Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,031: HK-87 (The Black Series)

HK-87 Droid Assassin
The Black Series 2023 Closed Box Line Look The Mandalorian Packaging
Item No.: Asst. E8908 No. F5533
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: #29 - The Mandalorian
Includes: Blaster, cape
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $24.99
Availability: April 2023
Appearances: The Mandalorian

Bio: Based on an antiquated assassin droid design, a pair of HK droids serve as bodyguards for the Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth on the world of Corvus. (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!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: The HK-87 droid was a choice that made me shrug, but I was pleasantly surprised with this one. The robot head looks different than most of the other ones, and it has a cool helmet and lots of tan, gray, and red plus a cloak. While it resembles a lot of existing concept designs, most specifically an unused Ralph McQuarrie bounty hunter, the coloring makes it look more like it got squeezed through prequel and Disney-era dsigns with colors that seem to fit the post-Return of the Jedi toy world. I like it, is where I'm going.

If you've been buying The Black Series droids like K-2SO and Battle Droids, HK-87 is a lot like it. The range of movement on the shoulder is really impressive, moving in and out and up and down. The elbow bends, the forearm swivels, and the legs all move quite nicely but the limbs remain spindly. You have to balance him right or he'll eventually sag just enough to flop over. The little details on this guy are great, with little spokes jutting out of the knees, little silvery bits on the elbows and knees, and sculpted joints for the toes on the bottom of the feet. The greeblie-covered face looks a lot like the old McQuarrie concept design, and the cloth hangs nicely over the left arm. It's the real deal - and I assume he'll show up on the Ahsoka show if the scuttlebutt is right.

While I wish there were a 3 3/4-inch version - mostly because there are no 6-inch playsets and very few vehicles - it's a good figure. He can hold his blaster and he looks like something that belongs in the orbit of original trilogy-era stuff, even if "droid wearing clothes" was pretty scarce stuff back then. It's a good combo platter of McQuarrie concepts and prequel-era droid know-how, in a closed-box window style that proved to be so unpopular that Hasbro already shifted gears away from them before basic, normal, regular The Black Series figures shipped in them. It's a cruddy design that just shows how wasteful and packed with empty space these boxes are, but at least it seems durable. You'll just need to pray nobody swapped out the figure and re-sealed it down the road, which should do wonders for paranoia and collectibility. So if you're reading this review in the future and want this one, maybe you'll just want to buy a loose one off of eBay.

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

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,031: May 23, 2023