Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 2,989: RC-1140 (Fixer, The Black Series)

RC-1140 (Fixer, Gaming Greats)
The Black Series 2020 Line Look Blue Star Wars: Gaming Greats GameStop Exclusive
Item No.: No. F5592
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #13
Includes: Backpack, blaster
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $27.99
Availability: October 2022
Appearances: Republic Commando

Bio: RC-1140 (Fixer), an elite clone commando of the Galactic Republic during The Clone Wars, served as second-in-command for Delta Squad on missions to annihilate their enemies in Star Wars: Republic Commando. (Taken from the packaging.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Commentary: I love a good figure, but familiarity breeds contempt. RC-1140 (Fixer) does an excellent job delivering on expectations, amortizing existing tooling, and giving us an exclusive that is slightly better than it needed to be. New backpack! New helmet! New deco! That's all you needed, and that's what you got. It's not bad! It's even good! But at $28 for a barely-changed exclusive, and given he's #2 in a series of 4, and that this mold was also used for other figures, it may be a tough sell. If you don't have this mold - which means you're skipping Bad Batch and are late to Delta Squad - it's neat! And if you're a completist, or love clones, this is a great addition to your toy shelves. But I am a little trooper-ed out.

It's a solid design, especially since you actually get some color here. I love they tweaked the helmet to add the antenna on the side. The sculpted blast marks in the armor are nice, but the painted scuffs don't align with the sculpted scuffs. The shoulder armor hangs over the arms so it still looks good when you move the arms around, and the legs are a little tighter than I would like - smooth joints are sometimes tough to get. The figure skips painting the boot soles, but otherwise delivers a good, if by the numbers, experience. This isn't meant to be a slap at Hasbro - but we've had hundreds of Clones in varying sizes, and it's hard to get excited about slightly better/bigger versions of figures we may have already bought. But for the newcomers? This is pretty great.

Not content to only change the helmet, Hasbro gave us a new backpack too - check out the extra frame on top. With no moving parts, the backpack doesn't have anything novel about it. There are no opening bits or places to connect gear. In theory it doesn't need a ton of extra stuff to be a good figure, but also it's $28. He has no problems wearing his backpack or holding his blaster, so what you get here is a perfectly good, perfectly competent release. Something like a glowing or light-up visor, or given the higher price a backdrop or some scenery would be welcome. He looks cool and it's great to be getting figures from games that are nearly 20 years old, but I see GameStop has Boss in clearance so I'll be holding back for clearance when it comes to Sev and Scorch. It's not that they aren't neat, but I don't know if the quartet is $112 plus tax and possibly also shipping and handling neat.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from GameStop.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 2,989: December 27, 2022