Zuckuss - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (Exclusive)

A Gand bounty hunter, Zuckuss heeded the Empire's call for mercenaries to locate the Millennium Falcon and bring her fugitive crew to justice, receiving his orders on the bridge of Darth Vader's Super Star Destroyer.

How interesting it is that both Kenner and Hasbro get out the six bounty hunters in dribs and drabs, and release them in the nearly identical order too! Let’s face it. The Star Wars line is not what it once was. There is no doubt that Hasbro is making some of their finest products in this Sequel Trilogy era, but the volume of newness coming at collectors is at an all-time low and we, simply put, sadly cannot rely on normal retail distribution to get us the products we so desperately want. With retail partners dropping like flies (or harming the Star Wars brand like Walmart does), Hasbro has fewer ways to get out their exclusives which makes their Star Wars exclusive program a moot point; And from what we have understood over the years, retailer exclusives are essential to the health of the brand. The Black Series [Phase III] 6” Zuckuss figure (among many others) were planned Toys R Us exclusives. But since Toys R Us has bit the dust in the USA, Hasbro scrambled to find another home for it. After a long while, Hasbro finally announced at 2018’s San Diego Comic-Con that Disney Store picked up Zuckuss as their retailer exclusive (and others). That’s nice, but with a significantly smaller footprint in the USA than Toys R Us and higher set MSRPs, we don’t see this relationship lasting too long either.

In our opinion, Zuckuss should have never been relegated to a retailer exclusivity. Bounty hunters are massively popular characters, and if put in the right case assortment, Zuckuss could have been a strong selling point for full case assortment purchases. Imagine if they held off Zuckuss until the wave with Dengar was ready. Plus, bounty hunters are characters that possess widespread appeal. Regardless, Zuckuss is an exclusive release, and the only way Americans can grab him is at Disney Store now. The figure itself looks pretty great. We wouldn’t go so far as to say he is perfect, but Hasbro did a nice job on the sculpting even if we think some of the details are off a bit. You’ll immediately notice Zuckuss’ smaller stature. When compare to 4-LOM and others you’ll discover that Hasbro nailed his scale perfectly. His head sculpt is fantastic. But from what we can tell, it’s attached via a peg (ball-socket joint), so it doesn’t have a great range of movement like so many other 6” figures do. The rest of the figure features articulation standard in The Black Series 6” line. Zuckuss has a wide array of movement. Hasbro gave him double hinge-jointed elbows which is fantastic for posing him with his blaster rifle. The inclusion of ball-jointed wrists only helps this look more natural.

Zuckuss has turned out very nicely. But we wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s perfect. He does shine where he needs to shine, however. Most of Zuckuss’ coloring is brilliant. It’s evident that Hasbro looked at the reference materials carefully to nail the color palette of this figure. But we’re not too crazy with the soft-goods cloak. Again, the coloring looks great, but it feels like it has the wrong textures and finishes. It doesn’t have a natural drape or the rough textures visible in the film. It’s more “wrinkly” for lack of a better word. One setback is that the Zuckuss’ head is one piece connected with the backpack. So an attempt to remove the cloak may take more time than expected. We don’t know for sure as we didn’t expend any time trying to see if it’s possible or not. His blaster rifle is tooled very nicely and fits in his hand very well. It will be interesting to see if Disney Store will successfully manage Hasbro exclusives. They’re not the most prevalent retail chain around, and if Disney Store doesn’t add significant stock online, it may become problematic. There are many positives when it comes to The Black Series [Phase III] 6” Zuckuss figure. But there are some negatives too. We’re still surprised that Hasbro is choosing so many popular characters for an exclusive release. Hopefully, Zuckuss proves a move like this is a great idea.