IG-11 — NEVARRO MARSHALL

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

“The blasted fragments of the assassin droid hero undergo a complete rebuild and reprogramming, including the addition of marshal stripes that denote IG-11 as Nevarro’s new protector.”

Two Star Wars: The Black Series Reviews? In the same quarter? Is that legal?  Well, yeah.  But is it ethical? That’s a far more complex issue.  So, it would seem I’ve exhausted my admittedly kind of small Episode I collection, which means it’s time to move onto the next thing.  But, before I do another retro dive, I happen to have a new Star Wars figure, so why not give that a bit of focus?  With the release of The Mandalorian & Grogu, the whole Mandalorian side of the franchise is getting a little bit more focus from the toys, mostly based on the movie, but with a few non-movie ones as well.  The Mandalorian’s third season was kind of sparse on its own toy coverage at the time of release, but there’s been some filling in since then, and we’ve finally gotten my most anticipated figure from the season, the rebuilt IG-11 as Marshall of Nevarro!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

IG-11 — Navarro Marshall is figure 46 in the Mandalorian sub-line of Phase IV of Star Wars: The Black Series.  He’s hitting alongside the second batch of Mandalorian & Grogu product, and is the only show-based figure in the bunch.  There was a white-boxed “First Edition” release to kick things off, followed quite closely by the standard release.  As the name implies, the figure is based on IG-11’s slightly modified appearance from the end of Season 3’s last episode.  The figure stands 7 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  While the last two IG-11s re-used the quite inaccurate IG-88 mold, this time around, he’s making liberal re-use of the brand-new parts introduced with the deluxe IG-12 in 2024.  The 12 parts were far better scaled and just more screen accurate then the 88 mold, so it’s a much better starting point, for sure.  This release gets a new torso, to showcase his proper droid-ness, as opposed to the remote control compartment of 12.  While I won’t deny it looks the part, I was disappointed by the removal of the built-in hinge joint used on the original IG-88 mold.  It gave him a lot more posing options, and this figure is a lot stiffer by comparison.  It does otherwise look very nice, though, and the detailing is all quite sharp.  He also gets a new belt add-on piece, complete with holster, as seen in the show.  IG-12’s color work was rather on the basic side, and while Marshall IG-11 isn’t quite back to the level of his original release in terms of accenting, he’s at least a bit of an improvement over 12.  In particular, his silver is a more consistent and more proper metallic finish, as opposed to the swirly, kind of translucent shade of the IG-12.  He also gets all of the fancy, eye-catching Marshal stripes, which gives him a nice splash of color, and his paint application is notably pretty clean.  IG-11 is packed with his blaster pistol, which fits in his holster.  You can sort of get him to hold it in one of the hands, but it’s really tricky, and doesn’t stay well, so it’s not super advisable.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been anticipating this figure pretty much since the show appearance, but especially since IG-12’s release, since I figured Hasbro would be eager to re-use the molds.  I believe I said at the end of the IG-12 mold that I’d kill for this figure, though I did re-negotiate a bit on it before the end.  I did say I’d pay good money for it, which I did, in fact, do.  12 was cool, but he was really always just a place-holder for this guy.  He took a bit longer to get here than I expected, but I’m glad he’s here.  Issues with the torso articulation aside, I really quite like this mold, and I’d still definitely buy at least an IG-88 built from these parts.