We’re going to finish up our look at the latest wave of Black Series figures with the two new characters from The Rise of Skywalker, Jannah and The First Order Jet Trooper!
Number 99, the First Order Jet Trooper comes in the standard Black Series box. I find it interesting that the helmet line details are so much more prominent on this box art than they are on the figure itself.
The blaster is a bit of a variation on the FO trooper blaster with a couple additional sub-barrels beneath the main barrel. I wonder if they are for looks only, or the gun actually triple fires. The gun kind of reminds me of the gun I built when I was a kid and my dad let me have all the extra PVC from setting up the sprinklers in our backyard.
The sculpting looks good to me, with a solid armored build, though like I mentioned above, the panel line details in the helmet feel a little shallow and don’t stand out.
The details on the jet pack are nice with a raised red symbol and some vents that recall the ribbing on the trooper’s body suit. The pack isn’t removeable, but the jets do swivel
One sculpting oddity related to the articulation is that the elbow swivel/hinge looks a little weird when bent. There’s more of a sculpt break than I’m used to seeing with that kind of joint. Otherwise articulation is pretty good with:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, hips, wrists, elbows and ankles
- Ball and socket lower neck, head, mid-torso
- Double hinged knees
- Thigh and jet swivels
I do really like the way the neck articulation works. The ball joint at the neck moves great and allows for expressive posing.
Paint is minimal and fairly effective as the figure is cast mostly in the glossy white plastic of the armor. It does seem to be missing one panel line detail that highlights the cheek area in the helmet that the real armor has and made it to the carbonite version. The printed symbol on the chest and backpack are good too.
A jet-pack Stormtrooper is a no-brainer insta-buy concept for me. I think they accomplished this fairly well, though he feels a little light on accessories. I was thinking some blast effects for the jet pack would have been a cool inclusion.
I think the most I know about new character Jannah I’ve learned from the back of this box. She leads a group of warriors on an Oceanic Moon.
She does come with a nice arsenal including a pistol, energy bow, quiver and arrows.
The bow has a fixed strap that I think is intended to be worn across the shoulder. It looks okay on either shoulder and held low, but since the strap is fixed, it looks a little silly held aloft. The one loose arrow fits into the slot of the bow which makes posing bow shots a little simpler, though the arrow seems short to me for a regular bow and arrow firing pose. There is no string, but there is a hole so you can add your own.
The quiver has a removeable strap so it can be repositioned to either hip.
The pistol reminds me of some of the weapons from TFA background characters where the handles are based on animal bones or teeth. It fits well in the holster, but it can bend the little nub on the barrel.
The sculpting on Jannah is pretty great, with lots of clothing texture and wrinkle detail, a solid build, and a beautiful portrait, but I do have one concern.
My conern is there is a weird, unattractive gap at the elbow bend where you can see the disc when the elbow is bent. It seems like a weird engineering failure for a line that has had a hundred or more elbows without this oddity. Not only does it look weird, but it doesn’t bend right either, only getting about 90 degree bend.
Paint is very good with a nice face print and tons of little detail work on the costume. I also really like the semi-translucent cape seems to have some wash and drybrushing for the final effect.
Other than the weird elbows, the articulation works well. Jannah has the same articulation as the trooper, except she doesn’t have the extra ball and socket neck and I find that I miss that a bit.
Overall Jannah is pretty cool and I’m way more excited to learn more about the character now. I think the only real negative for me as that static strap on the bow and the weird elbow articulation and shorter arrows make bow firing poses pretty silly.
