One of my favorite aspects of The Clone Wars cartoon was the new original characters they created to seamlessly fit into the existing Star Wars universe in between Episode II and III. Chief among those are Ahsoka, Assaj Ventress, and the guy we are looking at today: Captain Rex. This version of Captain Rex was exclusive to Hascon and another version will come out later this year. Let’s take a look at Captain Rex!
The main thing that is different about this Rex is the packaging. It comes in a black box with a blue plastic tray and a blue slip cover. The slip cover is kinda cool because it has the “Jaig Eyes” (those little eye symbols on Rex’s helmet) die-cut into it.
The figure comes with two blaster pistols, a smaller rifle and the larger clone trooper rifle. The guns are all cast in a solid black plastic and have a cool metallic drybrush finish that looks fantastic.
The sculpt looks to be a lot of reuse from the standard Clone Trooper, but the arms are modified so that the double elbows work a lot better now. I think the torso is a new piece to allow for the neck sleeve and the shoulder pauldron to attach. The helmet is really sharply detailed and very tight on the figure. On my figure I think it bent the tip of the nose a little.
The head sculpt has a great Temuera Morrison likeness (the guy who played Jango Fett, the DNA donor for all the clones) but a slightly younger version, which is perfect.
The little skirt piece (kama) is soft goods and it is the perfect use of soft goods. It allows for great movement and also looks fantastic. I also love how the belt with the holsters is one piece of soft plastic. The guns go in there solidly so there are no worries about losing them.
The articulation is good. I like that they altered the elbows for a better range of motion. They really did not have to do that, but it makes the figure a lot better. Check out Robo’s review:
The only hitch is that the hips are still a little stiff and don’t move very far.
The paint is the star of this figure. The weathering is fantastic and the little details like the stripes and kill marks have appropriate scratch marks. The Jaig Eyes on my Rex’s helmet is a little off-center, so it’s not perfect, but there is so much good there, I barely noticed. Now, this version of Rex does not have the face printing tech, but they did a decent job with a traditional paint job. I’ll be interested to compare to the face printing to this version when it comes out later this year.
Overall, I’m glad I sprung for this version of Rex because he is fabulous. I really hope they can get more Clone Wars figures sprinkled into this line, including Assaj and some of Rex’s buddies from the 501st, like Fives and Echo.
