It’s that time of the year at Fwoosh where we pick our top figure of the past year. I always take pains to say favorite because I’m not using any kind of objective criteria to decide these, just the figure that I loved the most. This year for me it was Garazeb Orrelios from the Star Wars Black Series line. Click through for some thoughts on why.
I usually don’t have this tough a time choosing a favorite figure of the year, but this year held an exceptional number of phenomenal releases in some of my favorite lines, including a new line that seemingly took over my collecting interest for this year with G.I. Joe Classified. Casey Jones, IG-11, Cad Bane, Splinter, Golden Axe Skeleton, Mr. T, Hoth Trooper, and all of the G.I. Joe Classified line was in serious contention for the title of favorite.
A big part of what made Zeb stand out in that crowded field was completing the Ghost Crew from Star Wars Rebels. I kind of fell out of the Star Wars fandom after the prequels after being heavily involved since the return of the action figures and the Special Editions. I stopped collecting the 3.75 inch line, I stopped buying the books and comics, and only casually watched The Clone Wars.
Rebels pulled me back in and is one of my favorite Star Wars things ever, with the Ghost Crew being some of my favorite characters in that world so I was really invested in getting the crew in Black Series form. Zeb was rumored for a long time and it felt like a couple years of waiting for an announcement before the figure was confirmed.
Thankfully the figure lived up to my expectations with really beautiful paint, sharp sculpting, effective articulation and appropriate accessories. I really like that they figured out how to make his weapon transform between rifle and staff mode and the while I would have liked an alternate smiling head, the stern expression he has feels like it’s right out of the show. He’s super fun to play with, I finished a team that was important to me, and I just smile when I see him on the shelf. It doesn’t get much better than that.
