HAN SOLO — ENDOR GEAR

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“Han Solo commanded a strike force of freedom fighters whose mission it was to sabotage the Imperial shield generator protecting the new Death Star. However, a surprise visit from some of Endor’s native Ewoks appears to present an uncalculated setback.”

On the Forrest Moon of Endor, everybody needs camo.  While Leia and Luke are just sporting some ponchos, that just wouldn’t do for the coolest guy in the whole of the galaxy far, far away, so Han Solo got to be all badass long-coat-y.  Given the generally retread-ish nature of Han’s costume from Jedi, this long-coat is his go-to look for Jedi-based toys of Han, as was the case for the ‘90s Power of the Force line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Han Solo in his Endor Gear was released in the 1997 assortment of the Power of the Force line.  He was the fourth version of Han to grace the line, and one of two Hans released that year.  He was also a nice compliment to the Endor Luke and Leia figures that were packed with the Speeder Bikes released that same year.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  The formula for building Endor Han was pretty straight-forward; he’s pretty much just the first PotF2 Han, but with a new set of arms and a jacket overlay piece.  It’s consistent with the rest of the line’s offerings, but also means that this figure is saddled with one of the most “off” sculpts in the line.  The head never looked much like Harrison Ford, and the body was super, super bulked up.  Also, if you want to get technical, the shirt under the vest should be different if you’re going for an authentic Jedi version of Han.  Topping it all off, the jacket’s just really, really bulky looking, just further adding to the steroid-fueled appearance for Han.  On the paint side of things, there are some plusses and minuses.  The jacket works out pretty well with its camo and everything.  The biggest issue with my figure is the pants.  The initial release of this figure had blue pants instead of brown.  Later releases corrected this, but generally speaking, this is the one that seems to crop up most often, so odds are very good that you’re going to have an incorrect version if you get one.  Han was packed with one accessory: his standard blaster.  It’s oversized, as was the trend at this point, but otherwise a worthy addition.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with most Hans from this line, I wasn’t particularly interested in this figure growing up, since it’s so far off from his actual movie look.  I ended up adding him to my collection while on my recent quest to get a complete run of Power of the Force II figures, which my friends at All Time Toys are doing their best to assist me with.  I got this one from their bin of loose figures, so he wasn’t much of an investment.  Ultimately, he’s not one of the better Han figures from this line, but he’s not terrible either.