LUKE SKYWALKER — IMPERIAL GUARD & PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA — BOUSHH

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“To gather intel on the Black Sun, Leia disguised herself as an Ubesian bounty hunter. But when Xizor captured her, it was up to Luke — alongside his friends and posing as an Imperial Guard — to rescue her”

Next year, it will have been 30 years since Shadows of the Empire, the multimedia Star Wars “event” set between Empire and Jedi launched.  So, you know, we’re all getting properly nostalgic.  Also, I think the last of the original product might *finally* be starting to dry up.  No, I’m just kidding; that stuff’s never gonna dry up!  Nevertheless, Hasbro’s actually doing some updated versions of a lot of the principal players in their Black Series line, including today’s focus, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Luke Skywalker — Imperial Guard and Princess Leia Organa — Boushh are a Hasbro Pulse-exclusive Star Wars: The Black Series two-pack.  They hit more or less in tandem with the main line’s Prince Xizor figure, launching this little Shadows of the Empire sub-line.

LUKE SKYWALKER — IMPERIAL GUARD

While for much of the Shadows story, Luke is just wearing slight variations on his looks from the two surrounding films, the look that gets the most play in tie-ins is his Imperial Guard look, when he and Lando steel the armor from the elite Stormtroopers on Coruscant.  It’s notably the look for his vintage Kenner figure, giving it some distinctive play.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and has 29 points of articulation.  He appears, near as I can tell, to be an all-new sculpt.  That’s not terribly surprising, since it’s a rather unique design.  That being said, this figure does a bit to bring said design just a touch more in line with the general Star Wars vibe, playing up the similarities to the clone armor just a bit.  It’s a solid translation of the design, with a lot of well-rendered textures and layering, making it a very visually interesting design.  As with the original figure, the helmet is removable (though, unlike the earlier figure, the cape is not), and we get a fair run of the mill modern Luke underneath.  The whole thing goes together pretty well, and it’s an impressive piece of work from top to bottom.  The color work is a little brighter than I’m used to, going by the Kenner figure and all, but at the same time, it’s not bad.  The red matches closer to the Black Series Royal Guards, which makes its own degree of internal sense.  He’s packed with the aforementioned removable helmet, as well as his taser staff weapon thing.

PRINCESS LEIA ORGANA — BOUSHH

Within the context of the story, Shadows serves to introduce the Boushh disguise that Leia uses to infiltrate Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi, which also serves as a great way for the Shadows tie-ins to double-dip on Boushh disguise Leia molds.  Despite there being other looks for Leia in-story, this figure is hear to offset the cost of new tooling on Luke, hence the re-used look.  The figure stands about 5 1/2 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  From the neck down, she’s identical to the very first Black Series Boushh Leia, and, by extension, it’s Archive re-issue.  It’s a good sculpt, and apart from some slightly older style articulation, there’s not much you can do to improve it.  The one change-up is the head, which goes from being a solid cast piece to being the head/hair two-piece assembly that’s become standard for the line.  I always felt that the Boushh head sculpt was one of the better likenesses for Leia, but the styling was a little outdated, so I get the need for update.  Ultimately, this one’s more technically advanced, but I think it looks less like Carrie Fisher, so it’s a bit of toss-up in terms of which one’s actually better.  The paint work is again very similar to the last release, with only the head really changing things up, again to bring things more up to modern standards.  Like her prior release, Leia is packed with her helmet, staff, and thermal detonator.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m slowing down on Black Series these days, and I don’t *need* to get all of the Shadows figures, what with having the originals and all, but at the same time, I’m a sucker for that Luke design.  When these were shown off, I was certainly interested, and Max was thankfully nice enough to hook me up with a set, since he was ordering one for himself.  Now that they’re here, they’re certainly…well, they’re certainly the smaller figures, but bigger, I guess.  Both of them are nice, for sure, and Luke’s a particularly impressive piece himself.  But, as with so much Black Series these days, I don’t know that my own personal excitement is there much.