COLONEL WARD

STAR WARS: THE BLACK SERIES (HASBRO)

So, it’s apparently been over a year since I reviewed a standard, not seasonal Black Series figure.  Which is…like, I guess I did sort of move on from the line, huh?  Well, there it is.  After a seven year gap, there’s another Star Wars movie in theaters, with The Mandalorian and Grogu, the conclusion to the show, that’s now on the big screen.  How is it?  Well, it’s a conclusion to the show on the big screen, that’s for sure.  Okay, that sounds like I’m being sort of pithy, but I actually did quite like it.  It’s got some cool set pieces, some cool creatures, and, most importantly, it’s also got Sigourney Weaver, who is also cool.  And certainly cool enough to get an action figure, so let’s check that out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Colonel Ward is he fourth figure in the Mandalorian and Grogu tie-in line-up of Star Wars: The Black Series, shipping as one of the product launch figures for the movie.  Ward is based on her pilot’s gear look from the end of the movie, which has a bit less screen time than her fatigues look from most of the run, but is also a bit more exciting as a figure, so it’s a solid choice.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Thus far, the X-Wing pilots have been pretty consistently using the original Pilot Luke mold from 2013, which is perfectly fine looking, but had a slightly less intuitive articulation than more recent figures, making a little clunky by modern standards.  Ward introduces a new body, which looks rather similar functionally, while working a bit more smoothly.  It remains effectively gender neutral, so I suppose it could be used for an updated Luke as well, should they choose to go that way.  She gets what is bound to remain a unique head sculpt.  It’s a pretty decent match for an older Weaver, with a lot of her signature intensity visible in the facial expression.  The hair isn’t quite as voluminous as Weaver’s in the movie, in order to make it work a bit better with the helmet, but it’s ultimately a good middle ground.  Ward’s color work is heavily reliant on molded colors, with minimal paint, mostly on the face.  While the application that’s there is good, there’s definitely some notable missing spots.  The hair is rather flat, and it’s disappointing that the belt is just an unpainted flat grey.  Like, none of it’s bad from a technical stand point, but it does feel a little underwhelming.  Ward is packed with a removable helmet, which is our third take on the classic Rebel pilot helmet.  This one omits the chin strap, in favor of just the microphone.  It also adds a removable visor to the mix, to make it look like it’s been retracted, which we don’t usually see here.  While the paint on the main figure is just sort of meh, the helmet gets a lot of really neat detailing, which adds a lot of pop to the figure. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m obviously always happy to see Sigourney Weaver show up in, pretty much anything, so I was excited to see her added to the Mandalorian and Grogu cast.  I didn’t really think too much about the toy side of things, and I ended up missing this figure a few times.  We went to see the movie while we were visiting South Carolina as part of a memorial for Jess, and on the way back, we passed the Walmart that I stopped at very many times while living down there with Jess a decade ago, where I got a good number of my Black Series figures from the time, usually on Jess’s urging.  I felt the need to check and see if they might have this figure, and sure enough they did, which was honestly pretty cool.  She’s not a perfect figure, but she’s fun, and I think she’s got a neat novelty to her.  Is it crazy that I’m kind of hoping they decide to do Michael Biehn’s character from The Mandalorian now so that I can have the two Aliens people as Star Wars people?  Is that too much of a reach?