General Grievous/CB-3D - LC - Droid Factory (1 of 5)

In the comic Star Wars: General Grievous, the cyborg general has dark plans for a group of innocent young Padawans. At the same time, the astromech droid CB-3D assists a rogue team, including the droid's master Flynn Kybo, on a mission to hunt down and eliminate Grievous.

Hasbro decided to do a "take two" on the very popular Walmart exclusive Droid Factory two-packs and this initial news made most of us quite happy. But instead of culling character ideas from across all of the films and various media events, Hasbro went for a hardcore focus on everything Expanded Universe. Alienating many fans of the original 30 (77-07) Droid Factory sets, most of us were surprised by Hasbro’s disregard for representation from at least one Star Wars film. To add insult to injury, Hasbro unfortunately decided to make one less set for a new total of five (5) and then put them at a new hiked up MSRP that was a 70% increase from the first six sets. These negatives were quite difficult to overshadow the good news, because there is some great news indeed. The droid parts included in these five sets produced a huge Build A Droid pack-in (the biggest on ever), the Dark Trooper (Phase III) Droid! It was a courageous and advantageous move on Hasbro’s part because assembling a droid this big and to fit in with the Droid Factory gimmick is no small feat. Most of the Legacy Collection Droid Factory sets include figures that are pretty cool, but if we were to be completely honest, they lack the sterling shine of the first incarnation. We know that the sets will thrill lovers of Expanded Universe lore, but these sets dig very deeply into obscure Expanded Universe stories. And the non-droid figures in the sets are a bit disappointing. Not all the figures are boring or make you question "who's this?", but the paint operations and applications as well as the character choices were much better for the debut collection. General Grievous and CB-3D combined make up for probably one of the nicest of the five new sets. And even if you're not a fan of Droid Factory, you know the main reason to be thankful for this set in particular....

We finally got a General Grievous soft-goods cape! This is the absolute reason to rejoice here folks. It is simply one of the most beautiful soft-goods Hasbro has ever created. And although it is missing the Kaleesh symbol on the posterior of his cape, it is constructed amazingly well and with stupendous detail! It is manufactured with two distinct fabric layers; a smooth outer gray layer and an inner red waffle-styled layer. The two layers are sewn perfectly together with minimal contrast stitching showing. Hasbro did a phenomenal job on this cape and it almost makes you look the other way for the outlandish price tag. There are two pleats on the top back near the neck line and this gives the cape a very attractive drape. It collects in the right spots to flow down Grievous’ body in a close silhouette and gives an otherwise very weak action figure a whole new and refreshing outlook. For those of you who have seen or own the Sideshow Collectibles Exclusive Premium Format General Grievous figure, you now have a miniature version of that magnificent exclusive cape. It is similar is almost every way. Nearly the same attention to details was followed here for the 3.75" scale. Grievous fans will no doubt put this soft-goods cape on the General Grievous (BD 25) figure from 2008’s The Legacy Collection. It looks awesome on him! (It is definitely a tad too short, but it still looks fantastic on him nonetheless!) In a surprising move, Hasbro used the “terrible” 2005 ROTS General Grievous (III 9) figure, but in all honesty, who cares? We finally got a General Grievous soft-goods cape! Actually, we care a little bit. We had hoped that the release of the accurately scaled General grievous would have made all previous versions rendered unusable any more, but Hasbro thought it would be in their best interests to squeeze another drop of life out of it.

So, after all of this raving about the cape on General Grievous, you must be wondering about the astromech droid CB-3D that came with him. Our incessant ranting can sometimes spiral out of control and for that we apologize. But CB-3D is an excellent droid! Although it comes across as way too white with no battle-damage markings for our liking, it is nonetheless striking and looks excellent next to Grievous, thanks in part to their shared red color. Don’t mistake these two characters as allies. They are clear enemies in the comic story arc. CB-3D is a rework of the R2-D2 figure from 2005's TSC Early Bird Figures mail-away set (based on the 2004 VOTC Artoo Detoo (R2-D2) (With Extension Arm) figure with glued down utility panel). This figure is a great base sculpt to use for an astromech and it suits CB-3D very well. This particular mold has been used and reused multiple times and it is a very welcomed choice for subsequent astromech additions to the basic line or in exclusives sets like this one. So you now have an extra red R2 unit to fill out your dioramas. (We aren't sure why this name begins with a "C" though. This droid is obviously the exception to the naming rule and we want to know the logic behind it.) On a side note, we found the packaging for this series of Droid Factory very impressive. It is extremely slim-line and compact and at first you are surprised that the little box has a $17.00 plus tax price tag. But to play devil’s advocate here for a moment, you do get a lot of 'stuff' inside this small box for the price. But if you do the math, you’ll figure out that this new Legacy Collection set of Droid Factory gives us 11 figures for $85.00 which breaks down to $7.73 a figure. This of course is not entirely obscene, but there really isn't a bargain here like there was with the first set (which was 13 figures at $59.94 or $4.61 per figure). Ultimately, this is your call, but we know you will be sorry if you pass on your chance to complete your super-articulated Grievous figure with a stunning cape! Oh, and CB-3D is a very cool droid to add additional diversity with your growing astromech population!