Captain Rex - TCW [SOTDS] - Basic (CW12)

Captain Rex battles Talz warriors on the icy planet Orto Plutonia. The clone captain is ordered to protect Pantoran diplomats from the native Talz, who demand to be left in peace. Rex fights his aggressive opponents with steely determination.

Captain Rex in his cold weather on Orto Plutonia gear again in The Clone Wars [Shadow Of The Dark Side] basic action figure line. Hasbro went back to their vintage Kenner roots in principle to make him because Captain Rex doesn’t have a removable helmet! Thank the Maker! This allows for accurate head size, an element of mystery and an overall very cool action figure. And since Rex resembles an Original Trilogy character he likely will be a figure that will be difficult to find at retail, hence the reason he has been reissued. The figure is very well designed and comes with plenty of accessories for great displaying and playing. One part of this figure that is immediately noticeable right off the bat is his helmet insignias. They are strikingly similar (identical?) to the ones we saw on 2007’s TAC Concept Snowtrooper (Ralph McQuarrie Signature Series) (30 42) figure. And if we didn’t know any better, we would have guessed that this action figure was hiding in the background of The Empire Strikes Back or at least in Ralph McQuarrie’s vision. Looking so similar to a Snowtrooper in multiple ways, Captain Rex is guaranteed to please many collectors of both movie and Expanded Universe merchandise. Relatively simple is design, he does have enough detail to match his onscreen appearance in The Clone Wars TV show quite well. And he is a clone leader, so his popularity outweighs his worth in plastic.

Captain Rex can be disassembled in a few pieces. His helmet and warming pack are both removable which allows for even more extra play value. His body suit is colored in a very ashy gray and it looks absolutely fantastic against his pristine white armor. The figure has a great silhouette and looks completely proportional to the other figures in the line. His trademark blue color flashes are in place yet they come across so much more subtle on this version of him when compared to 2008’s TCW [F/S1] Captain Rex (No. 4) figure (or any other Captain Rex figure for that matter). Another way that Hasbro has seemed to indirectly pay homage to the vintage line is the material used to design Rex’s kama. It is very thin and vinyl-like and is quite similar to the vintage Snowtrooper’s skirt. It isn’t identical, but there is enough similarity there to make the collector smile. If we have any complaits, we'd have to comment on two things. You may find that you need to pose him in awkward ways to balance him as perfectly as you can as his center of gravity is slightly off. Our other note is that Captain Rex’s hands are freakishly too thin and small. They look like he has woman’s hands under those gloves or some other digit deformity that prevents him from holding his pistols snuggly. Captain Rex comes with 19 points of articulation including one point which we don’t see too often: a slide joint at the neck. This allows him to look down to the ground.

It's great to see this version of Captain Rex get carried forward into The Clone Wars [Shadow Of The Dark Side] lineup. He is a fantastically looking action figure and we think he looks better than ever. There are some minor paint operation differences, but they seem to work towards the figure's benefit. The first one and half waves of introductory figurs in this third phase of The Clone Wars line is filled with straight repacks (or slightly repainted figures to be specific). But things will get getting very aggressive as we move into wave 2. Hasbro had to get the familiar characters out first because the onslaught of new stuff will be overwhelming. So they've done the right things by getting these repacks out right away. Fans and collectors love snow-based figures. And since we love them too, we hope that some of Rex’s battalion will also see release as action figures. We expect that this will come to pass. Hasbro knows what sells and what really sells, so it is likely that we will see additional characters from this episode. Captain Rex has its issues (like his hands) but Hasbro always seems to provide a fix or remedy. For example, the pistols can be stored in their holsters almost negating the need for him to hold them. This isn’t a revolutionary idea, but it shows that Hasbro isn’t just trying to throw garbage together since they know this is primarily a kids’ line. These are high quality figures, and Captain Rex is a figure at an even higher level of excellence.