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!

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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