Darth Vader/Rebel Officer - TAC - Comic Packs (No. 02)

By way of a very cool Entertainment Earth exclusive Hasbro introduced us all to the Comic Packs line. While many of us had no inkling of who Carnor Jax or Kir Kanos was, we couldn’t deny just how cool they looked as action figures. But when the first wave of non-exclusive Comic Packs began hitting retail in December of 2006, the hair on our backs stood up in irritation of what Hasbro decided to send our way. What happened to the retooled action figures or the all-new sculpts? And where are the first time available characters? It didn’t happen right away and instead Hasbro repainted some inferior sculpts (for the most part) and what’s worse is that Hasbro made them rainbow colorful. It’s concept of the Comic Packs line is very cool. You get two figures and a replica comic for less than ten dollars. That is a very fair price, but Hasbro needs to make the included action figures a bit more interesting, otherwise the line won’t sustain itself.

It’s simply astounding to us that when Hasbro has big plans for a new line of figures that they open it up with less than stellar ideas. In retrospect we are thankful that so many wonderful Comic Packs sets came out of the 30 (77-07) line, but it was certainly a huge risk to start it off with a set like the Darth Vader/Rebel Trooper set. (Editor’s Note: Hasbro unbelievably repackaged this set and tried to force it on us again in the Legacy Collection. We resisted and the Comic Packs line died a grim death.) What we get is a major repaint of 1999’s POTF2 [FB/CT] Darth Vader (With Imperial Interrogator Droid) Comm Tech figure. Even his IT-O Interrogation Droid has been repainted. We also get a repainted version of 2001’s POTJ Rebel Trooper (Tantive IV Defender). The color palette used for this figures is very extreme and we are not so sure is the shadowing seen in the Comic Books was necessary to ascribe to the action figures. (Editor’s Note: Hasbro acknowledged the error of their ways and they revised the paint jobs so that the coloring effects were less drastic. You can see both versions in the photo gallery.)

The modern line is now more than ever less forgiving about inferior articulation and sculpting for action figures. We have to admit that this set is dated right out of the package. While we see the need for Hasbro to pay tribute to some of the earliest Comic Books (especially for release in an anniversary collection like the 30 (77-07) line is), but we don’t think that this was the route to take. There are many better versions of Darth Vader that could have been utilized instead to make this set a little bit more likable. The revised version of Darth Vader is a significant improvement, but no updates were made to the Rebel Officer and he still looks much too colorful, even though his colors are faithful to the comics. We don’t know, maybe realistic takes of the characters in the comics may have been a better option here. But we do know that the Comic Packs line has to take a sharp turn if Hasbro wants to garner interest in this line. We’ll just have to see what transpires. (Editor's Note: Special thanks to Jayson Krebsbach from Yakface.com for the reference images. Editing by Jedi Temple Archives.)