ARC Commander Havoc - TVC - Basic (VC274)

Yawn. Zzzzzz. So this is how celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Clone Wars dies: with thunderous seal-barking from nondiscriminating fans. We get a mediocre toy line because of this. We can’t pat Hasbro on the back, as they inadvertently destroy the super-articulated 3.75-inch line with paltry repaints and boring releases. Look. ARC Commander Havoc would have been a phenomenal release a decade ago, but now it comes off as a lazy repaint of an existing sculpt that isn’t without its faults. The Hasbro Star Wars brand is utterly dull and unengaging. There is little to get excited about anymore, and the character selection feels as misguided as it does perplexing. And if you’re into paying almost $18 with tax for a sculpt that was $5 cheaper than five years ago, it feeds the aggravation and annoyance where collecting is a hobby so few of us still enjoy. ARC Commander Havoc is, by all accounts, a good-looking action figure. But you won’t get excited about it in the least, and it’s more of an obligatory purchase to complete your 501st Legion than anything else. There must be a reason to celebrate with anniversaries and repacks; repaints aren’t the way to do this. We need newness and much more of it in the Hasbro Star Wars line these days.

ARC Commander Havoc is a retool and repaint of the figure from 2020’s TVC 501st Legion ARC Troopers (Echo/Fives/Jesse) Special Action Figure Set. It’s another needed character in The Vintage Collection, but its addition to the line isn’t exciting. The clamoring for these characters has died down a bit, and it seems as if most of us are preoccupied with new characters getting added to the line instead of getting repacks. After years of “nothing” for toys from The Clone Wars in The Vintage Collection, Hasbro begins to see their need. But they’re a day late and a dollar short at this point. The response from collectors has been indifferent. Although The Clone Wars started before the takeover, Disney grandfathered the series into the canon, and we got a seventh final season. It makes sense that we continue to see new action figures based on these characters in The Vintage Collection lineup. Most TVC collectors will want to add ARC Commander Havoc to their collections, but they will also enjoy more non-clone characters from The Clone Wars. The figure has four weapons, a removable pauldron, and a removable helmet with an articulated rangefinder. That’s a lot of accessories for a 3.75-inch action figure.

Like other characters based on The Clone Wars, ARC Commander Havoc has exquisite card art. Hasbro ensured they translated the character’s likeness into a realistic style, and collectors will love what Hasbro did with it here. The Season 3 episode of The Clone Wars entitled “Clone Cadets” debuted long ago. Still, we’re now just getting this character in 3.75-inch super-articulated status on a single card, nearly a decade and a half after the episode first aired. We’re not entirely sold on this figure, but enough excellence is presented here to make The Vintage Collection collectors happy. Multiple things will probably make them feel dissatisfied as well. Initially, the tooling for the ARC Trooper figure was all-new, but now it’s starting to age. Like the other ARC Troopers, we prefer Havoc with the helmet removed. The figure has a little more personality without the helmet on its head. The Photo Real deco looks incredible, and Hasbro colored the other parts of the figure beautifully. The figure has an impressive 28 points of articulation, most of which are an upscaled ball-jointed movement. Sorry, we can’t rave about this figure when we need so many other and more important characters in The Vintage Collection first.