Wedge Antilles - OTC - Basic (Exclusive)

A true hero of the Rebellion, Wedge Antilles has flown in some of the most important battles against the Empire, and lived to tell about them. The brave young Corellian first piloted an X-wing fighter in the battle of Yavin and helped Luke Skywalker destroy the first Death Star.

A few years later, during the battle of Hoth, he and tailgunner Wes Janson were the first to successfully take down an Imperial walker using a harpoon and tow-cable.

During the Battle of Endor, Wedge, as Red Leader, spearheaded an attack that took aim at the Second Death Star's main reactor. In an amazing display of death-defying aviation, Wedge zoomed in with the Millennium Falcon and destroyed the massive space station. He will forever be known as one of the galaxy's finest pilots!

If you asked any longtime Star Wars collector which character has gotten the shaft in the 3.75” line, most would probably come up with Wedge Antilles as one of the top contenders. Although Hasbro has done their due diligence to bring him into the line on multiple occasions in different ways, Wedge didn’t receive the “basic carded” treatment he deserved until the second half of 2005. He wasn’t even an all-new figure. But Hasbro decided to squeeze him into The Original Trilogy Collection as a late 2005 internet exclusive, in the middle of the Revenge Of The Sith line. Wedge Antilles has quite a history in the Hasbro line. First coming as a carrying case pack-in figure (with a very wrong paint job first and a corrected version following), he was then given an all-new sculpt for 1999’s POTF2 [FB/CT] Rebel Pilots Cinema Scenes set. That figure was decent for the time, but collectors still wanted to know when we’d see this favorite Rebel pilot released as a basic figure (and with more enhancements like better articulation). As a Star Wars character that survived all three major battles the Rebel Alliance fought in, it quickly became a head-scratcher to fans why Hasbro was adamantly avoiding adding him into basic figure assortments.

The Original Trilogy Collection came in 2004 and Hasbro thought it was the perfect line to finally get Wedge Antilles into the market for the very first time in basic carded packaging. But they put a twist on his release and decided to make him a little harder to acquire. They made him “special” by relegating him an internet exclusive and charged a premium for this exclusivity. Normally this would enrage collectors (and it probably did), but so many of us were so eager and preoccupied seeing him available in this manner that we didn’t balk as much as usual (surprisingly). Excitement turned to dread when initial promotional photos showed that Hasbro was just going to repackage The Power Of The Force. But it was a false alarm and our excitement went from waning to extrapolating. Hasbro quickly released an updated photo of the figure that was going to be included instead and we became elated. Thankfully, Hasbro decided to utilize the body of 2004’s SW [S - P3] Dutch Vander (Gold Leader) (Battle Of Yavin) (’04 #13) figure with the head of the Wedge Antilles action figure from the Cinema Scenes set. While the head sculpt is outdated (and a little too pudgy looking), the body of Dutch Vander is a tremendous enhancement (especially since it comes with ball-jointed knees) and makes this the most modern version of Wedge Antilles yet.

Wedge Antilles comes with an impressive 12 points of articulation. He is most limited in the arms thanks to the static poses of his lower arms. But he can hold the included removable X-wing pilot helmet (with the unique designs specific to his helmet beautifully painted on it) in his hand as well as the included blaster. He can pilot any one of your X-wing fighters excellently and while the ball-jointed knees aren’t a necessary feature to make this happen, it’s still nice to know you have some extra movement in this figure for action poses and the like. At more than double the price of any The Original Trilogy Collection basic figure and greater than 30% more than the vintage-styled The Original Trilogy Collection figures, it’s nearly impossible to justify that this cost is worthy of this long-awaited update to Wedge Antilles. So maybe/perhaps Wedge Antilles still has yet to receive the full treatment he deserves. (Editor’s Note: A new version of Wedge Antilles was included in 2009’s LC Wedge Antilles’ X-wing Starfighter which was super-articulated. But then Wedge Antilles got the full treatment in 2011’s The Vintage Collection as VC28. The irony here however is that he was initially delayed and was a chase figure for over a year until he became more plentiful in 2012. Poor Wedge Antilles.)