CLONE COMMANDER CODY

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“A natural and practical leader in the clone army, Clone Commander Cody was a good fit for General Kenobi, to whom he was particularly loyal.”

While they’ve stepped it up a little bit in the last few years, when The Black Series launched, the prequel component was pretty light.  In the first three years of the line, there were only seven prequel figures, four of them being Clone variants of some form or another.  Just prior to wrapping up the line’s second incarnation, just before the re-branding for The Force Awakens, they put out their first actually named clone, Commander Cody, who was in an otherwise OT-based assortment.  He was easy to overlook at the time, but as we’ve gotten more and more of the other Clone Commanders, he’s become rather a desired entry in the line.  Thankfully, he just got a re-release as part of the Archive line-up.  Not that I’m reviewing that release here, but I’ll get to that later.  Onto the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Before being re-issued in the third assortment of The Black Series Archive, Commander Cody was originally released in early 2015, as #14 in the Blue Line incarnation of The Black Series, heading off the final assortment of that incarnation (alongside the previously reviewed Leia as Boushh and IG-88).  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and has 29 points of articulation.  Cody is built on the the original Clone Trooper body.  He got a new head, upper torso, shoulder pads, and upper right arm in order to replicate Cody’s more personalized armor elements.  The original Clone body does show its age these days, but it was still quite good for the time, and it’s certainly not terrible.  Cody’s new shoulder pads even address the issue with the standard body by giving him a slightly better clearance, and thereby a better range of motion on those particular joints.  The Cody-specific parts are all really nicely sculpted, and have quite a lot of deep detail work.  His armor shows some more wear and tear than the rest of the Clones, which is appropriate for the character.  By far my favorite piece is the head, which manages to be a nicer, sharper recreation of the Phase II helmet than the standard one that later followed, with deeper detailing, and a far better range of motion on the neck joint than the regular helmet as well.  Cody’s paint work is pretty solid; while the pre-TFA stuff had some issues with paintwork, there was a real reversal on this final assortment before the switch-over.  Cody followed that set up, and actually has some decent work.  The orange stripes on his main armor have some nice simulated wear, and the knee pads have some cool accenting to make them look dirty and messed up.  The white sections of the armor could perhaps use some slight accenting to bring out some of the sculpted damage, but accenting on white can be very tricky, so it’s probably for the best that it was just left out.  Cody is packed with both the DC-15 and DC15A blasters, which have become the norm for the Clones.  Interestingly, his helmet isn’t removable like some of the later Clone Commanders, despite Cody rather prominently taking off his helmet in his film appearance.  Ultimately, it’s probably for the best, however, since it means that this figure doesn’t have the older style paint on the head to contend with.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I passed on this guy when he was new because I was far more focussed on the other two figures in the set, and I was still trying to hold to my no prequels rule.  However, once Hasbro really started getting into the other Clone Commanders, I definitely regretting passing on him more and more.  Back over the summer, All Time had this guy come in with a whole Black Series collection, and I was interested, but the Archive was not yet announced, and that meant he was at the peak of his after market value.  That was outside my price range, so I passed, albeit somewhat disappointedly.  Max was evidently having none of that, and decided to be far to nice to me, and got me this guy anyway.  Sure, the Archive release is out now, but that doesn’t make how I got this one any less special, nor does it change the fact that I had him for a good six months before there was another opportunity.  Whichever release you get, this guy is really cool, and I’m glad to have him to round out the set.