A’Sharad Hett/Dark Woman - TAC - Comic Packs (No. 08)

When you’re a fan of the Expanded Universe, the longer you dwell in it, the more accustom you become to the great stories they are. So many of the Star Wars characters we have seen in the films are directly related to characters in the Expanded Universe. And while this seems like a logical and straightforward comment/observation, it still takes the authors of these canonical stories to develop great stories to accompany the films. One character in this Comic Packs set, A’Sharad Hett, was a Padawan of Ki-Adi-Mundi and ended up becoming Darth Krayt when all was said and done. Oh, and if that isn’t enough, Aurra Sing killed A’Sharad Hett’s father and it caused his start down the dark side of the Force. (Does this sound familiar to anyone out there? We thought so.) In a surprising move, Hasbro chooses two characters from Dark Horse’s interpretation of events in the Star Wars universe and the result are better than average. But are these two characters you’ve been waiting a long to add into your collection? We are not so sure about that. Hasbro developed quality action figures in this set, but they do not match the appearances in the included comic, something that has happened every now and again in the Comic Packs assortments.

If you want to see how A’Sharad Hett looked in the outfit Hasbro designed him in, you’ll have to defer to Star Wars: Republic #55 for A’Sharad Hett and for Dark Woman, you’ll need to check out the Star Wars: Jedi – Aayla Secura comic. The Star Wars universe is quite vast anymore, so it’s likely Hasbro is always going to be at risk of making small mistakes like this. But let’s get to the action figures. A’Sharad Hett is pretty decent. He comes with a healthy amount of articulation, but his elbows are swivel and we just don’t like that articulation. (You’re probably exhausted from us saying that over and over again.) He is dressed in Sand People disguise and comes with a removable Tusken Raider mask. But the accessories don’t stop there. A’Sharad Hett is outfitted with a lit green lightsaber, a lightsaber hilt (that doubles as a gaderffi stick handle), the shortened gaderffi stick, removable green lightsaber blade and a removable scarf (perfect for sandstorm protection of course). A’Sharad Hett has awkwardly pre-positioned legs, but thankfully he can stand and his tattooed face looks incredible. The rest of the paint job looks fantastic also and his hands are well designed to handle and hold all of his accessories without any worries that he’ll drop them.

Dark Woman comes across as a statue to us (that’s how she appears in the package at least), but Hasbro did managed to get a decent amount of articulation in her sculpt. Once you starting playing with her you’ll see that while she seems to possess a static posture, she can move fairly well. We find it strange that they worried about getting ankle joints into the Dark Woman, yet forgo more important points like knees or ball-jointed elbows. But again, like A’Sharad Hett, Dark Woman looks very cool and it’s hard to find fault in the action figure’s shortcomings. He comes less accessorized than her package mate, but the accessory is a “rare” purple lightsaber with an ornate hilt. With the right amount of futzing, you’ll be able to achieve a healthy amount of poses, including some nice action poses, in your collection. Her face is painted in a pale beige color, but Hasbro did a very good job on the details. You’ll see shading in her hair and clean lines applied to details like the eyes and lips. We would have to be honest and say that this isn’t one of the finest Comic Packs set Hasbro has released. It still is a great set and fans of Darth Krayt are going to flip getting him in some quasi Jedi gear. Think about it, two all-new sculpts for less than $10 is a deal no matter how you slice it.