The return of Star Wars to theatres with The Force Awakens has pushed quite a few nostalgia buttons for fans around the world, and collecting the toys has definitely dredged up some old feelings in this fan. Check out some more pics of The Force Awakens Black Series wave 2 figures and some fan ramble after the jump . . .
I have no memory of seeing the first Star Wars film, but I had all of the Kenner toys from those first waves, so some of the characters were familiar friends to me and others were . . . confusing. I had no idea how or why Hammerhead, Walrus Man, the Power Droid, or the Death Star Droid fit into the story of Han, Luke, and Leia, but that did not stop me from playing with those figures for a second.
Similarly, with this new film, I’m introduced to guys like Constable Zuvio and the Guavian Enforcer. These are odd-looking characters with weird names, and I have no idea how they fit into the story of Han, Luke, Leia, Finn, and Rey, but I’m enjoying this brief moment of not really knowing.
We have hints, sure. Zuvio here is a law man on a lawless world and his outfit seems tailored for desert dwelling. The hat reminds me of a samurai’s Jingasa, which seems appropriate for Star Wars since Lucas borrowed so much from samurai movies.
The clothing and the tech on Zuvio all have that classic Star Wars “used universe” feel, and there is plenty of weathering paint and sculpt detail to support that design philosophy on the figure. The armor has dented surfaces and chipped paint, and the clothes have washes and drybrushing to emphasize the grime.
Zuvio has decent articulation and his legs get much better movement than I was expecting with such a long skirt.
I like the overall silhouette of this odd-looking little guy, and I’m looking forward to seeing him in action.
It is interesting that his armor has the same color scheme as Boba Fett’s. That can’t be a coincidence, can it? Don’t tell me — I don’t want to know. Yet.
I wonder what the function of that back pack is. Communication, supplies, a personal moisture vaporator?
He definitely looks like somebody you don’t want to mess with.
Poe Dameron looks to be one of the major characters in this upcoming movie and already has one variant figure in the Black Series. The original figure has some pretty wonky face paint with googly eyes that aren’t centered and a beard shadow that makes me think of children painting on beards when they are hobos for Halloween. I only took one picture of this head sculpt and it’s below:
I ended up swapping heads with the Target exclusive two-pack Poe, which has a superior (though not perfect either) paint job. The rest of the pics here have the swapped head.
He comes with some good stuff: swappable glove hands, a gun that fits into a holster, and a removable helmet. The helmet feels slightly overlarge, but it has really nice paint detail.
The sculpt on Poe is pretty nice as his jumpsuit has the requisite amount of wrinkles and folds and really conveys the idea of a baggy flight-suit well.
The articulation does get a little limited around the hips because the legs are so thick. There is also not a lot of movement at the neck because the collar blocks that.
The straps and hoses on his gear add a nice depth to the overall sculpt as well.
The gun with a working holster is a nice touch that can make a figure for me. I also like the option to remove the gloves, though it would have been nice if those wrists were articulated. I’m pretty impressed with how well Poe’s ankles work and how they allow for nice crouching poses with his double knees.
The Guavian Enforcer is another striking design, and the bio leads me to believe it may be an army-builder figure because it refers to “security soldiers” of the Guavian Gang. Does it sound like the underworld is a bit out of control in the era of The Force Awakens?
Sensing a potential army builder, I went ahead and grabbed two of this guy just in case. The design is pretty fun, and the jumpsuit/webgear/armor combo feels like Star Wars to me. The neck/shoulder armor reminds me of Darth Vader and also Anakin’s armor in The Clone Wars cartoon.
This guy comes with two neat guns, but he has only one trigger finger. I’m a little disappointed that I can’t really get him into a decent two-handed gun-toting pose, but I love the blaster designs.
They have that classic Star Wars feel of real-world guns repurposed by adding greeblies to them.
The leg movement seems a little stiff at the hips, similar to Poe, because of the thickness of the baggy jumpsuit.
The neck has great movement and the tech sculpt around the bullseye face is nicely detailed.
The last new figure in this wave was the hardest one to come by, and that triggered a bit of nostalgia for me as well.
When I was a kid, it felt like it took forever to finally get another figure in my hot hands and to collect them all. I coveted the figures my friends had and studied my cardbacks wistfully for what seemed like months before getting new figures.
Putting this wave together reminded me of that feeling. I was used to picking up Black Series waves in one-fell-swoop, but that was not the case here. I grabbed Zuvio back in September from Amazon, but the rest of the wave had sold out.
A couple months later, I got a tip that the wave was at GameStop, so I hit all of the stores in my area, but only one had the wave two figures, so I picked up Guavian and Poe there.
I still needed the elusive Phasma, and reports had Phasma hitting Walmarts, K-Marts, Targets, Walgreens, and Toys R Us. I missed Phasma by minutes at a lot of stores with no luck until one day a hot tip from a Fwoosher helped me order her from Hasbrotoyshop.com.
That was definitely the most hunting I’ve done for a figure in years and she doesn’t disappoint. Phasma is shiny, imposing, nicely articulated, and looks great leading platoon of troopers.
