Commander Bly - ROTS - Basic (III 57)

Equipped for battle on the exotic fungus planet of Felucia, Commander Bly fights alongside Jedi Knight Aayla Secura. When the secret Order 66 is issued, Commander Bly suddenly turns on Secura and the rest of the Jedi.

Hasbro surprised Star Wars collectors big time at 2005’s San Diego Comic Con when they announced that there would be a dozen more Revenge Of The Sith basic figures by the ends of the year (before The Saga Collection would begin). Collectors were extremely excited for this announcement because the line was so successful and the new announcement included characters from Episode III that we had been waiting for so long to add into our collections. What was so particularly special about the newly announced 12 figures was that it included the likes of Commander Bly, Commander Gree and the Tactical Ops Trooper (only to name a few) would finally be gracing the basic figure line as quality action figures. It also made us wonder just how much Lucasfilm, Ltd. held back from Hasbro that prevented them from getting these characters into the line sooner. Despite this, Hasbro did a really great job playing catch up and worked very hard to get a ton of new and anticipated characters into the line. This “last 12” announcement also introduced collectors to the cleverly executed “Repack & Repaint” concept. (Editor’s Note: This would end up becoming an annual occurrence, much to the happiness of collectors.) Commander Bly has always remained one of the most requested and popular clones to be made into an action figure. And Hasbro made it a reality by pulling out their 2005 ROTS Clone Commander (III 33) figure and then repainting it in the colors of Commander Bly. The final figure is excellent and will be the envy of those who may not be able to secure one for their collections.

You may not be aware, but there are three unique incarnations of the Commander Bly action figure. The first two variations began hitting retails within days of each other. The very first version of Commander Bly has white ball-joints in his shoulders. This obviously was quickly corrected and the second version sports yellow ones. Also, this is talked about often, but there are differences in the way the carbon-scoring has been applied between them. It isn’t overt, but differences do exist. Although the change was made quickly, there must have been an almost equal numbers produced because both styles can be found at an almost 1:1 ratio of each other. The third and rarest version (extremely rare) is the one shown in our gallery. In a stunning move, Hasbro added much-needed missing paint operations to make Commander Bly more movie accurate than the previous two releases. A darker, more mustard yellow (or light brown – your preference) color had been added to the final release of Commander Bly. This new paint enhancement has been applied to his helmet, his chest stripe (which has also been thinned down some), the upside down “u” shapes in his belt and a thin vertical stripe running up both thighs. Lastly, this version of Commander Bly has a completely redone “carbon-scoring” application that is most notably different on the lower legs. The updates are simply astonishing and make this version of Commander Bly definitive. And it’s quite shocking to us that this sculpt succeeds as Commander Bly when it was just “OK” for the red and green Clone Commanders.

Thankfully Hasbro didn’t sacrifice one upgrade for another when it came to Commander Bly. Every enhancement made on the last was carried forward to the next. It took a while to get him, but it was worth the wait. Hasbro can really impress us with a simple repainted figure like this one. It’s quite amazing that a repaint ends up to be one of the best figures in the entire Revenge Of The Sith basic figure line, especially since Commander Bly wasn’t even planned to be one of the original 56 figures of the line! (No wonder he is number 57 – he’s the next most important figure in the line!) Commander Bly comes with two DC-17 blaster pistols which fit snuggly into his kama and also a DC-15 blaster rifle which is possible for him to hold despite being difficult to wrap his hands around the stock. And while it’s possible to remove his gear including his macrobinoculars, pauldron and kama, he looks very incomplete and is clearly dependent upon them to function as the intended action figure he is. Do whatever you can to find the third version of Commander Bly. To say he’s infinitely better than the previous two tries may seem like we’re over-exaggerating, but we honestly aren’t. We’re hopeful that Hasbro will reissue this figure (unless they abandon it completely to give us an all-new sculpt), but sometimes their best work (in a perplexing turn of events) gets overlooked and mixed up with other things they have line up instead. But if you do find this third variant, you’ll see why it was worth the work locating it.