MACE WINDU

STAR WARS: POWER OF THE FORCE II (KENNER)

“In the days before Palpatine’s Empire began its reign of terror, the Galactic Republic governed the affairs of the galaxy from the capital of Couruscant. In addition, the city-planet was also the seat of the legendary 12-member Jedi Council. Wisdom and experience were equally as important as abilities in the Force among the Jedi Council members. For this reason, Mace Windu, a senior member of the Jedi Council, was especially honored and revered throughout the Galactic Republic.”

Hey, remember last week, when I discussed the “Sneak Preview” offerings from Power of the Force to give people a taste of the then-upcoming Episode I line?  Well, there were two items offered.  The STAP and Battle Droid were offered up at standard retail, but promoted on the back of the box and available via a mail-away promotion was Samuel L Jackson’s senior Jedi Council member himself, Mace Windu!  Yes, this is from the before movie times when we were all like “this Mace Windu guy is clearly gonna *do stuff* in this movie” rather than “wow, that Mace Windu guy really didn’t *do anything* in that movie.”  Look, whatever the case, let’s look at the novelty that is the very first Mace Windu action figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mace Windu was offered up as a mail-away promotion for Star Wars: Power of the Force II in 1998.  He required a whopping six proofs of purchase from standard figures, largely because he was really operating as a covert way of clearing excess stock off of retail shelves in preparation of all that hot new Episode I product that was definitely going to be a long-term investment, right?  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  Mace was sporting what was an all-new sculpt at the time, though he wound up sharing his head, torso, and legs with the standard Episode I Mace.  This one was unique in offering up Mace just sort of casually wearing his robe, rather than with the hood up, or without the robe entirely, which makes it a nice sort of straight forward figure.  The head has a serviceable likeness of Jackson, given it’s the only one before they started scanning likenesses with the Attack of the Clones figures.  It’s got a nice, neutral expression, which fits Mace pretty well.  The body sculpt gets a surprising amount of texture detailing, which works really well to sell all the different fabrics.  The sculpted outer robe is similar to that of the Flashback Anakin figure, though it’s distinctly different.  His paint work is decent, mostly just base work, but it’s clean.  He does get the tiniest little bit of mud splatter on his boots, which is actually a pretty cool touch.  Mace is packed with a lightsaber.  It’s hard to call it *his* lightsaber, since it’s very much blue, but that was the case for all his Episode I merch, since it was supposed to be that color, before Jackson requested a different color in Attack so that he could more easily find himself in fight scenes.  Since Mace never powers up his saber in Phantom Menace, maybe it was just a different color then?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I honestly don’t recall this promotion at all, which is strange, since I was very much collecting the line at the time.  I vaguely recall the final figure, mostly seen at toy shows and comic shops around the time, always for far more than a seven-year-old would be looking to pay.  For whatever reason, even later, I just never got one, perhaps because he quickly became comically cheap.  As it stands, Mace gets the significance of being the very final Power of the Force figure I needed to round out my full run of all the figures.  Not on purpose or anything, mostly just because he happened to be the last one.  He’s also the last one I’m reviewing here on the site.  He’s a fitting, I suppose, as something of a transitional figure.  And, after almost exactly 30 years, my Power of the Force collection that started with a comedically muscled Dagobah Fatigues Luke is complete. Weird.