Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 2,904: Stormtrooper Jedha Patrol (The Black Series)

STORMTROOPER JEDHA PATROL Debut
The Black Series 2020 Line Look Green Rogue One: A Star War Story Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F1875
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #08 - Rogue One: A Star War Story
Includes: Blaster, blackpack, antenna
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $22.99
Availability: December 2021
Appearances: Rogue One: A Star War Story

Bio: The Empire occupies Jedha with Stormtroopers, who are elite shock troops fanatically loyal to the Empire. A prolonged battle between Imperial forces and scattered Rebels carries on in the timeworn streets. (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: As The Black Series continues, pricing is all over the map. Exclusives that aren't particularly special may carry a big markup, or you can get a Stormtrooper Jedha Patrol figure - which is the basic figure from 2020, with a big backpack, a pauldron, and a blaster for the basic figure price. Of course it's not quite as tricked-out as the Sandtroopers from a few years ago, but it's still a generally nice basic Stormtrooper with some optional parts - so if you want to build your basic Stormtrooper army, you can remove some parts. If you want something to mix up your shelves, this is a good (and very tall) option.

If you don't have any of the newer trooper mold - and with the clean one, dirty one, flame one, mortar one, and others to follow, I'd be surprised if you didn't - this is a good one. To be able to go from a basic normal trooper to something that looks like a 1990s fan's off-model custom Sandtrooper figure is kind of spectacular. Back then, everybody used pauldrons, few fans made backpacks, and few to no fans made them perfectly on-model. This one has a neat orange pauldron, a familiar rifle, and a new backpack that looks like it's a mix of standard issue camping equipment with something to hold all your soda cans in table mode on the back. It also has a massive removable 4-inch antenna sticking out of it, which is truly distinctive and may cause chaos in your figure shelving displays.

Articulation is great, deco is clean, and it looks somewhere between a half-baked cosplay and a brilliant extension of existing Imperial costuming that certainly isn't trying too hard. It's a nice way to grow an army without buying too many duplicates, and also a fine way to let Hasbro cash in - again - on their popular Stormtrooper mold. It's kind of funny, if you look at Chewbacca, C-3PO, Stormtroopers, and a few others, they're probably getting as much action (if not more so) than similar 3 3/4-inch figures back in the day. And they're selling. I like this one because it just feels right, and if you like you can leave the backpack off to get a trooper that appeared in Solo or Rebels. But it's also close enough to things that you already own, so if you miss it, don't hurt yourself tracking one down at premium pricing. Just know that it is decent enough to own.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 2,904: March 3, 2022