector's Notes: I got mine from Target. There was no pre-order.
--Adam Pawlus
Day 3,272 September 2, 2025
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