Yesterday, May 28, 2026, I published my very last Power of the Force review.  It was a big moment for me, and in honor of it, I’d like to take a moment today to discuss my journey to this point, both on the site, and somewhat behind the scenes.

On March 26, 2014, I published my first review of a figure from Kenner’s ‘90s Power of the Force line (referred to as “Power of the Force II” or “PotF2” by fans, to differentiate from the shorter-lived line of the same name from the ‘80s).  The subject was Luke Skywalker in Dagobah Fatigues, appropriately enough my very first Star Wars action figure, bought brand new off the shelf in 1996.  My site was less then six months old at the time, and was really just a way of filling time between college classes.  I recall this review specifically was written on an iPad I was *supposed* to be using for notes in my Accounting 101 class, which was particularly boring that night.  At the time, I viewed the whole exercise as more about a quick nostalgic look at a toy from my youth, filling space before I got to some cool new thing that excited me.  I only wrote one more PotF review in that first year, a two-for-one of Jawas, also from my old collection.

The presence of the line here on the site was fairly spotty for the next couple of years, until a need for content to keep up with the daily schedule I was so dead-set on keeping led me to make the line a bi-monthly feature in the spring of 2017.  Even then, I viewed it as a way to clear out my backlog of old figures to review, not really as the beginning of anything significant beyond that.  

When I started working at a toy store in the fall of 2018, it gave me an unprecedented level of access to vintage action figures in general, but especially Power of the Force.  I started with a more general “hey it would be cool to get more characters I don’t own” approach, still not fully plunging into completism just yet.  Early in my time at this job, I had the opportunity to buy *most* of the figures I was missing from the Expanded Universe set, my favorite sub-set of the line.  I was left a single figure shy of the run, and I actually resorted to hunting the last one down, marking the first time I’d done more than just wait for a Power of the Force figure to land in front of me pretty much since the line was new.  Suddenly the dam broke; I’d completed the sub-set and now I felt encouraged to go further.

From that point forward, it became a mission.  I had checklists, and notes on how far I was willing to go with variants.  My boss and co-workers gave me first crack at any ‘90s Star Wars collections that came in, and would even give me a heads up on specific pieces.  At first, I didn’t care too much about completing my originals, but the parts became easy enough to find, adding more to the fun of it all.  I could build elaborate schedules of themes for reviews, balancing and tying in with all sorts of outside elements.  Admittedly, I got overwhelmed by the scale of it a few times, leading to periods of time where I’d have stacks of unopened figures for months, sometimes years (there’s a whole other post rattling around in my brain about the fine line between “collecting” and “hoarding” that may yet surface).  As I pulled more and more of the common figures I needed from collections coming into work, I found myself slowing down significantly.  When I departed my toy store job last summer, I was in need of only 15 pieces to complete my run.

In the last 10 months, I’ve slowly worked my way to completing the run, while also cracking open the stuff I’d already bought, and cleaning up and re-completing old figures for some addendums.  It’s been an interesting experience working my way up to this point, especially as things near the end.  There was a bit of a middle-of-the-journey slump, where I got stuck reviewing the less exciting figures, with some I’m sure less exciting reviews.  But, especially as I’ve come closer to the end, I’ve found myself reveling in some of the quirks, and even finding some gems that I honestly didn’t expect to like as much as I did.  The end has brought me the same spark of excitement that I had in the fall of 2018, when I first tapped back into the line as a proper collection.  In the middle, I don’t know that I was really expecting that.  There have been a few times where I came very close to giving up on the goal, but I’ve managed to pull through it, and at the end of it, I can say I’m honestly glad I did.

Is Power of the Force the greatest Star Wars line?  Well, I don’t know exactly how you quantify that, but regardless, the answer is “probably not.”  It’s got one heck of a learning curve on it, and some of the craziest “you had to be there” choices you can imagine.  There’s a definite glut of just kind of middling product, where you can just absolutely see them trying to see what sticks, but at the core of it all, it’s just so frequently unapologetic that it’s supposed to be a toyline for actually playing with, meaning even a “boring” or “middling” entry is still a good offering in terms of just being a good, core action figure.  As some crazy valuable investment or high end collector’s line, it absolutely fails.  But, that’s also not at all what it was meant to be, whether the collectors of the time got that or not.  And as someone who was actually a kid when it started and got to experience it the way lots of fans experienced the original vintage line?  Boy, do I just love it.  What a fantastic 30 years of collecting this has been.