Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,343: Marrok (The Vintage Collection)

MARROK We're #1 (or #3)
The Vintage Collection 3 3/4-Inch single figure
Item No.: Asst. G2786 No. G2616
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #386
Includes: Cape, lightsaber, lightsaber hilt
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $19.99
Availability: March 2026
Appearances: Ahsoka, Tales of the Empire, Maul: Shadow Lord

Bio: Fully encased in battle armor, the Inquisitor Marrok carries a red double-bladed lightsaber with a circular hilt. (Taken from the cardback.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: Marrok was kind of an interesting mystery in Ahsoka three years ago. He looked sort of like an armored black knight, he carried around Inquisitor lightsabers, and it seems he was made of gas. Or will be made of gas. As I write this, we just saw him on the cartoon Maul: Shadow Lord as another more or less generic bad guy. Since Rebels ended, the Inquisitors don't seem to have a lot of motivation other than "I am Marrok, and I like my job." Like many characters, it seems team Lucasfilm just want to keep people wearing the same clothes for 20 years worth of story. One thing we do know about him is that he seemingly exists after the Empire falls, while the rest of his peers seem to have been disposed of. Maybe the interesting story is still coming, because there sure seems to be something going on beyond "is menacing, wears black, and has a red lightsaber."

Weirdly, we got a Marrok from Ahsoka in Retro and Black Series, but not Vintage - so this is your stand-in. The colors aren't identical as his live-action costume has a little more dirt or rust plus some color on the buttons, but other than that? It's pretty much the same. Hasbro could probably repaint this for an Ahsoka product in the next year, or whenever that show will air. Articulation is standard for The Vintage Collection, with no extra flourishes in the shoulders. His rocker ankles made me realize the costume has pointy bits on his boots, plus he has armor hanging off his shoulders. The helmet still looks cool, and it still looks like it was made by a particularly skilled blacksmith. The cape is draped over his shoulder, and you can mount his hilt under it if you like.

 

The sculpting is good, and the joints are well-integrated into the armor. Hasbro is better and better at making the textures look different, so you'll notice the body suit sets itself off from the metal-looking armor. All of the pieces fit together well, with lots of movement in the mid-torso joint and the hips swing forward fully. If they ever make an appropriate vehicle, this guy should be able to pilot it easily. Sadly we're moving into the "adult collectible" phase (or "endgame," probably) of the hobby where an increased emphasis on high-endedness will probably make this sort of thing unlikely. It's a shame, this design is super cool and would be a lot of fun if it were treated more like a toy, what with the spinning double-bladed lightsaber on the show and everything.

I wouldn't not recommend this one. If you see it in stores, give it a look. It might go with the Shin Hati and Baylan Skoll figures you find at Ross. Hasbro did a really nice job with it, but like so many figures we're in an era where people are no longer super fixated on the new thing for very long. Or the old thing, because Disney is giving us so much new stuff that you might not ever be in a position to consider a rewatch of these fairly fun shows. Is it worth $20? Well, maybe. The secondary market prices on The Black Series Marrok are approaching $90 and The Retro Collection is still holding SRP. I assume this guy, barring overproduction on Hasbro's part, is something you'll want to pick up before it runs out.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,343: May 7, 2026

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,335: Eleventh Brother (The Vintage Collection)

ELEVENTH BROTHER Inquisitor? Dang Near Killed 'Er
The Vintage Collection 3 3/4-Inch single figure
Item No.: Asst. G2786 No. G2622
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #390
Includes: Cape, lightsaber, lightsaber hilt
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $19.99
Availability: March 2026
Appearances: Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire, Maul: Shadow Lord

Bio: The Eleventh Brother serves the Empire's Inquisitorious, hunting down members of the Jedi Order. (Taken from the cardback.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: The whole idea of the Empire's Inquisitorious is kind of silly, but so are the costumes. They're bad guys, they have silly similar outfits, they're just super-evil Jedi hunters and some have costumes you'll either love or hate. I think any of these would be utterly awesome if you were a kid, or if it was part of the late-1980s Expanded Universe of RPGs and comics. We haven't seen the Eleventh Brother do much outside the short-shorts from Disney+, and none of these warriors get a whole heck of a lot of personality. Maybe he will when he shows up on the next cartoon - but we already know he dies in a duel with Ahsoka Tano, so we know he's going to survive. And so will Maul.

As the line goes on, I feel like it goes without saying a $19.99 3 3/4-inch figure has to be pretty good. And this is pretty good. He's a little bit taller, and Hasbro actually puts some of that budget to good use with longer legs and a nice tall hood. The claw-like fingers are great, and something we don't see very much. He can hold his lightsaber well, and you can mount the hilt on his hip in a nicely-hidden hole on the left side. The droid-like elbows do a nice job of masking articulation, of which there is plenty. The waist joint rocks well, as do the ankles. The hips swing forward and the soft plastic skirt piece doesn't get in the way. The head moves as well as you'd expect a crow-masked hood to move, with little red, white, and silver painted bits that recall Darth Vader a bit. It's nice.

The face paint looks nice, and it's a distinctive mask that remind me a little of Grievous. It also reminds me a bit of the mythosaur skull. The white paint isn't super clean, but I kind of like it. It's cleaner than the render, with red eyes and it's bright enough that you don't need to squint to see it. It's a neat bad guy, even if - as of now - the character isn't terribly meaningful. And that might change in a few weeks.

Rounding out the figure is a big cape. It gives the figure an impressive silhouette, plus has better than average stitching and Imperial cogs on each shoulder. A lot of the Jedi robes we get are adequate, and usually the hoods are sewn on oddly or don't necessarily hang perfectly. By giving this guy a plastic hood, the cape is free to hang and look its best. It drapes over the shoulders well, and that extra stitching along the sides gives it a little more visual weight. This one feels like it had a little extra time in the oven, and the results are better than we've had on a lot of other recent releases. Everything seems to fit where it belongs, and nothing seems particularly shorted. Given the materials at hand, and the size, this is a good one.

With thousands of figures spanning about a dozen movies and hundreds of TV episodes, and comics, and games, and novels, it's increasingly hard to point to a figure and say "this is the best thing ever and you must buy it." This is a great example of what Hasbro can do right now, and each piece fits together well. I have no idea if the show will be a favorite or not yet, but it's a weird (presumably) alien character and we don't get enough of those. If it ever goes on sale, I'd recommend trying it. Even if it doesn't, it's good. I don't think we'll get a better one, so pick this up if you have the inclination.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,335: April 9, 2026

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,154: Marrok (The Retro Collection)

MARROK (Kenner Style)
The Retro Collection 3 3/4-Inch Action Figure
Item No.: Asst. F6874 No. F8782
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: Cape, Lightsaber
Retail: $11.99
Availability: October 2023
Appearances: Star Wars: Ahsoka

Bio: The Star Wars Retro Collection features design and detailing inspired by the original 1970s Star Wars figures and features original figure design and detailing! Continue your collection from a galaxy far, far away. (Stolen from the marketing copy. Packaging has 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!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: I opened and shot Marrok late in 2023 but, for some reason, didn't write a review. And that's a shame - solids of him seem to be sold out from Hasbro, and he never arrived in big box stores. You may still find him online, alone or in cases, and he's pretty good. There are a lot of figures that may be cooler if they arrived with no backstory, and this is one of them. On the show, he was a mostly silent nobody, dressed sort of like a knight in armor. But since we saw the show, we know what his deal is. You know, my daddy always said to me - you can't trust a man what's made of gas. One of the things the show did well with this guy is we barely got to know him, and then he exploded. We'll probably not see much more from him. We never even got a Vintage figure before Hasbro moved on to the next thing and fans seemed less enthused about coming along for The Acolyte thus far... although the Kenner figures do look pretty cool. But I digress.

One thing that I'm realizing is that the bulk of the past decade of Star Wars seems less "now" than some of what we got in the old days, but maybe that's just something that comes with hindsight. Kea Moll, Thall Joben, and Jord Dusat certainly seemed like designs from the punk and new wave world, and in some cases seem even more modern today thanks to bright colored hair and undercuts. Mark Hamill himself complained about how 1970s his hair was. There's something cool about being both of the future and incredibly of your own time, but Marrok seems rooted in our collective imaginations of the past. This is somebody who could have menaced King Arthur, yet carries a Darth Maul-like laser sword. It may not be wholly original but at least you instantly grok his deal.

This is a figure that looks almost like he was meant to be a toy first, The Black Knight but for Star Wars. He's completely covered, has a swell cape. There's an Inquisitor lightsaber and it seems we've been largely spared the goofy baddie stuff we usually got from that crew - it's just a guy, in a helmet, who's going to hunt some people down. The one thing that's truly unfortunate about this guy is I wasn't a kid when he came out as a Kenner toy. I would have flipped my lid having this guy menacing R2-D2 and C-3PO before they met up with Luke, even though there's not much to him other than some gray metallic paint and a couple of painted lights. In many respects he looks like some kid smashed together an AT-AT Commander with Darth Vader and threw on a cape from some other figure, and the results look like something Star Wars-y.

Like a lot in recent Star Wars, it captures the spirit of a galaxy far, far away but doesn't seem to expand its boundaries. It's like in the 1990s when you saw comics do Star Wars, more often than not it was pretty tethered to the reality of the movies without going somewhere new and crazy like we saw with completely different designs for The Phantom Menace on Naboo. Marrok looks like he belongs as a part of Star Wars, which is good for older toy junkies. I like this figure a lot as it's more or less a blank canvas for fun, and that's the kind of thing Kenner gave us in spades in the old days. About half of the action figures had no real backstory other than "was in a bar" or "hung out in trees" and you could just run with it. This guy is an ex-Imperial (or maybe current Imp) mercenary, and that's pretty fertile ground for stories. May they tell us no more so we can imagine them.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,154: July 16, 2024

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,099: Marrok (The Black Series)

MARROK Nobody expects the Imperial inquisition
The Black Series 2023 Window Box Line Look Ahsoka Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F7111
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #08 - Star Wars: Ahsoka
Includes: Lightsaber, cape
Action Feature: Lightsaber has removable blades
Retail: $24.99
Availability: October 2023
Appearances: Star Wars: Ahsoka

Bio: Set after the fall of the Empire, Ahsoka follows former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy. (Taken from the box packaging.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

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

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: You can't trust a man what's made of gas, and Marrok is no exception. Maybe he's a man in armor who was powered by magic and exploded! Or maybe he was some sort of enchanted armor with no man. What we know is we didn't see much, a refreshing and odd mystery in an era of Star Wars where we're used to things being over-explained. The figure made it to shelves pretty quickly after the Ahsoka show aired and odds are we won't be seeing this ex-Inquisitor again. He has a familiar half-blade lightsaber that looks like the one Reva carried, he has a cloth cape, and he looks sort of like a classic knight in armor. The name Marrok also calls back to a knight of Arthurian tale with a warwilf connection. Dave Filoni strikes again.

To my eye, the character comes off as a spooky, rusty set of ghost armor like you saw on Scooby-Doo cartoons. Pop culture junkies more or less knew his deal without a word, just because the design is familiar enough that we almost instinctually know what the deal is here... despite not knowing it at all. The figure meets the typical milestones for a 6-inch figure, with a peg on his hilt to store behind his neck and the normal articulation. After smooth joints on many figures, this one is very stuff - you can feel a hard push with each stage of movement on his knees. I'm not crazy about it. But he is sturdy, he stands well, and he poses nicely. You can't complain about the range of movement on his elbows, but you can complain his hands are incredibly stiff and that this makes it difficult for him to hold his lightsaber, particularly with that obtrusive peg poking out the middle. It's just unpleasant accessory/figure interaction.

In terms of sculpting, the figure looks like what you saw on screen. The suit has some pointy shoulders, some Vader-esque armor lights, and has some nice dirt and rust. It looks like something that belongs in a museum. Given Hasbro probably had about zero idea what his deal was, this format captured his general vibe pretty well. He's just a quiet thug with a nice cape that hangs over his shoulder, in the background, and generally doesn't make a big fuss about things. A figure like this can be hard to nitpick in terms of sculpt given the lack of really good photos of the real costume, but it seems to match publicity photos well. The armored parts do seem a little light, and the plastic doesn't quite seem to have a hard metal look. The lighter gray seems to let a little light in, which sadly makes it look more like an action figure than a little replica.

If you liked the Fifth Brother, he's very much like that. He gets the job done, the peg on his lightsaber is just awful, the colors are mostly there, and he's a neat Imperial bad guy. Like so many figures, Hasbro did a good job with the expected level of articulation, but there's nothing here that takes it to the next level. Fans of this format should mostly enjoy how this figure was done, and the material used for the cape seems very good for the size. I'm also happy for fans of this particular costume - if Hasbro didn't have it out before we all saw the show, I assume he'd probably never be made as an action figure. This is why it's sometimes important to have stuff out before the series or movie, otherwise we'd never get a Zuvio.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,099: January 16, 2024

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,054: Grand Inquisitor (The Retro Collection)

GRAND INQUISITOR (Kenner Style)
The Retro Collection 3 3/4-Inch Action Figure
Item No.: Asst. F4200 No. F5773
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: Lightsaber, vinyl cape
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $11.99
Availability: July 2022
Appearances: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bio: The Star Wars Retro Collection features design and detailing inspired by the original 1970s Star Wars figures. (Stolen from the marketing copy. Packaging has 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!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: I opened this Grand Inquisitor from The Retro Collection about a year ago and I didn't like it all that much - so he hung out with me on my desk all this time. My opinion of him has improved a tiny bit, but he's still got problems and at under $6 on Amazon the free market has spoken. This is not a desirable figure.

The character's personality and design changed a bunch from Rebels to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the figure reflects that. But, being a retro figure, that's OK - part of their charm were simplified and often incorrect features, as long as the figure itself looks cool. Sure, Hammerhead doesn't match the on-screen Ithorian - but he looks cool. The Grand Inquisitor looks a little odd with a bigger head, a rounder more baby-like face, and a head that says "I was made from concept art" to me. The aliens from Utapau had deep cranial ridges, sharp fangs, and really high foreheads - Grandy here has very smoothed-out ridges and not much of a forehead. (This matches the show.) The eyes and tattoos are all red, and the show has some grays in there. The skin is a pale rosy color - not as ashen as the show - but his expression is good. It definitely reads as being a real, old figure.

The body is pretty good - the major landmarks are there, and some are unpainted or underrepresented. The shoulder armor and gauntlets look great. The boots and pants and belt are fine. Some of the buttons aren't quite as good as the show, but for a Kenner-style figure it doesn't really matter much. The gray parts are a little light, while the black parts are a little glossy. It's striking, but seems a little off. There's decent articulation to be had, although the vinyl cape hurts it a great deal. Unless you want to crease the cape, this figure is unlikely to be sitting any time soon. (Of course given the now-cheap market prices, you can just buy another one.)

His accessories are a cape and a lightsaber. The double lightsaber design is clever - props to them for it - with a round hilt and a double-blade design that borrows from the 1980s Kenner Luke hilts. I can buy that this is what Kenner might have done. The vinyl cape is pretty good in terms of design, but the execution turned out just below what I would hope to get. It was pre-wrinkled in the package and since it can't be removed without cutting off the arms, I don't think you can iron it flat to fix those wrinkles. It's also a little long, so you have to curl it back a bit otherwise he'll fall face-forward. It's a smart design, but a bad practical piece - had it been done in cloth, I think nobody would complain. I also don't know when Hasbro opts for cloth over vinyl, as two figures from this wave went cloth and two didn't. As Hasbro more or less stopped making new vinyl figures about four years in, it's a curious choice.

Because I love Kenner figures, this one is acceptable. The sculpting doesn't have the deep grooves of real Kenner figures, nor does it have a particularly interesting pose - he seems to have copied Bespin Luke's stance, as have most new Hasbro Kenner sculpts. I would love to see slightly bent elbows or maybe some variation in the knees, especially on figures who can't sit well. By no means is this figure awful, but it's probably the worst of the wave. I would recommend grabbing the Fifth Brother first, but given how cheap the Grand Inquisitor is these days, why not just buy one? Five bucks on Amazon is peanuts for something in the "decent" range, and this certainly does meet those standards. At full price - or above retail - I wouldn't run and get one unless you're also a hardcore Kenner fanatic.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,054: August 10, 2023

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,052: Inquisitor (Fourth Sister, The Black Series)

INQUISITOR (Fourth Sister)
The Black Series 2023 Closed Box Line Look Obi-Wan Kenobi Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F7099
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #12 - Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi
Includes: Lightsaber
Action Feature: 2 removable blades, hilt can plug in back
Retail: $24.99
Availability: June 2023
Appearances: Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bio: Obi-Wan Kenobi is set years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faced the corruption of his friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned Sith Lord Darth Vader. (Taken from the packaging. Yes, this corporate synopsis is on the packaging in five languages instead of upsells.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

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

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: The Inquisitor (Fourth Sister) is one of the more fascinating figures in this sector of toys. Thanks to the popularity of Jedi: Fallen Order and Rebels, plus the momentum from Obi-Wan Kenobi, we've got a pretty good chunk of these guys. The premise of the Inquisitors is to make something that looks like a McQuarrie Concept from the 1970s, reinterpreted by space goth vampire teens. Most of the beings are pale with yellow or red in their eyes, but Ms. Fourth is unique in that her skin is orange - and she's a new alien species. Exciting! Well, as exciting as these things get - she came in a wave with Bastilla Shan, Vel Sartha, another Obi-Wan Kenobi, and doubles of Darth Malak and Tala. I assume the game figures will do fine, and the rest... well, we'll see. Hasbro has had an incredible talent for making its newer figures pretty good - most of them have better joints and balance more easily, but they're also heavily weighted to minor characters that don't yet have some sort of weird fan cult. We didn't get a Wedge for 20 years, but Hasbro gave us this nameless lady in about a year. It's also fascinating - and surprisingly progressive - that the case is over 50% women. That's unusual, particularly for a franchise whose attitude toward not-dudes has been "oh, we've got one" per film trilogy until the 2010s.

While I do grouse about Obi-Wan Kenobi - I admit I haven't rewatched it yet, but quoting Ed Wood describes my feelings regarding the show and this action figure. "See, 'The soldier costumes are very realistic.' That's positive!" This figure looks like she could fit right in with the old 1970s designs, and if they ever did her Kenner-style I would be first in line to buy her again. (Especially with a Snowtrooper-esque cape!) She's something new that looks like something old - the red piping recalls Darth Maul's "Sith Apprentice" concept costume/figure, with a standard issue lightsaber she can hold much more easily than that of her Inquisitor buddies. The joints all move smoothly, with the legs being enough on the stiff side to ensure she is less likely to faceplant. Her joints are nicely integrated in the costume, and the ribbing all looks fantastic. Her belt sculpting is so detailed I had to touch it to make sure it wasn't some kind of fabric - it's remarkable. The leathery texture and wrinkles on her "cape" look fantastic, and her boots are no slouch. As a toy figure, even if you've never seen the show, this one looks good.

Her head is good, but not great - the eyes look Sithly, but also a little bloodshot due to the current printing process. Maybe the resolution will get bumped up, but the complexion is just a bit waxier than I think she needed to be - but she has cool head printing too, and the lips are on straight. If you don't get too close, you're going to love it. Clearly someone adored this costume, because the head tails look excellent, the hood is loaded with detail, and she has the body language of a star. It's a remarkably good action figure and like many of the toys from this series, probably would be even more popular if she were released before the show. It's a shame fans can't get a month or two with these toys before the movie comes out to pop your imagination's bubble.

The Black Series is still capable of churning out strong figures from forgettable characters, and while some figures look like someone just took a digital model and carved them up, this one looks like someone was trying to impress the boss. I love how the lightsaber plugs in her back, I'm thrilled to get a new alien species, and while I'm irritable that there is no guide book or trading card to tell me more about her, hopefully that will come some day. I was a 1980s kid - I had to dig up old (frequently apocryphal) guide books and/or wait for something better to come out in the 1990s - and maybe there's some sort of long game where Disney is trying to do for dadgum everything what Lucasfilm did for Boba Fett. I'd actually like to know more about this character, and I also know full well that knowing it probably won't make me like this figure any more than I do right now. Get her if you feel like paying the asking price, but definitely pick one up if you luck into her on sale. Unless there's a 3 3/4-inch version, in which case, maybe just get that. It's not like you've got a ton of room.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,052: August 3, 2023

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,028: Reva (Third Sister, The Black Series)

REVA (Third Sister)
The Black Series 2020 Line Look Obi-Wan Kenobi Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F4362
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #03 - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Includes: Double-bladed lightsaber, 2 single-bladed lightsabers
Action Feature: All four blades are removable
Retail: $24.99
Availability: July 2022
Appearances: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bio: Obi-Wan Kenobi is set years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faced the corruption of his friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned Sith Lord Darth Vader . (Yes, this useless copy is 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: "Did Hasbro make too much?" is a common query in my Q&A column, and for the assortment - not necessarily the figure - featuring Reva (Second Sister) the answer seems to be "yes." There's limitless demand for Darth Vader toys - he'll sell eventually - but everybody else in the wave tended to sit around a bit in my neck of the woods. And there are good figures in there too - this one, packed at one per case, is no slouch. As I write this in April, she's $17.77 on Amazon. That's usually a sign of production exceeding demand, and the reaction of fans to the character before the show was, as always, even-tempered and sensible. (I'm kidding, of course, because people are monsters.) Hasbro did do a good job of ensuring Reva as out as a Retro, Vintage, and Black Series just after the show was on - and you need to do that for these things, lest the attention span wander. Sadly late is late, and having a ton of arguably identical 3 3/4-inch Reva product was a bit too much at once, despite the fact they're all excellent.

 There are a lot of middling figures, but Reva turned out really well. She stands nicely, the joints are all cut well, the outfit accurately replicates what we saw on-screen, her face looks like Moses Ingram, and they even did a good job getting the hair about as good as I would expect on a painted figure of this size. Her lips are well-painted, her nose plastic is just the right translucency that a little bit of light passes through it (making it seem more lively), and her eyes shine nicely. In case it isn't obvious, I'm looking for things to nitpick, and can't find any. Hasbro did well here.

Her costume is great, with an Empire brand on her right arm and the shoulder armor plus separately molded pauldrons. The range of arm movement is excellent, from the rotating shoulders to the better-than-average bend in her elbows. And while looking at her gloves, you can see a couple of buttons on right left wrist that didn't get painted. Odds are most fans won't notice nor care, but it's the kind of thing you'd like to see fully decorated if you shell out $25 for an action figure given mot of her is molded in color. Her cape sits nicely too, with a new, simple cut that just lets gravity do its thing. The boots are great, too.

I took a while to open this figure - and a lot of figures - and that's no knock on it's quality. There's just too dang much coming out right now. Hasbro should be applauded for cranking out what may well be the definitive release of the figure the first time, because it's unlikely the show or its characters will be making a heck of a lot of return appearances given how the anticipation quickly resulted in a wave of indifference. If you have any love for the show and this character in particular, this a good figure that interacts with her accessories well and is easy to keep standing up on my desk. It's a low bar but with this line, "doesn't fall over" and "can hold lightsaber" are things we don't always get.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,028: May 11, 2023

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,019: Fifth Brother (Inquisitor, The Black Series)

FIFTH BROTHER (Inquisitor)
The Black Series 2020 Line Look Obi-Wan Kenobi Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F4363
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #04 - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Includes: Lightsaber with removable blades
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $24.99
Availability: July 2022
Appearances: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bio: Obi-Wan Kenobi is set years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faced the corruption of his friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned Sith Lord Darth Vader. (Taken from the packaging. What a waste of space.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

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

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: An incredibly nicely-designed costume and well-engineered action figure Fifth Brother (Inquisitor) sat in a box for a few months before I got to him. As of my writing this, he's pretty cheap on Amazon at $19 - an indication of a pattern Hasbro and Disney haven't cracked. Namely, the lesser figures tend to sell better before people see the movie or TV show, although you can understand why they want to make us wait sometimes. Rey and Grogu needed you to meet them first. A lot of the 2022 figures were increasingly ho-hum, even if they're pretty good, with the Fifth Brother (Sister Mother Sister, why did you put that peg in the lightsaber grip?) delivering a very good figure with annoying accessory interaction. If you've seen the horrible giant metal pylons they put on benches so people can't lay on them, Hasbro put one on the lightsaber grip. How annoying.

To paraphrase Frasier: "What is the one thing better than an exquisite action figure? An exquisite action figure with one tiny flaw we can pick at all night." That's the Fifth Brother. Hasbro delivered a well-engineered figure with well-hidden articulation, putting that usually obnoxious torso joint right in the armor so it's not an eyesore. The elbows and knees move nicely. The wrists move well, as does the double-neck joint. The ankles rock nicely, and the feet are big so he stands easily and in my futzing, doesn't tip over easily. The Imperial cogs are sculpted on his sleeves too, and there are tons of little painted lights on his hat and chest armor. Which brings us to the tiny flaw: the hips don't have the best clearances. You can swing them forward, but not all the way. Had Hasbro shaved a tiny bit off the lower waist or maybe recessed a bit of the upper leg, he could sit like a normal action figure. Instead, he's probably going to just be standing. Given Hasbro rarely makes vehicles for these figures, I assume they don't care and also the vast majority of you won't either.

The big flaw is the lightsaber hilt. You do get a peg on it to plug it in his back - and that's good thinking! But it's poor execution. The peg is a giant eyesore and Hasbro could have maybe put a small hook on the back of the figure to hold the lightsaber, or included a second hilt for decoration instead of a giant, ugly silver peg that makes it hard for him to actually hold said lightsaber. It does plug well in the hole in his back. So if you're not going to ever use the blades and just store his Tron Identity Disc back there, you're fine, this figure is nearly perfect.

I liked this costume a lot. They cast the fellow well and he looks superb in a costume that fell out of a 1970s concept painting, with lovely banded shoulders and Darth Vader-ish details galore. But, like most things, no one scale has all the Inquisitors as of yet. The Black Series will likely end up with the most of them at the current rate, but will anyone care to collect them all if it takes a few years? The Sun has set on this series already, and while I think this is an excellent action figure unto itself, and if this were an unlicensed design that had nothing to do with Star Wars I'd probably say "Oh this is cool, you should get it." It's very Star Wars, and also available in Kenner-style, where I think he's arguably a lot more fun. But you should get him in either scale you like, because a cool weapon, a nice costume, and a swell hat are generally good reasons to buy any well-engineered action figure.

...minus that awful lightsaber peg.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,019: April 11, 2023

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 2,996: Grand Inquisitor (The Black Series)

GRAND INQUISITOR Nobody Expects the Imperial Inquisition
The Black Series 2020 Line Look Blue Obi-Wan Kenobi Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F4361
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #09 - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Includes: Lightsaber
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $24.99
Availability: December 2022
Appearances: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bio: Obi-Wan Kenobi is set years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faced the corruption of his friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned Sith Lord Darth Vader. (Taken from the packaging. About 25% of the package back is wasted on translating this nothing burger in six languages.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

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

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: I increasingly feel that the line is on something of an auto-pilot. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and sometimes it's both. With figures like this Grand Inquisitor, you get a surprisingly good figure of a surprisingly bad character (and poor live action redesign.) Hasbro did a boffo job painting his costume to look like the TV show, mostly, but what you're getting is triple generation loss. The Star Wars Rebels design lost a bit jumping to live-action in Obi-Wan Kenobi, and then Hasbro probably was working from an earlier design when translating the make-up to a toy. The end result is a nicely engineered figure with some exquisite design choices and very good joints that leaves me ice cold.

I'm sure this sounds hypocritical - after all, I like a good Kenner-style figure and those are frequently off-model and off-base. But that's the charm - they're meant to look like half-baked toys done on a budget with little to no reference, while a collector-aimed $25+ 6-inch action figure should be a near-perfect translation of what we saw on the screen - and it should be a good choice, given how scattered character choices are these days. Many of the costume elements come straight from the cartoon - and that's what you want. In a very superficial sense, you get some severe eye make-up, black armor, a gray body suit, a double-bladed lightsaber, and a vibe that reads as The Star Wars-era previsualization artwork. It's hard to not see this as something that could have been an alternate suit for a non-masked Darth Vader - the black armor looks cool, the gloves are nice. There's no gloss on the figure, but you do get some silver highlights and that Grand Inquisitor rank pin. The thigh armor is sculpted in a way that doesn't hinder leg movement - gold star to Hasbro for that - and all the joints seem to move freely. It's not stiff like so many 6-inch figures, and everything seems to have a smooth - but not loose - movement. When you pose the legs, the knees are buttery-smooth and everything just seems to work easily without a weird fight where a piece is a millimeter in the wrong direction due to parts tolerances. You can get some good poses out of this guy thanks to an abundance of well-disguised joints and nicely jointed shoulders. Hasbro took what I assume was an official Disney 3D model and sliced it up like a champ.

Unfortunately for Hasbro, Lucasfilm redesigned a familiar face and did so poorly. The long Utapauan heads have been reduced to standard human length, and it is not flattering. The Rupert Friend costume shoulders have lost the Imperial cogs, which I admit do look a little silly, but I'm OK with silly sometimes. The character's eye makeup has been greatly desaturated and there's barely any evidence of the more vibrant red on the animation model's forehead and around his eyes. His "tears" were greatly toned down, and the cartoon's piercing yellow eyes are absent, with a less-exaggerated neck and collar. Much like the character's role on the TV show, Lucasfilm sucked the coolness right out of the character - and added a goofy cape to boot. But it's an interesting cape, with a red lining, and it hangs of the shoulders in an unusual way. I don't know if it translated perfectly well to a figure, but it's distinctive. It's interesting to look at.

Hasbro didn't do a great job translating the head. The color seems off, the eye make-up looks more like German theatrical stage make-up - much more severe than the live-action look. The plastic color absorbed the ridges in the skull, making a weak design look weaker. I don't doubt Hasbro could've been working from a pixel-perfect 3D scan, but the plastic color absorbs some of the texture and it's just a very white bald man with off-color skin. If you saw this at Comic-Con you'd gush over the armor, and maybe just trail off about the face. It's just not great, and since it's a rotten interpretation of a character in the story, I assume this guy will be marked down online pretty quickly if he isn't already.

The lightsaber is weird - the double-bladed one is molded in gray and not painted silver, which is a weird strike. The pegs do help you position his hand in the right place to hold it, but there are no places to mount it on the figure body so they are more annoying than helpful in getting his hand around the weapon.

It's a frustrating figure. I won't lie to you, I wanted to hate it because the character on the show was a twerp. Hasbro did an A+ job making a costume that looks good and is jointed well, and probably gave us a C- head and a B- lightsaber. Were Hasbro to reissue this figure with better paint down the road, I bet it could be an easy A- or A overall. Hasbro and their factories did a largely good job translating what they were given, but when you have a character return with a worse performance there's only so much you can do. If we see Grand Admiral Thrawn show up on live-action Star Wars but he's played by Wallace Shawn, that would be... actually I think I would quite enjoy that. Disney, get on it.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 2,996: January 19, 2023

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 2,962: Fifth Brother (The Retro Collection)

FIFTH BROTHER (Kenner Style)
The Retro Collection 3 3/4-Inch Action Figure
Item No.: Asst. F4200 No. F5775
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: Lightsaber
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $11.99
Availability: July 2022
Appearances: Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bio: The Star Wars Retro Collection features design and detailing inspired by the original 1970s Star Wars figures. (Stolen from the marketing copy. Packaging has 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: This is a good one. First (or last) seen on Star Wars Rebels, Inquisitors like the Fifth Brother got toys as 5-jointed figures a few years ago. The first Fifth Brother [FOTD #2,271] was in 2016, and this new one is somewhat similar. What's weird, though, is how this figure adopts aspects of that cartoon-style figure, and also how that figure seems to have worse paint than this 2022 faux Kenner one.

The figure is dynamite, giving us something that feels old with two exceptions. Well, maybe three. There are red lights on the back of the hat which I feel Kenner would have left off, as Hasbro had no such details on the animated Fifth Brother. The Imperial cogs on the shoulders are perfect, as we've seen on modern figures since the TIE Fighter Pilot in 1996. But the 1980s figures had an ugly weird little cog that wasn't quite on-model, which would have been preferred here. And third, arguably, the chest lights on the armor are too good and plentiful - I feel Kenner would've not bothered to paint them so well. But those are nitpicks - this is a good figure. If Kenner did it, the figure might be entirely black with no gray areas on his limbs or torso.

He has no problems standing or sitting, the limbs swivel nicely, and the hand can wrap around the big red lightsaber. Like old Kenner lightsabers, it's unpainted. What's hokey - and I kind of love it - is that it's rounded and has hints of being detailed like the prop on one side, but is completely flat and almost unfinished on the other. I admit, I laughed when I saw this. The design on the grip has the three buttons on either side we've seen since 1980, and I appreciate the attention to that specific detail. They could do something new, but keeping the same basic look grounds the accessory. And I hope you like it too, because the Grand Inquisitor has one and Reva's is pretty close to identical. (Kenner would've cheaped out and reused the same one three times. Just sayin'.)

The figure departs slightly from the show's costume, which is what makes this figure go from "fine" to "fun." From the Cantina aliens in 1979 to Lando's wrong-colored uniform and cape in The Power of the Force, Kenner would sometimes pick their own color schemes. The Fifth Brother's isn't weird, but most photos of his live-action costume are black while the cartoon is black and grey. The Kenner-style figure seems to use the cartoon coloring with slightly more gray on his outfit. The figure's got gray upper arms, and I'm here for it. He's also missing some of the lights from the belt and chest armor, as he should - Kenner wouldn't have budgeted for it. Depending on the reference it's hard to tell the precise finish of the armor and hat on the TV show, but the figure goes for glossy black - and it's not glossy black on the big screen. I have him standing near a smattering of old toys, and he really does seem to fit in with the nifty coloring... even if Kenner wouldn't have made it glossy. This figure looks cool.

I also like the face. It The head swivels nicely, the black eyes and eyelid were painted cleanly, and the pale gray skin is great. When combined with the hat, you have a figure that has a distinctive silhouette that somehow reads instantly as being of the Empire and adds to their legion of distinctive headwear. While the rank and file hats have always been fun, some of the Inquisitors have fun ones and the Imperial Dignitaries win the prize.

The Fifth Brother would go great on any vintage Star Destroyer or Death Star you may have, or maybe a new one, some day, in our dreams. I think this is the strongest overall figure in the Kenobi wave, and this is the first one you should buy if you're an old guy with old Kenner figures in a box in the closet. He just feels more like an awesome toy you should have owned as a kid, rather than something trying to recapture the glory days. He also looks like he was born to play in your old Kenner Mini-Rigs. Great job, Hasbro, thanks for giving us a cool new figure where everything just works and there's no offensive vinyl cape. I guess we'll get into those next month.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 2,962: September 22, 2022