I can say with some degree of certainty that my experience with MAFEX Star Wars figures is very similar to other people’s experiences. When Star Wars hit the 6-inch scale, it hit hard and fast, like an X-Wing down a Death Star trench. We now have no less than four options for 1:12-scale Star Wars action figures. MAFEX remains the underdog due to a few hiccups, but with the release of Boba, are they about to become true contenders? It’s the review so cromulent to the collective collector community’s collection that it took the combined cognizance of Ibentmyman-thing (words) and Veebee (pictures) to find out. Read on!
MAFEX’s Darth Vader was a mixed bag that still remains the most fun Darth Vader for the Star Wars collection. Hasbro’s was a disappointment with a mopey helmet, Figuarts was on the smaller side, and the model kit, while looking great, had a stiff, hard plastic shell for a cape. While that figure comes out on top if you swap in a fabric cape for the hard shell, some people just don’t think of them as “action figures” so they’re almost cut out of the competition before getting a chance to compete.
MAFEX’s Darth suffered from skinny arms, a smallish helmet and some odd peripheries here and there … but despite all of that it remains extremely fun to play with and scales well with all the other figures you’d need Darth to scale well with. He would be perfect if he were a little more on-model, but as-is he’s kind of the winner by default, at least for me. That there is no perfect Vader yet is annoying.
Where the problems truly came in were with the Droid set. MAFEX made one of the best R2-D2s out there, which made it all the more mind-boggling to see the quality of the C-3P0 that was packed right beside him. With loose limbs that refused to stay in their slots and arms that literally exploded into their component parts if you looked at them the wrong way, he was, to put it bluntly, a mess.
Now, I have since fixed up my Threepio with glue and plumber’s tape where appropriate, and like him a lot with those fixes. But that’s with a decent amount of work — work that shouldn’t have to be done by anyone just to get their toy to a certain standard.
With this kind of uneven track record, and with many other MAFEX figures preordered before C-3P0’s disappointing release, the question was universal: was Threepio a fluke or was this how it would be with MAFEX?
The truth is, there’s no way to know. I think at this point, if you’re determined to collect MAFEX, you will have to take it step by step. That’s not reassuring, especially at these prices, but what I can tell you is that Boba Fett is, for me, a success as a toy, and if the standard set here continues further, MAFEX is absolutely a contender.
So far there have been three Bobas: Hasbro, Bandai’s model kit, and now MAFEX. All of them have been the Empire Strikes Back versions, but MAFEX will be the first to have a 1:12 Return of the Jedi version, due out at some point (hopefully) next month. If the ESB version wasn’t good, it was a sure bet the ROTJ wouldn’t be either, and that would have been a damn shame. Fingers crossed, people!
Hasbro’s Black Series Boba Fett remains one of the stronger figures of the line, but even that figure was plagued with a few problems that have been corrected in the MAFEX version. Let’s take a look at Boba top down and see how he measures up.
The packaging is a standard window box that shows off a considerable amount of the figure. Peeking through the plastic, he looks very nice, but things that look nice can crumble in your hands once exposed to air.
First off, let’s just take an overview of the figure once removed from his prison. Proportionally and aesthetically, it looks great right out of the box. The sculpting looks clean and sharp, with the appropriate amount of wrinkling on his clothes and weathered dings on his armor. The paint enhances every aspect of the sculpt, from the silver scoring on his helmet and chest armor to the subtle shading of the gray fabric elements. There is very faint drybrushing on every metal area to remind us that Star Wars is a lived-in universe and Boba has been around the block a couple of times. Everything about him is nice and crisp and visually stunning. There’s no doubt when looking at him that this is a higher-end toy through and through.
Size-wise he’s just the slightest bit taller than the Black Series Boba — mainly due to helmet size — but there’s a sleek elegance to him that now makes the Black Series Boba seem oddly chunky, or at least less streamlined in proportion.
Boba’s helmet is a nice size. It looks like it has a head under there. If you look at Boba on-screen, he has a bit of a bobblehead effect that often the toy heads don’t take into account. There’s a ball-joint connecting the neck to the head and another one connecting the torso to the neck, all of which afford him plenty of motion. He can look all around, tilt his head forward and side-to-side. However, despite the two points of articulation, he still can’t look up to any significant degree, which puts a bit of a kink into any jetpacking poses. His range finder is articulated, something the Black Series Boba lacked.
His shoulders are standard Marvel Legends style with the exception of a ball-joint connection that pops into the torso, which allows him a bit more shoulder motion than a standard Marvel Legends figure. The design of his armor and the additional element of the Wookie braids draped over his right arm cuts down on a little bit of the range of motion, but he can easily get into two-handed gun-holding poses and his signature “at rest” pose with one hand draped over his gun.
He has double elbows that allow him a bit more than 90 degrees of bend — about as much as a standard Marvel Legends figure nowadays. In other words, he will have no trouble touching his own helmet.
He has ball-jointed wrists that allow him to pose his hands much like any Figuarts figure. The hands pop off easily. I’m not going to say “too easily,” but I do wish he had a bit more peghead holding the hands on. As it is, they’re not going to come off as easily as Threepio’s, but I’d feel a little better if they had more of a Figuarts level of stability. If you’re the type that pops the extra hands off and on often enough, they might lose their tightness.
His torso has a ball joint right under the Mandalorian armor segments, and another ball joint right at his waist, between the belt segments. He won’t get a ton of deep bends in those areas, but between the two of them there’s definitely enough there for some flavor in your posing and playing.
Unlike the frustratingly hard Hasbro pouches, the pouches on the MAFEX Boba’s belt are made of a much softer, flexible material that don’t impede his ability to move his legs forward. The Hasbro pouches were so bad that many swiveled them around so they were behind him, opting for inaccuracy over lack of movement. That won’t be a problem here.
He has ball-jointed hips that pull down to facilitate a deeper crouch in the same manner of some Figuarts figures. The forward range of motion with the hips pushed all the way up is not great, but with them pulled down he can get more of a curled leg for flying poses.
He has double-jointed knees with a very nice range of motion. His ankles are ball jointed, and he has toe articulation, something Marvel has done away with that I don’t miss but that import figures manage to include without turning the feet into flippers.
Boba’s backpack is mated to the figure itself, which means it hangs a bit more naturally. The rocket does not fire, but the jets themselves are mobile. His cape takes a hit because it’s made of a sturdy plastic that is not very forgiving. While it doesn’t interfere too much with his range of motion, I think a fabric cape might have served better here, just to preserve every iota of motion possible. As it is it’s not that big of a problem, though, and you anti-fabric people are probably going to be okay with the cape as is.
Boba comes with a very small complement of hands. I’m used to trays full of extraneous hands, so to have so small an array feels weird. Truthfully, they’ve covered almost everything he really needs. He comes with two fists, two open hands, and a single trigger-finger hand. I’d have liked to have at least two trigger-fingers so he could have both his rifle and pistol in use at once, but at least we got the most important one.
The open hands are good for flying, rifle-cradling, aiming, and just standing there looking like a badass. The fists seem on the small side but I’m very aware of my judgment being skewed by years of oversized fists. These are no doubt proportioned to him fine, it’s just weird what superhero toys do to your sense of accuracy.
The pistol slips easily into his holder and is held in by the clasp. My holster was actually detached when I opened the package, but a bit of glue and it holds fine now.
I think everyone was on edge wondering how Boba would do. I know I definitely was. Boba’s one of my favorite characters — big cliché, I know — and he really needed to be a knockout. Due to his high popularity, he will be on the receiving end of a Return of the Jedi version very very soon. This was a literal make or break figure, so if the ball was dropped on this one like it seemed to be on Threepio, it was easy to predict a mass exodus from MAFEX, as if millions of voices cried out in terror and preorders were suddenly cancelled. If you were holding out on Boba, hold out no more. The quality is there, and Boba has made me much more hopeful about the preorders I currently have on further figures.
