ASAJJ VENTRESS

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Asajj Ventress communicates via a holographic projector to her mentor, Count Dooku, as they twist events against the Jedi. Ventress can wield a lightsaber with devastating skill and precision and is fueled by the power of the dark side and her hatred of the Jedi.”

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars cartoon (well, apart from General Grievous, who was actually already slated to show up in Episode III when he was added to the show) was Dooku’s apprentice, Asajj Ventress.  She made the jump from 2D to 3D, and went on to be a pretty prominent player in the 3D show’s run…well, at least until you get to the end part where they never got around to producing the episodes that would have wrapped up her story.  Maybe some day.  Well, in the meantime, how about another action figure?  She’s got a nice little handful to choose from, but let’s set our sights on the 2008 version.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Asajj Ventress is figure 15 in Hasbro’s Clone Wars tie-in line, right after Plo Koon numerically.  She was part of the third assortment and was one of the two Sith additions to the line in this particular assortment (the other being her mentor Count Dooku).  The figure stands right around 3 3/4 inches tall and she has 18 points of articulation.  Early in the line, the female non-clones actually made out a bit better than the male non-clones in terms of articulation, and as such Asajj actually gets a full set-up of leg articulation, which makes her quit mobile.  She does lose out on the elbow movement, but, honestly, where would they put it?  Asajj’s sculpt was an all-new one, based on her animation model from the show.  This whole assortment marked a definite step-up in accuracy to the show within the sculpts, and that’s very evident in Asajj, who sticks quite close to her show design.  There’s some really impressive detail work, especially on the texturing of her outfit.  her skirt is a separate, cloth piece.  It’s a nice, heavy fabric, which looks pretty decent, and allows for full movement on her legs.  It’s also removable, so that you can replicate the times on the show she’d ditch it to save the animators trouble free up her movement.  Asajj’s paint work is generally pretty solid stuff.  The small details are nice and clean, and there’s no notably missing elements, which is all pretty cool.  Asajj was packed with her two curved hilt lightsabers, as well as a small hologram of Count Dooku, which I don’t at all recall my figure ever having, but she absolutely did at some point, I suppose.  I’m just losing my mind.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t get Asajj during her first run.  She was rather tricky to find at retail, and wound up getting scalped a lot.  I also hadn’t really warmed to the character yet at that point, so I certainly wasn’t down for paying more.  As the show progressed, I came to like her more, and I recall finding this figure during her second run in the new packaging, along with a stack of other figures.  I wanna say it was during a errand for Christmas decorations with my dad, but it might have been for non-Christmas related purposes.  She’s a pretty strong figure, and holds up well this many years later.